Asia Times: Disquieting visions for Vietnam's authorities



	November 23, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Disquieting visions for Vietnam's authorities
By Nguyen Nam Phuong

HANOI - In September, thousands of Catholic pilgrims flocked to southern Dong Nai province to see an image on a rocky ravine which, for them, was an apparition of the Virgin Mary. They were joined by large numbers of Buddhists who had come to see the same image, hoping for an incarnation of the Buddha, according to the local newspaper, The People's Police.

Vietnamese authorities later claimed that the illusion was created by a combination of sunlight and water on the rock. Likewise, ''the church has come to no clear conclusion about the apparition,'' said a senior clergyman in Dong Nai diocese.

In another incident in October, Catholics began gathering at a statue of the Virgin Mary in neighbouring Binh Thuan province. By October 20, Family & Society newspaper claimed, Tanh Linh district had received around 300,000 visitors to bear witness to a halo-like glow around the statue. Police subsequently said the effect had been created with laser lights by three individuals who have since been arrested.

Whichever way the Catholic Church judges these incidents, the Communist government is unlikely to have been amused by the popular reaction the claimed sightings provoked. Prior to the mid-1980s, all religious worship was prohibited in Vietnam, where the majority of the population is, at least nominally, Buddhist.

In the last 15 years, the government has eased restrictions but still retains control over the training and the appointment of priests and nuns, construction of places of worship and other internal church affairs.

Perhaps more sobering for Vietnam's Communist Party was that the supposed apparitions followed an unprecedented call by leaders of Vietnam's four main religions for the government to respect religious freedoms, and allow a clear separation of church from state. Dated September 5, the joint letter also called on the government to return all religious properties seized by the authorities over the past decades. It was sent to President Tran Duc Luong, Premier Phan Van Khai and the Communist Party.

Father Dang Duc Ngan, assistant to the Archbishop of Hanoi, told IPS that while he had not signed the letter, he was aware that it was ''not the first asking for religious freedom. There have been several (letters) in the past''.

Each has met with stony silence from the government. What made this one different was the unity on the issue among leaders of different faiths. ''It is a good occasion because all Catholics, Protestants, Buddhist, Cao Dai and Hoa Hao, we have different beliefs, but we are all oppressed by this government,'' Father Chan Tin, a Redemptorist priest in Ho Chi Minh City and long-time critic of the ruling party, was quoted as saying.

In an interview, Father Tin, who said he had signed the September 5 letter, said it asked the government to abolish Article 4 of the Constitution which states that all citizens must study and obey only Marxist-Leninism. ''I'm sure they (Vietnamese leaders) will never give a definite 'yes' or 'no' response to our calls,'' Tin added. ''If they say 'yes', that means they are turning their back on what they have long followed rigidly, and taken advantage of, which is communism. And if they say 'no', they will receive strong reactions from the international community.''

The letter also seeks the abolition of a recent circular by the Central Committee for Religion (under the Ministry of Culture and Information) which requires those who want to join a religious group to get approval from local authorities.

After meeting with Catholic leaders in late September, the Central Committee for Religion apologized for the restrictions, Tin says. ''They will make amendments, but we're uncertain when they will correct their mistakes.''

''It's true that the government is very displeased with any indication that religious activities are expanding or the number of religious followers are increasing,'' continued Tin.

Critics point to worrying incidents. On September 19, the central province of Quang Nam saw the latest of five reported police raids on Christian prayer meetings since May. Residents of Que Chau village claimed that a grouping of the unofficial Vietnam Assemblies of God Church was broken up and 17 of the congregation were handcuffed or tied together and detained for hours of questioning. Foreign news reports said a petition was later sent to Khai in protest at the action.

Vietnam claims Southeast Asia's second largest Catholic community outside the Philippines, numbering around eight million. The country's Christian population is unclear, though reports of large-scale conversions by foreign missionaries among remote ethnic minorities suggests the number is rising.

Christian missionaries report that heavy-handed tactics by the government, such as forcing converts to renounce their new faith and rebuild ancestor-worship altars, have met with little success.

The roots of official mistrust for the country's Christians stretch back as far as the 1860s, when the French used anti-Catholic persecution as an excuse to intervene and colonize Vietnam. When, following the Second World War, the Communist forces led by Ho Chi Minh sent the French retreating, Christians were often accused of siding with the enemy. This was also the case in the war against the American-backed southern regime which was defeated in 1975.

While Buddhists were the subject of oppression under the Saigon-based regime prior to the end of the war, they have fared little better under communism.

Seventy two-year old monk Thich Quang Do, ranked number two in the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), has spent 10 of the last 20 years under house or pagoda arrest and at least five in prison. His incarceration has been due, many foreign governments and human rights groups, to his outspoken criticism of the government's failure to recognize religious and democratic freedoms.

Despite being released with a number of other UBCV monks in an amnesty last year, leaders have been targets of renewed harassment and police surveillance.

In mid-September, Thich Khong Tanh, a senior figure in the UBCV, was reportedly detained by police only two days after fellow monk Thich Tue Sy was kept for questioning.

The Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau, the UBCV's information service, said in a statement that Tanh was accused of ''belonging to an 'illegal organization' which was 'attempting to turn Vietnam into a new Kosovo'' and 'conniving with foreign powers' to overthrow the regime''.

The UBCV's public demands are less conspiratorial. ''What we need is freedom, democracy and human rights, this is more important for us than international aid,'' Do said in a interview earlier this year. The UBCV also wants its ban rescinded. After it was banned, the UBCV was replaced by the state-sponsored Vietnam Buddhist Church in 1981.

All Vietnam's major religious faiths are split between state-approved organizations and those outlawed by the government.

The Cao Dai and Hoa Hao faiths are no exceptions. Cao Dai was established in 1926 and has around 3 million followers, more than half of whom live in southern Tay Ninh province. The religion, which has a hierarchical structure similar to that of the Catholic church, combines elements from a range of religions such as Buddhism, Christianity and Taoism. Derived from Buddhism, it claims five million followers, mostly in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam.

(Inter Press Service)

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©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.