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A COMMUNIST COLONEL
: ANTI-DEMOCRATIC FORCES WILL BE ERADICATED============================
(Courtesy RFA)
Last week, Radio Free Asia (RFA) had an interview in which Vietnam Communist Armed Forces Colonel (retired) Pham Que Duong gave his comments on democracy in Vietnam. The transcript of the interview in Vietnamese has been published in many Vietnamese newspapers in the Vietnamese exile community around the world.
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According to RFA, retired Colonel Pham Que Duong was born in 1933 in Hanoi. He joined the Vietnam Communist Party in 1949. He was serving the Communist Army at various political and military commanding posts from the squad to the division levels.
In 1987 he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Military History Magazine, under the General Political Department. Duong retired in 1988.
In January 1999, Lt. General (retired) Tran Do, also a famous dissident, was ousted from the party. Pham Que Duong overtly relinquished his own party membership to protest the party leaders' action against Tran Do, which he called an "improper" decision.
Asked for a comment on the newly signed Agreement on Normal Trade Relations between Hanoi and Washington, Duong told RFA that he was feeling good with the event which has been expected by a majority of the Vietnamese people. The agreement should have been officially signed long ago. But it's better late than never.
To the question why Communist leaders were so slow to clinch the deal with Washington, Duong said no reason has ever been mentioned by the press in Vietnam. But according to public opinion particularly among the intellectuals, the conservative force remains strong in the party. It was this force that hindered the agreement process.
Duong refused to identify those conservative leaders by name because the issue has been evaluated and speculated only in general by the intellectual circle in covert discussions.
Democratic process is a rule, because economy and politics are like brothers that can't be separated, according to Duong's comment. Once integrated into the world, as democracy is now a common trend, a country must live in concord with it.
Meanwhile, Vietnam is still under a coercive regime which is attacking Ha Si Phu and bullying the intellects. How could people and guys like us put up with it?
As to effects of the normal trade agreement, Col. Duong believes that "it would help Vietnam develop in concord with the world, and the agreement also teaches Hanoi a lesson on informative politics. In this era of global information, the Communist leaders are still sealing off all information and acting against freedom and democracy. People do not tolerate that."
Responding to a question about the case of Ha Si Phu, who along with the other 4 dissidents signed a letter sent to the Hanoi Parliament, Duong related how it happened.
Duong has read Ha Si Phu's writings such as "Walking with Joined Hands Under the Road Sign of Intellect," and "Farewell to Ideology," and he thinks Ha Si Phu is a patriot who had a profound study. It was such thought that made Duong go to Dalat by hitch-hiking to Dalat to see Ha Si Phu and the Ha family, whom Duong had not been acquainted with.
"The meeting with them was pleasant, and I saw in him a true intellect, a patriot with high degree of education," Duong added.
Recently, Duong heard that Ha Si Phu was charged with treachery and might be brought to court for trial. So, Duong called him up by telephone to confirm the story. When Duong and his friends in Hanoi received the document from Ha Si Phu, they found that the charge was too unreasonable and also unacceptable.
So they all five signed the letter. But so far, none of the Speaker and parliament members has replied. "They are powerful," Duong says. "If they are right, I don't know what they are afraid of and why they dare not respond to us, the only five persons," Duong argued.
The first of the five persons, as Duong was saying, is Hoang Minh Chinh, former Director of the Marxism-Leninism Institute, who was charged with "revisionism" (in 1967) and spent 26 years in jail. Duong found in him a hearty and farsighted patriot.
Next is the writer Hoang Tien, a patriot who has very profound love of freedom of writing.
Then came Nguyen Thanh Giang, whom Duong has not known him previously, but he has read Giang's books, particularly "The Thousand Years' Aspiration." Duong said that Giang is a man of good heart and broad horizons on social issues. "He has been high in my favor since then," Duong added.
The fourth is Tran Dung Tien whom Duong has known only for the last three or four years. Tien was a soldier, once member of a suicide squad. "He used to fight injustices eagerly. Therefore, I like him," Duong said.
In short, members of the group haven't been acquainted with each other prior to the case of Ha Si Phu. Only then did they tell one another that the case is unacceptable and agree to sign the letter.
The RFA reporter wondered why many international correspondents failed to reach him by telephone. Duong said that not only his telephone was often out of order, but many others' lines were as well, including phone lines of Tran Do, Hoang Minh Chinh, Nguyen Thanh Giang and some friends of his.
The retired colonel told RFA that the country is said to be in democracy but in fact, there is no democracy. Duong has frankly told the party leaders that Vietnam has no democracy.
"You are trampling on the people too much while you keep hailing democracy," Duong complained. He argued that if in an interview with foreign press he has done anything wrong, such as breaking a law or leaking secret information, the leaders should bring him to court. They need not switch off my phone line, causing troubles to not only him but also to his whole family.
"So every day when darkness begins, they start harassing my line. I feel like laughing when thinking that only by a good chance or predestination that could our conversation last so long..." Duong commented.
To the last question whether he is optimistic about the future of the country, Duong said, "Democracy is a rule of the humankind. All anti-democratic forces and all conservatives (in the Communist Party) will be eradicated sooner or later. In Vietnam especially, they will be eliminated in a particular Vietnamese pattern."
He believes that the future of the country and of the humankind must be democracy. Why not? "Once," he said, "I told the party leaders that I was ready to debate with them."
Duong went further, "You are saying you have liberty, democracy, you claim that they are super liberty, super democracy. In fact, you are stifling democracy, violating freedoms, of the Vietnamese people first.
Pham Que Duong is one of the many Communist high ranking members who turn against Communism and the Vietnam Communist Party. Reliable sources from Vietnam assert that more and more people in and out of the party are covertly - a few overtly - supporting the dissenting group. Their voices are well listened to by people in Vietnam and the Vietnamese living abroad.
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