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"THE LONGER THE PARTY EXISTS,
THE GREATER DISTRESS THE NATION SUFFERS"
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Last week, the news agency VNN serving the Vietnamese community abroad had an interview with Mr. Duong Van Thuong, a former Communist member who was closely working a long time with Mr. Tran Xuan Bach, ex-member of the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) Politburo. Mr. Bach was expelled from the Politburo a few years ago after he overtly expressed his opinions supporting democracy, pluralism and multi-party politics.
Duong Van Thuong is living in Germany. The interview was conducted by Nguyen Chinh Nghia, VNN corespondent in Germany and has been published in many Vietnamese newspapers in Western countries.
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Mr. Thuong introduces himself as was born in Hung Yen province near Hanoi. In 1979 he graduated high school when the VCP army invaded Cambodia and he was admitted in a Cambodian language course at Saigon University. After graduation, he was sent to work in Phnom Penh until 1985.
He was selected to attend an advanced Marxism-Leninism course at Nguyen Ai Quoc Party Institute, from December 1985 to July 1987. He was sent back to Cambodia for a job at the office doing research and review of the Party's history.
In July 1988, VCP strategy in Cambodia was adjusted and Thuong was back to Vietnam. Instead of accepting an assignment in Hai Hung province party committee, he asked to be sent to Czechoslovakia for post-graduate education because he wanted to learn more about realistic socialism in other countries.
It was in Czechoslovakia did he realize that the collapse of Communism would be unavoidable. So he joined the movement for Vietnam's democracy and pluralism in the Vietnamese community abroad. That was why he has been in Germany since 1991 after his post-graduate status was terminated.
To the VNN's question about his jobs in Cambodia, Mr. Thuong said he worked first as a translator, then in charge of compiling and managing information for the chief of section B68. The embassy of Hanoi government in Phnom Penh do not have real power, but all activities of this embassy were under the leadership of B68.
According to Thuong, B68 operates directly under the VCP Central Committee. It was established in June 1978 with principal objective as to overthrow the Pol Pot regime and to assist the Cambodian Communists to rebuild their party.
Mr. Thuong revealed that at first, Le Duc Tho was directly in charge of B68. Later, Mr. Tran Xuan Bach took over as its director.
To VNN's question about other VCP leaders in Cambodia, Mr. Thuong said that Le Duc Anh was then the military commander of Vietnamese Communist troops in Cambodia; Do Muoi was leader of the economic experts delegation; Tran Trong Tan was the chief of a group of experts at propaganda and instruction. After returning from Cambodia, they ascended to top positions. Le Duc Anh became state president; Do Muoi became prime minister, then VCP general secretary; Tran Trong Tan was appointed chief of the VCP Central Committee Department for Ideology and Culture. At the time, Le Kha Phieu, the current general secretary, was a general serving under Le Duc Anh.
To the issue of the Cambodian genocide, Thuong said that there were many motives, but the most important was the ignorance, crazy and subjective volitionism of the Khmer Rouge leaders, the dictatorship in the Cambodian Communist Party and in Cambodia. They massacred nearly three million Cambodians to establish the so-called "Radical Communism," in which people were deprived of all freedoms, undergoing forced labor, absolutely yielding obedience to Khmer Rouge authority.
VNN asked Thuong whether he left the VCP to become a dissident to fight similar crimes that the VCP are committing against the Vietnamese people. Thuong said he did.
According to him, the crimes included the land reform, crack-downs and persecution of writers and artists, arrests and imprisonment of many party members in the case of "revisionism." All of them resulted in the death of many thousands of people and the loss of a greater part of other prisoners' life in Communist jails that were given a rhetorical name "Re-education Camps."
He added that the co-operatives system in the 1960s, the private capital sector reform in North Vietnam in the 1960s and the similar in South Vietnam after 1975, all were actually manifestation of the Radical Communism.
To compare the Khmer Rouge and the VCP in their crimes against the Cambodians and the Vietnamese respectively, Mr. Thuong asserted that although not committing genocidal crimes to the extent of that done by Khmer Rouge, the consequences of VCP policies for the Vietnamese people are in different forms and scales.
Duong believes that at whatever degree, crimes are still crimes and criminals must be brought to justice and judged by the people. The people don't have obligation just to yield absolute obedience to the party and to praise it.
As to the issue of achievements that the Communist regime has brought to the Vietnamese people, Thuong said, "The Vietnamese Communists are often boasting that they led the people to the victory of the August Revolution, and by this revolution our people was liberated from slavery, our nation could gain independence, and our Vietnamese could fully enjoy all basic freedoms."
"On the contrary, such gorgeous language exists only in paper," according to him. "For more than half century, people in Vietnam have had no freedom except for freedom to praise and to honor the Party, the Uncle. Though recognized by laws, the freedoms have never been actually put into practice. Terrorizing, suppressing and detaining those who have viewpoints and thoughts different from that of the party such as Ha Si Phu, Bao Cu, Bui Minh Quoc, Nguyen Thanh Giang, Tran Do are concrete evidence," according to Mr. Thuong.
VNN also raised the case of Tran Xuan Bach, the only dissident who expressed his views and demanded that pluralist democracy be established in Vietnam while he is still holding high ranking positions. To this, Mr. Thuong agreed that Tran Xuan Bach did an extremely brave action and he had to pay a great price for it.
Thuong told VNN Bach was deprived of all positions and power in the party, being under close watch and 24-hour surveillance. He also appreciated opinions of other Communist veterans whom he said were brave when the party is always ready to arraign them on serious charges such as treachery. Therefore, choosing the proper time to voice their opinions is a matter that must be thought over.
Mr. Duong Van Thuong disclosed that there are the words that VCP General Secretary Le Kha Phieu is maneuvering the party for more power. He might want to hold two positions at the same time, as general secretary and, either as state president or as prime minister.
According to Mr. Thuong, Phieu's scheme proves that the VCP leaders do not pay any attention to the nation's interests. Their main concerns are about Party internal conflicts and disputes over personal and factional power. So far, VCP dictatorship still exists against the will of the people and the trend towards democracy.
"In my opinion, if this situation keeps developing at full swing, the future of our country would be gloomy. The Communist Party has been selling off national resources cheaply to international powers, and continues to lead our nation into calamities of total bankruptcy," he concluded.
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