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AROUND THE VCP CENTRAL COMMITTEE TENTH PLENUM
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In an address at the closing session in the Vietnam Communist Party Central Committee 10th Plenum on Tuesday, July 4, VCP Secretary General Le Kha Phieu confirmed the party's "weaknesses and shortcomings." The plenum lasted a week after 170 members of the Central Committee had discussed several issues relating to the coming Ninth Party National Congress in the early 2001 and other current problems. Presiding over the plenum between June 26 and July 4, he delivered speeches at the opening and closing sessions.
As his party corruption is considered the most serious problem, Phieu admitted that the two-year government campaign to eliminate graft had failed to reach the anticipated objectives.
"A number of party members and cadres have shown degenerate behavior of political will, ethics and lifestyle ...affecting the party's prestige among the people. Our building and rectification campaign haven't met with people's expectations and the requirements of the party," Phieu said.
Economic growth has slowed, red tape is still rampant, and VCP regime is facing growing social problems, such as high unemployment, prostitution, murder, violence, robbery and drug addiction.
Later, in the more optimistic words later, Mr. Pham The Duyet, a Politburo standing member, announced on Wednesday, July 5 the initial results of the campaign on building and strengthening the Party.
Mr. Duyet claimed the victory of the campaign. He reviewed the process of carrying out the campaign and the initial results of the campaign and, at the same time, pointed out the shortcomings and direction for the next steps.
In his words smacked of propaganda, Duyet said that the steering committee of the campaign reported to the Party Central Committee on the implementing process, results and undeniable shortcomings so that the committee would discuss and formulate guiding ideas to implement the campaign more effectively.
He boasted that after a year of implementing the campaign on building and strengthening the Party, positive results have been made, contributing to consolidating the confidence of people in the Party. However, the initial results have not met the aspiration of people or requirements. In the coming time, Party units nationwide will have to seriously review results and shortcomings in the process of implementing the campaign in order to immediately overcome shortcomings in criticism and self-criticism.
Meanwhile Mr. Nguyen Van An, chief of the Central Committee Personnel Department admitted that many party members including the high ranking cadres have evaded the self-criticism campaign in which they should have discussed matters such as allocation of houses and land and other projects relating to graft.
The plenum stressed that Party-building work is the key task so it proposed the Party Congress to continue implementing the Party-building and strengthening movement with determination. Party units will also have to take stricter measures against cadres and Party members who commit mistakes in the implementing process. Party units need to focus more on developing economy and society and give proper care to people’s lives.
In fact, Vietnamese exiles coming back from visiting trips in rural areas of Vietnam assert that people's confidence in the Party is wearing out to an unrecoverable extent. They also said that criticism and self-criticism are done just for formality and in no way affecting the party cadres' general attitude. Some even said that merciless punishments fail to stop violations of laws and party regulations.
As to draft documents to be submitted to the upcoming Ninth Party Congress, Phieu said: "In overall review, Vietnam's position and force have been markedly strengthened over the past ten years, thus helping change the face of urban, rural and mountainous areas, strengthen national independence and raise the country's prestige in the world.
Many observers do not buy that. They stressed that the VCP position has been plummeting much lower in the last three years and the changes made in Vietnam are only superficial. Mr. Phieu must not have forgotten how he had been scornfully received by the French media during his visit only a month ago.
The four dangers that the VCP is warning against are: lagging further behind in economic development, straying from the path of socialism, "peaceful evolution," and red tape, corruption and moral degradation among some Party cadres and bureaucrats. According to Phieu, they still exist and in complex ways. He affirmed that they were major difficulties and challenges.
Mr. Phieu stressed that the biggest and long-term challenges facing the country were the poor economy and the wide gap in development levels between Vietnam and other countries.
Repeating an old teaching that Ho Chi Minh and other leaders have been saying thousands of times, Phieu said that "building socialism while bypassing capitalist development was a substantial change in all fields and a difficult and complicated task, inevitably requiring a long transitional period through and transitional forms of socio-economic organization."
In regard to the ownership regime and economic sectors, Phieu said: "In the period of transition toward socialism, several forms of ownership of the means of production and different economic sectors get along together." But he also emphasized on the key role of the State economic sector in the national multi-sectoral economy. He said that "the Party's draft documents clearly showed the need to develop a market-oriented national economy on the basis of socialism."
In comments on integration into the world economy with a view to securing the country's interests, Phieu laid emphasis on maintaining national independence and economic sovereignty. But most Vietnamese do know that his regime has long yielded economic sovereignty to the foreign capitalists, who are silently forming a group of multi-nation neo-colonialists to exploit the cheap labor market in Vietnam with collaboration from the VCP government and its corrupt officials and cadres.
Independence and sovereignty are only hollow words used by VCP leaders to calm down their party members when they have to made concessions to foreign pressure.
Mr. Phieu said that his Party would be focusing on accelerating the process of national industrialization and modernization in the socialist direction to build Vietnam into an industrial country by 2020. His words remind the Vietnamese of what the late VCP General Secretary Le Duan was saying in 1976 that "After only two or three Five-year Plans, Vietnam will be an industrialized country as advanced as or even more than Japan..."
Phieu stressed that correct leadership of the Party has always been the key factor behind victories of the revolution as well as major achievements in national development. However, realities of the last 50 years proved that the leadership of the VCP in economic management has never been correct.
The Ninth Party Congress, to be convened in the early 2001, would be of special political and historical significance to the country, said an announcement released at the close of their 10th plenum.
The four issues to be discussed in the Ninth Party Congress are:
- Assessment of the international and domestic context and the opportunities, challenges and dangers for the country in the early 21st century;
- Ownership and economic sectors in the transitional period to socialism;
- Building of an independent and autonomous economy and international economic integration;
- Orientation, tasks and solutions regarding Party building work in the new situation.
The plenum were discussing the draft political report, the draft strategy on socio-economic development for the 2001-2010 period, the draft socio-economic plan for the 2001-2005 period and the draft of the revised Party statute. All will be submitted to the Ninth Congress after the Politburo completes the drafts and sends to grassroots congresses for comment .
This is a tactic to give party members the feeling of self-importance when they are asked to comment on the drafts written in ambiguous language that seems satisfactory to a wide range of ideas. The practice also makes the party members believe that there is democracy in the VCP.
The 10th plenum again postponed plans to discuss senior personnel changes within the party. A major shake-up has been expected for some time, but would not happen before next year's Party congress. Plans to change the current power structure of the Politburo were shot down, said Dao Duy Quat, deputy chairman of the party's ideology commission.
It is said that foreign pressure prevents such change to assure the continuation of ruling personnel during the current economic reforms expected to be accelerated in the very near future.
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