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THE WRONG GUY ON THE RED CARPET
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On May 21, 2000, Le Kha Phieu, the effective leader of the Communist regime in Vietnam, General Secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP), arrived at Orly Airport on the official visit to France by invitation of French President Jacques Chirac. Phieu, 68, began his first trip to this Western country before visiting Italy.
Chirac welcomed Phieu with red carpet and ceremonies usually reserved for a chief of state. Le Kha Phieu was elected party chief in 1998. Before elected general secretary, Phieu had been little known to most people. His biography is simple, showing none of his prominent part in the Communist struggle.
Le Kha Phieu was received Monday at the Elysee Palace by President Jacques Chirac. The French president promised that France would support Hanoi in its efforts to develop, according to a French spokesperson.
The VCP general secretary said, "Throughout the vicissitudes of history, the French and the Vietnamese have understood each other.... We particularly appreciate France's position on globalization and its support for developing countries."
Mr. Phieu also declared that his party and government's top priorities are to further economic reform and to open up to the outside world.
Though the Chirac government hailed Phieu's visit, most French newspapers and TV stations did not report the event. His only interview was with Le Monde newspaper.
He told Le Monde, "By relying on our own strength, on a reform of our bureaucracy and on closer links with advanced countries, we can develop Vietnam. I am convinced of it," as reported by AFP. Similar words had been said many times by his predecessors, so they have only the value of a political slogan.
"We are going through a lot of difficulties. We have to reform the cadres who grew up during the war," Phieu admitted. It was a tacit admission of the cause of the rampant corruption in the party and the government, as the party always passes the blame on the depraved cadres.
Hanoi could only reform the economy and its systems to a certain limit. However, it's impossible to reform its cadres. How can Hanoi sack the most faithful cadres who are living luxuriously on money from corruption, and those who are holding positions with real power, without them, the party would crumble in a week or less. They are making their fortune thanks to lucrative jobs the party gave them to reward their feats of daring in war.
According to the AFP report, when he was asked whether the Communist Party's monopoly on political power did not compromise the country's chances of winning outside support, Le Kha Phieu said: "Communists don't eat people... Can a dictator walk freely, like I do, through the villages of his people?"
What he said was true, but only a half of it. He hasn't disclosed how many undercover security agents assigned by the Department of Central Committee Security Protection to take care of him when he's at home or on a trip. The department is a major part of the Public Security Ministry, providing security protection for members of the central committee and especially the Politburo.
The Communist top leader's visit to a place has rarely been informed to the public ahead of his coming. Sometime before his arrival, a hundred or more secret agents silently scour the areas on his itinerary for signs of possible dangers. Those don't include a dozen body guards to provide close protection. The security system has been applied since the time Ho Chi Minh was still in the maquis before his return to Hanoi on October 10, 1954.
As to the Vietnamese community in Europe, the Vietnam Committee for the Defense of Human Rights launched a protest against Phieu's visit. The committee accused the Hanoi government of its ignoble human rights records, including its "repeated attacks on the freedom of expression and the press."
The committee denounced "the conditions of detention in prisons and re-education camps... the death penalty, the control exercised over the Vietnamese population, the abuses of socio-economic rights (prostitution, forced blood donations, forced labor) and the rampant corruption which prevents any lasting development in Vietnam."
The committee asked Chirac, the French government and parliament, to demand the VCP to put an end "to the political monopoly guaranteed to Marxist-Leninism by the constitution of 1992."
It also demanded the suppression of laws restricting the freedom of the press, the immediate and unconditional liberation of "all people held for legitimately exercising their rights to the freedom of expression, belief and religion", and an end to administrative detention."
Many Vietnamese protesting Phieu's and his regime gathered near the French Senate building where Phieu and his suite were visiting and set up an exhibition of pictures about heinous crimes especially war crimes committed by the Communists in Vietnam.
After meeting with Mr. Phieu for 40 minutes, Mr. Raymond Fournier of the Socialist Party, chairman of the Senate expressed his concerns about human rights records and freedom of the press in Vietnam as well as democracy in Vietnam.
Strange enough, most of the French media ignored Mr. Phieu's visit, particularly TV stations and newspapers. It seemed like a passive protest against Mr. Phieu.
The French Parliament (Lower House) doesn't invite Mr. Phieu, but the French Senate did, while many representatives and senators fervently criticized President Chirac of receiving Mr. Phieu with pomp and circumstance, military ceremony that Mr. Phieu doesn't deserve.
A member of the parliament, Mr. Alain Madelin of the French Progressive Democratic Party said that the French government had surprised him by improperly welcoming Mr. Phieu with excess protocol, a person he considered "a brutal product of the blood-stained Communist Party."
During the Vietnam War, French government was against Washington and Saigon. However, the French government bears a great complex of having made a war of colonialism to reoccupy the three Indochinese nations whereas the Americans have every reason to assert their noble cause to fight for freedom in Vietnam. Maybe by such a complex that French governments also have been trying to help the Vietnamese people.
After 1975, Hanoi has been treating the French with smooth hands to curry support from this western power to lighten adversary actions from the West.
Recently, the French government seems eager to boost its effort of cajoling Hanoi into its orbit and consolidating its foothold in Vietnam at the time when the American government is raising pressure on Hanoi for some agreements in various bilateral relations. The VCP meanwhile, is looking to France for another prop to resist American pressure, at least for a while.
In the 1980s, Hanoi even showed its willing to join the association of Francophony countries, though only a few Vietnamese, most of them over 70 years old, could still speak French. The younger generations prefer English to Francaise. Efforts of the French towards larger influence in its former Indochinese colonies might be futile. Despite the fact that France, a leading country in culture, arts, philosophy and literature, and a country of perfect liberty, proved itself a good friend to many developing countries, their contemporary pragmatism prevails.
That Hanoi surreptitiously executed a Vietnamese Canadian citizen on April 22, disregarding its promise to review the case, was a slap in the face of Canada although Canada has long been giving generous assistance to Hanoi. France should be more cautious about similar treachery.
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