VIETNAM, NEWS ANALYSIS, OCTOBER 21, 2000

If everything goes as scheduled by its Politburo, the Ninth National Congress of the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) will be held in late March, 2001. Major actions are taken to prepare for the congress, including those concerning political security and its agenda.

As usual, to make sure there would be no trouble of any kind to occur during the week of the congress, security measures are taken. Such measures have been applied to pave way for every important occasion in the VCP’s 45 years history since the Communist regime established control over the northern half of Vietnam. "Cleansing" campaigns have been conducted before the Party national congresses, before launching a military campaign (1968 Tet Offensive, April 1975, the 1978 invasion in Cambodia…) and before promulgating a new widely effecting policy.

A cleansing campaign always aims at political and religious dissents, gang members, smugglers, and anyone whose conduct is doubtful, not excluding those who often disobey Public Security’s directives or show tacit disrespect to the local authorities, and even those simply labeled by local Public Security departments as "bad elements." At the bottom of the list are "incorrigible" pickpockets and petty thieves. They could be detained or a week or two; some of them may be sent to prisons (re-education camps) for a 3-year term, renewable by local authorities.

How wide the net is cast depends on the importance of the event. So far this year, there have been only some crack-downs on the Hoa Hao Buddhists. Larger cleansing is expected but may have been postponed because of the devastating floods in Central and South Vietnam, and the Clinton’s planned visit in mid-November.

Meanwhile, the draft of the VCP’s Political Report is sent to party committees down to the village level to be discussed by party members, who are asked for their ideas and comments. The political report is something like "message of the state of the nation" delivered annually by the president of Western democracies.

The practice seems democratic at the first look. But the context of the draft, as always, is very general, ambiguous and full of hollow political rhetoric. Every idea could fit the statements in the draft so every party member could feel satisfied of having a voice in the most important document.

During the last few weeks, state-controlled media have published several report pertaining to the preparation for the 2001 party congress. Most of them are alike, the typical of all is an editorial in the Nhan Dan Newspaper.

According to the article, national objectives set by the 9^th Party Congress are enhancing national potential, continuing renovation, industrialization, modernization, building and defending the socialist fatherland of Vietnam. The last three are major tasks, of which the most crucial is "industrialization in a short time.

Looking into the draft content, people easily find that most of its ambitious objectives are presented with rhetoric found in other resolutions, appeals and speeches made by the party and its government. It is full of what to be done but not how to carry them out.

Though the draft put industrialization as the prime-mover of the entire plan, it seems more a promise than a decent policy. The Politburo is saying about industrialization in ten year to catch up with the developed countries. But a poor infra-structure needs much time and money to improve. The lack of capable expertise, aggravated by the system of employment reserving key positions for party’s faithful members is severely impeding every effort of quick industrialization in general, let alone in agricultural sector. Under the Communist regime, Vietnam falls about 20 years behind Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and the gap is increasing rapidly. Twenty six years ago, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand were no better than South Vietnam.

The draft makes a small change in defining national objectives. So far, they have been "rich people, a strong nation, social justice and civilization." In the draft, it becomes "rich people, a strong nation, social justice, democracy and civilization." Nhan Dan Newspaper explains that its regime is a democracy despite the fact that the word "democracy" has not been included because "socialism" contains "democracy." Now it is inserted into the text in order to emphasize its meaning and to bring it into the people's daily life, according to the editorial.

The change may be decided by the Politburo for another reason: to show people outside that the VCP accepts democratization.

In another part, the draft tries to justify that although Hanoi has carried out reforms, free market system in socialist economy is different from capitalist economy in purpose, direction, ownership, policies of management and distribution. Basically, the draft strongly advocates the "socialist-oriented market economy," in which the government still plays a key role. Besides, there is an indication that the VCP would re-establish the co-operatives, at least in reduced form with limited collectivism.

As a matter of fact, the draft relies on the so-called "Ho Chi Minh Thought" and Marxism-Leninism as fundamental ideology that leads the Communist struggle to victories. In fact, Ho Chi Minh once said he had no thought because all were already expressed by Lenin and Mao Zedong. Only since East European Communist regimes collapsed has the VCP leaders turned to Ho for justification of their Communist dictatorship.

Meanwhile, several essays by dissenting party members are released to the public. Take one of the most typical to see how a part of the VCP react to the party congress.

In an essay presented in the local party discussion on the draft political report before it was sent to the Politburo, Nguyen Manh Son, a retired deputy chief of the party committee in a ward of Hai Phong City voiced his strong opinions against the Communist Party. Copies of the text was sent to the Vietnamese community press media , and was published in Thong Luan Magazine.

The essay is remarkable because the writer expressed his opinions as a party member. His begins the essay with facts and figures taken from the Hanoi government statistics to prove that even if planned objectives of population control and economic growth are attained, Vietnam will still be one of the poorest countries and 15-20 percent of children will still suffer under-nutrition. And Vietnam is still lagging several decades behind Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines...

The reasons, according to him, is the government structures are bulky and inefficient. The party organizations were established in parallel with that of the government from central to village level with similar function and the same personnel strength, so it doubles resources spending. It does not include party external associations such as the committees of the Labor Union, the Women's League, the Youth League and the Fatherland Front. All are paid by taxpayers' money.

He quoted Hoang Huu Nhan, the late most renowned dissident party cadre of Hai Phong party committee, as saying that officials in government branches and offices are using more than 30,000 sedans as their own to serve their families. Dr. Nguyen Khac Vien who turned dissident recently said the number of government personnel in Thanh Hoa province alone, is twice as many as the total colonial government employees before 1945 in the entire French Indochina.

To prove the government incapability, he cited the horrible increasing figures of traffic accidents, which is 7,000 deaths and 23,000 injuries in a year. Besides inefficiency, there is also dishonesty in the leader's directives and instructions.

Top leaders are often blindfolded. Once when the late leader Le Duan visited a co-operative, local officials borrowed fat pigs from villagers to put in the cooperative's pen, and their furniture to decorate disabled veterans' homes to show Le Duan how good their cooperative was.

He asserts that there is no democracy, no freedom of the press. Journalists know many things but no one dare to tell the truth. Without private newspapers and publishers, there won't be freedom and democracy, he said, and it is the cause of corruption, authoritarianism, oppression and increasing social injustice. He supports direct, periodic elections which must be fair and free. People cannot entrust ruling power to a party they are unable to control, that is the Communist Party. Such conditions are unfavorable for industrialization and market economy. He strongly warns the party leaders against corruption which he called a national peril.

Although he endorses the so-called Ho Chi Minh Thoughts, Nguyen Manh Son harshly attacks Marxist-Leninist doctrine at several issues, especially the class struggle and other Utopian ideals. He cites the bloody Land Reform (1953-56) that put to death more than 20,000 people including many faithful party members, and the devastating failure of the building of socialism in North Vietnam and later in South Vietnam.

He opposes the "socialist-oriented market economy," saying that market economy as understructure and socialism as superstructure are acting against each other, seeking ways to eliminate each other. Poor people are caught between the two and suffer from what socialism wants to avoid. The worker class is betrayed first. And the cultural and social consequences will be more fearful.

In a capitalist country, a candidate for a position must show his or her ability and virtues in order to be elected. "In our regime a million times more democratic than the capitalist, a candidate only needs to be accepted by central or local party leaders," he writes.

He puts forward some proposals:

1. Discard Marxism-Leninism, retain Ho Chi Minh Thoughts as basic ideals.

2. Rename the Communist Party.

3. Change the name of the state back to the former "Democratic Republic of Vietnam."

4. Translate democracy and freedom into reality, allow private newspapers and publishing.

5. Abrogate Article 4 of the current Constitution, which awards political monopoly to the Vietnam Communist Party.

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The essay of Nguyen Manh Son and others are an indication of the increasing dissenting voices from inside the VCP. The overseas Vietnamese community shows moderate reaction to Son's essay. Most of the Vietnamese exiles disapprove the so-called "HCM Thoughts," but do not direct harsh criticism against Son. It is well understood that most dissidents still in Vietnam, however strong anti-Communist they might be, they had to keep the smallest piece of ground to exist. Ho Chi Minh will be the last straw for the Vietnam Communist leaders to grasp at.

In fact, the dissidents from inside the Communist Party could rally together to become one of the most powerful spearheads in the bloodless struggle to end the Communist tyranny in Vietnam.