NEWS ANALYSIS, DECEMBER 16, 2000.

According to a report of the New York-based international Human Rights Watch, Vietnam Communist Party and its government has not improved human rights and still keeps a tight control over all freedoms, particularly of expression and religion. The report was released on Monday, December 11, 2000, on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, December 10.

The Communist government still limits basic rights, suppressesdissent, and cracks down on religious freedom, even on religious activities such as distributing flood relief.

In the last week of November, 2000, the Catholics of Nguyet Bieu parish, 7 kilometers west of Hue City began a protest against the Communist religious oppression. The Nguyet Bieu people are demanding that the Communist government respect freedom of religion and return their church's property including farming land that the local government had confiscated after 1975.

In front of the Nguyet Bieu church, a banderole read "We Need Freedom of Religion." The Communist Public Security department sent nearly a hundred of armed Public Security troops for a possible crackdown, but what they did was only to put down the banderole. Shortly after that, the removed banderole was replaced by another of the same content. There have been no reports of clash between the parishioners and the Public Security force.

The situation, however, is tense and could turned into violent actions at any time. The leader of the protest is Rev. Nguyen Van Ly, one of the renowned priests who have bravely and persistently voiced their protest against religious intolerance under the Communist regime.

In a written statement released on December 4, 2000, Rev. Nguyen Van Ly said, "The religious policy of the Communist government from 1954 to 2000 has been only a hanging rope around the neck of the religions," he quoted the late Arch Bishop Nguyen Kim Dien as saying in a talk with the Communist provincial leaders in Hue in early 1983. The Reverend Ly had repeated the same saying in the Communist court where he was tried in late 1983.

He also remarks that the Catholics, as well as followers of other religions, are gravely discriminated, particularly those who are living in remote villages, such as the new economic areas. His remark lit up a reality that the Communists only allow a wider limit of religious practices in cities and towns, while religious people in the countryside are under drastic control measures of local Public Security force. Many visitors who are only visiting cities might have the inaccurate perception of religious matters.

Reverend Ly was detained several times after the Communist forces overthrew the South Vietnamese government in April 1975 and has been put under house arrest after he was released from prison. So far, Communist authorities have been acting with great care, while Rev. Nguyen Van Ly frequently repeats his demand for freedom of religion. He vows that if the Communist authorities hurts anyone in his parish, he would go on hunger strike.

On Wednesday, Dec. 11, news from Hue said Rev. Nguyen Van Ly himself put on another banderole that reads, "Freedom or Death." The protest is going on with more and more support from the overseas Vietnamese community as well as international human rights and religious freedom organizations.

Far to the south, many hundreds of Hoa Hao Buddhists got together last week in An Giang province to protest against the detention of many Hoa Hao Buddhist church leaders while President Clinton was in Vietnam. According to reports from the church received by its information office in the USA, also broadcast on the Voice of America radio, Mr. Ha Hai, secretary general of the Hoa Hao Buddhist Church was arrested on November 18, 2000 when he was on his way to Saigon where President Clinton was visiting.

Sources from An Giang said that Mr. Hai’s wife, his two sons and a daughter were allowed to meet with him to dissuade him from hunger strike but they failed. On the way leaving the prison camp, his family members were beaten. One of the sons, Ha Van Duy was hit by bludgeon on his head and is in a coma. The other son's left leg was broken in the beating.

The protesters raised their banderole that read "Human Rights for Vietnam," and "Religious Freedom for Vietnam." Hundreds of uniformed and undercover Public Security police broke up the crowds. According to a source, two of the protesters attempted suicide to protest Public Security agents for burning their brown flags, the Hoa Hao Buddhist Church holy banners.

On Wednesday, Hanoi Foreign Ministry spokeswoman confirmed that Mr. Ha Hai was detained for numerous violations but she denied to elaborate specific charges brought against Mr. Hai.

Hanoi has always asserted that there is no political prisoners in its hundreds of prisons – central down to district levels - saying that all the inmates are criminal law offenders. In fact, all political prisoners are incarcerated as violating the Criminal Code ambiguous provisions, under which all political or religious dissidents can be convicted as having "actions aimed at overthrowing the Socialist state, creating social disorder" disregarding whatever they might have done.

While President Clinton was visiting Hanoi on November 17, 2000, a small Cessna airplane was flying at low altitude over Saigon for 30 minutes to drop about 50,000 anti-Communist leaflets on the populated areas of the city. The Cessna then headed back to Thailand where it had departed. The man who commanded the mission is Ly Tong, a former Republic of Vietnam Air Force jet fighter pilot who had done the same task twice over Saigon in 1992 and Havana, Cuba on Jan 1, 2000.

Ly Tong was well known in the Vietnamese overseas community for his boldness. Right before Saigon collapsed on April 1975, his fighter was shot down and he was taken prisoner by the Communist force. He escaped the Communist prison in 1980 and fled Vietnam for Cambodia, then Thailand. Two years later, after toiling works for living, detentions and escapes in Cambodia and Thailand, and hundreds of kilometer walking he swam across the narrow Johore Strait to report to the American Embassy in Singapore for asylum.

In 1992, he forced the pilots on a Vietnam Airlines passenger jet to circle around Saigon before landing and dropped about 50,000 anti-Communist leaflets. He then bailed out with a parachute hidden in his suitcase and landed on an open field in a Saigon suburb. He was arrested and tried as hijacker by the Communist court. After years in prison, he was released and returned to the USA in 1998.

On January 1, 2000, he hired a small plane in Florida to sneak into Havana skies, delivering some 50,000 anti-Castro leaflets to call on the Cuban people to revolt. He flew back to Florida before Cuban intercepting MiG’s could catch him.. He met no trouble from the US authorities but his flying license was revoked.

After the November 17 risky undertaking, he is detained by authorities in Thailand pending trial. Initially, he was charged as a hijacker, but he denied the charge, saying that he had hired the plane and its pilot for the flight without threatening to use force. Thai authorities found no deadly weapons when searching him, only 10,000 US dollars in cash.

Flying about 100 feet above tree or sea level to safely get in and out of the dense radar and air defense systems is a task that few pilots can perform without an iron will and an extraordinary flying skill.

In the Vietnamese overseas community, some don’t endorse his action, saying that he was a daredevil in a futile adventure, the task that only needs a motorcyclist to perform. But the others appreciate his self-imposed symbolic suicide mission. Though his leaflets couldn’t overthrow the Communist dictatorships in Hanoi and Havana, his sensational stories make him a legendary James Bond, a 007. Such legends might be injecting some heroism into the youth for anti-Communist movements. Or at least, he is showing defiance to the Communist rulers.

A campaign demanding Thailand to acquit Ly Tong is eagerly supported by many Vietnamese abroad and foreigners. Meanwhile, Hanoi has asked Bangkok that a harsh sentence be given to Ly Tong.

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