NEWS ANALYSIS, DECEMBER 22, 2001.

In the last few days, there have been three or four demonstrations in Hanoi of small groups of women and other senior citizens.

On December 17, a group of more than 20 women from South Vietnam gathered at a sidewalk about 150 meters from the Ba Dinh Hall where deputies of the Communist National Assembly were in the year-end session.

The protesters were displaying many placards and conic hats bearing messages condemning local Communist Party officials of illegal extortion of their estates. Most of the disputes are about land issues, many of the cases initiated more than 20 years ago, some even right after the Communist forces defeated the former South Vietnam republic on April 30, 1975.

The victims did lodge complaints with the authorities after their lands were seized by the greedy officials but for so many years, the Communist government has been dragging their feet and no action was taken to protect the rights to property of innocent citizens.

So many complaints, maybe tens of thousand cases, are still piled up in government various offices. Responsible organizations even the highest such as the Supervision and Control Offices have been unable (or unwilling) to solve. In the last five years, there were many protests in Thai Binh province, Xuan Loc area and in Hanoi as well. The Communist government has formed half dozen ministerial delegations and sent them to areas where most complaints had come from to solve the problems.

Though the delegations were highly cheered by government propaganda, they have brought forth no significant results. The hardest and insurmountable obstacles are always the obstinate Communist cadres holding government key jobs, particularly at district and village levels. Now poor farmers have become very frustrated with Communist government handling of the cases.

Later in the week, following the 20-plus women, other groups of about 30 and 200 protesters rallied at the front gates of the official residences of Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) General Secretary Nong Duc Manh, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and some offices of Public Reception in charge of solving complaints and petitions. They chanted demands for immediate actions to right the wrong.

Protesters denounced that government offices in charges of people's complaints deliberately ignored their voices, though they are parents or wives of "Communist fallen heroes," or at least "Revolution supporters." Vo Thi Thu from Dong Nai province, whose close relatives had sacrificed themselves for the Communist Party in the wars and many others are now serving as party members, loudly accused the regime of ungrateful attitude towards ones who had devoted their lives to the party's cause.

Mrs. Thu had been visiting the Public Reception office in Hanoi many times for the last many years without receiving any help so far. "They keep passing the buck to others," she said. She spoke up a strong remark: "I have been living under other regimes, under the French, the Americans, the (Saigon) puppet government, but none of them was so ruthless and barbaric as the current Communists."

About 3/4 of the protesters are from southern provinces Ca Mau, Soc Trang, Bac Lieu, Can Tho, Binh Duong, Bien Hoa, Vinh Binh, Saigon. Many others are from the central provinces Binh Thuan, Ninh Thuan, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai.

The 200-strong protesters are of almost all ages, but old women and men are in the majority. On December 21, they got together at a city park on Mai Xuan Thuong Street and Ly Tu Trong park next to Ho Tay (the Great Lake), storming into the two-story office building and the courtyard of the Hanoi Public Reception Office.

Those senior citizens are all poor farmers, who couldn't afford renting shelters or restaurant meals. They had to spend the nights on city parks and sidewalks under chilling winter rains and bitter icy wind (below 60 degrees F or 15 degrees C). Their money was barely enough for train tickets and food for the trip. To old peasants from remote areas in the Mekong Delta, travelling a thousand miles from the deep South to Hanoi is like an astronauts' mission to the Moon.

On the first days, Public Security only sent a small force to control the demonstrations, keeping them from further advance towards Ba Dinh Hall and no crack-down was conducted. However, according to sources from Hanoi, a dozen arrests were made at night when the protesters were sleeping on the ground of the parks and sidewalks. At the same time, Public Security of the protesters' home villages were threatening and harassing their relatives in order to bring pressure to bear on them.

The land disputes are the most difficult matter that have caused serious headache to Communist top leaders for years. They might be willing to solve them with all their hearts, but the matter has gone too far. It become an incurable sickness so severe that many Vietnamese say it is beyond remedy.

The abuse of power at low levels (hamlet and village) come from the social setting of a certain era. For thousands of years until 1945, the Vietnamese village had been an autonomous community. Because of the needs of self-defense and mutual assistance in farming, each village administration in the old Vietnam was granted a ruling power greater than in other cultures.

A village custom sometimes overrode a King's law - in reasonable circumstances when there was contradiction between the two, concerning matters not in defiance to the supreme power of the King, his throne and his sacred dignity. The tradition worked well in many aspects such as in fighting the Chinese invaders and in preservation of national morality, ethics, and the Vietnamese people's identity.

But on the darker side, village autonomy created an unwanted side product. It might have led to harsh oppression on the poor farmers in some villages. A number of village leaders though elected to the jobs by democratic procedures, soon became the so-called "feudal wicked lords." They were taking bribes, kickbacks, cruelly punishing villagers who committed petty delinquencies, such as failing to comply to village tax rule. In some extremely notorious cases, authoritative wicked lords committed serious crimes including murder, rape, extortion...

Such wicked lords dared to commit serious crimes when their superiors - district and province governors - protected them.

Since the late 19th Century, the French were ruling Vietnam as her colony. French colonialists maintained the traditional village council without much change. The French colonialist government entrusted large competence to the village chiefs, who constituted the most effective law enforcement system serving the colonialists' best interests. Unless acting beyond a certain limit, village chiefs' minor crimes could be tolerated by colonialist authorities.

In South Vietnam under President Ngo Dinh Diem, "wicked lords" had been a major problem in pacifying the rural areas. In his regime, village committees were selected by district chiefs. Wicked lords became valuable targets for the Communist propaganda, and many were assassinated by Communist death squads.

In the Second Republic under President Nguyen Van Thieu, the US-supported policy of "Rural Development" was focusing top efforts on hamlet and village administration reform. The policy, known to many Americans as "R.D." did achieve considerable success, although corruption and irresponsibility of leaders in many provinces and districts were undermining the policy.

By 1973, the development effort really changed the attitude of a large number of poor peasants.

At least the policy got rid of the former wicked lords and installed a more democratic administration by rather fair elections at hamlets and villages. Unfortunately, it was time when the American government gave up.

Since taking over South Vietnam, the Communist party and its government had to carry out their promises made to their guerrillas since the first days of the rebellion. A guerrilla joined the party and suffered hardships for something he or she couldn't attain in the anti-Communist regime. So ill-learned guerrillas then became secretary of village party committees and chairmen of village people's councils - or village chiefs - and most of them have been trying to act and to enjoy ruling power "as the (wicked) lords" of the colonial era.

The village party committees usually exert their party power to impose many tax plans, compelling contributions for everything such as repair and construction of schools, roads, offices, decoration for Communist holidays and monuments and others, which can serve as labels to squeeze villagers' money. In implementation of those projects, the "neo-feudal wicked lords" turn the tasks into lucrative works where they could safely wet their beaks.

Communist leaders had to connive at illegally acquired properties of their subordinates, whose supports have installed them to current powerful positions. "No one is so foolish as to saw off the legs of his chair," is a popular saying in Vietnam.

Neo-feudal Red lordship now becomes a chronic sickness. The Communist Party has failed to cure its complications. When the current doctor and his medicines proved ineffective, it is a "must" to replace the doctor and thus to apply new therapy with total changes of medications.

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