NEWS ANALYSIS, APRIL 13, 2002.

CORRUPTION IN VIETNAM TODAY

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Corruption is one of the social evils that exists in every society. The only difference is whether the government or ruling party could keep it under control to a certain acceptable limit. In the history of Vietnam, corruption has been a chronic problem to the nation all along its history. Under the current Communist regime, however, corruption reaches a peak that in the highest for the last thousand years.

Communist leaders repeatedly call on the people and their subordinate authorities to contribute best efforts to get rid of the evil that they consider extremely dangerous to the stability of their regime. However, the leaders in Hanoi don’t act accordingly. They turn a deaf ear to people’s voices denouncing bribery committed by leaders at the top to the lowest levels of the Party hierarchy.

Among denunciations, the recent open letter signed on December 2, 2001 by two Communist Party veterans is the most reliable and powerful criticism ever heard in the Communist regime.(1). The letter was made public at the end of 2001, and reached the overseas Vietnamese community in the early 2002. It was published by Thong Luan, an anti-Communist magazine in its March-2002 issue, Paris, France.

The authors of the letter assert that corruption is rampant in the country by every official and the Communist regime is the main roots of all evils, particularly corruption.

According to the writers, the 16 tons of gold reserve of the former Republic of Vietnam left intact on April 30, 1975 at its National Bank and fallen to the hands of Hanoi, has disappeared without a trace (2). One of those who wet the beak in it is Le Ngoc Bau, the fifth son of the late Le Duan, Party General Secretary at the time, his wife Nguyen Thi Nga, and his son Le Anh Tuan, who purchased 40 percent shares of the Dong Mo golf-course, at VN$ 60 billion (US$ 4.2 million) and their names are listed as official owners of the shares. Le Van Bau is a shareholder of three supermarkets in Saigon, of the Bank of Asia, and of a jewelry company.

Le Thi An, head of the anti-smuggling task force of Hanoi Public Security Department also invested VN$ 10 billion (US$ 700.000) in the Dong Mo golf-course and owns a hotel in Hanoi and a motorbike shop in Gia Lam (Hanoi suburb).

Do Muoi, former Party General Secretary silently received one million dollars given by an American company via a South Korean director. He had been the most fanatic critic against the Americans. His son-in-law is one of the so-called “red billionaires,” well known in Vietnam today whose properties include Bao Son Hotel and Viet Phuong Taxicab Co. in Hanoi.

Le Duc Anh, the former State President, is believed to have often accepted bribes to promote armed forces officers to higher ranks.

Vo Van Kiet, the former prime minister under Le Duc Anh, notorious with sex affairs and dirty tricks, is said to be one of the key characters in the corruption related to a multi-million dollar construction of the 500-KVA power line from the North to the South. Although public opinion was too strong to be ignored, his collaborator, the Minister of Energy Vu Ngoc Hai, was lightly sentenced to 3 years in prison. Hai quietly accepted the fate of a scapegoat. He is now a general director of an electric company.

Kiet’s concubine Luong Thi Cam, the letter goes on, also involved in a shady business. She exerted Kiet’s influence to press responsible officials for using her zinc plating formula to coat a number of power poles of the project. Her formula had been evaluated as expensive and not durable by other experts.

There is a rumor running that when Kiet was prime minister, the coast guard unit of Ha Long Bay caught more than 200 cars smuggled into Vietnam by Kiet’s son. He quickly intervened to have the case settled and he paid back by awarding promotion to the coast guard officers who did his son the favor.

Kiet’s son is said to be a mafioso in Vietnam. People believe that the Plaza Hotel and the Ty-Top Beach both belong to Kiet’s son, and that Kiet himself had US$ 370 million in foreign bank accounts.

The current prime minister Phan Van Khai, considered by public opinion as a leader with ethical behavior in the first years of his term. The letter above-mentioned said “the truth will be determined by realities.” But his son is certainly not. He is also another mafioso. He imported large shipments of used cars and smuggled them into China. He owns several hotels in Hanoi and Saigon .

Once Khai’s son was gambling beside Pham Huy Phuoc. The cops arrested Phuoc after secretly informed him so that he could stay away. Phuoc was sentenced to 3 years in prison and later arrested on charges of smuggling, but immediately released. Because of the scandal, Khai resigned but the Party did not approve.

The most notorious case of graft occurred in the dealing with Chinese HISG contractor on the construction of an international stadium in Hanoi. HISG was granted the contract, although it did not have legal status and necessary documents. Moreover, the Vietnamese Architecture and Construction Association revealed that the plan is not good looking nor safe. But people thought that the great many officials and leaders related to the project have taken HISG’s bribes, so they had to grant approval to the Chinese contractor.

On August 15, the Central Committee office of ideology and culture stated in a press conference that HISG was working for the Chinese Party central financial and management office, so the deal was actually between the two parties (and so concession must be made).

Ms. Truong My Hoa when serving as the chairman of the League of Women, accepted a bribe of hundreds of thousand dollars from Pham Huy Phuoc. When Phuoc denounced the graft, she begged Do Muoi to forgive her. Instead of being sentenced, she was promoted to Deputy Chairwoman of the National Assembly.

Pham Van Tra, a general and minister of Defense, owns 3 villas. Le Xuan Tung has a villa valued at 4,000 gold taels (4,760 troy ounces). It is rumored that the former secretary of HCM City Party Committee Truong Tan Sang, was responsible for several cases of corruption that caused losses of some thousand billion ($VN) to taxpayer’s money, and that he bribed some top leader a billion VN dong to get a seat in the Politburo.

Beside corruption, there are other dirty stories. One of them is about LTK, a deputy Foreign Minister who has sex relation with his daughter-in-law, popular singer TL. She said to LTK’s son that “This child is your younger brother, not your child, who will have a part like yours in this homestead..” (Names abbreviated by the two authors of the letter).

The letter recalls the construction of Thuy Cung Thang Long water park (Ho Tay Lake, Hanoi). Ngo Xuan Loc (deputy prime minister), Dinh Hanh, Luong Ngoc Cu, two ranking officials, all escaped prison sentences and only lost their jobs though they were found guilty of bribery in building the park. In the construction of Cai Lan Harbor, the contractor was paid for the inexistent hundreds of thousand cubic meters of concrete gravel.

In the letter, the two men said there are some Party members who are willing to fight corruption, but no sooner had they started acting than they faced the danger of death or loss of their jobs. Mai Thuc Lan, the secretary of Danang Party Committee was an incorruptible Party official who was obstructing corruption. A bomb was laid at his home that frightened him so much that he had to stay in Hanoi, holding the job of a National Assembly deputy chairman.

Although the two complainants propose several anti-corruption measures to the Party Central Committee, readers could be led to a conviction that as long as the Communist regime still exists, corruption will never be kept under control.

Most of the cases of corruption mentioned in the letter were complained publicly in open letters with concrete evidence and reasonable arguments in the last five years. That include the cases of Do Muoi, Pham The Duyet, Vo Van Kiet, Phan Van Khai’s family, and several others of middle and high ranking Party members.

However, the Politburo, the Party Central Committee and the government have kept silent, without a word to respond to the denouncers who are veteran ranking Party members and army field grade officers. In those letters, they used their real names and addresses.

Silence is another way of pleading guilty.

In comparison with China, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and even with the pre-75 South Vietnam, the current regime in Vietnam under the Communist leaders is the most corrupt one.

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- Tran Tuan Hung, 78 years old, 52-year Party member, Mai Dong, Hai Ba Trung district, Hanoi.

- Nong The Dam, 71, 48-year member, 42 years in military service, B-4 Kim Lien, Dong Da district, Hanoi.

After April 30, 1975, there was a rumor that former South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu had brought with him abroad all 17 tons of gold reserve of the South Vietnam National Bank. However in the early 1990s, former North Vietnam Colonel Bui Tin, who fled Vietnam for asylum in France, confirmed that the gold reserve was intact when he arrived in Saigon that day. He also said that the gold was dissipated by Hanoi leaders in a short time.

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