VOICE OF THE MASSES
JUST WAIT ... [Regarding the serious illness of President Le Duc Anh]
Following are excerpts of the Saigonese's last issue before being forced to go silent due to escalating attacks by the state security. The author(s), again, use the conversation at a sidewalk cafe to express the feeling of the masses.
- Being the city poor and ignorant, we simply think that the leaders of the Vietnamese Communist Party have been too cruel and are now punished by God. Just look at the signs. Right on the opening day of the Eighth Party Congress, a member of the Politburo (Nguyen Dinh Tu) dropped dead. And following that Congress were series of storms and floods, unprecedented in the North, South, or Central. Hundreds of thousands of acres of cultivated land were destroyed along with houses and human lives. What a damage!
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- What then must be done to revert those signs?
- Well, for thousands of years, our ancestors have always said: a government can only stay in power when it conforms to the wish of the people. The leaders of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam government and the Vietnamese Communist Party must first reform themselves. They should then apologize to the ancestors and immediately reduce the heavy taxes on people in the disaster-inflicted areas in the last three years, open up prisons and release political prisoners, recruit the real talented people to help build the nation, allow people to freely organize and express themselves. That is the only way to avoid instability [for the country] and extinction [for the Party]. The nation will surely advance.
- Indeed, that is the way our forefathers had run the country. But saying these things to President Le Duc Anh is like playing guitar to an ox. Being faithful disciples of Maoism and holding a tight connection with Beijing, they will never let go of the dictatorship to make room for democracy. Recently, an international press organization announced the list of 25 enemies of freedom of the press. The list includes leaders of countries that violate this right most seriously, who use all sorts of methods to oppress, threaten, and silence the opposition voices. Do Muoi was at number 10 on the list. Li Peng of China stood at the top. As for corruption, the world considers the Vietnamese government the fifth most corrupted one on earth. How shameful for children of Viet ancestors under the leadership of the Vietnamese Communist Party!
Do Muoi himself admitted: "The struggle against corruption today achieves very low results while this problem has spread everywhere. In many localities, corruption in a number of areas has gotten even worse than before. The consequence of this problem is very serious. It erodes the characteristics of the Party and the government, and degrades the ranks of cadres and Party members." On the Youth magazine, the General Secretary, boldly spit out: "Fight corruption? We have talked enough, discussed enough. Just do it!" But who will "do it" when members of the Politburo themselves are shields and protective walls for the "Red Mafia" to hide behind? Who can weed out these "internal enemies"???
The Party knows fighting corruption vocally as usual no longer excites anyone, but fighting corruption seriously would hurt its very self. The Mafia boss who is the son-in-law of the "God Father" sitting at the Party General Secretaryship is definitely unremovable. To kick the dog one must "watch" the owner; and on the other hand, even the ferocious tiger will not eat its own kind.
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- But we also have Minister of Interior Le Minh Huong who told the Youth Sunday magazine that: "No exception. We will not let anyone stand outside or above the laws." We wish you would dare do what you say brother Huong. Would you dare touch the "Red Mafia" headed by the "King's Son-in-law?" Do that and we will believe you.
- Well, we just dream for the fun of it. We know, in this life, all Mafia bosses know one another. They even divide up the territory on the basis of "lateral and multi-facet relations for mutual benefit and non-interference." The networking problems were bad enough for the great senior comrade Nguyen Van Linh, the advisor to the Vietnamese Communist Party Central Committee, to describe the corruption problem at the Eighth Party Congress as "the leaking from the roof flowing down, the maggots crawling from the bones outward."
Being the boss of the "Red Security," he [Le Minh Huong] definitely knows that the illegal organized sale of land, granting of permission and the building of houses on the dikes outside Hanoi were the handiwork of the Party Boss of Hanoi, Pham The Duyet. After the investigation of this crime, the chief criminal stood above the law and was promoted to the Politburo. How bad are the laws of the Vietnamese communist regime? Also directly under this criminal investigation were Do Muoi's son-in-law and Dao Duy Tung's son, among others, all of whom had secured big and solid umbrellas for themselves.
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And how about the loss of 3,000 billion dong at the Vietnamese National Bank. The number of unpaid loans have reached 1,250 billion dong. Serious losses were due to violations of regulations on credit banking:
- Reserve Bank of Bac Thai province lost 5 billion dong; District 6 Bank of Ho Chi Minh City, 4 billion; Agriculture Bank of Quang Ninh province, 7.48 billion; Ha Nam Province Bank, 10.25 billion; Vietcom Bank of Ho Chi Minh City, 300 billion in the Tamexco incident and 388 billion in the Silk Company; Soc Trang Province Bank, 90 billion; and Vung Tau-Ba Ria Bank, 70 billion, etc.
- For just the first six months of 1996, corruption in the banking system caused a loss of 280.63 billion dong.
- Especially for the home-province of His Highness Cao Si Kiem, the General Director of the Vietnamese Central, the director of the Thai Binh Province Bank enjoyed special treatments and was allowed to violate various banking regulations. The result is the loss of national treasures three years in a row: 10.774 billion dong in 1994, 17.024 billion in 1995, and 25.676 billion in 1996.....Given such miserable status of the national bank, many wonder why the government has not dismissed the useless General Director....It is a Mafia system, indeed! When the main cause of decay remains in the Party Politburo, there is no way to uproot corruption....The list of corruption at the price of national resources goes on:
- The Post and Telegraph Agency left 968.7 billion dong out of its report to the government.
- The "Hy Vong" ship was bought at 55 billion dong and repaired for 550 billion. The 600 billion dong ship was not operational and eventually sold for scrap metal.
- Nam Dinh Textile company lost 620 billion dong in bad loans.
- Dong Thap Province Foodstuff company is 151 billion dong in the red.
- The Mekonimex import-export company was bankrupt at the cost of 43 billion dong.
- Long An Textile company had 30 billion dong unaccounted for.
- The People's Committee of district Tu Liem in Hanoi arbitrarily sold public land for an illegal 13 billion dong.
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As the Vietnamese Communist Party holds power exclusively for itself, the process of turning Vietnam into the land of Mafias is only the obvious result, started by the "Red Capitalists" behind the Party's mask. Today this system has developed in both breadth and depth. These networks of Mafias are directed by individuals heading government branches of Public Security, foreign relations, and the armed forces, etc. Up to now, they have freely maneuvered and never turned down any opportunities to make money, including weapons smuggling, drug trafficking, and trades of human beings (selling escape route to refugees, exporting women for prostitution, buying and selling infants, etc.) for having no fear of inspection or prosecution. Any attempts to do so would immediately be labeled as reactionary and anti-Party.
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To end corruption, first of all, government operations must be made public through the media so that everyone can see and understand clearly and accurately. All leading cadres of the government must publicly declare their properties as another way to curb corruption. The Deputy Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee has announced his plan to take inventories of the properties of members of the City Party Committee and those officials that become irregularly rich. The Deputy Secretary of the Tra Vinh Province Party Committee will also do the same...Since General Secretary Do Muoi has lots of experience in campaigns for taking inventory of properties in Hanoi, Hai Phong and southern Vietnam, we highly recommend that he be the commander-in-chief in a campaign to check the properties of all officials of the Vietnamese Communist Party. The glorious victory will be assured...Come on, do it!
The Saigonese.