Following is the contributing speech by Mr. Robert Templer at the Conference on "Development and Democracy in Vietnam: Perspectives and Reality", organized by the French Committee for Democracy in Vietnam (Comite' Francais pour la De'mocratie au Vietnam) at the French Parliament on April 29, 1998.

Prior to his post as an Indochina correspondent for AFP in Hanoi, Mr. Templer was on the AFP English desk for Europe and Africa in Paris, focusing on Bosnia and the former Soviet Union nations; Editor for AFP Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong; Chief desk editor and editorial writer for The China Post. Mr. Templer is currently a Freedom Forum Teaching Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley. His recent works include the book "Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam", to be published in 1998.

Ladies and Gentlemen ...

In the past year the economic crisis that has hit Asia has led to the rising realization in the region that successful economies and stable political require a mix of factors, one of the most important being an open and free media. From South Korea to Indonesia, the media has taken on a more vital role in exposing the economic mismanagement and corruption that in part led to the collapse. Healthy banking systems, clean government and investor confidence all depend on the freest possible flow of information.

In Vietnam, the lessons of the economic crisis in Asia have been lost on the leadership. The past year has seen a number of measures aimed at further limiting press freedoms as the government struggles to control its people's understanding of the dangers posed by the crisis. This month ideology chiefs in Hanoi told newspaper editors to limit their coverage of the economic crisis and offer no explanations or commentary for what has happened in the rest of Asia. Last year the government introduced regulations to punish journalists who revealed problems in the state banking sector. It also threatened journalists who released any information to foreign reporters. When riots swept through Thai Binh and Dong Nai provinces last year as people became outraged by corruption and punishing taxation, only the foreign and underground press reported them at first -the official media did not mention the Thai Binh riots until five months after they happened and then it only gave a limited account of events there.

Last year a senior journalist was jailed for writing about the corrupt purchase of four ships from the Ukraine that cost the state millions of dollars in losses. More recently a worker at a foreign accountants firm was jailed for allegedly stealing financial state secrets, a incident that has caused severe concern to foreign investors. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least five reporters are in prison. Many others have been removed from their jobs or demoted.

All this has been aimed at tightening control over economic information so that Vietnamese only hear the version of events put out by the official media. While the Vietnamese government believes this is a means to maintain confidence in its management of the economy, the reality is the opposite. It threatens to erode trust even further. The lack of information on the financial sector and the failure of the government to provide realistic data undermines foreign investment and weakens people's confidence in the economy. Vietnam is about to face an economic crisis - it has problems with its balance of payments. Tax revenues, foreign investment and aid spending are all down. The government deficit is rising, confidence in the banking system is declining. A tidal wave of problems created by the economic earthquakes elsewhere in Asia are bearing down on Vietnam. I believe the government has been restricting information on economic problems to prevent people learning the extent of their mismanagement and so when crisis does hit, blame for the problems can be pinned on foreigners , the Asian crisis, the IMF or any institution other than the Vietnamese party.

Since Vietnam began its economic reforms in 1986, there has been much talk of the emergence of a more open press. Certainly today the media is more lively, colorful and informative than it was before reforms. But it remains firmly under the control of the state and has only a limited capacity to criticize or challenge actions. It does not yet provide real checks on state power. An example of this is the writing on corruption, which is one of the most important issues facing Vietnam. In the late 1980s, the General Secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party Mr. Nguyen Van Linh, set the press the task of cleaning out the Augean stables of government. He urged writers to expose corruption and abuses of power. They set about this task, somewhat warily as many recalled that similar appeals had been followed by purges of those who has spoken out. Writers revived a style known as phong su, a form of compelling literary journalism that spoke not of the triumphs of communism but of poverty and economic failure. Journalism became a force for reforms, a way to tackle the entrenched bureaucracy that resisted so much change.=20

This more open period ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Vietnamese Communist Party decided it needed to maintain its controls over the media. It removed a number of aggressive editors and replaced them with Party men. The state owns all the media and has often closed publications that step over the line. In 1995 a newspaper, Nguoi Hanoi which was owned by the city's arts and literature association was closed for saying that people "were worried and saddened by" a ban on firecrackers. Various other publications have been closed if they strayed from the idea expressed by Party General Secretary Do Muoi in 1995 that "the press is there to serve the government and the people."=20

By the early 1990s there were fewer stories in the press about corruption as the government tightened the boundaries of what it would allow. Those stories that looked at corruption were based on government reports or court cases; the press rarely produced new information. Reports tended to be about only junior officials - those with connections in the government or party were spared any scrutiny by the media. Reports on a number of high profile corruption trials were censored to ensure that the real extent of graft in the Vietnamese government was not revealed. President Le Duc Anh publicly complained that there was too much emphasis in the media on corruption and other problems and urged a return to the days when the media reported only the good news.

The Vietnamese media is no longer the monolithic propaganda machine that it once was. But it still remains mostly in the service of the communist party, except in rare cases where individual editors and journalists push the boundaries of censorship and control. Restrictions on the media have been relaxed enough to allow a diet of entertainment and sports that keep readers happy. Even the official party and army newspapers now have some lighter stories where once there was only heavy party pronouncements.

The most popular newspaper in Vietnam is the Cong An Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh which is published by the police in Ho Chi Minh City. Its weekly circulation is more than 500,000 copies and newspaper vendors say it sells out almost immediately, unlike the party paper Nhan Dan which many of them choose not to sell because it brings in so little money. The Cong An newspaper is filled with lurid tales of sex and violence, of gang crimes and prostitution. It presents a picture of Vietnam at odds with the idea of a peaceful crime free nation that used to be the official line. But it combines this sort of tabloid journalism with an emphasis on the need for more policing and tighter social control. It is often the forum of attacks against any person that is critical of the Party - it frequently attacks writers, artists and social activists for their work and is often hostile to foreigners. It often includes stories about the Overseas Vietnamese that portray them as dangerous and criminal. Its stories are often libelous and frequently violate rights of privacy. It represents the worse of 2 worlds- the worst of the unfettered tabloid journalism that is seen in the west and the worst sort of social and political control offered by communist countries. Its propaganda is more effective than Nhan Dan and is read by more people. This newspaper has more influence than any other in Vietnam.

Press freedom should not include the right to the sorts of abuses and dishonest writing seen in this newspaper. Press freedom requires the rule of law that protects the media from the excessive power of the state but also protects individuals from abuses by the media. Press freedoms require a pluralistic economy with private ownership of the media. Press freedoms require constant debate and self-examination about ethics. Vietnam does not have any of these things. The changes in the media in the past decade have been either short-lived or cosmetic - there have been few moves towards the development of a press that can challenge both policies and political figures, that can expose abuses by the state and individuals. The media in Vietnam may be more colorful and more entertaining but it remains very much part of a system of political control.

That means its role in the creation of an open economic system is constrained, its capacity to check corruption is limited. Without a more open press, Vietnam's hopes to develop the institutions of a modern market economy will fail. Nobody trusts the banks at the moment; limiting information on their health is not going to inspire more confidence. A stock market in Vietnam will be merely a high risk casino without a press that can write freely about corruption in state firms. There is no hope of controlling corruption without greater transparency and critical scrutiny by the media. At the moment, Vietnam is moving in the wrong direction. There is a risk that the coming economic problems there, will result not in the opening up of information but a further retreat to the days when the Party controlled all information.