Alexander Norris
The Gazette (Montreal) May 4, 1999
Vietnam's most prominent dissident criticized the Chretien government yesterday for failing to take a tougher line on human-rights violations in his homeland.
Doan Viet Hoat, a former university vice-rector who spent 17 years in prison - four in solitary confinement - for his advocacy of economic and political reforms before being expelled from the country last year, said Ottawa's record in speaking out against abuses there compares unfavourably with Washington's.
"They're not strong on this," Hoat told The Gazette in an interview during a week-long visit to Montreal to address students and members of this city's 50,000-strong Vietnamese community.
"Perhaps it's because of pressure from business-type people. Perhaps Canada doesn't want to lose the market there. I don't know, but I don't think they're strong enough on human-rights issues."
That inactivity could turn out to be a big mistake, Hoat suggested, warning that popular frustration over repression and high-level corruption has reached "crisis" levels and now risks turning ugly.
"I'm afraid that if we don't pressure for political changes soon, the frustration is so high that we may have violence."
Hoat, 56, who was released from prison and deported to the United States last September, suggested Canada and other Western governments could have much more influence over Hanoi on the human-rights front if they chose to exert it.
"The Communist Party needs them and they're in a strong position to pressure for freedom and democracy," he said, arguing that aid and investment should be tied to concrete improvements on the human-rights front, including a lifting of restrictions on dissidents and the press.
Bitterness over high-level corruption has intensified with the disclosure that former Vietnamese Communist Party general secretary Do Muoi, now the party's top adviser, made a personal $1 million (US) donation to a school in Vietnam, Hoat said.
"People wondered how he got the money, and he answered that a Korean company gave it to him. That's bribery, you know. And if he has $1 million, he may have some more... I don't think that big Canadian companies want to bribe to invest in Vietnam," Hoat added.
Even current prime minister Phan Van Khai has acknowledged Vietnam is in crisis over corruption and bureaucracy and has pledged to redouble efforts to fight it, Hoat noted. "But from my point of view, they cannot fight against corruption and bureaucracy without freedom of expression and freedom of the press."
Famous general
Hoat said disenchantment with the regime has even permeated the high levels of the Communist Party.
"Most of the dissidents now are Communist Party members." Among them, he said, is a famous general, Tran Do, who was in charge of political affairs for the Vietnamese army for many years and also oversaw cultural and ideological affairs for the party for a time.
Hoat took pains to stress that he does not oppose investment in Vietnam; he just wants it linked to "concrete improvements" in human rights and the transparency of government operations. "If we don't have those concrete results then I don't think that economic aid and trade will really benefit the people. It will only benefit the dictators."
A soft-spoken man, Hoat gave yesterday's interview in impeccable English - a language he managed to stay fluent in by talking to himself while in solitary confinement. "The officials there thought I was crazy because I talked to myself," he said with a chuckle. "I told them that if I didn't talk to myself, I would become crazy."