On the occasion of the New Lunar Year (Tet) in February 1999, the retired General Tran Do delivered his latest discussion on the condition of Vietnam.
Unintentionally, his house has become the collection point of expressions and ideas that are deemed unacceptable by the government channel of communication. Tran Do reported:
"Since the day I was known as part of the "opposition" (even though nobody mentioned my name), and since the day I was expelled [from the Party], which spread my name even further, I have received so many correspondents. Some were from my acquaintances, others were not. The correspondents are compositions, essays, petitions, complaints, accusations, and poems. Some were addressed specifically to me, others were not. Some came by mail, others were simply thrown into the house for my grandchildren to pick up. Many of the writings praised, suggested modification, and offered further discussion on the points I had made. Some articles also criticized my view. Too bad I have neither office nor secretary to stamp the date and time of the mails, but in general, the flow has increased since November, 1998. I did not count the number of the mails. Some are just a few pages, others are around 10 pages. Together, they must amount to a several hundred sheets."
After insisting that it is time for the leaders of the Vietnamese Communist Party to respect logic and accept the reality of the surrounding world, Tran Do confided his worries:
"The limitation of the leaders' knowledge and experience in developing society and the economy has not been seriously analyzed and overcome. The mentality of "If one was heroic in war and victorious over the powerful enemy, then any difficulties can be overcome easily with the same heroism" is indeed a dangerous fermented drink!
We are facing a series of social contradictions. These contradictions are bringing headaches to the leading organ and restlessness to millions of hearts. Rows of problems in fundamental reasoning and political ideology have been identify without solutions. The leaders intended to just reconfirm a number of principles and end all discussions. Those who follow are accepted; those who do not are punished. Such thinking frightens me. I fear that the country will be dragged to the cliff by these leaders.
The current condition of the country must be the first thought in everyone's mind at this first moment of the new year."
Relentlessly, the General showed that all of the chronic national problems traced back to the leadership of the Vietnamese Communist Party. Without solving the root cause, there is no hope to end any of the major national problems. Tran Do wrote:
"We are living among the following series of contradictions:
A. The more [the government] tries to end corruption, the more corruption remains and expands.
In term of public definition, corruption has been severely condemned as "the National Disaster", the "Internal Invasion", etc. In term of organization, the anti-corruption committees consist of important figures. In term of legal measures, we have all kinds of laws, directives; and each session of the National Assembly has been filled with outrage about corruption. Nevertheless, corruption continues to expand and enter those traditionally good social departments such as education and public health. Corruption has reached all crooks and corners. Legal cases involving corruption grow bigger and bigger. The total money lost to corruption is now almost as high as the national budget - tens of trillion dongs. Corruption has also climbed to the highest level of leadership. There are a number of questionable activities of which people have demanded clarification. None were given publicly even though there have been some internal explanation and severe disciplinary actions taken.
[The cause of this contradiction is] Nobody can reach the root cause of corruption. If the root cause cannot be touched, corruption cannot be fought. I has recently been told that at just one ward of a few thousand residents in Nam Dinh province, from 1990 to 1998, corruption robbed them 2,000 tons of rice, almost 100 gold nuggets, and 6.2 billion dongs. Is this exploitation? Is that considered severe? Who are exploiting whom here? Is fighting corruption the same as fighting exploitation?
B. We constantly call for cutback on government workers to simplify the bureaucracy and reduce budget, but from 1993 to 1998, the number of government workers has increased by 11%.
The government know public servants lost more than 30% [to inflation] while the government can only compensate them 20%. The number of head count needs be reduced while the organization keeps bloating up ... I was told recently that the Prime Minister had decided to allow each district to build its own facility for temporary detainment. Some consider them just another form of prisons. So we will have at least 500 more prisons. In the past, we jeered the French imperialist rule of having "more prisons than schools". Why are we doing what we scorn?
We asked people to save: "Saving is the Duty of All Citizens"; but I do not think people in general have much to save. Meanwhile, the government, the only entity that has money to save, keeps wasting the money it collected from the people.
Why should the already excessive [governing] machine keep expanding? How could our budget feed such a system? The root cause of the problem lies in the structure of this system. Why hasn't anybody mentioned it? While our slogan on administrative reform calls for the implementation of the "One Door, One Stamp" policy, our bureaucracy machine creates more doors and more stamps. How could that be ???
C. The more we fight social problems the more they increase - smuggling, robbery, drug addiction, unemployment, prostitution, juvenile vagrants.
For each problem, we issued another order, form another committee, and allocate another budget. In particular, we had, in the past, attributed unemployment and prostitution to Capitalism. There is no capitalism here, then why these problems are even worse than those in capitalist countries?
D. Why do we have so many complaints and accusations wandering in our society. Not to mention tens of thousands of petitions and suggestions the government claims to have received every year.
There are so many stories and tragedies behind the complaints and appeals. The number of cases being solved is so few. The rest are just left to turn into dust.
What does the increase of complaints and accusations reflect? Clearly it reflects people's dissatisfaction. Those ideologists without respect for logic and reality would view them as "just incidents; and those incidents do not reflect the essence of the regime". Alas! Then, what essence do those complaints reflect? And what did "the great essence" of our regime manifest itself in?
I would not, dare not, and cannot express all of my feelings toward the current condition of the country. I just mention a few points that are so obvious that everyone has been worried about and longed for an analysis of."