After Tran Do, a retired general of the Vietnamese Army and former member of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) Central Committee and former Vice Chairman of the National Assembly , sent a 13-page letter to the VCP in January 1998 to analyze the nation's desperate need for freedom and democracy, an orchestrated attack on the General's name and his family was launched by the Party.
While none of his points of concern was discussed, the name Tran Do - in various combinations of his initials and titles - has been continuously blasted on the state-run newspapers and magazines. Elder cadres from the previous generations and many of the General's contemporaries were summoned and told to gang up on him.
For the very first time, the Party also posted on its Nhan Dan (People) Daily a letter, claimed to have been written by a Vietnamese in the US, lecturing Tran Do on, among other things, self-respect and Party's discipline. The same letter was later sent from Vietnam to the Voice Of America broadcast.
Judging from the tone of the letter, most observers now suspect it was written by the Party's Ideology and Culture Office itself.
Mr. Tran Do was not alone in this confrontation, however. Since the Party's attack on him began, various intellectuals and Party members have voiced their disapproval of the Party's tactics and called on the Party to heed the General's constructive and sincere proposals.
These opposing voices are, of course, not printed on the Nhan Dan or any others of its kind. They, however, have been widely distributed in the underground press. Following are excerpts from the letter by Tran Dung Tien, a life-long Party member since 1945 and veteran of the Vietnamese Army, regarding the Party's attack on Gen. Tran Do.
The April 1998 issue of the Thong Tin Cong Tac Tu Tuong (Information and Ideology Tasks) Magazine in my hand moved me from surprise to anger, and to shame. How could the Ideology and Culture Office of the Vietnamese Communist Party Central Committee solemnly print the letter by "a person" who signed as Hoai Viet from California. Who is he? Is he a real flesh and blood human being in the US? That needs to be looked into but let's leave that matter until later. What angered me the most was how an office of the Party Central Committee could allow in its own periodical such foolish preaching and sarcastic insults on one of its own members.
Who is the victim of such horrible insults? He is a senior revolutionary who escaped death so many times in various imperialist prisons and battles in the North and South [Vietnam]. He once was a member of the Party Central Committee and Vice-Chairman of the National Assembly for many terms.
Who is the fellow that loudly preached on the Party's paper? Someone who pledges allegiance to no country. He was so impolite that his open-letter to Gen. Tran Do was addressed "To T.D.". He arrogantly and insultingly called the proposal, which comrade Tran Do sent to "the Party, the National Assembly, and the Government..." to discuss the affairs of the country and the Party, as a "crying to mom letter".
How much more mischievous and sleazy can he be. (Yet our Party's paper showcased this letter in high regard!?). He must be either insane or extremely ignorant to compare the genuine and highly responsible proposals of this well-respected senior Party member with those of [the treacherous historical figures like] Le Chieu Thong and Nguyen Anh. It was strange to see him claim Tran Do as his personal idol and then quickly cried out "my idol T.D. was completely shattered". He must have had a lot of self-respect and knowledge of the Party's by-law to preach so arrogantly: "As a Vietnamese, you [Mr. Tran Do] must know what self-respect is; not to mention as a Party member, a Party cadre. [You must] respect the rules which you pledged allegiance to the day you joined the Party."
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He admitted "They [the US] have relatively more freedom and democracy because they have high level of education, strict and fair legal system, stable and prosperous society, strong economy and defense, export surplus, etc." but refused to use the same analytical mind to see that the US has achieved all of those things because they have had real freedom and democracy. Comrade Tran Do desperately wishes exactly those [for Vietnam], and for such goal he offered the "drops of blood wrought from his heart" in his discussion of the nation's and the Party's affairs.
A few days ago (three months after Hoai Viet issued that letter), Voice of America (VOA) announced they had just received a copy of such letter sent from Vietnam. They believed the letter came from the Ideology and Culture Office of the Vietnamese Communist Party's Central Committee itself. [Initially,] nobody wanted or dared to believe such conclusion due to [the admittance of] its malignancy and baseness. However, reading the letter again critically, one begins to see why. The letter did not discuss the content of comrade Tran Do's writings but simply spit out insults on a wide range of people, from Tran Do, Hoang Minh Chinh, Bui Tin to those of previous generation like Nguyen Ho, Nguyen Van Tran, etc.. The writer did not have the [general] character of someone living abroad for along time. He seemed to have very little understanding of America or of our compatriots living in America. He, however, knew the Party inside out. He even matter-of-factly concluded "Therefore, T.D. has violated the [Party's] principles."
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The letter also revealed the paranoid mentality and the pathetic fear [of the writer]. He solemnly set up the hypothesis "Let's look at a realistic example. What if we granted freedom and democracy tomorrow and the domestic reactionary elements, under the Christianity camouflage, held protests everywhere ... And they continued to make other demands such as the disbandment of the VCP, and the occupation of the President Palace, etc.". The author was frightened to the point of stuttering: "For example, if freedom of the press was granted tomorrow morning", what would happen if the reactionary forces immediately got financial help from foreign states to "establish a newspaper in each province, maybe three newspaper in major provinces, several newspapers in capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city ?"
My God! Is our regime hanging on such a thin hair? Or is it a soap bubble? Such a view is now endorsed by the Party's top office in charge of ideology and culture ?
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Recently, Mr. Tran Trong Tan, the former head of the Ideology and Culture Office of the VCP Central Committee was given the green light to summon the elder cadres in Ho Chi Minh City to listen to the article he posted on the March 18, 1998 issue of the Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon) newspaper, which criticized comrade Tran Do with a bunch of old, trite, and bland reasoning of the old days. Mr. Tan also mobilized these elders to join his effort. But when they asked for the details of Gen. Tran Do's writing, even Mr. Chanh, the incumbent Deputy to the Party Secretary of the City, did not know. What could be more arrogant and irresponsible! What could be given to the gang-intimidation tactic beside contempt and condemnation?
Back to the "Crying to Mom letter". How could they use such insolent language to describe this respectable man? After his article "The Nation Condition and the Role of the Communist Party" was distributed, comrade Tran Do has received hundreds of letters, faxes, and phone calls from [people in] Hanoi, from other provinces and countries, from a number of leaders of the Party and Government, from other elders cadres, and from members of the foreign press. Among the messages were also letters from members of the US Congress and Australian Parliament, expressing their admiration for his action. He has spent a lot of time responding to request for interviews and letters from around the world.
With comrade Tran Do's permission, I include here one of his response (which I copied from Prof. Nguyen Thanh Giang who helped translate it into English)
Hanoi, May 1, 1998
LORETTA SANCHEZ
Member Congress of the United States
1529 Long worth Building
Washington DC 20515 - 0546
Dear Ms. Sanchez,
Thank you very much for your letter dated March 26, 1998. I have been greatly encouraged by your kind words in the letter.
As you may know, after more than ten years of implementing "Doi Moi" throughout our country, we have overcome impoverishment caused by the backwards and war destruction and made great progresses in the economy. Living standard of our people has improved quite a bit. However, we are still not satisfied with what we have achieved.
Intellectuals and veterans like us find ourselves, together with leaders of Vietnam Communist Party and Government, responsible for seeking ways to speed up the "Doi Moi" so that it goes deeper, larger and gets more effective. By this way, the democracy reform progress will be increasingly pushed up so that issues of corruption and social evils will be eliminated more thoroughly.
I am very glad to recognize that not only domestic and overseas Vietnamese people but also US Congress members like yourself concern about the development of our country, Vietnam.
Once again, I would like to express my deep gratitude to you and kind-hearted Americans like yourself.
Could this be called another "crying to mom letter" ?
Stop such sleazy tactic against the revolutionary Tran Do. While in office he was one of the greatest contributors and sat among the Party and Government leaders with deepest and widest knowledge. Today, he is a well respected member of the father generation.
Respect him and other selfless and noble minds that are bravely rising above the treachery tricks of the recalcitrant opportunists to save the people, the nation, and the Party.
Tran Dung Tien
26/95/10 - Group 5. Ward Thuong Dinh, District Thanh Xuan, Hanoi
Phone 8.586321