Houston, Texas, USA: More than 200 distinguished guests gathered on July 24, 1999 for the Conference "The Vietnamese's Struggle and the Vietnamese Communists' Reaction" to mark the tenth anniversary of the Free Vietnam Alliance Chapter in this city.
The principal speakers at this special event included Dr. Le Phuoc Sang, Secretary General of the Vietnamese Socialist Democratic Party; Prof. Nguyen Ngoc Bich, Director of the Vietnamese Department of the Radio Free Asia; Mr. Do Hoang Diem, Head of the Southern California Chapter of the National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam; and Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Duc, Secretary General of the Free Vietnam Alliance.
Topics of discussion ranged from the struggle for freedom of religion to the role of the Media in the Vietnamese endeavor to bring about democracy in Vietnam, from the mobilization of international support to the encouragement of Vietnamese participation.
The four prominent speakers presented their assessment of the Vietnam situation which was ripe for radical changes to move the nation forward and to head off an otherwise destructive social and political implosion. Facing the dire consequence of the half-measure reforms in the past decade in couple with the severe effect of the Asian economic crisis, the Hanoi government had been moving backward on its reform, particularly on religious matters and the press freedom. It was the ban on independent press that negated any efforts to weed out corruption. The political vulnerability of the Vietnamese Communist Party was marked by increasing popular discontent and ever louder dissident voices, particularly from within the Party's rank-and-file.
Meanwhile, the overseas Vietnamese democratic movement had been vigorously fortified with the widening participation of Vietnamese youth around the world.
This opposite directions in the relative strength between the democratic forces and the Hanoi regime gave us hope for a democratic Vietnam in the near future, the speakers concluded. It was up to all Vietnamese, they said, to push forth their effort to realize the dream of a free and prosperous nation of Vietnam.
Representatives of various Vietnamese media establishments in Houston attended the Conference and enthusiastically joined other participants in the discussion parts with the four speakers.