BY KEN MCLAUGHLIN, MARK MCDONALD AND DE TRAN
Mercury News Staff Writers
Published Monday, September 7, 1998, in the San Jose Mercury News

Vietnam's communist government took a huge human-rights step this past week when it freed its most celebrated political and religious prisoners. Still, the feeling among many longtime Vietnam watchers, Western diplomats and emigres is that the government fumbled what could have been a public relations coup.

Few experts, if any, saw the release as a harbinger of reform in a country whose leaders are often accused of clinging to Cold War paranoia even as they nudge Vietnam into the 21st century.

``It's very mechanical and pragmatic and not the result of any change in attitude,'' said Douglas Pike, associate director of the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech in Lubbock.

The Vietnamese government's knee-jerk secrecy turned the prisoners' release into a clumsy event reminiscent of the Keystone Kops.

When officials on Aug. 28 announced a mass amnesty of more than 5,000 common criminals, they confirmed that prominent democracy advocates Doan Viet Hoat and Dr. Nguyen Dan Que would be among those freed. But it took the Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau five more days to learn that imprisoned monks Thich Quang Do, Thich Tue Sy and Thich Tri Sieu had also been freed.

The government never did confirm their release.

Eighty percent of Vietnamese are Buddhists; to many, religion is more important than politics. The imprisonment of monks has so outraged the public that emigres and human rights groups were puzzled at the government's secrecy involving its release of the Buddhist leaders. Handled adroitly, the release could have won the heart and minds of many Vietnamese, both in Vietnam and abroad.

``It reflects the nature of the Vietnamese Communist Party, which just loves secrets,'' said Chan Tran of the San Jose-based National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam. ``Even the country's economic data is a national secret.''

Others remain in jail

Pike and other experts believe the high-profile prisoners were freed because they were the focus of heavy lobbying by Vietnamese emigres, the U.S. State Department and groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Meanwhile, scores of other, lower-profile inmates remain in prison.

Carlyle Thayer, professor of politics at Australian National University, offered another theory: Vietnam, he said, wants to ``take the wind out of the sails of the anti-communist Vietnamese community in America, which has mounted a renewed effort to deny Hanoi most-favored-nation (trading) status.''

Vietnam denies having political or religious prisoners.

Nevertheless, a State Department report this year estimated the number at 200.

By its secretive behavior in releasing the monks, Hanoi lost an opportunity to win rare praise from anti-communist emigre groups, where Buddhists have significant clout, contend moderates in San Jose's politically charged Vietnamese community.

``That was a foolish thing to do,'' said San Jose attorney Minh Dovan. ``I can't understand the rationale behind it.''

The government's soft-pedaling the release of religious prisoners seemed to send the message that they were not as important as the political prisoners, said Dovan. It also delivered ammunition to anti-communist emigre groups outside Vietnam looking for ways to continue bashing Hanoi.

Nguyen Huu Liem of San Jose, long a supporter of normal relations between Washington and Hanoi, said that he, too, was bewildered by Vietnam's treatment of the Buddhists' release. Still, Liem, who publishes a Buddhist philosophy magazine, contended that ``the release of these highly regarded monks would relieve much political pressure against Hanoi.''

On Aug. 28, a Friday, after rumors of their pending release had circulated for days, Vietnam's Foreign Ministry finally held a news conference. President Tran Duc Luong was absent; he was in Russia. His assistant read a prepared statement, apparently oblivious to the drama and anticipation awaiting the announcement of the names of prisoners to be released. He wrapped up the speech without offering their names, alluding only to ``the attached list'' of prisoners. No list was attached.

Later, a government official conceded that no list would ever be made public. To learn who was being released, journalists were told to travel to each prison and read its list. And, typically, the government declined to divulge the names of the prisons where specific inmates were held.

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There's no doubt that paranoia remains at the government's highest levels, as indicated in a security report presented in July at a Communist Party plenum.

The report, presented by military officials, listed Vietnam's enemies: The United States was marked Enemy No. 1, and the list included Canada and many of the nations of western Europe.