HANOI, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Police in southern Vietnam detained a dissident Buddhist monk and a group of followers on Saturday to stop them making an independent aid distribution to Mekong Delta flood victims in defiance of a government ban. Penelope Faulkner of the Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau said Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Quang Do, deputy leader of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), was detained in An Giang province and was being held at a customs office.
The worst floods for decades in the low-lying Delta have killed 298 people, including 226 children, and an official of the southern anti-flood committee told Reuters over 50,000 people are going hungry and 100,000 may run short of food. The government said earlier in the week that all aid to Mekong Delta flood victims was welcome but must be channelled via three state-affiliated organisations to ensure supplies are effectively and fairly distributed.
Faulkner said Do and about 30 followers had started distributing aid parcels in Vinh Hoi Dong, a hamlet near the Cambodian border, in defiance of this ruling when police told them they were not allowed to distribute aid marked with UBCV labels. "They were detained in the morning. As far as we know no formal charges have been brought. But they have been banned from continuing the distribution." She said all 30 followers may have been detained, but a customs office official told Reuters only Do and four or five others were being held. He gave no more details and a Foreign Ministry spokesman said he had no information on the case.
When 73-year-old Do, nominated for this year"s Nobel Peace Prize by a group of 30 U.S. Congressmen, attempted a similar aid mission in 1994 he was arrested and jailed for three-and-a-half years. He has said he is not afraid of arrest this time.
PROTEST AHEAD OF CLINTON VISIT
Do"s protest comes at a sensitive time for Vietnam"s communist rulers, who are preparing for a historic visit by U.S. President Bill Clinton in mid-November. Clinton, the first U.S. president to visit Vietnam since the Vietnam War, is expected to raise the issue of human rights, including the treatment of unrecognised religious groups.
Just last month, Vietnam jailed five members of the Hoa Hao Buddhist sect for one to three years for "abusing democratic rights and slandering the government". Their Church said they had complained of abuses of power by provincial authorities.
Faulkner said the police had told Do he could distribute the parcels if he removed the labels, but he had refused to do this. The police were now waiting for instructions from higher up. Do had planned to make the trip with 50 followers but all but 12 had been intercepted before leaving their monasteries. The Buddhist Information Bureau said police stopped 17 of Do's followers from distributing $22,000 of aid last month. The International Red Cross said on Friday it was rushing to get further emergency rice supplies to the Delta and would start a big rice handout next week. Do has spent more than 20 years in detention or in prison for his campaigns for religious freedom and greater democracy and before his latest detention said he was living under "indirect" restriction at his heavily policed monastery in Ho Chi Minh City.
Faulkner said Do' s campaign was driven by his belief that Buddhists should take an active part in welfare programmes. The UBCV was effectively outlawed when the government authorised a single pro-government Buddhist church in 1981. Before leaving for his trip on Friday, Do had not left his monastery, except for monthly medical checkups, since March 1999, when he went to visit UBCV patriarch Thich Huyen Quang, who has been under pagoda arrest in central Vietnam since 1981. Police escorted him back to his monastery that time after two-and-a-half days.