Chiharu Kamimura, The Washington Times
October 16, 1998

A Vietnamese dissident recently released after five years in prison for distributing pro-democracy magazines yesterday expressed the need for democracy in his country.

"We don't have freedom of democracy, freedom of expression," said professor Doan Viet Hoat, 55, in a speech broadcast over Radio Free Asia yesterday. "We don't have freedom of political activities."

"We not only lack democracy or freedom, but we are becoming one of the 10 poorest countries in the world," said Mr. Hoat.

While the communist government in Hanoi still holds absolute political power and bars any opposition, Vietnam is undergoing transition from a centrally planned to a more market-oriented economy. Its estimated annual GDP per capita is about $300.

"This is not only a shame for our country, but is a very bad thing. As far as our history is concerned, being in such a poor condition, I think all of this is because of the communist regime," said Mr. Hoat.

He was sentenced to 15 years in prison and five years of house arrest for publishing pro-democracy magazines in 1993. He was released Aug. 3 as part of an amnesty for 5,219 political prisoners on Sept. 2, Vietnamese National Day.

He flew to Bangkok on the same day and later was reunited with his family in the United States.

Mr. Hoat also had been imprisoned for more than 10 years after the Vietnam War by the Hanoi-based communist regime, which conquered South Vietnam in 1975.

In his most recent detention, Mr. Hoat was in a cell in Thanh Cam prison in the south. He was not allowed to receive medical treatment for his kidney stones, nor any books, magazines or letters sent by his family.

"I was not to keep any pen; neither any piece of paper, written or blank," he wrote in a report in August.

"Not a single piece of paper with written or printed words could be left untouched; they tore them into pieces fearing that they might convey messages to me."

At the end of 1996, jailers blocked the back window of his cell with cement and bricks to isolate him, the report continues.

"It became so hot that I had to wear a wet shirt, which I ironically called a `personal air conditioner,'" he wrote.

According to the 1997 State Department Human Rights Report, while the Communist Party moved to reform the constitution and internal debate, the government's human rights record continued to be poor.

In Vietnam, there are underground movements by rural people, students, officials and intellectuals as well as the revolutionists who have been working in the South since 1975, Mr. Hoat said an interview yesterday with The Washington Times.