HANOI (AFP) - Two of Vietnam's leading dissidents have lashed out at former South Vietnamese vice president Nguyen Cao Ky, who returned home last week after nearly 30 years in exile and endorsed the communist regime he once fought against.
Nguyen Thanh Giang, a geophysicist and pro-democracy campaigner under constant police surveillance, criticized Ky for his support of Hanoi's policy of pursuing economic development while maintaining tight control over dissent.
"Any society that wants to develop has to walk with both economic and political feet. If you just focus on one foot you will fall sooner or later," he told AFP on Sunday.
"If you just develop the economy and forget political reform, society will develop in a handicapped and unsustainable manner and will be vulnerable to big crises," added the 67-year-old from his home in the capital.
Ky, on his symbolic return to Saigon, the city he fled on April 29, 1975, a day before it fell to North Vietnamese troops, said he wanted to help heal the scars of war that have divided the Vietnamese community for so long.
But the former air force general, citing Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan as examples, also said a strong one-party government that provided "stability and discipline" was essential for Vietnam to escape poverty.
Ky, 73, also Thursday launched a virulent attack on pro-democracy activists in the United States, his adopted country.
His comments angered the small dissident community in Vietnam, where criticism of the communist regime often results in persecution.
Hoang Minh Chinh, who at 84 is a veteran critic of the Vietnamese government, accused Ky of "selling out his conscience... his comrades and the Vietnamese people".
"I urge Mr. Nguyen Cao Ky to face the reality of Vietnam today, meet people, talk to poor people and find out whether or not they support what he has said," Chinh told Radio Free Asia over the weekend.
Giang said he suspected there were ulterior motives behind Ky's comments.
"He didn't tell the truth because maybe he wants to please the Vietnamese government and the Communist Party in order to secure a haven here for the rest of his life."
Ky, who will celebrate this week's Lunar New Year festival of Tet with old friends and relatives, has hinted that he is considering a permanent return to Vietnam to live out his remaining years.
His return to the country has also caused deep divisions among the 1.4 million Vietnamese living in the United States, many of whom see his return as a sign of acquiescence to the communist regime.
But Ky, who served as prime minister of US-backed South Vietnam after the 1965 military coup and then as vice president from 1967 to 1971, is unapologetic.
"The people who want to return to the past and talk about the so-called utopia are a very small minority, and mostly they will die soon," he said.
"When my soul yearns for my home country I will take my own path regardless. The protests neither harm nor benefit myself or my country."
Around 2.7 million Vietnamese live abroad. Known as Viet Kieu, many left for the West following the end of French colonial rule in 1954 and at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
APF 18.01.2004