You have not passed away for you are still alive. But writing this obituary for you is still appropriate.

Appropriate to what?

To your directive 67-CT/TW.

Even little fish like us at this cafe cannot imagine a person with your stature--a decades long Party career, among the most knowledgeable of Marxism-Leninism (Mao's interpretation)--had to muster 36 words to name the title of your directive:

"Directive on the increment of guidance and management of counter measures to defeat the plots and ploys of the adversary forces that are using means of communication and electronics to oppose and ruin us."

Even an individual like yourself can be made to say: "In past years, under the leadership of the Party, our people have joined together in striving for a successful 'doi moi' effort. The trust of cadres, party members, and the people in the Party's doi moi policy and its leadership have been reinforced and escalated."

You also boasted in this directive:

"Facing our great accomplishments, adversary forces from inside and outside the country are further combining efforts and increasing activities against us. They focus heavily on the use of public communication facilities such as the Vietnamese-language programs of the Voice of America, Radio New Horizon, RFI, BBC, and other means capable of collecting and disseminating information quickly such as books, documentation, fax, telephone, etc. Their aim is to divide us, to shake the faith in our cadres and party members and in all of our people."

Dear brother Tung, we don't care about how many [gold] "bars" you have collected for your family in your long "revolutionary" career, but if these words are the indication of all the wisdom you have accumulated, then what a waste.

(By the way, I need to take a break here and inform all my friends at the cafe of the latest news from Hanoi: the Medical Team of the Party Central Committee disclosed that Dao Duy Tung has had blood cancer for the last eight years. In the past, the Soviet Union provided treatment. Now, the "recurrence" of the disease has driven Tung into a comma.

Coma is a term used for the physical body. In this use, comma applies to the state of mind which can no longer think clearly or think at all.)

Your mouth is used to saying: "The leadership of the Party is reinforced and escalated." What does this mean? Your Party today is seen by the people as a little cult at a road side temple in the countryside. How proud can you be?

Please just stay quiet. Don't issue the kind of nonsense directives that will give the world good reason to damn your Party, and to cause the wrong image of the country and people of Vietnam.

Now, take some ginseng, sit up and listen.

"According to Mr. Le Ngoc Hoan, Deputy Minister of Transportation, foreign investment in this area has reached more than US$1 billion. The current need is US$5 billion to build infrastructure, roads and bridges. Financial aid from international institutions and governments are an important resource."

For awhile now, many countries have helped us greatly on almost every level. How can you continue that voice of old hatred.

And now for the next news item:

Former ambassador to the United Nations, Trinh Xuan Lang, was assigned to the Chairmanship of the Vietnam-U.S. Friendship Association in Hanoi. At the inauguration ceremony on May 31, 1996, he said the immediate task for the organization is to create local branches and to start cultural exchanges. There will also be relationships in other areas between Vietnam and the U.S. These are the imperialists that used to be on our list of the most evil...

Phan Tien, kinship of Le Duc Tho and eldest son of Interior Ministry General Mai Chi Tho, was sponsored by several U.S. petroleum "ugly capitalists," who interceded with the U.S. liaison office in Hanoi so that the lad could be treated in the U.S. Today, he is breathing the air of freedom in the U.S. Every day, he is tended by a team of doctors trying to rebuild his bone marrow system. An artificial insemination technique is also used to help his family have children. The bad thing is this could be the next generation of rulers to be sitting on the heads of seventy million 70 Vietnamese, all the way into the third millennium.

Mr. Mai Chi Thi ran out of words to praise the U.S. generosity, civility, and technology...He will never forget the American philanthropists helping to prolong the "communist" lineage.

Are there any imperialists left for you to hate, brother Tung? Why do keep preaching the message of hate and animosity.

The truth is after the first two sentences of the usual rhetoric, the rest of the your directive is simply a net to capture freedom of speech.

........

Now for more important matters.

Also from Hanoi, on June 3, 1996 the Party Central Committee held its 11th Plenum and on June 22, 1996 the 8th Party Congress will start.

This 11th Plenum, right before the 8th Congress, is to settle the personnel question. In the friendly language of people in this cafe, the Party Central Committee met to select the frogs that Do Muoi had rounded up.

Let me explain. In recent conventions at the city and province level in which party members selected their local leaders, voted on delegates to the Party Congress and nominated candidates to the Party Central Committee, Do Muoi attended most of these gatherings with a list of new delegates that he knew could be molded into a herd of loyal servants.

Upon returning to the North, Do Muoi revealed the list and summoned others to further identify elements that would readily obey the Party--to shoot at innocent people, the National Assembly, or to run tanks over students and intellectuals calling for a "doi moi" in democracy. In short, to identify butchers to defend the "revolutionary heritage."

This selection process was treated seriously in light of the recent incident of Nguyen Ha Phan. That boy was fully groomed for the eventual position of general-secretary of the Party because:

- He is considered a southerner. Elevating him to the top chair would shut up complaints that all top positions are reserved for northerners.

- Next, most importantly, he is a southerner who opposes Vo Van Kiet.

- Last, he used to be the Party boss of Hau Giang province and had built quite a network in the Mekong delta, which is the feeding breast for the Party Central Committee. With a general-secretary from the southern six provinces, there is hope that tax revenue can be fully retrieved from this area.

Do Muoi was so confident of his preparation last time that when rumors about Nguyen Ha Phan were raised within the Party, Do Muoi responded in his strange language:

"Even if they put Nguyen Ha Phan in a mortar and pounded him day and night, they wouldn't be able to smash him."

Well, not until Vo Van Kiet publicized his undeniable history. Do Muoi then spoke without remorse:

"Who would think there was a traitor in the top leadership of the Party?"

Who would think? Who would think?

.....

Now they are desperately trying to select a new frog. But which one?

- Nong Duc Manh?
- Le Kha Phieu?

For months, stories have been deliberately blown up and let fly in public about this Hmong from Cao Bang being Ho Chi Minh's illegitimate child. The story was left half-clothed for the same titillating effect of an exotic dance. With one leap, they catapulted Nong Duc Manh to the Chairmanship of the National Assembly.

The day his ascension was televised live, people pulled their hair in resentment and bewilderment: How far can the country sink? How could they let such a guy sit up there to defecate on all talented intellectuals, brave soldiers, and righteous clergy?

What a fake. After the government moved to Hanoi, one day, two sisters from the Tay minority appeared at the door of the residence of the president, asking to meet with Ho Chi Minh. He was busy with national matters so the two sisters were led to a shelter on Hang Bong street where the Party Central Committee first resided. Minister of Public Security, Tran Quoc Hoan, smelt the scent of an unusual gift and soon found his way to their shelter. A few days later, people in the neighborhood found a woman hung at the Party Central Committee office. Then they found the corpse of the other in Ho Tay pond. Autopsy results showed that the victim's head was pierced with a 20cm nail. She turned out to be Mrs. Ho Chi Minh and the older sister of the woman hung on Hang Bong.

To verify these details, interested parties can contact comrade Vu Ky and comrade Nguyen Kim Cuong (who married a sister of Mrs. Pham Van Dong ). Mrs. Ho Chi Minh's family from the northern highlands submitted a complaint and petition to the National Assembly asking for justice. They demanded the Party Central Committee to punish the murderer and raise Mrs. Ho Chi Minh's two children, one boy and one girl.

The whole matter was buried by the Politburo and the Public Security Ministry, including the history of the two children. All evidence, including the perpetrator Tran Quoc Hoan no longer exist, but the son of this unfortunate Tay woman is definitely not Nong Duc Manh. May the ghosts of the Tay sisters be witness to my sincerity and break the necks of those impersonators...

About Le Kha Phieu, the teeny eyed, diminutive general. According to psychoanalysis, this is the likes of a corrupt mandarin.

Phieu used to be the Deputy Commander of Military Zone 9, under Le Duc Anh. In a Party Convention for the Zone, the Inspection Committee on delegates' records kicked Le Kha Phieu out of the meeting hall for:

- embezzlement
- womanizing
- loss of personal firearm

In front of delegates from the whole Military Zone 9, the little Le walked out with his head down, an unprecedented scene in the history of military Party conventions.

During his time in Cambodia, greed drove him to the robbery of many thousand year old Buddha statues and pearls from temples. Also under direction of Le Duc Anh, supreme commander in Cambodia at the time, he spared no measures to round up and eliminate patriotic Cambodians after labeling them Pol Pot spies. The cry of the victims have reached heaven...

To identify who did what on the Cambodia front, interested parties can contact Colonel Ta Minh Kham of the Veterans Association of Ho Chi Minh city, or Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Si of the Veterans Association of Song Be province.

Before the 11th Plenum, the Politburo invited their advisors over for discussion and ideas. Among them, advisor Nguyen Van Linh was pushed forth by the hard-liners as a direct challenge to Vo Van Kiet.

Both Vo Van Kiet and Nguyen Van Linh [a former general-secretary] are high ranking party members. The Saigonese is at least one person to note that Nguyen Van Linh is a leader who abandoned responsibility three times:

- In 1934, the communist movement was badly attacked. Tran Van Giau was arrested. The Party asked Nguyen Van Linh to rebuild the local Party base. He "ran." Hoang Quoc Viet, later entering the South for other missions, told the whole story to the Southern Area Party Command.

- In 1948, Linh was assigned to work with Nguyen Ho to build the Party Command for the special zone Saigon-Cholon, under severe harassment from the French. Linh, again, ran from the assignment with the excuse of a recent marriage to his wife, Bay Hue. Nguyen Ho and Le Van Sy had to carry on the task. On September 21, 1948, Le Van Sy, Secretary of the City Party Command lost his life while Nguyen Van Linh's head was still resting on his wife's butt enjoying his honeymoon.

- And being afraid of Nguyen Binh, Nguyen Van Linh ran all the way down to Zone 9 and worked at the office for People-Army relations, avoiding all the hot spots on the eastern side of the South.

Isn't that right, brother Vo Van Kiet ?

It was rather strange to see that as soon as the Ho Chi Minh City Party Command introduced Vo Van Kiet as a new member in its ranks, Nguyen Van Linh sprang up in the middle of the city convention and threatened to resign because the personnel matter was decided without his opinion as an advisor. What was so wrong with Vo Van Kiet in Linh's opinion?

Yes, Kiet did kill. When Kiet was just a captain with the 316th Commando Regiment, he did carry out his superior's order sentencing a number of reactionary subjects to death.

But this cannot even compare with the number of wrongful killings Nguyen Van Linh has ordered himself. When he was secretary of the Saigon City Command in the early days of the resistance against the French, Linh fabricated evidence and condemned members from several communist party chapters of District 17 on the far side of Chanh Hung and Rach Cat to death. He gave the order to kill and float their bodies down the river for the crime they did not commit: using communist bases to do work for the National Restoration Alliance. Other comrades were tortured to the point of permanent injuries in prison camps run by Public Security of the Saigon Special Zone, headquartered in Long Thanh. Many comrades committed suicide!!!

Nguyen Van Linh should have unmasked the murderer in Cambodia that he knows very well: Le Duc Anh, after being made supreme commander of the Cambodian front, massacred numerous members of the Khmer communist party. He ordered the Cambodian office of the Vietnamese Intelligence General Bureau to kidnap at night the whole Kampong Cham City Party Command for interrogation and elimination, including secretaries from the district level up, the chairman of the provincial people's committee, deputy secretaries and members of the city party command. The secretary of Kampong Cham wrote his farewell letter and ended his own life with poison. The irony is this whole Party Command was selected and brought to Cambodia by the Vietnamese communists to help them rule this province. It is hard to find any betrayals more disgusting than those committed under Le Duc Anh's direct orders. To know more details on human beings who wrongfully died in Cambodia, check with brother Tu Van, head of the Military Intelligence General Bureau.

Le Duc Anh, Nguyen Van Linh, Le Kha Phieu now join forces to accuse Vo Van Kiet of deviation [from socialism]. This task used to be undertaken by Nguyen Ha Phan, the high-climbing betrayer. They want to dominate the Politburo by isolating Vo Van Kiet and leading Nong Duc Manh by the nose like a calf. Then, they would have enough power to treat any dissension the way they always did at Ho Tay, District 17, Kampong Cham, etc.

Duong Bach Mai once said that if the communist party is the party of the working class then it will be messy like a pot of stew. As for this frog selection, such is not the case. All of these frogs look very much alike. Once selected to the Party Central Committee, they just sit there, croaking the refrain "industrialization, modernization" until Do Muoi dies.

The Saigonese has already said the Vietnamese Communist Party today is like a little cult at a roadside temple. Party discipline already well decomposed, its cadres' loyalty change as fast as that of kids. Don't worry though. Soon the whole Party will follow the path of Ho Chi Minh some years ago, going abroad...

Brother Vo Van Kiet! Why don't you tell your wife to return to you that thing of yours she has taken and give it to the Politburo and Central Committee of the Vietnamese Communist Party. Come in here and join us at the cafe, listening to the people ponder current events.

THE SAIGONESE