Vietnam to try 38 people over bombing campaign
HANOI - Vietnam announced on Saturday it is to try 38
people for terrorism and anti-regime propaganda as it
gave first details of a year-long wave of bombings and
attempted bombings leading up to last year's 25th
anniversary of the Vietnam War.
The sabotage campaign, which involved 11 separate
groups of infiltrators, was the work of the opposition
Free Vietnam Movement led by US-based Nguyen Huu
Chanh, an official daily said.
The outlawed opposition group used bases in Cambodia
and Thailand to mount its wave of armed attacks, just
one of which actually succeeded, the mass circulation Ho
Chi Minh City youth paper, Tuoi Tre, said.
It was the first time Vietnam's secretive communist
authorities had given details of the arrests, even though
some dated back as far as March 1999.
The only previous official reference was a cryptic
three-line announcement in the communist party daily
Nhan Dan last August which said more than 40 saboteurs
had been detained since March 1999.
But the revelation explained why Washington had warned
US nationals to beware of sabotage attempts in the
run-up to the huge official celebrations for the end of the
war held in Ho Chi Minh City last April.
The 38 defendants, who are soon to go on trial before
the commercial capital's People's Court, were among a
total of 50 people detained by the security services, Tuo
Tre said.
Just three of the defendants were actually Vietnamese
residents -- all of the others had infiltrated from abroad.
One was a US resident: the others were all "common
criminals" who had found refuge in Cambodia and
Thailand after fleeing Vietnamese justice, the paper
charged.
The one successful operation the group had mounted was
a grenade attack on a gathering of followers of the Hoa
Hao -- a Vietnam-based reformist Buddhist sect -- in the
Cambodian border province of An Giang last March.
The two suspects, Le Than and Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy,
had sought to "blacken the name of the Vietnamese state
by suggesting it oppressed religious freedoms," the paper
claimed, although it gave no details of any casualties in
the attack.
The gathering the paper referred to was actually
organised by the sect's outlawed unofficial leadership and
led to a wave of arrests as the authorities unsuccessfully
sought to prevent it taking place.
The paper also gave details of two attempted bombings.
In April 1999, two men it named as Son Tam and Danh
Huong were detained while attempting to plant bombs in
the Mekong delta province of Can Tho.
And the same month defendants Chan Khiu and To Van
Hong were arrested for attempting to plant bombs in a
public park in Ho Chi Minh City.
The paper also spoke of further attempted bombings in
Can Tho province in June and July 1999 and again at
unspecified locations between November 1999 and
February 2000, although it gave no further details.
The publicity around the trial is bound to complicate
Vietnam's relations with Cambodia and Thailand.
The paper said both countries had harboured bases for
the sabotage campaign, although it acknowledged that
Bangkok had expelled the Free Vietnam Movement's
leader.
Last year's first announcement that saboteurs had been
arrested prompted an outspoken tirade against
unspecified "imperialist countries" by Police Minister Le
Minh Houng.
Both Cambodia and Thailand have taken some action
against the Free Vietnam Movement in recent years,
although it has rarely gone beyond deportation.
In May 1998 Thai police announced that they detained
128 of the group's supporters in the Klong Yai district of
Trat province, 385 kilometres (230 kilometres) southeast
of Bangkok.
But the only charges ever pressed were for illegal entry.
And in 1996 and August 1999, Cambodian authorities
announced they had deported Free Vietnam Movement
members after arresting them for attempting to infiltrate
men and weapons into Vietnam.
However in November last year Phnom Penh announced
it would prosecute Vietnamese-American Le Sun Bao
after arresting him on suspicion of recruiting an armed
group during US President Bill Clinton's landmark visit
here.
Agence France Presse - February 4, 2001.
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