Vietnam dissident's arrest seen as warning
HANOI - The arrest of a leading Vietnamese
dissident in Hanoi was a sign the ruling Communist Party would
tighten controls and clamp down on voices it deemed subversive,
party officials and diplomats said on Thursday.
Geophysicist Nguyen Thanh Giang, 62, was arrested on March 4 in
possession of documents considered anti-communist, party sources
said.
Analysts and foreign diplomats said the move showed the party was
determined to stamp out dissent, and that the arrest of Giang would
send a clear threat to the growing ranks of dissatisfied senior party
members.
``It's pretty significant,'' said one diplomat in Hanoi. ``It's the first
arrest of a peaceful senior dissident for two or three years.''
Official Vietnamese comment on Giang's case was not immediately
available, the foreign ministry told Reuters.
Giang's whereabouts are currently unknown.
Sources said Giang, who is believed not to be a party member, had
been a constant thorn in the communist party's side and run afoul of
the authorities several times in recent years.
In May 1998 he was questioned for several days after distributing an
anthology of poetry considered subversive, the sources added.
He had previously written major texts, including the 1996 ``Human
Rights -- A Thousand-Year Aspiration'' which inflamed the party
through its claims that Marxism did not recognise human rights and
that Vietnam was a dictatorship.
Sources said Giang was also in contact with General Tran Do, a
retired life-long revolutionary who has called on the Communist
Party to ``change or die.'' Do was expelled from the party in January
and is believed to be under heavy surveillance.
Several other senior party and retired military figures have voiced
support for Do, and condemned the party's heavy-handed treatment
of the man who in the last year has become Vietnam's most
prominent political dissident.
Diplomats said Giang's arrest was a clear message to Do and his
supporters to cease anti-party activities.
Carl Thayer of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in
Hawaii said Giang's case showed Hanoi wanted to send a warning
that jail loomed for those who dared criticise the regime.
The Tran Do affair had sparked mounting criticism of the party by
veteran members, said Thayer, a long-time Vietnam watcher.
``There has been a whole range of these (dissenters) occuring bit by
bit like water drops and somebody has decided it's time for the
security apparatus to pull the plug as a warning...you are going to go
to jail,'' he told Reuters.
The Communist Party monopolises power at all levels of society in
Vietnam. In February it published a resolution that ordered party
members to toe the line or face strict punishment.
Another diplomat said hardline suppression would, in the short term
at least, prevent dissidents from banding together to produce a
united front.
``The policy of the party to dish out heavy-handed threats does
contribute to keeping (party opponents) fragmented,'' he said.
Reuters - March 11, 1999.
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