~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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[Year 2002]

Two Vietnamese Communist chiefs ousted after gangland scandal

Vietnam's Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh said two Central Committee members have been expelled over an explosive gangster scandal after losing their "political and moral values". Manh's comments were made late Monday after Tran Mai Hanh, director general of the official Voice of Vietnam radio, and deputy police minister Bui Quoc Huy were ousted from the powerful policy-making body.

Their expulsion came ahead of Friday's opening session of the newly elected National Assembly, which is expected to rubber-stamp leadership changes decided on during 12 days of meetings by the Central Committee. The pair are the most senior casualties of the Nam Cam mafia scandal that has rocked the party and forced it to close ranks after a series of embarrassing revelations and factional infighting played out in the state-run media. In a closing address to the sixth plenum of the 150-strong body, Manh, without mentioning Hanh and Huy by name, said certain officials had paid a "high price for losing their political and moral values in the fight against selfishness".

"Some officials had overcome numerous sufferings and risked their lives during the past wars of resistance, but they have succumbed to the temptation of illegal money and other things in life ... and even lent a helping hand to criminals," the official Vietnam News Agency (VNA) quoted him as saying. "Those officials have violated the Party discipline and state laws, thus causing indignation among the people and marring the Party's and state's prestige and honour."

Crime boss Nam Cam, who amassed a fortune from his underworld activities in Ho Chi Minh City, was first arrested in May 1995 in the southern commercial capital and sent to a re-education camp. However he was released after two and a half years of his three-year sentence before being re-arrested in December last year on murder, drug trafficking, prostitution and extortion charges. Subsequently, more than 100 officials have been arrested for their links with the 55-year-old "Godfather". The crackdown on those connected to Nam Cam comes against the backdrop of growing concern among international donors that Vietnam's transition to a market economy is being impeded by corrupt officials.

Public anger at graft within the state and party apparatus spilled over into a wave of rural unrest in 1997 which shocked the communist authorities. A long-time Vietnam watcher, Carl Thayer, said that although it is not uncommon for individuals to be ousted from the Central Committee for indiscretions, the timing on the political calendar is significant. "Corruption charges are a good way of undermining someone or someone's patron," Thayer, political analyst at the Australian Defence Force Academy, told AFP. He also warned "the story is still unravelling" and may well play a decisive role in the composition of the yet-to-be announced new cabinet line-up.

The charges against Hanh concerned his tenure as chief editor of the Nha Bao Va Cong Luan (Journalist and Public Opinion) paper and the pressure he put on the state prosecution panel, the Supreme People's Prosecutors, to release the gangster. "Hanh used his position to spread irresponsible and inaccurate information, and in some cases violated the Press Law in an attempt to secure the early release of Truong Vam Cam (Nam Cam)," the Central Committee said in a closing statement carried by all newspapers Tuesday.

Huy, who was also demoted from lieutenant general to major general, was booted out for his "low sense of responsibility and dereliction of management" in allowing the mafia gang to operate with impunity in Ho Chi Minh City while he was its director of police.

Agence France Presse - July 16, 2002.


Vietnam ousts top communist party cadres for mafia links

Vietnam's communist party chiefs said they had expelled two members from its Central Committee for their role in a gangster scandal that has rocked the regime to its core, state media reported. Tran Mai Hanh, director general of the official Voice of Vietnam radio, and deputy police minister Bui Quoc Huy have been ousted from the 150-strong powerful policy-making body, state television said.

"Tran Mai Hanh has been purged for publishing articles advocating the early release of (gangster) Nam Cam," it said, quoting a resolution from the end of the central committee meeting which began on July 4. "Bui Quoc Huy has been demoted from lieutenant general to major general and expelled from the Party Central Committee because, as director of police in Ho Chi Minh City, he allowed the Nam Cam gang to operate unhindered for a long time."

The decision to expel the two senior party members came eleven days after the Central Committee convened to discuss leadership changes ahead of the opening session of the newly-elected National Assembly on July 19. Mafia boss Nam Cam, who amassed a fortune from his underworld activities in Ho Chi Minh City, was first arrested in May 1995 in the southern commercial capital and sent to a re-education camp. However he was released after two and a half years of his three year sentence before being re-arrested in December last year on murder, drug trafficking, prostitution and extortion charges.

Subsequently, more than 80 officials have been arrested for their links with the 55-year-old kingpin, while the country's plethora of normally staid state-run newspapers have reported on the sweeping investigation into the corruption scandal with uncharacteristically frank and in-depth articles. The articles have focused on officials and police accused of protecting the gangster and those who helped secure his release. Observers have said such reports could not have appeared without tacit approval from party factions jostling for power ahead of the secretive Central Committee meeting.

Agence France Presse - July 15, 2002.