Vietnam's returning business pioneers
Vietnam has enjoyed some of the fastest economic growth
rates in Asia over the past decade, thanks to the government's
decision to open the country to foreign investment.
Tens of thousands of Vietnamese who fled during and after the
Vietnam War have now started to come back to their home
country to set up businesses.
It has not been easy to overcome official mistrust among
Communist Party hard-liners, but the returnees are now making a
huge contribution to the country's development.
Anoa Dussol Perran, who came
back 10 years ago, is a case in
point.
Arriving in Vietnam rather
dramatically - with her own
helicopter - she had lived in
France since early childhood, but
decided to become involved in
building a new resort on the
southern Vietnamese coast.
"In Paris my job is real estate, so
I have a passion to build and re-build old houses," she said.
Good for business
Many returnees are based in Saigon - Vietnam's commercial heart
- where money is the new religion.
But in the slower-paced capital, Hanoi, nothing much seems to
have changed.
Immaculately-uniformed guards march slowly up to the imposing
mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, communist Vietnam's founding father.
Long lines of people, mostly
veterans and farmers, queue up
to pay silent homage to the
waxen corpse preserved inside.
Yet even here the communists
are having to welcome back
those who fled abroad - once
branded as traitors - because
they are good at business.
They even have a special
committee to manage the
returnees, known here as Viet Khieu.
The group's vice chairman, Le Tien Ba, said some local people
were not happy to see the wealthy overseas Vietnamese coming
back.
"That's because Vietnamese who have spent time abroad don't
always know how to behave properly," he said.
What he means is that they flaunt their wealth, in what is still a
very poor country.
Deep-seated mistrust
But the communist authorities are uneasy for another reason -
the suspect political loyalties of those who once fled from
Vietnam.
Nguyen Ngoc My, who owns a furniture workshop in Saigon, says
that business is good, and his company has won contracts to
furnish some of Vietnam's biggest hotel and office projects.
But he admits he is careful to avoid competing directly with
non-Viet Khieu, for fear of arousing resentment.
Mr Nguyen spent 10 months in a re-education camp before
fleeing to Australia in the 1970s.
He said he hoped the government would try to accept him, and
take up the help offered by the Viet Khieu.
Other Viet Khieu, like Anoa Dussol Perran, feel that it is time the
government put aside its suspicion of the returnees.
"I would like the government to consider that we are also...
Vietnamese," she said.
"I would like to be a real Vietnamese. I would like to have two
passports, as a French citizen and a Vietnamese citizen."
She will probably get her way.
Heartfelt loyalty to the Communist Party is fading, and the
government's legitimacy depends on raising people's living
standards.
For that, it has learned from bitter experience that it needs the
help of everyone - even those it once viewed as its enemies.
Colonel Tong Viet Duong - the 80-year-old veteran of Vietnam's
long independence struggle - now lives in a very different
Vietnam from the one he fought for.
"It's difficult to avoid having very rich people in Vietnam today,"
Mr Tong said.
"But the main target of our Communist Party now is to create
prosperity, a strong nation and an equal society - so sooner or
later I hope the people will be equal," he said.
By Jonathan Head - BBC News Service - July 7, 2003.
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