Dishing The Dung Party veterans accuse powerful leader of graft
Doan Nhan Dao doesn't look the sort who would
take on one of the most powerful figures in
Vietnam. Clad only in blue-and-white striped
boxer shorts, the 73-year-old Communist Party
veteran quickly pulls a singlet over his head to
greet unexpected guests. Yet despite his humble
appearance, this feisty old man with Ho Chi Minh
whiskers has helped trigger a corruption probe
against Pham The Duyet, one of five members of
the politburo's elite standing committee.
Allegations against Duyet were aired during the
Communist Party plenum in July and are now being
investigated by party leaders. That information
didn't come to light, however, until an unknown
sender recently faxed to the REVIEW a copy of
the source of the allegations--a letter that Dao
and 10 other elderly comrades wrote to party
chiefs in May.
Dao confirms that he and his comrades wrote the
letter, but stresses that none of his group had
sent it to the REVIEW. In it, the group allege
that Duyet used state money to acquire homes in
Hanoi for himself and his children, and let
others in the capital's bureaucracy do the same.
They also demanded that he and Dinh Hanh, a
Hanoi official, be the first to declare their
assets as the law requires. The letter also
gripes that in the time it takes the bureaucracy
to deal with such complaints, "buffalo dung
turns to mud."
Although the party has been loath to discipline
its senior members for living apparently beyond
their means, it will have to take this complaint
seriously. Dao's group, many of them party
members for 50 years or more, join a growing
band of people outraged over government
corruption. Because of their prestige and their
numbers, "the party would ignore them, or
attempt to humiliate them, at its peril," says
Bill Turley, a Vietnam specialist at Southern
Illinois University.
Their complaints, at any rate, are being
studied. "The party's central control commission
is considering these questions," a top
government official says, adding that they
"can't conclude immediately." Duyet couldn't be
reached for comment. The Foreign Ministry, which
handles foreign reporters' queries, said there
wasn't enough time to respond.
Charges of abuse of power for personal gain
among Vietnam's top officials are not new. But
punishing one of them would be.
"The state calls corruption a national
disaster," Dao says, punctuating his sentences
with a pointed finger. "We struggle from the
grassroots publicly against people who abuse
their rights, break the law, get land from
people and the state and trade land illegally."
He says he worked for many years as an expert on
the Hanoi People's Committee and knew Duyet, who
headed the Hanoi party committee until May 1996.
When Duyet resigned his post that year, many
felt he would lose his politburo and central
committee seats at the party congress in June.
His performance was deemed lacklustre, and he
had failed to narrow the economic gap between
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, says Carl Thayer, a
Vietnam specialist at Australian National
University. Instead, he held on, though his
politburo rank dropped to 18 (out of 19) from
11.
It was therefore a surprise to many that Duyet
soared to the top in December when the party
chose a new chief and reshuffled politburo
positions. He jumped to No. 5 and joined the
standing committee--an apparent reward for
coping with peasant protests in northern Vietnam
last year.
But he didn't take over the seat without a
struggle. Politburo rivals backed Nguyen Van An,
considered a clean reformer and more intelligent
than Duyet. (An currently ranks 11th.) The most
likely explanation for the leak of the Dao
group's letter is that opponents of Duyet have
yet to yield, and disclosed the allegations for
their own purposes.
By Faith Keenan - Far Eastern Economic Review - August 13, 1998.
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