Hanoi breaks silence over dissident general
HANOI - Hanoi said on Friday that
Communist Party members out of line with official
policy should be punished, but stopped short of
confirming that the ruling party had expelled prominent
General Tran Do.
A party source said on Thursday that the general, a
prominent life-long revolutionary but increasingly
outspoken critic, had been expelled.
The source said the party's ideology department had
issued an internal statement which said Do, who has
called for sweeping political reform in Vietnam, had
been ousted with immediate effect.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh, in a
prepared statement, said: ``As I know, the party cell
where Mr Tran Do has long been a member requested
him to be criticised because any party member who
acts contrary to party rules and platforms should be
punished.''
The statement, issued in Vietnamese by telephone, was
ambiguous. It had been prepared in response to written
questions.
Thanh was not available to clarify her statement.
Since late 1997, the retired Do had issued vociferous
calls for fundamental political reform and for socialism
to be abandoned if that was what was needed to ensure
economic development.
In the past year Do, who was widely respected within
the party, has received at least two home visits from
party general secretary Lieutenant-General Le Kha
Phieu, and one other from a member of the elite
politburo, sources have said.
Senior officials have said publicly that Do, who was
formerly head of ideology at the party's Commission for
Culture, Literature and the Arts, was entitled to his
views.
Vietnam's ruling Communist Party shrouds itself in
secrecy and few people have access to its innermost
workings.
Do's reported ouster came just a couple of weeks
ahead of a crucial plenum when the 170-member party
central committee will gather to decide ``party building
issues'' which will likely include a reshuffle of senior
party and government posts, sources have said.
The most recent official figures available show that in
1996 the party had around 2.2 million members out of
the country's then population of around 76 million.
Reuters - January 08, 1999.
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