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The Vietnam News

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Vietnam's highest-ranking dissident dead at 78

HANOI - Vietnam's most prominent dissident, Lt. Gen. Tran Do, who broke ranks by criticizing the ruling Communist Party he had faithfully served for nearly 60 years, has died at 78 after a long hospitalization.

"Tran Do died on Friday in this hospital. That's all I can tell you," an official at Huu Nghi (Friendship) hospital in the capital city told Reuters on Saturday. Human rights groups had said Do suffered from gangrene and diabetes and was admitted to hospital last June with serious bleeding of the urinary tract. He is believed to be survived by a wife and at least two children. Do was a decorated military veteran who led campaigns against the French and Americans and a former top ideologue of the party that maintains an iron grip on Vietnam.

In recent years, he became a prominent advocate of political reform in the southeast Asian country of 80 million, which resulted in his expulsion from the party in January 1999. He had declared the party had to "change or die" and ditch socialism if that would boost economic growth. In late 1997, he began writing letters to party leaders advocating free elections and freedom of expression. He began the crusade after unrest over official corruption in his hometown province of Thai Binh, south of Hanoi, broke out that year.

Despite reports of harassment and house surveillance by the authorities, Do refused to be silenced and in 1999 was said to be seeking permission to publish a newspaper. His memoirs were confiscated by the government last year, who accused him of spreading documents with subversive content. "Our fight for democracy (in Vietnam) in the last 15 years or so has been more meaningful than the fights for (Vietnam's) independence decades before," Do was quoted as saying in a Web site of overseas Vietnamese.

Officials at the Press Department and Ministry of Defense could not immediately be reached for comment on Do's death. It was not clear whether Do would be buried with military honors, as would be expected for his rank and service. "He's probably the most prominent in the series of revolutionaries. He's attracted a lot of sympathy and support," said Carl Thayer of the Canberra-based Australian Defense Force Academy, who has written extensively about Vietnam.

"His outbursts really shocked the party," Thayer said, noting Do was an unusual dissident with his military and ideological credentials. Nguyen Thanh Giang, another Hanoi-based key dissident and a close friend of Do, was quoted on the overseas dissident Web site as saying: "Do's death was the result of oppression." Giang called for a public commemoration for Do, saying that would aid the cause of other Vietnamese revolutionary veterans seeking to promote democracy in the country.

Do's defection from the party led other prominent officials to also turn in their party memberships. His death leaves a vacuum, observers say. Thayer said he knew of no one of Do's stature who might take on the mantle.

By Christina Toh-Pantin - Reuters - August 10, 2002.