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

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Troops cordon off anniversary site amid talk of sabotage effort

HO CHI MINH CITY - Vietnamese troops threw a security net on Thursday around the site where upcoming celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of Hanoi's victory over U.S.-backed South Vietnam are to be held. The deployment of armed police blocking off roads leading to the gates of the former Saigon presidential palace was ostensibly aimed at guarding rehearsals for commemorating the April 30, 1975 victory.

But officials in Ho Chi Minh City, as Saigon was renamed after the communist victory, said sabotage plots by dissidents could not be ruled out. Army engineers with metal-detectors checked the vast square in front of the palace, formerly the seat of South Vietnam's prsidental office, now converted into an meeting place for official reunions. Plainclothes police were also spotted standing on a balcony at the palace as army units, guerrilla veterans and groups representing associations afiliated to Vietnam's communist party began to stream into the palace's grounds. When asked earlier whether the authorities feared sabotage by anti-communist dissidents, the city's deputy mayor, Le Thanh Hai, told reporters "unfriendly elements" might try to disrupt the anniversary,

"Our experience is that, when we mark special occasions, unfriendly bad elements make plans to disrupt or even sabotage activities," he said. Luong Van Ly, a spokesman for the city's external relations department, said "no extra precautionary measures" had been taken to guarantee security. But, as night fell armed police set up road blocks around the palace and traffic was banned on the surrounding streets.

The officials confirmed celebrations had been scaled down and refrained from announcing whether top Vietnamese leaders would attend. They insisted, however, the decision to restrict celebrations to a simple ceremony on the palace grounds instead of holding a grand parade through the city, as originally planned, was not security related. Hai said the ceremony was scaled down to avoid squandering funds on the event.

In Hanoi, Vietnam's capital, police were checking the travelling plans of foreign students. "They came round to our university to ask where we would be this weekend, whether we would be here in Hanoi or whether we would be going away," said Renee Crossley, an Australian student at Hanoi University's EFP Resource Centre. "They are coming back tomorrow and they want to know our final plans," she.

Meanwhile, a dissident Buddhist leader called on the government to proclaim April 30 "a national day of repentance for the Communist Party of Vietnam," in a statement received in Hanoi. The leader of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), Thich Huyen Quang, 83, made the plea in a letter addressed to President Tran Duc Luong and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and the secretary general of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Le Kha Phieu, said the statement sent to AFP by the UBCV in Paris. He called on the Vietnamese leaders to not only "remember all those who were killed or wounded during the war, but also those who are alive but have been deprived of their basic freedoms, human rights and individual freedom."

"If the party has pity for these victims, it should publicly repent" and proclaim a "national day of repentence by the communist party," said Quang, who has been under surveillance for the past 18 years.

AFP - April 27, 2000.