Rights watchdog demands donor action over Vietnam dissident
clampdown
HANOI - New York-based Human Rights Watch Saturday demanded action from international donors after what it said
was communist Vietnam's "most intense" crackdown on dissidents in years.
"This appears to be the largest and most systematic effort to intimidate Vietnamese dissidents in a long time,"
said the group's Asia director, Sidney Jones, in a statement.
"Vietnam's donors should strongly condemn this crackdown on open debate of democratic reforms and
corruption."
Security police picked up at least 12 dissidents in dawn raids Wednesday on the eve of a vote in the US House
of Representatives on a landmark trade agreement between the former foes, friends told AFP.
The elderly critics of the regime were subjected to hours of interrogation before being released with a warning
Wednesday evening, a Western diplomat said.
At least two of the dissidents -- former communist party ideologue Hoang Minh Chinh, 82, and military
historian Pham Que Duong, 68 -- were brought in for further questioning Thursday.
Human Rights Watch said the clampdown extended beyond Hanoi to the commercial capital of Ho Chi Minh
City where democracy activist Tran Van Khue, 65, was also detained.
In all some 15 dissidents were picked up over the past week and subjected to searches of their homes and
blocking of their mobile telephones, it said.
Writer Hoang Tien and film producer Duong Hung were taken into police custody for simply visiting a fellow
dissident's house to check on his whereabouts.
The dissidents had sparked the regime's anger by seeking permission to set up an independent anti-corruption
body to campaign against widespread graft in communist party ranks.
Many of them had also written to the government earlier this year protesting a decree which allows dissidents
to be detained for up to two years without charge or trial.
Human Rights Watch said the renewed clampdown gave the lie to hopes of a more liberal line from the
communist authorities following the ouster of hardline party chief Le Kha Phieu at a five-yearly congress in
April.
"Despite all the speculation after the communist party congress earlier this year that a more reform-minded
group was now in power, this is evidence that the new regime may be no more tolerant of dissent than the
previous one," said Jones.
Diplomats have expressed mounting disappointment with the party's new secretary general, Nong Duc Manh.
Despite a reputation for openness during his 10 years as speaker of Vietnam's National Assembly, several
leading religious dissidents have been detained or placed under house arrest since he took power.
The communist regime's human rights record was placed squarely back on the US political agenda Thursday
when the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a Vietnam Human Rights Bill alongside the trade
agreement signed in July last year.
The bill, which ties future US aid to human rights improvements, is thought unlikely to pass the US Senate amid
misgivings in the administration over the tight criteria it sets.
But it sparked an angry reaction from Hanoi which slammed the bill as a "brutal interference" in its internal
affairs that undermined the gradual rapprochement of recent years.
Vietnam is one of the world's largest recipients of foreign development assistance, receiving 1.5 billion dollars in
disbursed aid last year. Only India receives more preferential lending from the World Bank.
International donors are due to meet in Tokyo in November for an annual review of their Vietnamese aid
programmes.
Agence France Presse - September 8, 2001.
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