by Vu Kim Chung
Vietnam's former Prime Minister Pham Van Dong has launched a scathing attack against graft and abuse of power within the ruling Communist Party, saying they posed a serious threat to the regime.
In an article published in the party daily Nhan Dan (People) on May 15, 1999, Dong also raised the spectre of "peaceful evolution," a term used to refer to subversion instigated by forces opposed to Vietnam's political system and culture. But Dong, in a rare remark, said the threat of "peaceful evolution" -- or quiet subversion -- came from within the party itself. Dong, now in his mid-90s, served as prime minister for more than 33 years until 1987. Although frail and blind, the country's revered elder statesman is still lucid and plays an active role behind the scenes.
"There are many bad people who occupy high positions in the party, state organs and mass organisations who have power in their hands. They are degraded, they are chasing power, money and benefits," Dong wrote in the front-page article.
"The combination and interaction of the four dangers which are sabotaging us....could threaten the existence of our regime and revolutionary cause," he added.
Hanoi defines the "four dangers" as corruption, poverty, deviation from socialism and "peaceful evolution." Dong said reports that 70-80 percent of all party members were clean were inflated, and that the number of corrupt cadres was higher. He said many people were losing confidence in the party and that an upcoming criticism and self-criticism campaign needed to show Hanoi was serious in rolling back notions that graft and degraded lifestyles among party members were ingrained. The entire party of 2.3 million members started to undergo criticism and self-criticism from May 19. Self-criticism is a way of admitting to mistakes in communist societies, although Vietnam's campaign will be its largest in more than a decade. Analysts have said the party would find it tough to burnish its image with the two-year campaign because graft and abuse of power had become so common across Vietnam, home to 79 million people.
The graft curse has prompted hand-wringing among senior party members and sparked violence in some rural areas and discontent across the country. Many people see this as a return to the system they fought 50 years of wars to abolish. Allegations of graft in high places also routinely circulate on the Internet and are seen as a growing hypocrisy of a government whose members increasingly are becoming the political and economic elite on the backs and labour of an impoverished peasantry.
Dong also bemoaned the lack of young people, intellectuals and blue-collar workers joining the party.
"These three types of people don't want to join the party because they see many...members as undeserving," he said.
If the situation persisted, the average age of party members would rise from the current 44 until the organisation was full of old people, Dong wrote.
Vietnam Party Outlines Major Anti-Graft Scheme
A senior Vietnam Communist Party official outlined a major two-year campaign aimed at rooting out corruption and cleaning up the ruling body.
Politburo member Pham The Duyet, in an interview with the official Nong Thon Ngay Nay (Countryside Today) newspaper seen on May 21, said the criticism and self-criticism campaign would be split into three stages and include the party's 9th National Congress in early 2001. At a plenum earlier in 1999 the party Central Committee, concerned that moral decay threatened its rule, decided all 2.3 million party members would undergo the criticism sessions in a bid to eradicate widespread graft and abuses of power. Self-criticism is a standard way of admitting mistakes or uncovering irregularities in communist systems.
But analysts have said the campaign, Vietnam's biggest since 1986, would have little impact due to the endemic nature of graft in the country. Duyet said that from May 19 until September 2 -- Vietnam's national day and the 30th anniversary of the death of revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh -- party building will be key and the process of self-criticism and criticism at central levels and in major cities will be begun.
"This first stage will be ended by a review of the implementation of Uncle Ho's will by the entire Party," Duyet added. Ho Chi Minh's will, written in May 1969, said criticism and self-criticism were the best ways to develop unity and solidarity with the party, and called for the body to foster revolutionary virtues. Duyet said the campaign's second stage, due to be completed on February 3, 2000, which marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Vietnam Communist Party, will combat moral decay.
"The target of this stage will be fighting against negativeness, corruption, law violations and other remaining cases," he said. The campaign was due to be concluded on what would have been Ho Chi Minh's 111th birthday on May 19, 2001.
"The 9th National Party Congress is scheduled to take place in the first quarter of 2001 and this will be the occasion for the entire Party to accelerate the campaign to make the Party clean," Duyet said.
Unrest Simmers in Restive Vietnam Province
Meanwhile, rural unrest still simmers in Vietnam's troubled northern province of Thai Binh, some two years since peasants in the area first directed their wrath at corrupt local officials, an official local newspaper said. An article in the Thai Binh newspaper, seen on May 21, said some hotspots remained and charged that disgruntled Communist Party cadres were fuelling confrontations.
"Citizens filing complaints account for two-three percent of the total commune households, but why do they persist in confrontation that destabilises politics and social security?" the newspaper said. Some unrest was backed by dismissed party members who felt they had been unfairly treated after investigations into unrest in the province, it said. Violent protests over corruption and local abuse of power swept Thai Binh, 80 km (50 miles) south of Hanoi, from May 1997. At the height of the troubles in November of the same year, farmers in Quynh Hoa commune, Quynh Phu district, held around 20 police hostage for five days.
The ruling Communist Party, seriously unsettled by the unrest in Thai Binh and growing rural discontent across other provinces, vowed to get tough on officials abusing positions of authority. The official Vietnam News Agency reported earlier that week that in the first four months of 1999 some 1,539 Thai Binh officials had been suspended after investigations into wrongdoings of corruption and graft in 219 communes.