Vietnam Dissident Bloggers Warn: We Fight on despite 20-year Jail Threat

Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung targets three political blogs in further crackdown.

Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung adjusts his headphones during the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Bangkok (Reuters)

An arrest warrant carrying the threat of a long jail sentence for the people behind three dissident blogs in Vietnam has been issued but bloggers Dan Lam Bao (not his real name) and Tran Hung Quoc said they would not give up - no matter what the government threw at them.

"We have no choice. Twenty years in jail to reclaim our rights as human beings is a price we are willing to pay if that is what it takes," said Dan.

A string of similar cases has already resulted in the death of the mother of one blogger, who set herself on fire in protest at the detention of her daughter in August. Dang Thi Kim Lieng, 64, died on the way to hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.

Her daughter, Ta Phong Tan, a former police officer who wrote a blog on social issues, was arrested in September 2011 on charges of propaganda against the state.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has turned up the pressure on bloggers and ordered police to crack down. He specifically targeted Dan Lam Bao, Quan Lam Bao and Bien Dong.

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Nguyen said the bloggers should be seriously punished. "They slandered the country's leadership, fabricated and distorted information, agitated against the party and the state, and caused suspicion and mistrust in society," he said.

According to Enemies of the Internet by international watchdog Reporters Without Borders, Vietnam is the second worst country in the world for internet freedom, just behind China.

Cartoon depicting communist cops and  Vietnam's court system colluding to silence Vietnam's human-rights activists

Arbitrary detention

Human Rights Watch has accused the government of "arbitrarily" detaining dozens of netizens "because of their work as citizen journalists, environmental advocates, anti-corruption crusaders and human rights defenders."

If arrested the bloggers working with Dan Lam Bao (People Doing Journalism), Quan Lam Bao (Officials Doing Journalism) and Bien Dong could add to the growing number behind bars.

Bloggers claim that the government is responsible for even more sinister methods to shut them up. "Policemen close to the PM made death threats to us," said Tran Hung Quoc, editor of Quan Lam Bao.

"[Authorithies] summon bloggers - especially those who are well-known - for interrogation and then threaten them to set an example and intimidate those who may be thinking of supporting the free movement of independent media or joining our independent blogging community," added blogger Dan Lan Bao, who preferred to remain anonymous for security reasons.

The Communist party, which has run the country since the end of the Vietnam War in the mid-70s, finding it harder to control the voices of dissent that are fast spreading across the web.

A report by market research company Cimigo revealed that Vietnam has the fastest growing internet population in southeast Asia. One in three Vietnamese has access to the internet.

Of the three target sites, Dan Lam Bao publishes mainly political articles. Quan Lam Bao has a more sensationalist approach to political news and often targets the PM and his private life. Bien Dong is dedicated to Vietnam's long-standing quarrel with China over territory in the South China Sea.

Before the arrest warrants were issued, the government, whose censorship firewall was easy to breach, said experts, used cyber attacks against dissident blogs.

"We have been attacked continuously through IT technology since a week after we were born," said Tran.

"Authorities employ various means such as DDoS [distributed denial of service attacks], viruses, firewalls and spyware," said Dan.

The campaign against them has backfired, however, and since the arrest warrants were issed, the audience for the three blogs rocketed.

"Thanks to the prime minister's care, we have had more than 1.5 millions views. He elevated us from being an unofficial source to the status of bright star in the web firmament," said.

Prepared to face repression

Dan Lan Bao's daily number of visitors doubled to 500,000 on the day the warrants werer issued, the bloggers claimed.

"[We] are prepared to face repression and imprisonment rather than lead the life of a dumb muzzled dog that dares not to bark and remains subservient to those who abuse their power," was one comment posted on the Dan Lan Bao page.

"No one can stop us fighting against the corrupt organisations that rule our country," echoed Tran.

They urged Western governments to help their campaign.

"No one can win a battle alone. We need the West to do more and more to help freedom of speech in Vietnam," said Tran.

"This government does not care about how much suffering it inflicts on our people but it does care much about foreign investments, economic deals and trade with third countries. Possible diplomatic and economic sanctions imposed by the West for human rights' violations are a big deal to authorities," Dan said.

The crackdown on the blogs might be a consequence of the stock market tumble that followed the arrest of tycoon Nguyen Duc Kien, the founder of one of Vietnam's largest banks, said observers.

Kien was arrested in August for suspected economic violations.

Dan Lan Bao had speculated that Kien's detention was not due to financial wrongdoings but because he fell victim to a power struggle at the top of government.

The prime minister is reportedly at odds with President Truong Tan Sang and the PM's daughter is said to be close to the arrested banker.

"The prime minister's order against us is a sign of victory for our struggle for free expression and independent media as we must have been touching the right spots to trigger this reprisal," said Dan.

Tran added: "If we have to die for a better Vietnam, we would be ready for it."

Umberto Bacchi

Danlambao’s Editorial Letter in Response to the Prime Minister’s Gag Order 7169

On September 12, 2012 the Office of the Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, issued an administrative order of sanction - file number 7169 - accusing “Danlambao” of “publishing information that is false, fabricated and untruthful to slander the leadership of the nation, to agitate the people against the Party and the State, to cause doubts and create bad publicity reducing the people’s trust in the state leadership”. The Order also directs the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Information Communication and Media to focus on investigations, and strictly discipline any organizations, groups or individuals who affiliate or in contact with Danlambao.

This accusation is nothing new and expected by Danlambao. We are awaiting to see how the Ministry of Public Security, together with the Ministry of Information Communication and Media would utilize their army of staff and the state’s powerful machinery, funded by our people’s tax money, to lawfully, transparently and publically prove on state-controlled media all the accusations contained in the Prime Minister’s Order no. 7169. 

However, this administrative order also directs all ministries, state agencies, local officials, and public servants “not to read, to use, to spread nor to disseminate any information from Danlambao...” This particular order is a direct violation of the freedom of expression enshrined in our constitution and a violation of the international human rights convention that Vietnam is a signatory member. All public officials, Ministries’ staff members, and public servants, first of all are citizens of Vietnam, and secondly are the people’s representatives within the system. In order to fulfil efficiently and effectively their public duties, all state members must be entitled to the rights to access and assess freely all multi-dimensional information about the state and its system of which they are a component. These rights would enable them to recognize which criticism or proposal is right so that they could correct and improve in the public interests. After all, it is their public duty to listen to the people and their aspirations. 

Danlambao does not accept and will not succumb to any state order aimed at muffling our mouth, blindfolding our eyes, and deafening our ears. No government or any political party in power has the right to choose and to decide for the people what information they can read, listen and exchange. Therefore Danlambao will continue to provide information and multi-dimensional views of all the people, and to create a forum where it is our readers who will report news, and inform and represent their own perspectives, and be heard over matters of concern which affect their daily lives. As readers and also citizen reporters, we at Danlambao, will not continue to allow our own opinion and thoughts to be “filtered”, “distorted”, “replaced”, “dripped” or “blocked” by any “sieve”, “sifter”, “net”, “funnel”, “megaphone” or “mouthpiece” or “gag order” of the State. That is the commitment from our community members of news blog, Danlambao, to each other. 

Danlambao does not side with any faction within the Party nor allows ourselves to be influenced by any “foreign” or “hostile” forces -as accused in the Prime Minister’s order-. In choosing “which side” to represent, Danlambao decides to stand with the people. Danlambao chooses the public interests to guide its editorial philosophy. And it is in the best interests of our nation that Danlambao operates and establishes its guiding principles. We do not condone any group of political elite or power to influence or control Danlambao. It is the nation that we serve, not any political party. This is Danlambao’s second commitment to our readership. 

Since the gag order 7169, which was publically broadcasted on state-controlled television and other state media in Vietnam, the number of pageviews on our news blog has soared to 500,000 pageviews the following day. In response to this apparent failure to threaten people to stop accessing and reading Danlambao, the authorities increased maximum firewalls in all regions and at all times. This measure succeeded in bringing down the number of pageviews back to 280,000 on average per day. 

In the coming days, Danlambao is calling upon all our contributors, readers, news gatherers and supporters to continue sending a clear message to the Prime Minister that we are committed to our mission for freedom of expression and will not allow the State to abuse their power to deprive us of our human right by each of us: 

- introducing a new friend to our community collective news blog, Danlambao. 

- helping someone who does not yet know how to circumvent firewall. 

- posting a positive and constructive comment to encourage others to hope for the best of our nation. 

- scribbling the address of our blogspot <danlambaovn.blogspot.com> on Dong (Vietnam currency) bills (so that it can be exchanged and reaches other potential readers far and wide across our country). 

- writing it on any walls, back-alleys or corner of the streets. 

- drawing our Danlambao symbols: white pigeon (for peace) and green heart (for love) on tables at coffee shops, restaurants, public walls, sidewalks etc. 

Together, we affirm that Danlambao is yours. Danlambao is ours. And together WE will walk the challenging journey with other free, independent journalists and bloggers to bring the truth and uncensored news with integrity and credibility to all. 

Danlambao Editorial Team 

Related Links: 

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/vietnam-pm-orders-fresh-crackdown-bloggers-17223472 - .UFIVdRhhMy5

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/385003/20120917/vietnam-bloggers-arrest-jail-dan-lam-bao.htm

http://danlambaovn.blogspot.com/2012/09/cam-ket-cua-danlambao-gui-en-cac-ban.html - .UFd_XRhhNBp (in Vietnamese) 

Papers refute RBA chief

NEW internal documents have contradicted parliamentary testimony by Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens that the bank knew nothing about the Securency banknote scandal before it became public in 2009.

Key parts of Mr Stevens' testimony about the RBA's knowledge of the scandal - he has claimed bank officials knew nothing of Securency's alleged corruption before Fairfax's expose of the scandal in 2009 - conflict with newly uncovered documents.

Governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens. Photo: Andrew Meares

The scandal involves RBA companies Securency and Note Printing Australia, charged last year with bribing foreign officials to win banknote contracts.

The sensitive documents that contradict Mr Stevens' parliamentary testimony, and raise further questions about the governance standards at the RBA and its subsidiaries, come from the central bank's files.

They show that in 2007:

¦Reserve bank assistant governor Frank Campbell was told how Securency engineered a dodgy business deal to hide a $492,000 payment to an allegedly corrupt Malaysian arms dealer.

¦The arms dealer's company wrote to Mr Campbell demanding further payments and stating it had convinced the ''prime minister and the Malaysian cabinet'' to give out contracts.

¦RBA auditor John Klincke allegedly queried a Securency manager about payments to an agent working for Vietnam's spy agency, and was told in response: ''Well, if I asked you if you worked for ASIO, you wouldn't tell me, would you?''

Fairfax can also reveal the RBA - unwittingly or otherwise - hampered the federal police bribery inquiry by failing to inform police for several months in 2009 of incriminating documents it held regarding its subsidiaries' activities.

At the same time RBA was withholding crucial documents, senior RBA officials approved Securency transferring millions of dollars offshore in payments that authorities now suspect included large bribes.

British authorities are still investigating if the money sent offshore by Securency after the federal police began its probe was used to pay bribes in Africa.

In response to 18 questions from Fairfax, the RBA released a statement saying: "The Bank has sought to deal appropriately with all the issues that have arisen. It has co-operated fully with the legal authorities, notifying them of the existence of relevant documents and providing documents when requested. There has been no attempt by the Bank to hide information from the authorities.

"Even if it were ultimately to be concluded, with the benefit of hindsight, that incorrect conclusions were drawn from the various investigations, the Bank and the NPA Board relied on the information available at the time and external legal advice. The Bank's executives acted in good faith and with integrity. It is completely without foundation to suggest otherwise."

The fresh revelations have sparked further calls for an inquiry into the RBA's handling of the bribery scandal.

Liberal MP Tony Smith, who has questioned Mr Stevens at hearings of parliament's economics committee, said his fellow committee members must take up the governor's recent offer to make a special appearance to answer questions and table documents.

"This must happen. It would be ridiculous if further questioning was postponed on this," Mr Smith said.

Committee chairman Labor MP Julie Owens declined to comment on the prospect of recalling Mr Stevens for a special hearing.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Treasurer Wayne Swan have refused to comment on the scandal and have supported Mr Stevens' handling of it.

But Greens MP Adam Bandt has  repeated his call for a royal commission on the bribery scandal to uncover "who knew what when at the highest level of the RBA".

Independent senator Nick Xenophon said a full parliamentary inquiry was required "given the apparent inconsistencies between statements given by those at the Reserve Bank's most senior levels".

Mr Stevens told the committee last month that the RBA did not know of the corruption concerns involving Securency until they were exposed in the media in 2009 and that the RBA had given relevant documents to the AFP in a timely manner.

However, confidential RBA files reveal that during 2007 RBA assistant governor Frank Campbell was told that Securency artificially inflated a contract to hide a secret $492,000 to a Malaysian arms dealer, Abdul Kayum, who had earlier been sacked over corruption concerns.

Records show  the issue was also raised at a Note Printing Australia board meeting in September 2007 attended by Mr Campbell and dual NPA and Securency chairman Graeme Thompson,  a former RBA deputy governor and inaugural chief of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. This revelation follows another in Fairfax last month, of an explosive bribery memo sent in June 2007 to the central bank.

That  memo was written by NPA company secretary Brian Hood and sent to RBA deputy governor Ric Battellino. It revealed  Kayum was working for both NPA and Securency and allegedly paying  bribes to win  contracts.

Mr Stevens told the committee last month he could not recall when he first had read Mr Hood's memo.

Kayum was charged in July last year with paying bribes. Several former Securency and NPA executives have been charged with bribery.

There has been no inquiry into the conduct of RBA officials, including those on the boards of Securency and NPA, in connection to the scandal.

Despite Mr Kayum having been sacked over corruption concerns, Mr Thompson advised the board meeting that "Securency would, on the basis of legal advice, pay the agent [Kayum]" the commission hidden in the inflated contract.

In November 2007, Mr Campbell was sent a letter by Kayum's company demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars in outstanding commissions. The letter was sent almost six months after Mr Campbell was warned that Kayum may be paying bribes and that he was to be sacked.

RBA statement in response to 18 questions from The Age
The Reserve Bank is committed to transparency on these matters with the community and the Parliament through the House of Representatives Economics Committee.  In his Statement to the Committee on 24 August, the Governor said that the Bank was taking steps to seek the permission of the Court to allow the Bank to table a broad range of relevant documents.  This work is progressing. It is important that the legal process is respected and that the release of any documents is done in a way that does not jeopardise the right of the accused to a fair trial.

The Bank has sought to deal appropriately with all the issues that have arisen. It has cooperated fully with the legal authorities, notifying them of the existence of relevant documents and providing documents when requested. There has been no attempt by the Bank to hide information from the authorities.

Even if it were ultimately to be concluded, with the benefit of hindsight, that incorrect conclusions were drawn from the various investigations, the Bank and the NPA Board relied on the information available at the time and external legal advice. The Bank's executives acted in good faith and with integrity. It is completely without foundation to suggest otherwise.

The Age

Vietnam Loses Glow as a Market Darling

Bad Bank Loans Cloud Country's Outlook; Talk of Bailout

The landscape in Vietnam is littered with stalled construction projects. Above, unfinished villas in Hanoi.

Until a few years ago, Vietnam was one of the world's hottest emerging markets.

Now it faces an urgent task: fix a beleaguered banking system or watch its economy continue to slip behind faster-growing neighbors.

Piles of bad loans following the financial crisis have dragged down growth in Vietnam and left banks weakened and reluctant to lend.

The government recently acknowledged that nonperforming loans—many made to inefficient state-owned companies—could be as high as 10% of the banking system, substantially higher than reported by individual banks. Fitch Ratings analysts think the number is as high as 15%.

A record number of firms are declaring bankruptcy, and in the sprawling urban areas encompassing Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the landscape is littered with stalled construction projects as builders run out of cash or put on the brakes as demand for condominiums and office space dries up.

Laborers a year ago worked at a Hanoi construction site, but the real-estate market has worsened since then.

Vietnam fought off rumors in recent days that it was seeking an International Monetary Fund bailout for its banking system. An IMF spokeswoman said no requests for aid had been made. State Bank of Vietnam Deputy Gov. Le Minh Hung said in a statement on the government's website that the country had no intention of seeking a rescue.

However, the IMF and others have been advising Vietnam on how to implement a domestically financed bailout that would restore its banks to health. In its latest economic review the fund said that "quick and comprehensive action" was needed to solidify weak banks and put the economy on more solid ground.

Fears over Vietnam's banks intensified in August when one of the country's most prominent tycoons, Nguyen Duc Kien, was arrested for allegedly improperly lending money to real-estate projects. Efforts to reach Mr. Kien, who now runs a number of private investment funds and owns Hanoi's main professional soccer club, have been unsuccessful. Stocks dropped in the days following the arrest, and the Ho Chi Minh Stock Index is down 18% since the beginning of May.

Vietnam shares fell 2.2% Monday, led by selling in property-related stocks after state media reports suggested real-estate developers are trying to cut prices to boost sales of apartments.

Song Da Thang Long Joint Stock Co. is among the local developers that have struggled. In July it secured an additional loan of 300 billion dong, or around $14 million, from the state-owned Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam to help complete its sprawling, 13-tower U-Silk City development in Hanoi's suburbs. The project began in 2009 at the height of Vietnam's property boom but quickly fell victim to the subsequent property slump and soaring interest rates.

Some question whether this cash injection is enough to keep the project alive, and Song Da Thang Long's stock price has fallen about 60% in the past six months. Chairman Nguyen Tri Dung has said the firm is trying to arrange additional credit lines with other lenders. He couldn't be reached for comment.

Economists warn that Vietnam has entered a dangerous cycle where banks, saddled with bad debts, are unwilling to lend, making it harder for businesses to invest. That feeds into slower growth, which in turn makes it harder for companies to pay back loans, again harming the banks.

The result is that Vietnam's economy is likely to grow below its potential for years to come, unless stronger steps are taken to clean up the banks, economists say.

"I don't think there's any quick fix to a problem like this, as you see in the West. It takes time to work through a solution" to a banking crisis, says Gareth Leather, an economist at Capital Economics. He figures Vietnam's economy will grow at closer to a 5% rate in coming years than the 8% the country enjoyed through much of the previous decade. Although higher than growth rates in the West, 5% is considered slow for a developing Asian country like Vietnam and might not be fast enough to generate sufficient jobs to keep its growing population employed.

The government this month revised its forecast for 2012 growth down to 5.2% from 6% previously.

Vietnam's leaders have acknowledged that a fix is needed. Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in March approved a three-year restructuring plan for the banking sector designed to strengthen the country's largest banks and encourage a series of mergers among smaller lenders, but officials appear uncertain about how to put the blueprint into effect.

Plans to launch a "bad bank" to buy up distressed assets have been discussed, but a foreign investor familiar with government discussions say implementing such a solution is being delayed by Hanoi's lack of expertise in managing a modern banking system.

People familiar with government plans say there are proposals to let foreign banks increase stakes in domestic banks from the current cap of 20% in some instances to as high as 49%. Another plan would allow majority stakes, but with a time limit of five years, after which the foreign banks would have to divest.

Government officials didn't respond to requests for comment.

It isn't clear if foreign banks will be interested in increasing their commitments without having the influence of being a permanent majority owner. There are more than a dozen foreign banks with stakes in domestic banks, including HSBC Holdings PLC, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. and Société Générale.

Many of the foreign banks are dealing with troubles at home, and are said to be reluctant to double-down without assurances of more control over local partners. One foreign banker said at least some of the foreign banks are looking to exit Vietnam at the right price, rather than put more money in.

While the banking situation has deteriorated, Vietnam has tackled other problems by taming double-digit inflation and stabilizing its currency, in part through interest-rate increases. Vietnam has relatively little foreign debt and its trade deficit has shrunk this year.

Some think the government might be able to afford to run a bailout of its banks by itself. The government's debt-to-GDP ratio is about 44%, and the annual budget deficit has fallen to less than 4% of GDP last year from 9% in 2009, well below levels of financially strained economies in Europe.

But because of the large role the state plays in industry, the government has so-called contingent liabilities to back up debt in state-owned institutions. Fitch Ratings figures those liabilities equal an additional 10% of Vietnam's $125 billion GDP.

In the meantime, investors are waiting for more action to resolve the banking situation. Louis Nguyen, chief executive of Saigon Asset Management, which invests in a broad range of Vietnamese companies, said his firm tried to launch a fund last year in conjunction with a large Vietnamese bank to invest in problem loans.

But the fund was put on hold when he found the banks were unwilling to acknowledge problems on their books and sell loans at any sort of discount to their face value.

WSJ

Corruption crackdown in Vietnam bodes well for investors

A number of high-profile arrests in recent weeks demonstrate the government’s determination to bring corporate governance up to international standards.

Vietnam is on track to be one of the next emerging market success stories, according to locally based experts, despite explosive political events in recent weeks.

The Vietnamese market was one of the fastest risers in the early part of this year, with the MSCI Vietnam index gaining 30.41 per cent between January and March.

However, on 20 August the president of the Asia Commercial Bank was taken into custody amid allegations of corruption, with further arrests following soon after. As a result, the market tanked by 10 per cent in a matter of days.

Performance of index over 6 months

Source: FE Analytics

It seemed to confirm investors’ worst fears about emerging markets – that they lack transparency and are prone to corruption – but Min-Hwa Hu Kupfer, chairman of the Vietnam Holding investment company, says this is far from the truth.

"The government is stepping up its anti-corruption drive, which is a positive," he said. "They recognised the damage that was being done to the image of the country as a place to invest in and they are reacting to it."

"As overseas investors, we think if they are moving against corruption it is very good news and we welcome it."

Juerg Vontobel, founder of Vietnam Holding, adds that overseas investors have actually reacted positively to the developments, adding to their positions, while it has largely been domestic investors who have wavered.

"The market hasn’t actually reacted violently; it lost an initial 15 per cent and then a further 5 per cent, so relatively modest falls. Foreign investors have seen it as a positive overall," he explained.

Marc Djandji, senior vice president at Indochina Capital, which runs privately managed portfolios in the region, says that the crisis changes nothing about the country’s potential.

"The demographics are good, the country is opening up to foreign investment, and it fits well into a China plus-one strategy – these are all factors that support Vietnam from the point of view of foreign investors," he said.

Djandji explains the country is the world’s largest exporter of pepper and the second-largest exporter of rice. It also exports huge amounts of coffee and seafood.

He cites the low correlation of the country to major international markets as extremely attractive for investors.

"It has not been within the same cycle as the world economy, it is still a domestic-driven, retail-driven economy. Foreign investors represent only 20 per cent of trading."

Data from FE Analytics shows that the MSCI Vietnam index has a low correlation to the FTSE All Share, MSCI Asia Pacific ex Japan and MSCI Emerging Markets indices.

Correlation of indices over 3-yrs
Name FTSE All Share MSCI AC Asia PacifiC ex Japan MSCI EM (Emerging Markets) S&P 500
MSCI VIETNAM -0.07 0.24 0.21 0.04
Source: FE Analytics

Djandji also says that the recent arrests should not deter investors.

"Our view is ‘let the market panic’; it’s positive if the government is getting a handle on corruption," he said.

Thomas McMahon

Vietnamese journalist who exposed police corruption sentenced to 4 years in jail for bribery

HANOI, Vietnam — A Vietnamese journalist who bribed a police officer as part of an undercover investigation into corruption was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday, while the officer who accepted the money got a five-year sentence, state-controlled media reported.

Hoang Khuong

Relatives and colleagues of Hoang Khuong stood up and cheered after he made a statement to the court proclaiming his innocence, according to a report by his paper, Tuoi Tre. The reaction appeared to be a rare, albeit modest, show of public defiance toward the state and its Communist rulers, who critics say are launching a renewed crackdown on the media.

All media in Vietnam is tightly controlled, but free speech activists say enforcement is getting tougher by a government that fears that hard-hitting journalism and social media are eroding its grip over the people. There are currently at least five journalists and 19 bloggers being held on various charges in Vietnam, according to the international watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

Khong, who has been in jail since February, gave a police officer a bribe of $710 in June last year in order to get an impounded motorbike returned.

The 37-year-old paid the bribe as part of reporting on police corruption and later wrote two articles about it that appeared in Tuoi Tre, triggering public anger at the police. Judges at the two-day trial in southern Ho Chi Minh city sentenced him to four years in jail, and the officer who took the money to five, according to a report in Tuoi Tre. Four other people were also sentenced to prison terms in connection with the case, including Khuong’s brother-in-law.

In a speech before his sentence was handed down, Khuong said he “had honest motives in detecting and fighting corruption in line with party and state policies” and that while he may have committed a journalistic error he had done nothing criminal.

Representatives of Tuoi Tre were not permitted to give evidence at the trial. The paper’s editors declined comment.

Editors and journalists in Vietnam do not have to submit everything they print or broadcast to state censors, but are well aware of which topics they are to avoid. In 2008, a journalist for Thanh Nien newspaper was sentenced to two years in prison for his coverage of a high-profile corruption case at the transport ministry.

Washington Post

Inflation, Graft Hamper Vietnam

The nation slips precariously down the rankings of a global competitiveness index.

Policemen on motorcycle in Hanoi, June 11, 2010.

Vietnam has plunged 10 notches in an annual ranking of its financial and business environment following a year marked by skyrocketing inflation, a lack of access to credit, and “rampant corruption,” a global economic foundation said in a new report released Thursday.

The country fell to 75th from 65th a year ago and 59th in 2010, making it the second-lowest ranked among eight of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) covered by the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum (WEF) annual report on global competitiveness.

The report ranks 144 countries based on the strength of 12 different factors, including institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, and market efficiency.

“Inflation approached 20 percent in 2011, twice the level of 2010, and the country’s sovereign debt rating worsened,” the report said of Vietnam.

“In an effort to stem inflation, the State Bank of Vietnam tightened its monetary policy, thus making access to credit more difficult,” it said.

Vietnam grappled with double-digit inflation until April this year. It hit 23 percent in August last year, forcing the government to push up interest rates. An official told parliament last week that inflation was at around 6-7 percent at present.

The WEF said that infrastructure, strained by rapid economic growth, remains a major challenge for Vietnam, despite some improvement in recent years, with particular concerns about the quality of roads and ports.

“Public institutions are characterized by rampant corruption and inefficiencies of all kinds,” the report said, adding that respect of property rights and protection of intellectual property are “insufficient,” according to the business community.

“Private institutions suffer from poor ethics and particularly weak accountability,” it said.

The WEF noted that the health of Vietnam’s macroeconomic environment had plummeted in the last year after making significant gains the year before, calling it a “sign of its fragility and extreme volatility.”

Among the most problematic factors for doing business in Vietnam were access to financing, inflation, and inadequate supply of infrastructure, the report said.

The WEF listed Vietnam’s “few competitive strengths” as a “fairly efficient” labor market, a large market size, and “satisfactory” public health and basic education.

“The challenges going forward are therefore numerous and significant and will require decisive policy action in order to put the country’s growth performance on a more stable footing,” it said.

China
China dropped slightly in its global competitiveness rank to 29th from 26th last year, returning to its ranking of 2009 after several years of “incremental but steady progression,” the report said. The country had ranked 27th in 2010.

“Although China’s decline is small … the deterioration is more pronounced in those areas that have become critical for China’s competitiveness: financial market development, technological readiness, and market efficiency,” it said.

The WEF said China’s lack of domestic and foreign competition in terms of market efficiency was “of particular concern.”

But it said that the country’s macroeconomic situation “remains very favorable,” despite a long period of high inflation.

The report praised China’s moderate budget deficit, low government debt, and healthy gross savings rate.

It also commended the country’s sovereign debt rating, high marks in health and basic education, and enrollment figures for higher education, though it said improvements should be made to the quality of education and the disconnect between educational content and business needs.

China’s competitiveness performance was notably weakened once sustainability measures are taken into account, the WEF said, especially in terms of environmental sustainability.

“Although some political actions toward environmental improvement … have been taken, the country continues to suffer from high emission levels … and the agricultural sector places a great deal of pressure on the environment,” the report said.

The WEF noted that social stability was only partially measured for China, as the country does not report data related to youth unemployment or vulnerable employment.

“However, the available indicators show a somewhat negative picture, with rising inequality and general access to basic services such as improved sanitation remaining low.”

The report listed access to financing, inflation, and policy instability amongst the most problematic factors for doing business in the country.
Other factors included an inefficient government bureaucracy and corruption.

Cambodia
Cambodia improved its global competitiveness rank to 85th from 97th last year and from 109th the year before, the report said, although it did not provide details on the reason for the rapid improvement.

It listed corruption, an inadequately educated workforce, and an inefficient government bureaucracy as among the most problematic factors for doing business in the country.

Joshua Lipes

Vietnam Arrests Ex-Shipping Boss Amid Economic Backlash

Vietnam said police arrested the former chief of a debt-laden state shipping company, the latest of several executives detained amid public furor at the nation's faltering economy.

Duong Chi Dung

Duong Chi Dung fled Vietnam in March, when police began investigating allegations of corruption at Vietnam National Shipping Lines and detained several top executives.

Vietnam's economy has stumbled badly after a decade of rapid growth, prompting the country's Communist leaders to reassess the role played by its state-owned enterprises.

The arrest comes after a pair of high-profile detentions last month. Banking mogul Nguyen Duc Kien was arrested Aug. 21 for alleged improper lending at three small private-investment firms he runs.

That was followed by the arrest of Ly Xuan Hai, the chief executive at Asia Commercial Bank, which was founded by Mr. Kien in the 1990s but which he left in 2010. Mr. Kien and Mr. Hai couldn't be reached to comment.

The arrests partly reflect growing pressure on Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung from within the Communist Party to clamp down on businesses, especially state-owned firms, which were perceived as ignoring management rules during Vietnam's boom years, according to diplomats and policy observers.

Figures such as President Truong Tan Sang "have sought to curtail some of [Prime Minister] Dung's freewheeling ways, including promotion of high growth rates with little attention to costs," said Carlyle A. Thayer, a professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy, where he specializes in Vietnam and Asia security issues.

In late 2010, Premier Dung defeated a leadership challenge in part by admitting his role in allowing the mismanagement of state-owned firms, particularly shipbuilder Vinashin, which nearly collapsed under debt of about $4.5 billion.

Nine Vinashin executives were sentenced this year to prison terms of up to 20 years on charges of mismanaging state resources. Since then, Premier Dung and other top leaders have attempted to accelerate their efforts to modernize the country's state sector, which accounts for around 40% of Vietnam's economy.

Progress has been slow, however, and the sense of crisis pervading what was once one of Asia's most promising new emerging markets was reinforced by the central bank's admission last month that nonperforming loans had nearly doubled this year, to about 10% of total lending.

Duong Chi Dung fled from his home just before investigators arrived, prompting widespread accusations that he had been tipped off. Local police quickly obtained an international warrant for Mr. Dung's arrest.

A government statement said he was extradited and taken into custody Tuesday, while state-run media said he was initially detained in an unidentified neighboring country.

Mr. Dung couldn't be reached to comment.

If convicted, Mr. Dung potentially faces a lengthy prison term. Police have accused Vietnam National Shipping Lines, or Vinalines, officials of mismanaging the state firm's resources by spending $5 million on a floating dock.

Government inspectors said in May that the firm also had defaulted on five loans for a total of $1.1 billion, and racked up millions more dollars in losses by buying substandard, aging foreign vessels.

Nguyen Anh Thu

Vietnamese Novelist Duong Thu Huong Will be Exiled in Paris for Some Time Yet

A book review by Jason Beerman in Saturday, 01 September 2012's Toronto Star, reminds me that Communism in theory and practice can be miles apart. The Zenith now translated into English, is a book describing a fictionalized account of the life of Ho Chi Minh by celebrated Vietnamese authoress Duong Thu Huong. Celebrated that is outside Vietnam where, for the most part, Thu Huong and her works do not meet the Government's approval and she now lives in exile in Paris.


Born in 1947 in Thai Binh, about 70 miles east of Hanoi, and a former member of Vietnam's Communist Party, Thu Huong served in a women's youth brigade from 1967 in "The War Against The Americans" until the reunification of Vietnam in 1975 and again during the brief war with China in 1979.  She did much front line service where her duties included tending to the wounded and burying the dead and is deaf in her right ear due to a bomb exploding very close to her during that War.

It was after reunification and realising that in South Vietnam matters were not all as had been negatively portrayed by the Communist hierarchy, or the War having been simply fought against the Americans but much more a civil war, that she became increasingly critical of the oppressive measures taken by the newly victorious Government in the now unified Vietnam.

Duong Thu Huong

Thu Huong began writing books in 1985 and these were very popular, selling over 100,000 copies each, until her obvious disapproval of policies and actions taken by Government officials contained in the story lines and the subtle underlying criticisms appreciated more by Vietnamese readers, displeased the Government's censors.

She was also an outspoken critic in official Communist Party journals and at Party congresses and like events where, according to the PEN American Center, Thu Huong took the authorities to task over issues including bureaucracy, corruption and "intellectual cowardice".  Certainly not the Party creating "humanity's paradise" that had spurred her and so fellow many young cadres in the bitter civil war.

After her third novel Paradise of the Blind (1988) and the first Vietnamese novel to be published in the USA, the Government had had enough.  The book describes the horrors and consequences of the Maoist-style land reforms in (North) Vietnam after 1953 and which she witnessed, when thousands of corpses of peasant "landlords" were left to rot on the side of the road as an example to all.  Too much negative detail?  The authorities decided to ban all Thu Huong's works and from about this time, she was being called "traitor" and "dissident slut" by senior Government leaders.

In 1990 she was expelled from the Communist Party of Vietnam and soon after lost her job as a screenwriter for the Vietnam Film Company.  Her writing now had to be sent abroad for publication, in the first instance to Paris, and, continuing to champion human rights and advocating a more democratic political reform in Vietnam, she was arrested in 1991 and served a seven month term of imprisonment in solitary confinement.  There had been no trial and her release was secured largely due to outside pressure, particularly from France.

Praised and widely recognised for her works which were by now being translated into a number of languages, Thu Huong was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 1994.

Jason Beerman in the Toronto Star tells us that Thu Huong spent 15 years researching The Zenith first published in Paris in 2009.  The book centres around Ho Chi Minh shortly before his death in 1969, reminiscing on his past life.  Dominating Ho's thoughts is a relationship he is supposed to have had in the 1950s with a woman 40 years his junior and who bore him two children.  When he wanted to make this relationship public, the Politburo objected and arranged the savage murder of the woman.

This is not going to be received well by the Government in Vietnam for not only does it condemn the system - Vietnam is still officially a Marxist-Leninist single-party state - the image is totally at odds with the cult portrayal of the "Uncle Ho" celibate, saint-like figure married, if at all, only to Vietnam as its "revolutionary father", a portraiture which has been prevalent since Ho's death on 2 September 1969.  (He died on Vietnam's Independence Day. Vietnam gained its independence from the French on 02 September 1945). Anything that diverges from this depiction is virtually taboo.

Ho Chi Minh, the scion of a good family was an accomplished scholar and attended a French school in Hué, the old Royal Capital of Vietnam.  Born Nguyen Sinh Cung in 1890, and adopting a number of names before using Ho Chi Minh permanently from around 1940, he would work in the USA, Britain, Russia and France - where he became a founding member of the French Communist Party in 1920 - and other countries.

Under the name Nguyen Ai Quoc, during 1925-1926 he was supervising a contingent of Vietnamese trainees at Chiang Kai-Shek's Whampoa Military Academy.  There in October 1926 he married Zeng Xueming (1905-1991).  This marriage has never been recognised by the Vietnamese Government but one of the legal witnesses was Deng  Yingchao, wife of future Chinese Premier Chao Enlai.  Following a purge by Chiang against the Communists in April 1827, Nguyen had to flee and the couple were separated for ever.

No brutal murder then.  Might Thu Huong's Zenith be an allegorical tale with the brutally murdered wife symbolizing Vietnam?

The country's home-grown banking crisis rumbles on with a report by Neil Gough in the New York Times on 25 August, telling of the arrest of two top executives of the Asia Commercial Bank, one of Vietnam's biggest and in which Britain's Standard Chartered has a 15 per cent stake.  This caused a run on the bank shortly after the news broke as depositors withdrew US$240 million equivalent - an awful lot of money in Vietnam - and was at least partly to blame for the near eight per cent fall in the Ho Chi Minh Stock Index by 25 August.

The story which is really getting tongues wagging though, was headlined in the same New York paper on 01 September: "In Vietnam, Message of Equality Is Challenged by Widening Wealth Gap" (Thomas Fuller).  The story shows a photo taken in April 2012 of an attractive young lady, To Linh Huong, touring a construction site.  Twenty-four year-old Ms Huong, the daughter of a Politburo grandee had just been appointed the state-owned company's head, though she had just recently graduated in?  Journalism.

Mr Fuller writes:

"...Vietnam's political mandarins are struggling to reconcile their party's message of social justice and equality with the realities of an elite awash in wealth and privilege.  The yawning divide between rural poverty and urban wealth has become especially jarring, now that a decade of breakneck growth has come to an end..."

Lots of arrests as criticism went "viral" in Vietnam?  Nope, I believe the young lady has resigned or taken a much less prominent role since the photo was taken.

Best though that Duong Thu Huong enjoys the City of Light that little bit longer.

Graeme MacKay