Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese






>Subject: Vietnam News Fri 25 Sep 92

>REUTER TEXTLINE
>---------------
>
>   1 23SEP92.VIETNAM: VIETNAM ELECTS TOP ARMY MAN AS PRESIDENT.
>            [REUTR] (56)
>
>By Kathleen Callo
>HANOI, Sept 23, Reuter - Vietnam's National Assembly chose conservative
>general Le Duc Anh as president on Wednesday in what observers saw as
>underlining the Communist party's determination to keep a firm grip on
>economic reforms.
>The 72-year-old Anh, Vietnam's top general, was the only candidate and
>received all of the secret ballots cast by the 392-seat assembly, the state-
>run Voice of Vietnam radio said.
>The general is a battle-hardened soldier and one of the most powerful men in
>Vietnam, controlling foreign policy, defence and internal security for the
>ruling Communist party, although few ordinary people could recognise him in a
>photograph..
>"This position is beyond my ability, but I accept the heavy
>reponsibility...because I believe our country has firm and correct leadership
>under the Communist Party of Vietnam," he told the deputies in a speech after
>the vote.
>Local intellectuals say Anh, whose election was widely expected, represents
>old-guard conservatives in the party and the military who see rapid reforms as
>a threat to stability.
>Vo Van Kiet, Vietnam's reformist prime minister, was expected to be re-elected
>by the assembly to a five-year term on Thursday.
>Diplomats said the combination of reformer Kiet and conservative Anh would
>probably result in the government's continued pursuit of market-oriented
>economic reforms but under continued tight political control of the party.
>The popular Kiet, 69, is a southerner who has pushed for Vietnam to open up to
>the outside world and has helped forge new economic and political ties with
>non-socialist countries.
>The National Assembly also elected Nong Duc Manh, the youngest man in the
>politburo and its only ethnic minority member, as its new chairman on
>Wednesday. He was also the sole candidate.
>The promotion of Manh, 51, an ethnic Tay, to the politburo last year was seen
>as part of the party's effort to give a greater voice to minorities, who
>comprise 12 per cent of Vietnam's 69 million people, and to promote younger
>people.
>Some Vietnamese intellectuals say Anh's election showed the party's
>determination to keep a firm grip on power.
>As well as its economic reforms, Vietnam also began limited political reforms
>in the mid-1980s that included more freedom of expression, and a new
>independence of government bodies and the National Assembly from the party.
>But the collapse of the Soviet Union last year dealt a deep psychological blow
>to the party, and some top cadres have pushed recently to reassert the party's
>influence in the state's political and economic affairs, intellectuals say.
>They say increased party control could spell disaster for economic reforms,
>since it could hurt confidence among an emerging business class that is still
>dubious of the party's stated commitment to free enterprise.
>But some foreign businessmen say the party might be the only body powerful and
>motivated enough to push ahead with free-market reforms not always popular in
>the countryside.
>Some provincial authorities are nostalgic for the old days, when they used
>party influence to rule their own fiefdoms. and many state workers are angry
>over Hanoi's move to cut public utility subsidies and close down money-losing
>factories.
>"The general direction is inevitable. Vietnam is moving forward. But it's not
>necessarily a straight line," one Vietnamese government official told Reuters
>recently, asking not to be identified.
>(c) Reuters Limited
>
>REUTER NEWS SERVICE
>
>==========================================================================


>   2 23SEP92.VIETNAM: VIETNAM PARLIAMENT GETS NEW YOUNGER LEADER.
>            [REUTR] (23)
>
>HANOI, Sept 23, Reuter - The Vietnamese National Assembly elected Nong Duc
>Manh, the youngest man in the Communist Party's politburo and its only ethnic
>minority member, as its new chairman on Wednesday, official radio said.
>The deputies elected the 51-year-old Manh, the sole candidate, by secret
>ballot, Vietnamese journalists who were present for the voting told Reuters.
>They said 384 of the 392 deputies present voted for Manh. He will replace Le
>Quang Dao.
>The assembly was scheduled to select Vietnam's president and a prime minister
>to five-year terms later in the day.
>Manh, a member of the Tay ethnic minority, is ranked 10th in the 13-man ruling
>politburo.
>His promotion to the politburo last year was seen as an effort by the party to
>give wider representation to ethnic minorities, who make up 12 per cent of
>Vietnam's 69 million people, and to promote younger people.
>Manh said the National Assembly had an urgent responsibility to develop a
>modern legal framework to help solve Vietnam's current economic crisis and to
>build a "market economy with a socialist orientation".
>"Under the leadership of the party, with the enthusiastic support of all the
>people and military forces in the country, with the close cooperation of the
>deputies, we will try our best to implement our assigned tasks," he said in a
>speech after being elected.
>Foreign journalists were denied permission to witness the voting at Ba Dinh.
>(c) Reuters Limited
>
>REUTER NEWS SERVICE
>==============================================================================


>
>   3 23SEP92.CAMBODIA: KHMER ROUGE HARDENS STANCE ON PEACE TERMS.
>            [REUTR] (35)
>
>By Mark Dodd
>PHNOM PENH, Sept 23, Reuter - The hardline Khmer Rouge guerrilla faction said
>on Wednesday that it would not comply with the U.N.-brokered peace accord in
>Cambodia unless it was given a say in the running of the Phnom Penh government.
>Khmer Rouge official Mac Ben reiterated accusations that the United Nations
>Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was biased in favour of the
>Vietnamese-installed Phnom Penh government.
>"We strongly believe UNTAC alone cannot apply its mandate in Cambodia," he
>told reporters.
>The minimum requirement for Khmer Rouge compliance with the accords is
>adoption of a proposal for an all-faction committee to administer the Phnom
>Penh government's five key ministries, Mac Ben said.
>UNTAC currently supervises the five key government ministeries.
>Mac Ben described the provisional national council made up of guerrilla and
>government leaders as an "empty shell with no power."
>The Khmer Rouge position threw further doubt on the prospects for success of
>the U.N. peacekeeping mission, which aims to disarm the rival armies and guide
>the war-battered country to elections scheduled for next May.
>The Khmer Rouge, the strongest of the three formerly allied guerrilla armies,
>has refused to disarm and barred access by peacekeepers to zones under its
>control.
>The formation of an adminstrative consultative body was the Khmer Rouge's
>minimum requirement, Mac Ben said.
>He was referring to last month's Thai-Japanese proposal for a body comprising
>all four Cambodian parties to address what the Khmer Rouge describe as
>"administrative issues with a view to ensuring a neutral political
>environment."
>"The root cause of the Cambodian problem is 'Vietnamisation' and occupation of
>Cambodia over the past 14 years. This problem has not been solved," he added.
>On Tuesday, Phnom Penh Prime Minister Hun Sen warned that the Khmer Rouge
>guerrillas were stockpiling weapons that could be used for a "dry season
>offensive".
>The guerrilla faction was using the Thai-Japanese initiative to stall for
>time, he added.
>(c) Reuters Limited
>
>REUTER NEWS SERVICE
>
>========================================================

>   4 23SEP92.VIETNAM: VIETNAM ASSEMBLY ELECTS LE DUC ANH PRESIDENT.
>            [REUTR] (38)
>
>By Kathleen Callo
>HANOI, Sept 23, Reuter - General Le Duc Anh, Vietnam's top military man and a
>powerful communist party official, was elected state president by the national
>assembly on Wednesday, Vietnamese radio said.
>Anh, 72, was the sole candidate proposed by the deputies, who voted by secret
>ballot. A government observer who witnessed the election told Reuters he got
>100 per cent of the votes cast by the 392 deputies present.
>He replaces Vo Chi Cong, 79, who retired from the party's 13-man politburo in
>June 1991 when Anh was promoted to number two in that top policy-making body.
>Many Vietnamese see Anh as one of the conservative old guard in the party and
>army, a group that considers excessively rapid economic or political reforms a
>threat to stability.
>The presidency has been mostly a ceremonial post in the past but Anh is
>expected to play a more powerful role than his predecessors.
>Some local intellectuals say the party now wants a stronger top official as
>head of state, who could if necessary slow down moves by reformist Prime
>Minister Vo Van Kiet to open up to the outside world.
>The April 1992 constitution, in a departure from the traditional system of
>collective leadership, gave the position of president more clear-cut,
>individual responsibilities.
>As the politburo member in charge of foreign policy, defence and internal
>security for the party, Anh was already one of the most powerful men in the
>country -- but one who operated behind the scenes.
>"He will be a little more vigorous and a little more active (than Cong). This
>is not a question of someone being kicked upstairs," one Western diplomat said.
>Local intellectuals said Anh originally turned down the party's offer of the
>presidency but was later persuaded.
>Anh is now also commander of the armed forces and chairman of the Council for
>National Defence and Security. As a battle-hardened soldier, he is expected to
>give that council new clout.
>Anh joined the anti-colonial struggle when he was 17 and rose through army and
>party ranks during the wars against the French and later the Americans.
>He played a key military role in the invasion of Cambodia in 1978, when
>Vietnamese troops overthrew a Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge government.
>The invasion sparked a brief border war between Hanoi and Beijing. Anh was
>instrumental, in his senior party role, in helping normalise relations last
>November.
>(c) Reuters Limited
>
>REUTER NEWS SERVICE
>
>============================================================


>   5 23SEP92.VIETNAM: VIETNAM PARLIAMENT GETS NEW ETHNIC MINORITY HEAD.
>            [REUTR] (14)
>
>HANOI, Sept 23, Reuter - Vietnam's national assembly elected Nong Duc Manh,
>the youngest man in the Communist Party's politburo and the only ethnic
>minority member, as its new chairman on Wednesday, Vietnamese journalists said.
>Journalists who were at Ba Dinh National Assembly hall for the election said
>384 of the 392 deputies present voted for Manh to replace Le Quang Dao.
>The assembly was scheduled to elect a president and a prime minister to new
>five-year terms later in the day.
>Manh, 51, a member of the Tay ethnic minority, is ranked number 10 in the 13-
>man politburo.
>His promotion to the politburo last year was seen as part of an effort by the
>party to give wider representation to ethnic minorities, who comprise 12 per
>cent of Vietnam's 69 million people, and to promote younger people.
>Foreign journalists were not allowed into the hall for the elections.
>(c) Reuters Limited
>
>REUTER NEWS SERVICE
>===================================================

>
>   6 23SEP92.VIETNAM: VATICAN TO SEND DELEGATION TO VIETNAM.
>            [REUTR] (16)
>
>HANOI, Sept 23, Reuter - The Vatican, which has no diplomatic relations with
>communist Vietnam, will send a delegation to Hanoi to discuss the suggested
>appointment of several bishops, Western diplomats said.
>Monsignor Claudio Celli will head the delegation, which will arrive in October
>or November to continue negotiations that began when the Vietnamese government
>sent its first official mission to the Vatican earlier this year, the
>diplomats said on Tuesday.
>Celli, who holds a post equivalent to deputy foreign minister of the Holy See,
>headed a delegation to Vietnam in January. It was the second Vatican visit to
>Hanoi, following a trip by French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray in 1990.
>Hanoi put many priests in re-education camp when the communists won the
>Vietnam War in 1975, and continue to restrict the movements of priests.
>But, unlike China, Hanoi recognises the authority of the Vatican over
>Vietnam's Roman Catholic minority, and has relaxed some constraints on the
>church in recent years.
>(c) Reuters Limited
>
>REUTER NEWS SERVICE
>=====================================================


>
>   7 23SEP92.USA: KISSINGER POINTS TOWARDS HANOI ON POWS.
>            [REUTR] (43)
>
>By Jim Wolf
>WASHINGTON, Sept 22, Reuter - Henry Kissinger has blasted Hanoi as cynical
>enough to hold U.S. prisoners in defiance of 1973 peace accords, but said he
>never knew of any such captives.
>In forceful testimony on Tuesday, Kissinger denied assertions by ex-colleagues
>that the Nixon administration may have knowingly abandoned Americans as it
>rushed to extricate itself from Vietnam in 1973.
>"Some prisoners may -- I repeat may -- have been kept behind by our
>adversaries in violation of solemn commitments," he told the Senate Select
>Committee on POW (prisoner of war) and MIA (missing-in-action) affairs. "No
>prisoners were left behind by the deliberate act or negligent omission of
>American officials."
>Any charge to the contrary was a "flat-out lie," he said, adding: "Let us stop
>torturing ourselves. The United States kept faith with those who served their
>country."
>Kissinger was President Richard Nixon's national security adviser from 1969 to
>1975. He was chief U.S. negotiator of the Paris peace accords under which
>Washington withdrew its troops from Vietnam. In September 1973, he became
>secretary of state, a post he held until 1977.
>Two of Nixon's defence secretaries, Melvin Laird and James Schlesinger,
>testified on Monday that Nixon chose to complete the U.S. withdrawal despite
>strong evidence that some Americans were still being held, at least in Laos.
>Kissinger, now president of an international consulting firm bearing his name,
>said his "present gut feeling" was that no Americans were left behind in
>Vietnam but that "possibly" some had been held back by Hanoi's Pathet Lao
>allies in Laos.
>"If servicemen were kept by our enemies, there is one villain and one villain
>only: the cold-hearted rulers in Hanoi," he said.
>Kissinger, who shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc
>Tho for ending the war, said Hanoi violated the accords "from the very start."
>The agreement, signed in Paris on January 27, 1973, provided for an end to
>hostilities and the return of all prisoners of war.
>Hanoi separately agreed to use its influence to win the release of Americans
>captured in Laos and Nixon conditionally agreed to pay $3.25 billion over five
>years in reconstruction aid to Vietnam.
>Despite the accords, the North Vietnamese and their Vietcong allies seized
>Saigon in April 1975, toppling the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government.
>Kissinger blamed Congress for tying his hands in 1973 by forbidding renewed
>military action.
>The Defence Department still lists 2,266 Americans as unaccounted for from the
>war. Of the total, 135 are considered high-priority "discrepancy cases"
>involving Americans believed captured but never repatriated nor accounted for.
>(c) Reuters Limited
>
>REUTER NEWS SERVICE                                 [2J [0;0H REUTER TEXTLINE

Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese