Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Thu, 5 Nov 1992 10:24:39 -0500
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      NEWS/VN: Hanoi annoyed by Radio Irina

Forward from soc.culture.vietnamese
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Radio Irina ( Voice of Freedom from Moscow )

FREEDOM OF THE AIR

	Hanoi is annoyed at having its human right criticised by
        a private Moscow-based radio station.

By Jeff Lilley in Moscow
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	Just as Russo-Vietnamese relations seemed to be on the mend, a private
Moscow radio station's broadcasts into Vietnam have put the two countries at
odds. Since 20 July, Radio Irina from Moscow has been preaching the virtues of
democracy and giving voice to Vietnamese dissidents and their disenchanted
countrymen around the world.

	Broadcast nightly from a small studio in central Moscow, Radio Irina
has provoked strong protests from the Vietnamese Government. Says Zuong Dac
Zung ( ? BL), press attache at the Vietnamese Embassy in Moscow : " Such a
station perverts the truth and constitutes interference in the internal affairs
of our country.  We want them to close down the radio station so that it
doesn't damaged relations."

	The station's advocay of human rights has galled Hanoi, which is intent
on preventing political reform from encroaching upon its drive to liberalise
the Vietnamese economy.  Hanoi is particullar worried that Radio Irina may stir
up opposition to the regime among thousands of Vietnamese living outside the
country.  But the Russian Foreign Minister feels powerless to intervene.  A
Russian law on press rights, passed last December, legalised the creation of
independent radio stations.  Because the law was drafted in response to the
rapidly changing situation in Russia, its provisions contain no mention of
broadcast to other countries.

	"The legislators couldn't predict such situations, but according to the
law, what isn't prohibited is permitted," says Vadim Serafimov, senior
counsellar on the Vietnam desk at the Foreign Ministry.  "We are trying to
begin to live by the rule of law.  Two years ago, we could have forbidden it.
Now. we can't do anything."

	The one-hour progamme is broadcast by Irina Ziessman, a 37-year-old
mother of three who previously worked in Vietnam department at Radio Moscow, a
government mouthpiece.  In near-perfect Vietnamese, Ziessman reads articles
from Vietnamese-language newspapers in Europe and the US and airs underground
publications smuggled out of Vietnam.  " My goal is to make Vietnam a
democratic society," she says.

	Before founding her own station, Ziessman had built up quite a
following among Vietnamese in Soviet Union and in Vietnam with her efforts to
improve the employment conditions of Vietnamese workers in the Soviet Union.
"The Vietnamese loved me then," she says with a smile.  In May 1990 she began
helping Amnesty International's Vietnam representative, Nguyen Dan Que, in his
efforts to promote human rights in Vietnam.  Que's trial in November 1991 - at
which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for trying to overthrow the
Vietnamese Government - inspired Ziessman to go ahead with her human rights
campaign from Moscow.  But she found herself hamstrung by Radio Moscow's
adherence to Russian Government policy.

	The new press law enabled Ziessman to break free from government
control.  She registered the radio station in May and purchased air time on a
Siberian transmitter from the Ministry of Communications, which hold a monopoly
on transmitters in Russia.  Several weeks later, Ziessman received financial
help from US-based Vietnamese groups to supplement the limited funds she had
raised from local Moscow newspapers and the Russian Orthodox Church.  The day
before the first broadcast, she resigned her position at Radio Moscow.

	The Radia Irina affair has embarrassed the Foreign Ministry.  The
ministry's hope is that the controversy over the broadcasts will not derail
Russo-Vietnamese relations which are emerging from a period of inactivity
folowwing the tumultuous changes in the former Soviet Union.  During the
disruption in relations, trade plummeted, oil shipments to Vietnam dried up and
Soviet arms sales were reduced to US$200 million, one sixth of their 1989
level.  In July, the two governments announced the signing of a trade and
economic protocol calling for US$800 million in bilateral trade this year, a
figure which would restore trade to 70% of the 1990 level.

	But with Hanoi now showing little flexibility and the Russian Foreign
Ministry reluctant to pressure the private radio station, there seems to be
nothing to do but wait.  "It's a new situation that demands time for
psychological adaption to let people understand that this is a reality," says
Serafimov. " Time is the best doctor."
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