Organization: Vietnam Insight
Editor: Chan Tran
Address: PO Box 7826, San Jose, CA 95150, USA
Phone: (408) 226-2261
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Thu, 16 Apr 1992 13:46:15 PDT
From:         Vietnam Insight <vinsight%netcom.com@HUSC6.BITNET>
Subject:      Dissident Increased In Vietnam

DISSIDENT MOVEMENT INCREASES IN NORTH VIETNAM

HANOI - Vietnam: Six Vietnamese were sentenced to 3-14 imprisonment
terms for anti-regime activities, the official magazine Phap Luat (The
Law) reported on March 5, 1992. Receiving the heaviest sentence was
Mr. Do Van Dac for forming an opposition organization called To Hach Tam
(The Nucleus).

The weekly published by the justice ministry also said the other five
belonged to the anti-communist party Dang Dai Viet Duy Dan (The Great
Vietnam Party For the People).

Phap Luat gave no date for the trial, but said it took place recently in
Bien Giang in the northern province of Ho Tay, the home of Do Van Dac.

"After serving their sentences, they will be deprived of a number of
their civic rights," Phap Luat added without elaborating in the second
press report on dissidents.

The daily Hanoi Moi (New Hanoi) said on March 4, 1992 that several
Vietnamese dissidents were arrested in Hanoi last year and accused of
wanting to topple the communist government or form a political party.

It said that Mr. Pham Van Thuc had been arrested after writing "six
articles that he sent to the British Broadcasting Corp. calling on the
West to intervene to overthrow the socialist regime in Vietnam."

Other dissidents were arrested for wanting to create a "Greater
Democratic Vietnam" party, the newspaper added.

It did not say exactly how many people had been arrested or when,
although it added that the arrests had led to the seizure of "documents
concerning the programme and the status" of the party.

Hanoi Moi said Pham Van Thuc lived in "the residential quarters of the
officers' artillery training school," but stopping short of revealing
his rank.

The newspaper also said "the receiving, concealment and trafficking of
ammunitions, arms and explosives has become very common" and that "some
of the cases were quite serious."

Meanwhile, it editorialized that the collapse of the Soviet Union had
emboldened "reactionary" elements at home and abroad keen on overturning
communism in Vietnam.

"The crisis in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union seems to have
encouraged international reactionary forces and reactionaries in this
country to search for any means to oppose the Vietnamese revolution,"
the newspaper said.

The rise of opposition movement throughout Vietnam, especially in the
North where communism had established its rule nearly four decades, has
caused great anxiety to the Vietnamese Communist leadership. Last year,
anti-regime leaflets were reportedly inundated Hanoi and the surrounding
northern provinces. Several groups in the northern areas were charged
with dissident activities in the recent years. The fact that
high-ranking party members and cadres such as Mr. Pham Van Thuc have
joined the people's movement against the communist regime indicated only
one thing: Hanoi is fast to join its communist counterparts in Eastern
Europe and the Soviet Union.


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Through desert sands the road to Marx's heaven                    *
is choked with prisons, stained by blood and tears                *
For decades the people have marched and starved --                *
their guides -- their friends -- keep twisting tight the chains   *
                           DISSIDENT POET NGUYEN CHI THIEN        *
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--
Vietnam Insight (vinsight@netcom.com)
Chan Tran, editor
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