Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 09:58:58 -0400
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      NEWS/VN: Vietnam situation
X-To:         FISHLM%SNYBUFVA@pucc.princeton.edu, scv@media.mit.edu,
              seasia-l@msu.BITNET, vietnam@cco.caltech.edu, vn-news@saigon.com

08/25

Vietnam

Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By DENIS D. GRAY
 Associated Press Writer
   HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- For grizzled revolutionaries, the view from Hanoi
these days is disheartening.
   The Soviet Union, Vietnam's model and protector, is no more. Worldwide, the
club of ruling Marxist parties has shrunk to include just four other members --
China, Cuba, Laos and North Korea.
   But Vietnam's 63-year-old ruling communist party is trying to endure into the
next century, chiefly by focusing on the economy and building a more efficient,
just and somewhat liberalized government, political analysts say.
   The party's former appeal as the force that battled foreign aggressors like
France and the United States has lost its luster for a younger generation more
interested in the good life than past heroics. Some communist say future
domestic problems could prove more complex than fighting the Americans.
   Huu Tho, editor of the party's official newspaper Nhan Dan, listed several
conditions for communism's survival: improving the economy and living
conditions; eliminating red tape and corruption in party ranks, and insuring
equality before the law for all citizens.
   "The party can't lead the country in the same old way. It must change its
ways. The party can't impose; it must convince the people," Tho said in an
interview.
   "With each visit, I find that Marxism is becoming more and more irrelevant,"
says Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the Australian National University.
   Douglas Pike, a Vietnam scholar at the University of California at Berkeley,
said Vietnam's communists are studying South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore --
authoritarian, one-party states that used rapid economic progress to ward off
pro-democracy uprisings.
   "This will buy some time, four to five years, at the end of which the Hanoi
communists will face the possibility of a multi-party system just like Taiwan
and South Korea did," Pike said in a telephone interview.
   "It's a well-thought out game plan that stands a good chance of working but
it depends on definite, verifiable economic improvements. If that doesn't happen
you can expect some drastic developments," he said.
   The party can be expected to retain ultimate political power, said the
analysts. But it also is likely to strengthen the National Assembly and
government bodies, which could act as screens to deflect criticism directed at
the party, they said.
   Although only two independent candidates ran, Tho, editor of the party's
official newspaper, described July's elections for the onetime rubber-stamp
National Assembly as the most democratic in Vietnam's history.
   Tho said there were more, younger and better-qualified candidates to choose
from, Western-style campaigning preceded the ballot and the results were
unprecedented. All but four current ministers lost their seats, only 30 percent
of former ministers were re-elected and several of the party's central committee
members received low vote counts.
   The heavy hand of the state and party still prevail, however. The secret
police still closely watch citizens and foreigners. And while greater criticism
is tolerated, some who have publicly called for multi-party democracy have been
jailed.
   Voices of dissent come largely from students, disgruntled war veterans,
intellectuals and some party members. Vietnam experts do not discount a replay
of Eastern Europe, given an inflow of Western information, more Vietnamese
studying abroad and an expanded middle class.
   But Thayer and Pike, who both recently visited Vietnam, and other observers
note that stability rather than democracy seems to be the more immediate concern
for many. And the state media has played up the post-communism ordeals of the
former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
   "Many people equate political pluralism with chaos," Pike said. "What struck
me was a lack of pro-democratic foment, even in southern Vietnam. People try to
get around restrictions rather than fighting the system head-on."
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