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<text>
<title>
Vietnam
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Human Rights Watch World Report 1992
Asia Watch: Vietnam
</hdr>
<body>
<p>Human Rights Developments
</p>
<p> Vietnam's human rights record in 1991 was marked by opposing
trends. The Seventh Party Congress, held June 24-27, while
producing few significant changes in policy, provoked
unprecedented public debate on the political and economic
direction of the country. The backdrop to this debate was
communism's continuing collapse in Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union, which served to deepen the party's fears of
"peaceful evolution," i.e., subversion from the West. The result
was that while the trend toward increased openness in speech,
religion and economic pursuits continued, the government
reinforced its campaign of sharp repression against perceived
critics and enemies. Similarly, while Hanoi released several
long-term political detainees, it was preparing to bring other,
more recent political prisoners to trial.
</p>
<p> As the draft party platforms circulated for comment in late
1990 and 1991, the strong criticism that emerged took the
leadership aback. In December 1990, retired Colonel Bui Tin, a
former editor of the official daily Nhan Dan, castigated the
party in a series of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
broadcasts from Paris, where he was on official leave. Equally
pointed calls for democracy, political pluralism and respect
for human rights issued from intellectuals at home, including
Nguyen Khac Vien, one of Vietnam's most prominent official
historians and editors; the philosopher Hoang Minh Chinh; and
Phan Dinh Dieu, a leading mathematician who is vice president
of the National Center for Scientific Research in Hanoi. (See
Murray Hiebert, "Higher Criticism," Far Eastern Economic Review,
May 2, 1991; Nayan Chanda, "Editor's Letter Indicated a Growing
Rift at Highest Levels of Vietnamese Party," Asian Wall Street
Journal, March 11, 1991; Phan Dinh Dieu, "A Plea for Basic
Freedoms and a System That Works," The Asian Wall Street Journal
Weekly, June 24, 1991.) Hardliners responded not only with
rebuttal in the state media, but also with arrests and
expulsions from the Communist Party.
</p>
<p> Colonel Bui Tin, still in Paris, was stripped of party
membership. His house in Vietnam came under continual
surveillance, his immediate family was forbidden to communicate
with him, his wife was interrogated repeatedly, his daughter
was demoted from her position as an eye surgeon to that of an
eyeglass sales clerk, and his son-in-law was forbidden to take
a scholarship offered by Harvard.
</p>
<p> Another prominent critic, the novelist Duong Thu Huong, was
arrested in April for allegedly attempting to send confidential
documents out of the country. In conjunction with her arrest,
</p>
<p> Dr. Bui Duy Tam, a Vietnamese with U.S. citizenship, was
imprisoned for two months for supposedly transporting documents
"detrimental to the national security." These documents
included a personal letter that Dr. Bui had received from Bui
Tin, a copy of the minutes of several official associations, and
some literary and historical works published in Vietnam. Dr.
Bui, who suffered a stroke in captivity, was released on May 31
and expelled from the country. Duong Thu Huong was held at a
security "guesthouse" until his release in November.
</p>
<p> Interior Minister Mai Chi Tho, in a published interview,
accused Duong Thu Huong and Bui Tin of aiding an overseas
campaign to "destroy" Vietnam. He also described as "spies" two
U.S. citizens expelled in 1990--businessman Michael Morrow
and Mennonite teacher Miriam Hirschberger and defended the
detention since 1975 of over one hundred persons associated
with the former South Vietnamese government. The accusations
against Morrow and Hirschberger are widely regarded as baseless--a product of internal struggles over ideology. In a display
of paranoia that embarrassed even some officials, Miriam
Hirschberger's photograph was installed for a time in an
exhibition on espionage at Hanoi's Museum of the Revolution.
</p>
<p> More ominous was the press campaign launched against the
Vietnamese citizens arrested for their association with Michael
Morrow, who have been held for over a year. A series of
articles in official publications accused Doan Thanh Liem, Do
Ngoc Long and others of collaborating with Morrow and other
purported American "spies" in collecting information on Vietnam
for use abroad. At least one article called for them to be put
on trial, but no date has yet been set. Both Do Ngoc Long and
Doan Thanh Liem have also had health problems during detention
and are feared to have suffered abuse.
</p>
<p> A similar press campaign targeted Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, an
endocrinologist who was arrested in May 1990 for signing a
public appeal calling for political reform and human rights. On
November 29, 1991, Dr. Que was given a four-hour trial, denied
the opportunity to speak in his own defense, and sentenced to
twenty year of hard labor and five additional years of house
arrest for actions "subversive" to the state. Another man,
Nguyen Van Thuan, received a ten-year prison sentence at the
same trial, and two others, Le Duc Vuong and Nguyen Thien Hung,
will also be tried for their association with Dr. Que. Dr. Que
was an outspoken advocate of human rights and nonviolent
political change, and a member of Amnesty International since
his release from ten years' imprisonment for "reeducation" in
1988. The charges against him alleged that he had distributed
thousands of political leaflets within Vietnam and recruited
others to his point of view.
</p>
<p> When the date of the Seventh Party Congress finally arrived,
Hanoi came under stringent security measures, with access
closed to foreigners, including two U.S. representatives who
were in the process of opening an office to account for U.S.
military personnel missing in action during the Vietnam War.
Asia Watch received reports that many Vietnamese were kept under
house arrest or in custody during this period.
</p>
<p> Unlike past years, which had seen amnesties for thousands of
political prisoners, just over a dozen prisoners where rumored
to have been released in 1991 on the September 2 National Day.
However, several very prominent prisoners of conscience were
released in September and October. They included the poet
Nguyen Chi Thien, who has spent most of his adult life in
custody; the novelist and professor Doan Quoc Sy, held since
1984; and the Catholic priest Le Thanh Que, arrested along with
other priests for religious writings in the early 1980s.
</p>
<p> Abuse in custody continued to be a serious problem in 1991,
with detainees subject in some cases to beatings, nighttime
interrogation, and deprivation of food, exercise and medical
care. In one case, a person suspected of aiding the escape of
a group of "counterrevolutionaries" was beaten to death by
jailers. "Reeducation" camps continue to exist throughout the
country, and inmates are subjected to hard labor, inadequate
rations and medical care, and coercion to write confessions and
reports on each other. Upon release, former detainees report
police surveillance and difficulty in having their residency
and identification documents restored.
</p>
<p> Vietnam agreed in 1991 to give the International Committee
of the Red Cross access to political prisoners held in
"reeducation" camps since the end of the war. The agreement,
announced in December, is a significant step for Vietnam toward
allowing outside scrutiny of its compliance with international
human rights norms. Party officials have told reporters that
those persons still detained since 1975, estimated to be
slightly over one hundred in number, would all be released by
early 1992. (Kathleen Callo, "Vietnam to Give Red Cross First
Access to Re-Education Camps," Reuters (December 3, 1991).)
</p>
<p> Administrative detention remained the norm and judicial
process the exception for persons arrested in Vietnam. Although
Vietnam has made a