News, 7/5/99
hyt...@my-dejanews.com
* Vietnam court tries 11 over illegal adoption ring
HANOI, May 7 (Reuters) - A court in southern Vietnam has begun hearing charges
against 11 people accused of trafficking 199 children through an illegal
adoption ring, a court official and state media said on Friday.
The court official in An Giang province said by telephone that the defendants
had been charged with trafficking children and bribery. There were no
allegations of physical abuse.
He said the trial opened on Thursday and might finish on Saturday.
The official Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper said the defendants included the
former director of the Long Xuyen Orphanage, which is part of the provincial
Red Cross Association.
It was unclear if the case was connected with an April decision by France and
Vietnam to suspend adoptions following unspecified cases of abuse. The two
countries have said they would soon start talks aimed at reaching agreement to
allow a resumption of adoptions with legal guarantees.
Adoptions of Vietnamese babies have soared in recent years, and diplomats say
some couples try to avoid the official red tape by using unauthorised agents.
Western couples and their newly adopted babies have become a common sight in
Vietnam's few foreign medical clinics, where doctors do a final health
check-up before the adoption process is complete.
It was unclear how much couples normally paid to adopt a Vietnamese baby.
* Vietnamese Mark Victory Over French With Fervor
DIEN BIEN PHU, Vietnam (Reuters) - Thousands of Vietnamese brimmed with
patriotic fervor in remote Dien Bien Phu Friday as they marked a decisive
military victory that spelled the end of French colonial rule in Indochina.
Some 12,000 spectators crammed a stadium in this highland town to hear
speeches and watch a parade and other grand synchronized displays.
Thousands more packed surrounding streets, sat on rooftops or clustered on the
side of a steep hill to glimpse the colorful 45th anniversary celebration of
the victory.
Aged veterans wearing army green and distinctive Vietnamese green pith helmets
donned medals and swapped stories about the 57-day battle that ended on May 7,
1954, and which killed more than 10,000 Communist Viet Minh troops and
thousands of French soldiers.
Soldiers, police and blue-clad workers' militias, together with colorfully
dressed women and children, paraded around the pitch following a large image
of late leader Ho Chi Minh as a military band played stirring patriotic
battle tunes.
``This is wonderful,'' said Nguyen Thi Nguyet, a young women watching from a
rooftop.
``The battle of Dien Bien Phu gave us a free Vietnam, we should never forget
those who fought here. They were heroes.''
The battle of Dien Bien Phu, set in a highland valley 20 km (12 miles) long
and five km (three miles) wide, was a stunning testimony to the ingenuity and
tenacity of the Vietnamese people.
General Henri Navarre, commander of the French forces in Indochina, sent 12
battalions to occupy the area 490 km (305 miles) west of Hanoi and cut off
Viet Minh supply routes through nearby Laos.
But unknown to the French the Viet Minh soon had their enemy surrounded with
five times as many troops and, in an amazing feat of logistics, had hauled
105mm artillery pieces and anti-aircraft guns through steep, densely wooded
mountains.
Food and munitions were brought by an army of men, women and children on more
than 20,000 bicycles, each carrying up to 60 kg (132 pounds).
The French had no inkling the Vietnamese had them trapped until the guns
opened their barrage.
At the battle's end some 10,000 starving French troops -- which included
Morrocan and Vietnamese citizens -- were taken prisoner.
Hoang Dinh Tien, a Dien Bien Phu veteran from the Red River Delta, 500 km (312
miles) to the east, said he was happy to see the battlefield again.
``It was such a hard time but very heroic. That was when I felt most brave and
dared to sacrifice my body for the country,'' he said.
Communist Party Politburo members Pham The Duyet and Pham Van Tra, who is also
defense minister, traveled from Hanoi by helicopter to attend the celebration.
But noticeably absent was General Vo Nguyen Giap, the famed Vietnamese
military tactician who commanded and masterminded the victory. There were
also no French veterans present.
Duyet, in a speech, urged people to look to the example set by Dien Bien Phu
veterans and to continue the revolution and strive to build a modern Vietnam.
* When Vietnam humbled France
Hanoi (AP, 7/5/99) - Almost no one outside of Vietnam had heard of Dien Bien
Phu before 1954. Then one long, brutal battle in the jungles forged changes
that still resound today as one of Vietnam's proudest moments and one of
France's darkest.
When Vietnamese veterans gather on Friday to commemorate the 45th anniversary
of their victory over elite French forces, they will recall how they were
underestimated but followed skilled strategy that still is studied by war
colleges today.
The result left 6,000 French soldiers dead and another 10,000 as prisoners of
war, sparked the end of France's colonial presence in Indochina and eventually
inspired other French possessions to seek their own independence.
And the skills that were learned by Communist North Vietnamese forces would
prove decisive when they faced South Vietnam's US-backed forces the following
decade.
France, the colonial power in Vietnam, returned to the country in November
1946, more than a year after the country gained independence. But it quickly
found itself fighting a guerrilla war against the Viet Minh, the precursor to
the Viet Cong.
In November 1953, French Gen Henri Navarre decided to establish a batch of
fortresses at Dien Bien Phu, a town of 25,000 people in a strategically
located valley in northwestern Vietnam. The stated goal was to cut off
coordination between the Viet Minh and sympathetic forces in Laos and China.
But Navarre also hoped to draw the Viet Minh into a major battle that he
thought they couldn't win. He even dropped leaflets daring Viet Minh
commander Gen Vo Nguyen Giap to attack.
The French underestimated the Viet Minh army, said Lt-Gen Vu Xuan Vinh, who at
the time was a 31-year-old regiment leader in the Viet Minh's elite 308th
division, known among the French as the ``Iron Division'' for its battlefield
success. ``They said we couldn't do anything to harm them because we had no
warplanes or artillery. They were wrong.''
The French fortified their positions with barbed wire and land mines. Twenty
tanks and other artillery appeared more than sufficient to protect the two
airstrips that carried in vital supplies. Navarre said Dien Bien Phu was like
an armadillo, that ``if we tried to attack, we would have all of our teeth
broken off,'' Vinh told the Associated Press.
Unbeknownst to the French, the Viet Minh had been getting artillery from
Russian and Chinese allies. By January 26, 1954, the Viet Minh had built a
camouflaged road that they used to ferry troops, anti-aircraft guns and other
weapons to the area for what was planned as a two-day, three-night blitz
attack.
But the attack was called off at the last minute. Giap, whose self-taught
tactics earned him the nickname ``The Red Napolean,'' decided instead to
pursue a long assault. Over the next two months, the Viet Minh built 200 km
of trenches, some within 200 metres of French outposts. And they planned.
The trenches and the artillery positions were so well camouflaged that when
the attack started on March 13, the French were taken completely by surprise,
Vinh said. ``It took only three days to overrun the outposts.''
Skirmishes and Viet Minh advances followed as the trenches were expanded,
even tunneling under the perimetre of one French post. ``When our soldiers
emerged one night, the French didn't even have time to shout,'' Vinh said. By
April 25, the airstrips were completely isolated. The French aircraft could
not land, and reinforcements and supplies were dropped by parachute. They
could not fly low, anti-aircraft fire claimed 62 aircraft, Vinh said.
The final assault began the night of May 6. One ton of explosives killed an
entire company of French soldiers. Russian multiple rocket launchers pounded
the base. The next day, the French raised white flags. ``I told the soldiers
to tell their colleagues to come out. When they did, we knew it was over.''
* More Imported Goods to Be Stamped in Vietnam
HANOI (May 7) XINHUA - The Vietnamese government decided to have five more
kinds of imported goods to be stamped for circulation in its domestic market
from May 17 in efforts to fight smuggling, protect domestic production and
increase State budget revenue.
Vietnam News Agency reported Friday that the goods are gas cookers, electric
rice-cookers, bicycle frames, thermos flasks and explosion motors of working
machines, according to a circular jointly issued by Vietnam's General
Department of Customs and the Ministries of Finance, Trade and Public
Security.
As of June 1, these imports, whether stored in warehouses, displayed for sale
in shops or delivered, will be regarded as smuggled goods if they do not
display the proper import duty stamps.
Other imported goods required to be stamped include bicycles, electric fans
and pumps, alcohol, completely-assembled TV sets, videocassette recorders,
air- conditioners, refrigerators, engines, ceramic bath installments and
floor tiles.
Vietnam first introduced the stamping of imported goods on December 1, 1997.
* Vietnam, Tunisia Sign Cooperation Agreement
HANOI (May 7) XINHUA - Vietnam and Tunisia have signed an agreement to further
boost bilateral ties by strengthening cooperation in economic, trade, science
and cultural fields between the two countries, media reports here said Friday.
The agreement was signed Thursday at the end of the talks between Vietnam's
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam and Tunisian
Foreign Minster Said Ben Moustapha, who arrived here Thursday for a three-day
official visit.
It is the first official visit to Vietnam by a Tunisian foreign minister since
the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1972.
At the Meeting with the Tunisian foreign minister, Cam said the two countries
had many similarities in economic conditions and both sides should utilize
their available potential to promote bilateral ties.
Vietnam would assist Tunisia in irrigation and fresh water fishing, Cam said.
Cam said he was happy to see the progress the Tunisian people had made in
their national development, and appreciated Tunisia's position in Africa as
well as within the Non-Aligned Movement and the French-speaking community.
Moustapha said Tunisia wants to further strengthen and develop cooperation in
all aspects with Vietnam.
The two foreign ministers also discussed a number of regional and
international issues of mutual concern.
Both sides held that it was a must to have regular exchange of visits of high-
level government officials and business leaders to identify the specific areas
of cooperation.
Cam accepted an invitation from Moustapha to visit Tunisia.
* Vietnamese catholics call church a `home'
Tribune News Services, 7/5/99
EASTPOINTE, Mich. Vietnamese Catholics have more than a place of worship in a
new church in suburban Detroit. They also have a place to share their
experiences, which for many are stories of their escape from Vietnam.
Ypsilanti autoworker Kiem Hoang said that as a boy in Vietnam, he would walk
his blind grandmother to the local Catholic church every morning before
school. After fleeing Vietnam in 1975 and arriving in the United States, the
church helped his family find jobs and housing and to learn English.
"It has been a big part of my life," Hoang said. "Now I'm trying to make my
children understand the religion and culture."
Hoang, 38, was among hundreds of worshipers at the recent formal opening of
Our Lady of Grace Church in Eastpointe, the first Vietnamese Catholic Church
in Michigan.
"It feels good to be in your own home," Father Vincent Nguyen An Ninh said.
"It gives the Vietnamese community, not only Catholics, a face here."
About 25 percent of the Vietnamese in the United States practice Catholicism.
* 'Three Seasons' tells tales of Vietnam - A present-day look at the nation
is sentimental and effective.
The Orange County Register, 7/5/99
'Three Seasons'
Stars: Don Duong, Zoe Bui, Nguyen Ngoc Hiep
Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Tony Bui; produced by Jason Kliot,
Joana Vicente, Bui
Playing: Opens today at Edwards South Coast Village in Santa Ana
Rating: PG-13 for adult themes and situations
Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes
You might like it if: You liked "The Scent of Green Papaya."
'Three Seasons," a trio of stories set in modern-day Vietnam, has a strangely
familiar quality. Clearly, that's not because we're used to seeing the
country depicted in the movies; Vietnamese-made movies never receive
theatrical releases in the United States, while the rare ones made by
foreigners come and go fairly quickly. "Three Seasons" doesn't fit into
either category exactly; though its young writer-director, Tony Bui, 26, grew
up in Silicon Valley since age 2, he was born in Vietnam and has been a
frequent visitor.
But while Bui clearly wants to do justice to the experiences he's had and the
knowledge he's gained in his family's homeland, his feature borrows, whether
consciously or not, from the tradition of the European art film. Specifically,
Bui has an essentially romantic, and even sentimental, attitude toward the
largely poor characters in his films. Hearts of gold lie under the rough
exteriors of no less than three characters; simple idealism wins the day in
each of the stories.
In addition to this condescending and starry-eyed view of life, "Three
Seasons" is burdened by obvious discontinuities. The three stories, for
example, are told at the same time, Bui cutting freely among them. But at one
point, while one story takes place in the pouring rain in one part of town,
when we look into the progress of another tale occurring at the same time in
another neighborhood, the night is clear and the streets bone dry. Even the
title of the movie suggests that the stories were originally meant to be told
sequentially, not simultaneously. Cut together as they are, it gives the
material a fugue-like quality that disguises the fact that Bui's attitude
toward his characters inevitably reduces them to objects of pity, diminished
in stature and humanity.
What saves "Three Seasons" is Bui's gift for observing details and
translating them to film. In one of the stories, a cyclo, or pedicab, driver
named Hai (Don Duong) falls in love with a hard-bitten prostitute, Lan (Zoe
Bui), and begins to wait around the luxurious hotels she inhabits, waiting to
safeguard her home. The story teeters on convention (that Hai falls for Lan
merely by seeing her) and cliche (Lan longs for the purity of her school
days), yet manages to work nonetheless. Partly that's because Bui shows us
enough about Hai's workday, shuttling tourists and businessmen and trading
gossip with other drivers, to convince us of his particular reality. And
partly it's because when he gets his two lovers together, he manages to show
us a moment of such sensual tenderness with such tasteful discretion that we
not only believe, but want to believe, in the truth of the moment.
Of the two other tales, one walks the same fine line between contrivance and
conviction. Set on a lotus plantation where women tend to precious flowers
growing in a lake, it's about a simple country girl Kien An (Nguyen Ngoc
Hiep) recently come to work there. One day, the plantation's owner, a recluse
who lives in a temple in the middle of the lake, hears her singing an old
country tune and, through his underling, invites her into his dark lair and
asks her to recite poetry he had written long ago. The owner, Teacher Dao
(Tran Manh Cuong) turns out to be suffering from disfiguring leprosy, and the
once-handsome poet is ashamed to be seen in that state. Again, the preciosity
of the setup is overcome by Bui's attention to the songs and hard work of the
women.
The third tale is pretty much beyond help. At its core is the accidental
meeting between a former GI, James Hagar (Harvey Castile, the film's executive
producer), in Vietnam looking for the daughter he left behind, and Woody
(Nguyen Hub Duoc), a street urchin who sells trinkets from a wooden suitcase.
Nothing really happens between the two; in fact, as Hagar continues his search
and Woody has his precious case stolen, the story fractures more than it
coheres, though it's hard to see anything arising from this conflation of
cliches.
"Three Seasons," perhaps not surprisingly considering the youth of its
creator, is equally promising and exasperating. How you respond may depend on
the patience you have for youth and the curiosity you have over Vietnam.
* A dangerous lesson in Vietnam
USA Today, 5/5/99
A Dangerous Friend
By Ward Just
Houghton Mifflin, 256 pp.
List price: $23.00
Ward Just first went to Vietnam as a reporter, one of the best, for The
Washington Post. His combat reporting (he was seriously wounded) is included
in a collection of great journalism, Reporting Vietnam, published last year
by the Library of America.
The surrealism of Vietnam and Washington 30 years ago drove him into fiction.
Twelve novels later, Ward returns to Vietnam in A Dangerous Friend, an
intensely intelligent novel, exquisitely drawn, written three decades too
late.
Ward Just: Writer turned to fiction after combat reporting.
It is set in 1965, when American civilians still ran what they called "The
Effort," before, as the nameless narrator puts it, "things went to hell
generally, and the best of us lost heart."
It focuses on a small band of aid workers, loosely linked to the Pentagon, who
see themselves as "nation builders." They are committed, for a mixture of
motives, some good, some evil, to saving Vietnam from itself.
"You have no idea," the narrator says, "how little we know." Back then, "the
success of the enemy seemed to defy logic. We had so much and they had so
little."
The plot revolves around two Americans, "one man with a bad conscience and
another with no conscience," and a French colonialist and his American-born
wife, "living as if there were no revolution and no reason to choose sides,
happy to pursue her bird-watching from a safe haven on her husband's rubber
plantation. Forget the revolution and she could have been one of those who
fled the city for rural Connecticut."
Those parallel worlds collide. The Frenchman tells the American newcomer: "We
have all had the same disagreeable experience with the Americans, who think
this war is everyone's war and we owe it to you to collaborate, and when we
decide not to, we're threatened with unspecified 'difficulties,' as if you
owned the world and we had to pay rent to live in it."
The American thinks the Frenchman "had been in the Far East too long. He did
not appreciate the immensity of America, its industry, its restlessness and
sprawl, its impatience, its confidence, its anger and its desire. He was not
aware that this was only the beginning of the war. All that had gone before
was prelude. America was irresistible. This was the twentieth century eye to
eye with the fifteenth."
Just, a master of small details, is at his best on the culture of bureaucracy.
He describes a Pentagon run by "Kennedy's businessmen," who placed their
confidence in computers and systems analysis and information on demand.
One of his characters, an American aid worker who had been in the Far East
since the '50s and had married a Vietnamese, had trouble understanding the
new men and explaining "the subtlety of Vietnamese institutions, not that
these new men cared much about Vietnamese institutions, opaque Asian affairs
of scant relevance." Inevitably, A Dangerous Friend will be compared to
Graham Greene's tragically prophetic 1955 novel set in Vietnam, The Quiet
American. It too was about destroying what you're seeking to save. Greene
wrote out of the French colonial experience in Indochina; the history lessons
he offered were ignored.
Just's novel can't change Vietnam. But it should be required reading at the
White House on down, at all those agencies that, with the best of intentions,
adventure and blunder into other worlds they don't understand.
* Fired CNN producer sues network and confidential source
Cox News Service, 7/5/99
WASHINGTON -- April Oliver, the former TV producer who was fired by CNN after
the news network retracted her controversial documentary on Operation Tailwind
last year, fired back at her detractors Friday with a pair of lawsuits.
Oliver filed a claim against her former employer, charging that she had been
wrongfully dismissed, and filed a defamation countersuit against retired U.S.
Army General John Singlaub. The countersuit identified Singlaub, who led
covert forces during the Vietnam War, as ``a confidential source for the
Tailwind report.''
The legal actions came after a preliminary hearing in Singlaub's own
defamation lawsuit against CNN and Oliver stemming from the June 7, 1998,
report. The story claimed that covert U.S. forces had used a deadly nerve gas
and targeted American defectors in a secret 1970 raid on a jungle camp in
Laos.
Oliver has stood behind the report despite CNN's retraction and widespread
criticism that it was flawed.
Oliver said Singlaub's lawsuit effectively ended her agreement not to
publicly identify him as a source who provided information for the story,
which launched the joint CNN-Time magazine Sunday night show ``NewsStand.''
``Singlaub shattered our confidentiality contract,'' she said. ``First, he
told the public he wasn't a source. Then, at a Pentagon press conference in
July, he told the world he was a source, but had always denied the story.
Then he filed suit against me. These actions nullify our agreement.''
In the countersuit filed in District of Columbia Superior Court, Oliver said
she had interviewed Singlaub six times in connection with the Tailwind report
and took detailed notes at each meeting. Afterward, the document said,
Singlaub joined in attacks on the report and filed a suit ``alleging that
Oliver has defamed him by reporting the very information that he, on
condition of confidentiality, had confirmed to her.''
In his own legal filings, Singlaub denies confirming that nerve gas was used
in Operation Tailwind or that the mission was aimed at finding and killing
U.S. defectors in Laos. Indeed, he said he was not involved at all and was
defamed by the CNN report, which implied he commanded the unconventional
forces that carried out the mission.
While Oliver and CNN were united in defense against Singlaub's charges of
defamation Friday, the 36-year-old producer charged after the hearing that her
bosses had ``hung me out to dry'' when the military community challenged the
report. Oliver and co-producer Jack Smith were fired shortly after the report
was shown, and the on-air correspondent, Peter Arnett, parted ways with the
cable news network several weeks ago.
In her suit against the network, Oliver said she was made a scapegoat. CNN
did not ``terminate the employment'' of ``supervisory executives, editors and
managers who reviewed the Tailwind report and were responsible for the
decision to air the piece, including CNN executives Tom Johnson, Rick Kaplan,
David Kohler, John Lane, Frank Sesno, Pam Hill and Jim Connor,'' the document
said.
Oliver said she not only lost her $60,000-a-year job, but that derogatory
remarks made by some of her former bosses ``have hurt my career very badly.''
The suit against CNN ``is an opportunity to get the facts of the case out
there,'' she said in an interview. ``There has been a lot of misinformation,
and really character assassination. It is important for people who know who
made the decisions on this piece.''
Asked about the lawsuit, a CNN spokesperson said, ``We do not comment on
matters of litigation.''
At the hearing Friday, attorneys agreed on a schedule that would extend the
case well into next year. And Singlaub is only one of several Vietnam veterans
who have filed suits against CNN, its parent company Time-Warner Inc., Oliver,
Arnett and others involved in the report about Operation Tailwind.
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