News, 18-19/10/01
hyt...@my-deja.com
AP, 19/10/01
HANOI, Vietnam - Vietnam sentenced a dissident Catholic priest on Friday to 15
years in prison on charges he undermined the country's unity and violated a
detention order.
Vietnam's Communist government earlier rejected a U.S. request for the release
of the priest, Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, saying his arrest was purely a Vietnamese
internal affair.
Ly had urged in testimony to a U.S. government committee in February that the
U.S. Congress delay ratification of a bilateral trade agreement until Vietnam
eases restrictions on religion.
His harsh sentence could spee d up U.S. Senate action on a separate Vietnam
human rights act that Vietnam's Communist Party has severely criticized.
The act, already passed overwhelmingly by the U.S. House of Representatives,
would halt future U.S. non-humanitarian aid unless Vietnam's government improves
its human rights record.
Ly was placed under administrative detention, the equivalent of house arrest,
after his testimony to the U.S. committee in February. In March, the government
also banned him from running his church.
In a one-day trial, a court in central Hue city sentenced him to two years in
prison for defying the detention order and 13 years for ``undermining the
national unity policy of the state.''
Vietnam's state-owned television network, VTV, showed a gaunt Ly listening to
the verdict with his eyes closed. He was then led out of the courtroom by two
police.
The U.S. Embassy had no immediate comment on the sentencing.
Congress has now approved the trade agreement, which was signed into law on
Wednesday by President George W. Bush.
Ly's sentencing is the latest in a series of tough actions by Vietnam's
government against members of non-approved religious groups.
In September, Ho Tan Anh, a 61-year-old farmer and a leader of the Buddhist
Youth Movement in central Vietnam, burned himself to death to protest
restrictions on his group.
The Buddhist Youth Movement was founded in the late 1930s by the Unified
Buddhist Church of Vietnam, one of a number of independent religious groups now
banned by Vietnam's government, which allows only seven recognized religious
organizations.
In June, security agents encircled several of the church's temples and placed
Thich Quang Do, a prominent priest, under house arrest after he announced plans
to escort church patriarch Thich Huyen Quang to doctors for medical treatment.
Quang, 83, who suffers from high blood pressure, arthritis and stomach ulcers,
has been under house arrest since 1992.
Vietnam's government says its citizens enjoy religious freedom and insists it
holds no prisoners of conscience. But it forbids any independent organizations
that might challenge its political and social control.
There have also been persistent reports of harassment of minority groups in
Vietnam's Central Highlands who belong to unapproved Protestant ``house
churches.''
The Communist Party has orchestrated almost daily rallies against the Vietnam
human rights act being considered by the U.S. Congress. It says the U.S.
government has no right to interfere in Vietnamese affairs after violating human
rights during the Vietnam War.
* Vietnam jails dissident priest
BBC, 20/10/01 - Vietnam has sentenced a dissident Roman Catholic priest to 15
years in jail for undermining national unity and violating a detention order.
Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly wrote to a US Government committee in March, urging the
Americans not to ratify a bilateral trade agreement until Hanoi eased
restrictions on religious freedoms.
Father Ly, who was put under house arrest shortly afterwards and arrested in
May, was also accused of distributing anti-Communist leaflets.
The priest has been a long time critic of the Vietnamese authorities and had
previously spent 10 years in prison for his beliefs.
Vietnamese television showed Father Ly, looking gaunt, listening with his eyes
closed to his sentencing by a court in the central city of Hue on Friday.
US Congress has since approved the trade agreement Father Ly was protesting
against and President George W Bush signed it into law on Wednesday.
US reaction
But correspondents say his heavy sentence could hasten US Senate action on a
separate Vietnam human rights act which Vietnam's Communist Party has severely
criticised.
The bill, which the US House of Representatives has already passed, would stop
all American non-humanitarian aid to Vietnam unless Hanoi improves its human
rights record.
Father Ly's sentencing is only the latest example of recent religious
persecution by the Vietnamese Government.
In September, Ho Tan Anh, the 61-year-old leader of the Buddhist Youth Movement,
burned himself to death to protest restrictions on his group.
A prominent priest of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam was put
under house arrest in June, after he announced plans to escort another church
patriarch under detention for medical treatment.
There have also been persistent reports of harassment of minority groups in
Vietnam's Central Highlands who belong to unapproved Protestant "house
churches."
The Vietnamese Government, which insists its citizens enjoy religious freedom,
only allows seven recognised religious organisations.
The Catholic Church is one of them, but followers are strictly controlled by the
government, which has the final say on who takes up senior positions in the
Church in Vietnam.
* Vietnam jails priest for 15 years
HANOI (Reuters, 20/10/01) - Vietnam has jailed an outspoken Catholic priest for
15 years on charges of undermining national unity and disobeying probation
rules, a government official said on Saturday.
Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly was convicted by a provincial court after a
half-day hearing on Friday, the official said.
"He was sentenced to two years in jail for failing to obey probation rules and
13 years for undermining the great unity," the official, from the central
province of Thua Thien Hue's religious committee, told Reuters.
The 54-year-old Ly was also given five years probation after the jail term.
The hearing took place in the central city of Hue, 600 km (373 miles) south of
the capital Hanoi.
A long time government critic, Ly previously spent nearly 10 years in prison and
was on Amnesty International's list of prisoners of conscience.
In May, he was arrested and put on probation for fomenting disorder and
distributing anti-communist leaflets. And in March official media denounced Ly
as a traitor for urging the United States to link religious freedom to
ratification of a bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam.
Despite years of communist restrictions, about eight million of Vietnam's 80
million people are Catholics. This is more than any other Asian country except
for the Philippines.
* Vietnam sentences Catholic priest to 15 years in jail
ABC, 20/10/01 - Vietnam has sentenced a dissident Catholic priest to 15 years in
prison on charges he undermined the country's unity and violated a detention
order.
Vietnam's Communist government earlier rejected a U.S. request for the release
of the priest, Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, saying his arrest was purely a Vietnamese
internal affair.
Ly had urged in testimony to a U.S. government committee in February that the
U.S. Congress delay ratification of a bilateral trade agreement until Vietnam
eases restrictions on religion.
His harsh sentence could speed up U.S. Senate action on a separate Vietnam human
rights act that Vietnam's Communist Party has severely criticized.
* Vietnam to scrap telecoms monopoly
HANOI (Reuters, 20/10/01) - The Vietnamese government has approved a plan to
scrap the state monopoly in the telecoms sector by opening up 50 percent of the
market to new businesses in 2010, official media reported on Saturday.
The Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper said that by 2005 new enterprises would
account for 25-30 percent of the telecoms market share and then be raised to
40-50 percent.
It said the plan laid out targets to develop Vietnam's telecoms infrastructure
into a facility as modern as that in advanced countries in the region.
The sector should also aim to provide various services at a charge lower or
equal to regional levels.
The government would also allow the sector to raise between $4 billion and $6
billion during the plan period for investment.
The monopoly by state-run Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Corp's (VNPT)
monopoly has been gradually lifted, with more firms joining in to provide
telephone and Internet services.
Current telecoms service providers include VNPT, Military Communications Co
(Vietel), the semi-private Saigon Posts and Telecommunications (Saigon Postel)
and the Electricity Telecommunications and Information Co (ETIC).
ETIC, an affiliate of the state utility Electricity of Vietnam, received a
licence late last month to set up networks, lease its cables for domestic
long-distance calls and offer telecoms services.
* Woman to Face Death by Stoning for Adultery
LAGOS (Reuters, 19/10/01) - A Nigerian Muslim sharia court has sentenced a
nursing mother to death by stoning after she was convicted of adultery, a
Nigerian newspaper reported on Friday.
The court in Sokoto state in northern Nigeria convicted Safiya Hussaini for
adultery and ordered she be stoned to death once she has finished weaning her
baby, state-owned Daily Times newspaper said.
The court acquitted Yakubu Abubakar whom Hussaini said made her pregnant. She
has 30 days to appeal the sentence.
Sokoto government officials were not immediately available for comment. Sokoto
is one of more than a dozen states in predominantly Islamic northern Nigeria
which have proclaimed sharia law.
Multi-ethnic Nigeria is bitterly divided over sharia law, which was first
adopted by Zamfara state in 1999.
Hundreds of people were killed in 2000 in bouts of Christian-Muslim bloodletting
after some northern states adopted sharia law.
Hussaini, a housewife, was not put in custody but was told she had to present
herself on the appropriate date for execution.
"If she fails to do so, the police and the general public will be used to bring
her to court," the Daily Times quoted presiding judge Mohammed Sanyinnawal as
saying.
A court in Zamfara state last year acquitted a man who impregnated a teenage
girl. She was sentenced to caning.
Rights groups describe sharia court sentences as barbaric and a violation of
fundamental human rights.
* Withdrawal From Naval Base Not to Affect Ties With Vietnam: Putin
Peope's Daily, 20/10/01
Russia's decision to withdraw from the Cam Ranh Bay naval base will not affect
its ties with Vietnam, Russian President Vladimir Putin said here Friday.
Putin made the judgment in a meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van
Khai on the sidelines of the informal meeting of leaders of the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, sources close to the Vietnamese delegation
told Xinhua.
In Hanoi, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said: " The decision of
Russia is in accordance with the agreement between Vietnam and Russia."
Russia has been using the base since 1979 and the lease expires in 2004. The
withdrawal is expected to start in January 2002. Vietnam had insisted that
Russia pay rent if it wanted to continue using the base after 2004.
On Wednesday, Putin announced in Moscow that Russia would close a Cold War Cuban
base and withdraw from the Cam Ranh Bay base.
In Friday's talks here, Putin and Khai also discussed bilateral cooperation in
energy and petroleum, particularly the Vietsopetrol Joint Venture, which taps
crude oil from under seabed off a southern Vietnamese province.
Khai told Putin that the venture produced 16 million tons of oil in the first
nine months of this year. He asked Russia to help Vietnam train engineering
personnel.
Khai said that the agreements signed during Putin's visit to Vietnam in March
this year have been implemented effectively.
* "Vietnamese Abstractions: Works by Nguyen Trung, Luong Xuan Doan and Tran Nhat
Thang"
Absoluteart.com
2001-10-20 until 2001-11-11
Thavibu Gallery
Bangkok, , TH Thailand
Nguyen Trung is often viewed as one of the most influential and respected among
Vietnamese artists today. Luong Xuan Doan was born in 1952 and creates his works
of abstract or semi-abstract motifs influenced by life in Vietnam. Tran Nhat
Thang is a young Vietnamese artist, born in 1972. Over the past few years he has
worked consistently to develop an independent style which speaks for his
emotions as well as his artistic values.
Over the last decade, Nguyen Trung has initiated a new current in Vietnamese art
- abstract art based upon strict European rationalism interwoven with Oriental
philosophical space. Nguyen Trung was born in 1940, has staged numerous shows in
Vietnam and abroad and is one of the few living Vietnamese artists whose works
have been sold at international auctions.
Luong Xuan Doan's paintings seem to have a minimalist approach, where a few
brush strokes can carry a lot of meaning. Luong Xuan Doan's preferred medium is
Chinese ink on paper, though he also sometimes executes paintings with colourful
brush strokes on handmade (Dó) paper.
Tran Nhat Thang strives to make abstractions from reality, and there is
something poetic about many of his works which are usually executed with Chinese
ink, acrylic or mixed medium on long, vertical canvases in this show.
* Vietnam Calls O.C. Group Terrorists
Crime: U.S. is urged to crack down on refugees accused of bombing attempts in
Asia. But they term themselves a government in exile.
By SCOTT MARTELLE and MAI TRAN, Times Staff Writers, LAT 21/10/01
As the United States presses its war against terrorism, Vietnam is demanding
that American officials extend the crackdown to an immigrant group they say has
sponsored Southeast Asian bombing attempts from its headquarters in a
nondescript Garden Grove office building.
The group, which calls itself the Government of Free Vietnam, consists largely
of former South Vietnamese soldiers and bureaucrats who, more than a
quarter-century after the fall of Saigon, refuse to accept the Communist regime
as the ruler of their native land.
Members of the group say they have spent six years organizing jungle training
camps in Thailand and Laos and that some of them have mounted unsuccessful bomb
attempts against Vietnamese government facilities.
Hanoi last week called on the United States to "collaborate with Vietnam in
stopping and punishing the masterminds and those who plan terrorist acts against
the Vietnamese government and its people."
The demand came after FBI agents arrested a member of the group, Van Duc Vo, 41,
at John Wayne Airport in Orange County on Oct. 12 after Thai police named him
the main suspect in an attempted bombing of the Vietnamese embassy in Bangkok
this summer.
Vo, a naturalized American citizen formerly of El Monte, remains jailed on
charges of use of a weapon of mass destruction by a U.S. national in a foreign
country, a federal crime that could carry a life term.
The State Department had no official response to Vietnam's demand, but a
spokesman said the U.S. government "has concerns about the possibility of people
violating our laws, and we've warned them not to do it."
He referred questions about Free Vietnam to the Department of Justice and the
FBI, where officials declined to comment.
Vietnam has asked the United States to bring terrorism charges against the
group's leader, former civil engineer Chanh Huu Nguyen, 52.
"Many times [group members] have organized bombings in Vietnam and against its
agencies abroad," said Thuy Thanh Phan, spokeswoman for the Vietnamese
Department of Foreign Affairs. "Vietnam has asked the U.S. to stop harboring,
tolerating or supporting that group. It should punish those who commit terrorist
acts on Vietnam . . . like Nguyen and his group."
Until Vo's arrest, Free Vietnam was little known outside the Vietnamese
community. So far, its most clear-cut success seems to have been in annoying the
Vietnamese government.
The group considers itself to be Vietnam's legitimate government in exile,
complete with a "cabinet" that meets frequently. But some dismiss it as
irrelevant, and suggest that it is just a vehicle for Nguyen's personal
ambitions. At least one supporter said he loaned the organization $50,000 and
never has been repaid.
Nguyen walks a fine line. Overall, he is defiant, saying Free Vietnam members
acting on their own have been involved in bomb attacks against Vietnamese
interests. He vowed that his group would continue to select targets within
Vietnam.
"We can destroy factories; we can destroy ammunition," he said.
Yet he also describes himself as a "peaceful political fighter for my country's
democracy and freedom. . . . Vietnam is taking advantage of the terrorist
situation by claiming that I'm a terrorist."
The Vietnamese government has tried to play off the Sept. 11 attacks to kindle a
sense of outrage that the United States could be harboring terrorists on its own
soil while it bombs Afghanistan in its quest to destroy Osama bin Laden's Al
Qaeda terrorist network.
"It would be absolutely hypocritical for us to expect world cooperation against
a group that attacked us if we were not willing to cooperate in going after
groups attacking other countries," said Stephen M. Walt, a professor of
international politics at Harvard University's Kennedy Center on Government.
Though it is not illegal for U.S. citizens to call for the overthrow of a
foreign government, it is against the law for Americans to become involved in
the effort to do so.
Reports of Americans taking part in anti-government attacks in Cambodia last
November, and other unspecified actions elsewhere in the region, led to a
special State Department warning Dec. 19 that Americans could be prosecuted for
acts against foreign governments.
It is illegal to raise money in the United States for overseas terror campaigns,
although the practice--by organizations ranging from the Irish Republican Army
to the militant Islamic group Hamas--has been noted for years. Law enforcement
efforts to stop it occur sporadically but are difficult to pull off, experts
say.
Earlier this year, a New York group linked to anti-Arab Israeli groups was
raided by federal officials who confiscated computers and records. And in 1998,
federal officials in Chicago seized about $1.1 million from Mohammed Salah and
the Quranic Literacy Institute after accusing them of fronting for Hamas.
William Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University and expert on national
security law, said terrorism cases can be difficult to mount, requiring complex
investigations domestically and overseas, where U.S. laws don't apply. Yet the
evidence still has to be gathered in such a way that it's admissible in U.S.
courts.
"You do need to track evidence and build a case as if it occurred in New York or
Los Angeles," he said.
Nguyen said it would be unfair for the United States to arrest him at the
request of Vietnam.
"I haven't done anything wrong in America," he said.
Nguyen, sitting at the head of a large table in a brightly lit Free Vietnam
conference room, said his group is not terrorist because it operates openly and
avoids injuring people.
"Terrorists don't have addresses; they work underground and they kill people,"
Nguyen said in his loud and raspy voice as a dozen members of Free Vietnam's
"cabinet" listened from the other end of the table.
The Government of Free Vietnam came together in 1995 out of the remnants of
earlier opposition groups, launched largely through the force of Nguyen's
personality. Their base now is Little Saigon in the heart of Orange County, home
to the nation's largest Vietnamese community.
Nguyen clearly enjoys the spotlight. A picture of him shaking hands with former
President Bill Clinton hangs on a wall of the Free Vietnam office, and he keeps
a binder with copies of news stories in which he was featured.
Verifiable details on the group are hard to come by. Nguyen said it has a budget
of about $1 million a year, mostly from wealthy Vietnamese businessmen around
the world and the group's cabinet, some of whom sold their homes and businesses
to raise money.
Nguyen claims about 200,000 members worldwide, about half in Cambodia and
Vietnam, and about 10,000 members in the United States. But in the past, the
organization has reported only a few thousand members worldwide.
The group positions itself as the keeper of the chain of governance established
in the 1940s, when France granted the former colony its independence and set in
motion the events that led to nearly three decades of war.
Nguyen said the group opened training camps in the jungle near the
Thai-Cambodian border in 1995, geared toward indoctrinating Vietnamese citizens
in democracy and free-market economics.
In 1998, Cambodian forces attacked a Free Vietnam convention at the remote camp,
which was then shut down by Thai military forces, according to Nguyen and press
accounts. Three people were reported wounded and Nguyen was arrested and
deported.
The group simply moved its operations to a remote region of Laos near the
Vietnamese border, where it operates unfettered, he said.
Nguyen said members were involved in the summer incident in Bangkok, in which
two bombs were placed at the Vietnamese embassy but did not detonate. A second
embassy bombing plot involving a Free Vietnam member was uncovered in Manila.
Nguyen said he didn't authorize those actions but described them as bomb scares,
not real attempts to blow up buildings.
Vo, arrested Oct. 12 at John Wayne Airport in connection with the Bangkok
incident, was described by the FBI in court papers as a member of an unspecified
Orange County-based anti-Communist group that "wanted to overthrow the
Vietnamese regime." Thai police said Vo was a member of Free Vietnam's military
wing.
Nguyen said he spoke by telephone with Vo soon after the bombs were discovered.
"I asked Mr. Vo, who reported to me, and he said 'No, it's a bomb scare, boss;
it's not real,' " Nguyen said.
Nguyen also said he personally directed the timing of failed attempts to blow up
Communist statues in Can Tho, a southern Vietnamese city, in 1999. In an ensuing
roundup, the Vietnamese government in May sentenced 37 Free Vietnam members and
supporters to as many as 20 years in prison.
Despite being wanted by Vietnamese officials, Nguyen said he has made repeated
trips into the Communist-controlled country by slipping across the Laotian
border.
Until Vo's arrest, the group's one run-in with authorities in the United States
occurred in 1998, when the California Department of Corporations ordered Free
Vietnam to stop selling bonds to raise money because it lacked the proper
permits.
Nguyen denied any wrongdoing. He also rejects claims by some former group
members that he never repaid money they had lent the effort. Van Tran, 59, of
Arleta said he lent $50,000 to the group while he served as "secretary of
commerce" after being promised he would be reimbursed. He said he wasn't.
"I was so willing to sacrifice anything for the freedom of my homeland that I
didn't know I was getting ripped off," Tran said. "I just wanted to get rid of
the Communists."
Former South Vietnamese soldier Huy Thanh Nguyen, 60, sold his sewing business
in New Jersey five years ago to move to Westminster and join the organization
because "I really thought the group had a true mission to wipe out communism in
my homeland."
He said Nguyen, who is not related, told him of armed, trained soldiers waiting
in Thailand to overthrow the Vietnamese Communists. When he visited the camp,
though, he saw only about 20 people, including some former soldiers.
"I didn't see anything that he had been telling us about," Huy Thanh Nguyen
said.
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