Some news related to VN (20-26/10/97)
Kim Nguyen
The Straits Time
* Stillness of old Vietnam's calm :
20/10/97
A reminder and at the same time a farewell to an era in which serenity,
inner-calmness and charm ruled.
At The Gallery
Janet Ho
THERE are no recognisable villages, streets or countryside scenes on any of
the paintings by Vietnamese artist Le Thiet Cuong.
Of course, his paintings do show people and landscapes, but not in a familiar
sense.
In his work Open Portrait (1996), an oil-on-canvas piece on show at the Plum
Blossom Gallery, one can easily spot two individuals in quiet contemplation but
they are not recognisable other than being two people. His other works depict a
Buddhist monk at prayer, a herdsman with water buffaloes, a woman touched by a
falling lotus flower, children with a kite and a collection of alms bowls.
They evoke an unmistakable sense of the ancient charm of Vietnam one remembers
from its isolated temples and serene people.
But Cuong's paintings appear abstract despite their obvious figurative and
representational expressions.
The two people in Open Portrait are nameless, faceless, sexless and timeless.
Cuong, a 35-year-old Buddhist, avoids details and uses only lines, shapes and
masses of flat colours to depict his subjects.
The simple and uncluttered approach leads to a sense of stillness in his
pictures that conveys the simplicity and quiet of an ancient Vietnam.
And, like many of his countrymen, he is aware that Vietnam's old and quiet
world is under threat as it opens up to global markets and as its people get
caught up in a frenzy of economic activity.
He says his studio in Hanoi opens out onto a bustling and noisy street, with
its associated chaotic activity, but his simple studio is a pocket of calm by
comparison, and he wants to capture that and stillness.
The son of well-known Vietnamese film-maker parents, Cuong is holding his
second solo exhibition.
The first was in 1995 and while he has had no formal art training, he does
hold qualifications in design and animation from the Vietnam State Film College.
He was influenced by abstract artists such as Russian Wassily Kandinsky
(1866-1944) and American abstract expressionists of the '40s and '50s.
His use of bright colours and strong lines follows Kandinsky's minimalist
approach of reducing images to criss-crossed lines, simple contours and
symbolic shapes.
Unlike Kandinsky, however, Cuong retains the forms of his subject matter.
* Call for US presence to counter China in Spratlys row :
Manila (20/10/97) -- Participants at a conference here on the potential
outbreak of conflict in the South China Sea identified Beijing's claim on the
disputed area as a major concern and called for a US presence to balance the
regional giant.
Delegates cited the potential triggers of conflict regarding the Spratly
Islands, a chain of barren islands, reefs and atolls in the South China Sea
believed to lie atop a trove of oil, gas and minerals. The area is being
claimed in whole or in part by Brunei, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines
and Vietnam.
However, even non-claimants like Thailand, Japan and Indonesia rely on the
South China Sea for transit of supplies and could be affected by a conflict,
the delegates said on Saturday .
Ms Carolina Hernandez, president of the Institute for Strategic and
Development Studies in the Philippines, said the situation in the South China
Sea was not tense, but added: "You can't do anything without the cooperation of
China."
She cited China's occupation of a Spratlys reef claimed by the Philippines and
confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in other parts of the
Spratlys in recent months as raising concern in Manila.
Mr James Kelly, president of the Pacific Forum of the Hawaii-based Centre for
Strategic and International Studies, said the issue was "an important test how
a developing and emerging China will be dealing with its neighbours". Dr Bilver
Singh, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, said that
China had the "capability to undertake a course of action that can destabilise
the region". He cited the US as "a balancer and deterrent to possible sources
of conflict".
* Hanoi bans toy guns, swords "to protect kids" :
Hanoi (23/10/97) -- Vietnam has said it is banning toy weapons to protect the
minds of its children.
A Trade Ministry official said on Tuesday that the ban, which covers bamboo
and plastic swords, bows, rifles and grenade-shaped cigarette lighters, applies
to both imported and locally-produced toys.
"Those toys are dangerous and harmful," he said in a telephone interview.
"They cause a bad impact on children's psychology and make them think of wars
andviolence."
Vietnam's communist government regularly expresses concern about the impact of
consumerism and outside influences on its young people.
Officials said last month they were seeking a ban on the Japanese pocket-sized
computer game known as Tamagotch, a virtual pet which beeps when it needs
attention.
* Is there a doctor left in the countryside ? :
Hanoi (23/10/97) -- Some 3,000 doctors, most of them in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh
City, are out of work even though there is a chronic shortage in the rest of
the country.
The English-language Saigon Times, citing a study by the Ministry of Health,
said on Tuesday that at least 1,000 doctors in Hanoi, and as many in Ho Chi
Minh City, were jobless because of a lack of hospitals.
However, while a surplus of people with medical degrees were pounding the
pavement in Vietnam's two largest cities, there was an acute lack of doctors
throughout most of the country where 80 per cent of the population lived, the
reportsaid.
Ministry statistics showed that only 18 per cent of communes nationwide
haddoctors and that Vietnam had just 4.1 doctors per 10,000 people, which was
less than half the 10 doctors per 10,000 people recommended by the World Health
Organisation.
Salaries for medical graduates in the cities are between US$32 (S$49) and
US$40 per month at state-run hospitals and much lower in the provinces.
Most job seekers prefer to hold out for positions in city hospitals which
enable them to train on superior equipment.
Others are drawn into jobs with foreign pharmaceutical firms where they can
easily earn 10 times the salary of a physician. The skills-job mismatch is
symptomatic of the public health sector, which is fraught with problems as
Vietnam moves from a centrally-planned, fully-socialist system to a
market-based economy.
* Vietnam faces host of economic problems :
Hanoi (24/10/97) -- Vietnam's Prime Minister has warned that the communist
country is facing growing economic problems, with farmers suffering losses,
industrial growth slowing and foreign investment on the decline.
Mr Phan Van Khai told a meeting of Cabinet ministers earlier this week that
despite positive macro-economic indications, "severe challenges" lay ahead,
some of which were already beginning to bite.
The state-controlled press quoted him on Wednesday as saying that despite a
record rice harvest, many farmers had been unable to sell their produce
because of unfavourable price fluctuations.
Mr Khai ordered ministers to seek solutions for these and other problems,
including rampant smuggling and corruption, for inclusion in next year's
budgetary plans.
But absent from reports of the meeting were indications of either specific
detail or possible policy changes which might be taken. Western analysts say
Vietnam's economy has hit its first cyclical slowdown since reforms were
launched in the late 80s and point to the failure of the government to address
problems in the state sector, financial system and trade regime as prime
causes.
* Hanoi dismisses Pol Pot's domination charge :
Hanoi (25/10/97) -- Vietnam yesterday dismissed claims by Cambodia's notorious
former guerilla leader, Pol Pot, that he had saved the Khmer nation from
Vietnamese domination and said it wanted to see him brought to justice.
A Foreign Ministry statement, issued in response to comments made by Pol Pot
in a rare magazine interview, said that despite his denials that millions had
died under his "killing fields" regime there was no doubt he was responsible
for genocide.
"Everyone knows about the genocide committed by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge
against the Cambodian people during the period 1975-1979, which was very
fiendish," it said.
"Slander against Vietnam aimed at defending Pol Pot's crimes is therefore not
worthy of comment."
Pol Pot, in his first interview in nearly 20 years, told Far Eastern Economic
Review journalist Nate Thayer in a recent interview that he was unrepentant for
the death and suffering which occurred during his Maoist-style revolution.
He defended his orders to execute political opponents and blamed many of the
deaths on Vietnamese agents.
He also said that while the movement made mistakes during its rule, it had
saved Cambodia from Vietnamese domination.
Vietnam's Foreign Ministry statement did not address those remarks, but said
Pol Pot should be brought to justice by the Cambodian people.
Meanwhile, Cambodia's top UN human-rights official will soon ask the United
Nations General Assembly to investigate Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge guerillas'
crimes against humanity, a UN official said yesterday. The UN
Secretary-General's special representative for human rights in Cambodia, Mr
Thomas Hammarberg, will next month ask the world body to send a team to
Cambodia to investigate Pol Pot's crimes, said Mr David Hawk, chief of the UN
Centre for Human Rights in Cambodia.
"The situation now highlights the need to determine individual responsibility
for what everyone knows happened," Mr Hawk told Reuters.
He said the unrepentant Pol Pot's claims underlined the need to bring him and
his henchmen to justice.
"To us, this is part and parcel of the enormous problem of impunity that
exists in Cambodia," he said.
"No one is ever brought to justice, and what stands out is that no one was
ever brought to justice for the killings of millions -- for criminal
human-rights violations," he said.
Mr Hawk said the UN centre was also concerned about the killing of dozens of
political opponents of Second Prime Minister Hun Sen, in the aftermath of his
seizure of power in July, and attacks on opposition politicians and journalists.
Both Mr Hun Sen and his ousted senior coalition partner, former irst Prime
Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh, asked the UN in June to help bring Pol Pot
and the Khmer Rouge to justice.
Mr Hun Sen deposed Prince Ranariddh on July 6, but both men have indicated
they still support an international tribunal to try the Khmer Rouge, Mr Hawk
said.
On Thursday Mr Hun Sen rejected Pol Pot's claim that he was not responsible
for mass murder. The Cambodian leader said he hoped to arrest Pol Pot by the
end of the year.
* Underwear boss feels the heat :
Taipei (26/10/97) -- A Taiwanese underwear manufacturer, accused of "violating
the huma n dignity" of its Vietnamese female workers by making them show their
underpants, may be investigated, a report here said yesterday.
The security guards at Vi Hao company, which produces women's underwear, were
said to have examined the underpants of almost its entire staff of 100 female
workers last week, after a sample pair went missing, the Lao Dong newspaper
reported.
An official contacted by telephone at the company in southern Dong Nai
province confirmed that some of the female guards had decided themselves to
carry out the examination.
She said the company's board of directors knew nothing about the incident and
that they had not instructed the guards to carry out the search.
The incident has sparked public outrage, with local union authorities saying
they believed that it was a violation of the women's dignity and disrespect of
Vietnamese laws.
After receiving complaints from some of the Vietnamese, the union filed a
complaint with the provincial inspection office, asking to bring the case to
court.
In recent years, there have been a number of strikes and labour disputes
between Vietnamese workers and expatriate managers of foreign manufacturing
companies located in southern Vietnam.
Most of the companies were from South Korea and Taiwan.