VN news (May 1)

[Dam Son <son@fermi.phys.washington.edu>]

May 01: Vietnam's biggest ever drug ring trial to begin Friday
May 01: Storm lashes central Vietnam 
May 01: Quebec man freed from Vietnam 
May 01: Hong Kong to send back 148 Vietnamese boat people next week
May 01: Heroin scourge takes Vietnam by storm 
April 30: Starving N Korea spurns Hanoi offer to supply free 
April 30: U.S. Vietnam war dead returned to families 
April 30: Vietnam calls for calm over Spratly islands 
April 30: Vietnam frees Canadian businessman 



Vietnam's biggest ever drug ring trial to begin Friday

By Frederik Balfour

HANOI (AFP) - Twenty-two defendents in Vietnam's biggest ever drug
trafficking case go on trial on Friday in Hanoi, in what promises to
be the most closely watched case this year.

The trial, which is expected to last 10 days, has garnered an enormous
amount of media attention, particularly because 12 police officers,
including a police captain of the criminal division of the Ministry of
Interior Vu Xuan Truong, stand accused.

Truong was arrested in his home last July where police seized 4.9
kilogrammes of heroin (10.8 pounds) following revelations made by
convicted Laotian drug trafficker Sieng Pheng on the eve of his
execution.

According to the president of the People's Tribunal, Dang Minh Ngoc,
more than 10 people could receive the death penalty for their role in
a drug ring believed to have smuggled more than 300 kilos (660 pounds)
of heroin into the country, the Thanh Nien newspaper reported earlier
this week.

He said this was the largest and most organised drug trafficking ring,
which had good links with different officials within the ministry of
interior, border officials and police, whose cars were used to
transport drugs from the frontier to Hanoi.

In all, 40 people have been arrested in connection with the case, of
whom 22 will go on trial beginning Friday. The remaining 18 will be
tried at a later date pending further investigation, Ngoc said.

Among those charged, 18 defendants, including three Laotians, face
charges of drug trafficking and illegal possession. Four others face a
lesser charge of drug transporting.

Possession or trafficking of one or more kilogrammes (2.2 pounds) of
heroin is punishable by death. The sentence is carried out by firing
five shots to the body and a sixth coup de grace to the head.

Three women, including Truong's wife Nguyen Thi Lao, face a possible
death sentence, but he has promised to give investigators information
in exchange for leniency towards Lao.

"At the trial I will declare who had betrayed me and revealed some
particularly important figures in exchange for being cremated after
death and saving my wife and brother from the death sentence," Truong
was quoted as saying by the Lao Dong newspaper earlier in the week.

Foreign press coverage of the trial has been forbidden, and access to
the trial held in the French-built municipal courthouse across the
street from the former "Hanoi Hilton" prison will be tightly
restricted.

Only one family member for each of the 22 defendents may attend the
proceedings, which will be presided over by five judges instead of the
usual three.

Hanoi security forces are bracing themselves for the event, with extra
police to be mobilized outside the courthouse, the Troi Tre newspaper
reported.

Vietnam has become a transhipment point for drugs being moved from the
Golden Triangle area of Laos, Burma and Thailand through to the west
and the government has redoubled its efforts to stem the trade.

The government recently announced the creation of a nationwide
anti-drug crime unit, and the National Assembly is currently debating
ammendments to the criminal code that would introduce harsher
punishments for drug users.

Phan Hung, a Hanoi-based magistrate of the Supreme People's court has
promised a clean trial.

"I think that there can will be no one who dares interfere or impede
this trial, inspite of the fact that a number of criminals involved
are people from the interior ministry," said Phan Hung, a Hanoi-based
magistrate of the Supreme People's Court.

"This will be a lesson to strengthen forces in the police and border
guards," he said.
                 ___________________________________


Storm lashes central Vietnam 

HANOI (AP) -- Powerful winds and a torrent of hail has battered the
central Vietnamese province of Ha Tinh, leaving one child dead and at
least four people missing, state-run media reported Thursday.

Thousands of hectares (acres) of rice crops were either damaged or
destroyed by the hail as it lashed across five districts of Ha Tinh
province Wednesday and early Thursday morning, the Vietnam News Agency
reported.

More than 800 homes mostly small thatched houses were torn apart by
the strong winds, the report said.

Vietnam's central provinces are still recovering from a series of
storms last year that devastated crops and left hundreds dead. The
government is struggling to rebuild many villages in the region.

Ha Tinh province is about 300 kilometers (185 miles) south of the
capital, Hanoi.
                 ___________________________________


Quebec man freed from Vietnam 

By TU THANH HA
Quebec Bureau

MONTREAL -- Ending an ordeal of more than three years for a Quebec
City family, Vietnam has freed a Canadian businessman jailed for
defaulting on a $1.6-million contract with a state company.

Tran Trieu Quan, who is to be reunited with his family this afternoon,
was released from a Vietnamese prison on Monday and allowed to board a
Hong Kong-bound plane with a Canadian consular officer.

Mr. Quan was jailed in January of 1994, and received a life sentence
two years later after a cotton deal he brokered in his native land
fell through.

"The government of Vietnam acceded to our request to release Mr. Quan
on humanitarian grounds," said Foreign Affairs Department spokeswoman
Valerie Noftle yesterday, explaining that talks had been going on for
months.

Mr. Quan reported that he was "in good health and good spirits," she
said.

Ms. Noftle said one reason the release was secured was that "Mr. Quan
made his own arrangements with the Vietnamese authorities." (Vietnam
had previously said that it would release him only if it got its money
back.)

Until Mr. Quan comes back and agrees to make public comments, it was
left to his family and supporters to speculate on whether the release
was linked to yesterday's date (April 30 is a Vietnamese holiday on
which the Communist government celebrates the victory over South
Vietnam) or to the fact that Vietnam will host the Francophonie summit
this year.

The Canadian government did not link the case to any development
programs, Ms. Noftle said.

Mr. Quan's family got news of the release yesterday when Mr. Quan's
wife, Nguyen Thu My, got a phone call at about 1 a.m.

"Our family is extremely relieved. It has been more than three years,
always waiting, with no hint when we could have some good news," Ms.
My said in a telephone interview.

"We're seeing the light of day again . . . it's the best news we've
had in years," said 16-year-old Cecilia, one of Mr. Quan's three
children. "It's hard to believe because we had been dreaming about
this day for so long."

Mr. Quan's case has received scant attention outside Quebec, but in
the Quebec City area, his plight has touched many people. Local groups
have lobbied on his behalf and 124,000 people from across the province
signed a petition supporting him.

Cecilia said the family's spirits bottomed out when Mr. Quan was given
a life sentence. Things got slightly better last July when an appeal
court reduceed the sentence to 20 years.

Beyond the family's situation, the controversy also underscored
broader issues.

With the federal government encouraging trade with Asian nations, some
of them with controversial human-rights records, the case was also a
reminder to Asian Canadians who headed back to their native lands that
some governments don't recognize their dual citizenship.

Mr. Quan was the middleman in a 1992 deal in which the Vietnamese
state company Texgamex bought 800 tonnes of raw Russian cotton from
Excel Cotton International.

Excel, a Toronto-registered firm, belonged to Paul Morgan, a U.S.
citizen who wanted to skirt the trade embargo his country had at the
time against Vietnam.

By July of 1993, the Vietnamese had paid the money, but the cotton did
not show up. Mr. Quan went to Hanoi in January of 1994 to try to
settle the dispute. He was held there, his passport was confiscated
and he was put in jail.

In January of 1996, Mr. Quan received a life sentence after a one-day
trial. Mr. Morgan disappeared after the deal collapsed. A reporter for
the Quebec City newspaper Le Soleil later tracked him down at a New
Jersey condominium.
                 ___________________________________


Hong Kong to send back 148 Vietnamese boat people next week
...

HONG KONG (AFP) - Hong Kong is to repatriate 148 Vietnamese boat
people next week, a government spokesman said Thursday.

The Vietnamese asylum seekers were transferred from the High Island
detention centre -- the last camp continuing to hold Vietnamese boat
people here -- to a security unit in preparation for their return to
Vietnam on May 6, he said.

A second group will leave on May 9.

The group will go through pre-flight documentation and medical checks
before the repatriation as part of a stepped-up government program to
clear Hong Kong of Vietnamese boat people by July 1 when the territory
returns to Chinese rule.

The number of boat people being forced home has started to dwindle,
compared to 1,000 a month in the past.

As of April 28, there were some 5,008 remaining Vietnamese boat people
in Hong Kong.

In the early 1990s, there were more than 60,000 boat people here.

China has told Hong Kong to clear its detention camps by July 1 when
it takes over sovereignty of the territory from Britain.
                 ___________________________________


Heroin scourge takes Vietnam by storm 

Hanoi (Reuter) - His hand saluting the people and a cheery smile on
his face, Ho Chi Minh graces the inside cover of Vietnam's report on
its much-vaunted drug control masterplan.

``...Opium smoking should be prohibited,'' reads the caption under the
picture of modern-day Vietnam's founding father.

Uncle Ho's advice may have been appropriate in the days of colonial
rule and the Vietnam War, when the back streets of Saigon were a maze
of opium dens.

But it is hardly the answer to Vietnam's new drug headache -- heroin
addiction in urban areas and an explosion of heroin-trafficking across
its increasingly porous borders.

Vietnam's state-controlled media still prints triumphant articles
about the reduction of opium poppy-growing in mountainous areas, where
ethnic minorities have smoked and made money from opium for the last
two centuries.

The results have been impressive. Raw opium production has fallen to
about 10 tonnes a year from 60-80 tonnes six years ago.

But aid workers say the government's continued focus on reducing opium
production has caused a new and more alarming situation to be
overlooked.

The United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) and others argue
that the time has now come for Vietnam to sign up to international
drug control conventions to deal with the problem.

OFFICIALS CRACK DOWN ON HEROIN TRAFFICKERS

Vietnam is cracking down hard, and openly, on drug traffickers -- even
if it means red faces in the ranks of law enforcement agencies whose
officers are caught up in the trade.

On Friday, 22 people, half of them state police officials and border
guards, will go on trial in Hanoi for their alleged involvement in a
massive heroin-smuggling syndicate.

The presiding judge in the case has already gone public with his own
opinion that more than 10 may be sentenced to death.

The scandal dates back to 1995, when two Laotian nationals were
arrested for possession of 15 kg (33 pounds) of heroin.

One of the two, Sieng Pheng, earned a last-minute reprieve from
execution by firing squad in return for information that led to the
arrest of about 30 people.

Pheng said heroin found under the seats and inside the doors of his
car was just part of his delivery and that more had been concealed in
a false bottom of the car's fuel tank.

Five police officers, among them Interior Ministry captain Vu Xuan
Truong, were charged with stealing the drugs after the fuel tank was
later found to be empty.

Newspapers have questioned how Truong could have acted as he is
alleged to have done for years with impunity and Truong has promised
to expose some ``very important people'' during the trial.

``Truong used to drive a high-powered motorbike to distribute heroin
to street stalls,'' an informed source said. ``This retail operation
showed he was not a big shot of the Hanoi drug ring.''

GOLDEN TRIANGLE SUPPLIES DRUGS

The Pheng-Truong syndicate, as it has now come to be known, is said to
have brought heroin from the notorious Golden Triangle -- an area
where Thailand, Laos and Burma meet -- into Vietnam via several border
roads from Laos.

Joern Kristensen of the UNDCP says several roads are now being used as
a conduit for consignments from Vietnam's landlocked neighbour.

``Vietnam was relatively protected until a few years ago because the
borders were closed and the country was very poor,'' he said.

``Now it has emerged as a transit country. It's easier here than in
other countries, where they have had this problem for years and law
enforcement agencies are well trained.''

The most frequently used route is Highway Six, which comes through the
Dien Bien Phu region in the northwest and leads directly into Hanoi.

>From the capital, drugs are either flown out from the airport or taken
to the port of Haiphong and shipped on to countries such as Australia,
the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Some heroin also finds its way north by road to China, and some is
sold to a fast-growing market at home.

``The trend of drug-addiction is rising,'' says Le Duc Hien of the
government's Social Evils Prevention Department, noting that there
were now an estimated 132,000 addicts nationwide.

Hien says heroin is easily available in the capital's ``shooting
galleries'' -- for as little as $2 a high.

                 ___________________________________

Starving N Korea spurns Hanoi offer to supply free rice

Famine-struck North Korea has refused free rice from Vietnam, it
emerged yesterday.

The offer of 2,000 tonnes of rice was sternly rejected by North Korean
Deputy Prime Minister Kong Jin-tae in the hope of a more generous
donation during a visit to Hanoi earlier this month, government
sources confirmed yesterday.

"North Korea made very clear that it was in a lot of trouble," one
source said.

"But there was definitely a feeling on the North Korean side that
Vietnam could offer a lot more than 2,000 tonnes."

The news came amid reports from aid workers that North Koreans have
resorted to eating sawdust from oak trees as they face "full-blown
famine".

Some estimates suggest the North needs up to 2.3 million tonnes of
grain to avoid widespread starvation after two years of severe
flooding.

Mr Kong is the highest-level visitor from Pyongyang to Hanoi in more
than five years. But his plea for help was complicated by Vietnam's
outstanding debts dating back to its own tough times in the mid-1980s
when fraternal communist ties were all it could rely on.

Vietnam has gone from one of the world's biggest rice importers to one
of the world's leading exporters in that time.

But during the talks, Pyongyang refused to allow Vietnam to clear its
debts with rice. Instead, it insisted the issue should be kept
separate from its demand for 100,000 tonnes.

Pyongyang last year imported 40,000 tonnes of rice from Vietnam - some
of it free.

Senior Politburo member and military ideology supremo Le Kha Phieu
offered "profound sympathy" in one meeting, saying he believed North
Korea would "overcome all challenges", but refused to answer
Pyongyang's demands.

Officially, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said both sides "exchanged
ideas" about ways to strengthen economic and trade links.

The spokesman confirmed that North Korea had raised the prospect of
food purchases, but said further lower-level talks would take place.

Despite being among the last remaining communist-ruled states, ties
between Hanoi and Pyongyang have long been frosty. Their deep
ideological rifts were compounded by Vietnam's step in 1992 to
normalise ties with South Korea. -- SCMP

                 ___________________________________


U.S. Vietnam war dead returned to families 

Washington (dpa) - The recovered remains of three U.S. aviators who
went missing in action during the Vietnam war were being returned to
their families following positive identification by forensic
investigators, the Defense Department said Wednesday.

Two of the men were aboard an Air Force B-52 bomber that crashed in
1967 in the South China Sea while on a bombing run over South Vietnam.

The third was said to have been a Navy aviator.

The remains were recovered after a Vietnamese fishermen in 1993 and
1994 told joint U.S.- Vietnamese missing-in-action recovery teams of
wreckage and bones found in 30 metres of water.

Forensic testing by the U.S. military later confirmed identification
of the remains.

A total of 2,124 Americans remain missing and unaccounted-for in the
Southeast Asian conflict.
                 ___________________________________


Vietnam calls for calm over Spratly islands 

Hanoi (Reuter) - Vietnam called on Wednesday for calm amid concern in
the Philippines over reports that Chinese warships had been spotted
near disputed islands in the South China Sea.

A foreign ministry statement, issued in response to media queries,
said Vietnam had no new information on reports of an apparent increase
in Chinese military surveillance around the Spratly islands.

But it called on regional claimants to the area not to complicate
matters by resorting to force.

``Our basic standpoint on this issue has been made clear,'' it said.

``During negotiations to reach a basic and long-term solution it's
necessary to maintain the status quo, not to make the situation more
complicated, and especially not to use force or threaten to use
force.''

The Philippine cabinet met on Monday following the reported sighting
of three Chinese vessels accompanied by what looked like four fishing
boats in the area.

Manila said on Tuesday it would file a diplomatic protest with Beijing
over the alleged incursion. Some 200 marines were on their way towards
the area on Wednesday but Philippine officials insisted it was a
normal troop rotation.

The Spratly islands are a cluster of some 190 reefs, shoals and islets
which lie in an area close to major international shipping lanes in
the South China Sea. Mostly uninhabited they are considered
potentially mineral-rich.

Vietnam and China claim the entire archipelago, while Taiwan, the
Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei claim parts.
                 ___________________________________


Vietnam frees Canadian businessman 

QUEBEC CITY (Reuter) - A Canadian businessman jailed for more than two
years in Vietnam after a failed financial deal was freed (on)
Wednesday in Hanoi, Canadian Foreign Affairs Department officials
said.

``The government of Canada is extremely pleased to confirm that the
government of Vietnam has acceded to its request for the release of
Mr. Tran Trieu Quan on humanitarian grounds,'' Foreign Affairs
spokeswoman Valerie Noftle told Reuters.

Tran, a Canadian citizen born in Vietnam, was arrested in Hanoi in
August 1994, after the collapse of a US$1 million transaction between
his company Excel Cotton International and Texgamex, a Vietnamese
state-owned company.

The Vietnamese government seized his Canadian passport and charged
Tran with fraud after a shipment of cotton ordered by Texgamex failed
to arrive in Vietnam. After a short trial in January 1996, Tran was
sentenced to life imprisonment.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Foreign Affairs minister
Lloyd Axworthy had asked the Vietnamese government to free Tran.

His wife, My Thu Nguyen, tearfully told a news conference in Quebec
City she was ecstatic at the news of his release.

``This is the end of a nightmare,'' she said.

Tran was scheduled to arrive in Quebec City on Thursday, his Canadian
lawyer Jean Paquet said.
                 ___________________________________