VN news (Mar 9-10)

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

   Mar 10: Vietnam's biggest corruption scandal goes to appeal
   Mar 10: Vietnam and US agree to restructure former Saigon-regime debt 
   Mar 10: Court jails traffickers of Vietnamese women to China 
   Mar 10: Bangladesh,Vietnam sign four accords 
   Mar 10: Vietnam drugs bust exposes seedy youth underworld
   Mar 10: Gateway for mountain of contraband 
   Mar 10: UNHCR chief in HK to resolve boat-people issue 
   Mar 09: Vietnam and India sign trade accords, to forge defence ties

                                      
   Monday - Mar 10, 1997 [37]... Back to headlines 
   
   _[INLINE] Vietnam's biggest corruption scandal goes to appeal_
   
   HANOI (AFP) - Defendants in Vietnam's biggest-ever corruption case
   will appeal their sentences in a new hearing at the end of this month,
   a court source said Monday.
   
   Four people condemned to death for their role in the 40 million dollar
   Tamexco affair and eleven others will have their cases reexamined, a
   source from the Ho Chi Minh City supreme people's court said.
   
   The appeal process is expected to last from March 24 to 31 and will be
   held in the southern city.
   
   In January, 20 people were found guilty for their roles in the case
   involving losses of 40 million dollars at Tamexco, an import-export
   company directly linked to the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam.
   
   Three company directors and one senior official were sentenced to
   death for embezzlement and accepting bribes. The 11 others appealing
   are appealing prison sentences ranging from three years to life.
   
   Among those receiving jail sentences were a former deputy director of
   Vietcombank, the country's largest commercial bank, and the former
   chairman of FirstVina Bank.
   
   Phan Huy Phuoc, who alone was found guilty of misappropriating 27
   million dollars, was among those appealing death sentences.
   
   The others were Tran Quang Vinh and Le Minh Hai, directors of two
   private companies in Ho Chi Minh City and Le Duc Canh, and a senior
   notary officer from the southern city of Vung Tau.
                    ___________________________________
                                      
   Monday - Mar 10, 1997 [38]... Back to headlines 
   
   _[INLINE] Vietnam and US agree to restructure former Saigon-regime
   debt_
   
   HANOI (AFP) - Vietnam and the United States have reached an agreement
   outlining a repayment schedule of debt and interest incurred by the
   former Saigon regime worth 145 million dollars, a source said Monday.
   
   Vietnam has agreed in principle to repay 75 million in principal and
   about 70 million dollars in interest charges over the next 20 years,
   the source said.
   
   The accord was reached after negotiations between US deputy assistant
   secretary of state in charge of finance and international development
   Barbara Griffith and the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance in talks from
   March 4 to 7.
   
   A joint statement said the two sides had initialled a bilateral
   agreement on the implementation of the Paris Club accord signed in
   1993, which governs Vietnam's repayment of debts.
   
   The agreement is subject to review by both governments before it is
   signed.
   
   The statement did not give any details of the restructuring or a
   timetable for when the accord would be signed.
                    ___________________________________
                                      
   Monday - Mar 10, 1997 [39]... Back to headlines 
   
   _[INLINE] Court jails traffickers of Vietnamese women to China_
   
   Hanoi (dpa) - A Vietnamese court has sentenced an ethnic Chinese woman
   to 14 years in prison for masterminding a gang that sold women to male
   buyers in China, a local newspaper reported Monday.
   
   Two male accomplices were given prison terms of 11 years each by the
   Lang Son Provincial Court on Saturday, the report said.
   
   The three confessed that they had sold at least 20 Vietnamese women to
   Chinese men during the past year, the Communist Party's newspaper Nhan
   Dan (People) reported.
   
   They received between 700 and 800 dollars for each woman, they
   reported.
   
   The three were arrested by border guards last September as they were
   escorting a 25-year old woman across from the northern province.
   
   Nguyen Thi Nga, 35, is originally from China's Guangxi province, while
   her accomplices, Luu Van Tho, 36 and Trien Van Sinh, 28, were Kinh,
   the main ethnic group in Vietnam.
   
   Authorities say that as many as 10,000 Vietnamese women went to China
   last year either voluntarily, seeking better employment or mates, or
   by being deceived or coerced.
   
   There is a sexual imbalance in China because of the deeply ingrained
   preference for male heirs and the government's one-child policy which
   has led to a high incidence of female infanticide.
                    ___________________________________
                                      
   Monday - Mar 10, 1997 [40]... Back to headlines 
   
   _[INLINE] Bangladesh,Vietnam sign four accords _
   
   DHAKA (AFP) - Bangladesh and Vietnam on Monday signed four accords to
   boost bilateral ties and pledged to maintain peace and stability in
   the region, officials said.
   
   The agreements cover a joint economic commission, development of
   cultural ties, exchange by the two national news agencies and between
   business groups, a foreign office spokesman here said.
   
   The agreement on Joint Commission for Economic, Cultural, Scientific
   and Technological Cooperation was signed by Bangladesh Foreign
   Minister Abdus Samad Azad and his visiting Vietnamese counterpart
   Nguyen Manh Cam following official talks. The other three were signed
   by government ministers and entrepreneurs.
   
   Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed and her Vietnamese
   counterpart Vo Van Kiet were also present.
   
   The accords were signed after official talks between the two leaders
   during which they agreed to boost trade and economic activities and
   work "unitedly for peace, stability and economic progress in the
   region," spokesman S.A. Samad told reporters.
   
   "It was noted during the deliberations that both Vietnam and
   Bangladesh have achieved their national independence and freedom
   through waging bloody war against the colonial forces," he said.
   
   Vo is scheduled to leave Dhaka later Monday for home ending a two-day
   official visit, the first by any senior leader from the Southeast
   Asian country to Bangladesh. He earlier visited India.
   
   Vo headed a 39-member delegation, including ministers, officials and
   businessmen. Bangladesh and Vietnam established diplomatic ties in
   1973 and since then the volume of trade between the two has been
   expanding.
   
   Earlier Monday, he flew by a helicopter to nearby Savar district and
   placed wreaths at the National Martyrs' Memorial, dedicated to those
   who were killed during Bangladesh's 1971 independence war.
                    ___________________________________
                                      
   Monday - Mar 10, 1997 [41]... Back to headlines 
   
   _[INLINE] Vietnam drugs bust exposes seedy youth underworld_
   
   Hanoi (Reuter) -- Vietnam said on Monday police had arrested 96 young
   people following raids on two heroin dens in Ho Chi Minh City, in what
   was being billed as one of the country's biggest drugs busts.
   
   State media reported how police, helped by residents, had staked out
   two houses in the freewheeling former Saigon over a 24-hour period,
   pouncing on teenagers and others aged below 25 as they arrived.
   
   Up to six of those arrested were suspected dealers, while the rest
   were schoolchildren and students.
   
   Government officials say they are concerned about a rising tide of
   drug abuse, mostly involving heroin and opium which is believed to
   flow from China and Laos.
   
   Much is said to originate in the Golden Triangle region which borders
   northwest Indochina.
   
   Police officials were reluctant to confirm details on Monday, but
   state dailies said those arrested represented the tip of an iceberg in
   Saigon's hazy youth underworld.
   
   ``According to current estimates, at least 1,000 Vietnamese students
   have tried illicit psychedelic drugs. There are reports of
   drug-dealers lacing cigarettes with opium and heroin, hoping to addict
   yet another young person,'' the official Vietnam News said.
   
   An international drugs expert warned last year that Vietnam's young
   people are being targeted by dealers intent on establishing a new
   market in one of the world's poorest countries.
   
   He said high-grade heroin was being plied to poor students, often
   immediately outside school and college gates in towns and villages
   across northern Vietnam.
   
   But Monday's reports indicated a problem of a different nature --
   experimental use of narcotics and dependency among children of a
   wealthy Saigon elite.
   
   Police were said to have found a number of expensive motorbikes
   outside the drugs dens. Among those arrested were several students
   from a top Ho Chi Minh City school.
                    ___________________________________
                                      
   Monday - Mar 10, 1997 [42]... Back to headlines 
   
   _[INLINE] Gateway for mountain of contraband _
   
   Hanoi (SCMP) -- Stand at the Moc Bai border gate, linking Ho Chi Minh
   City to Phnom Penh, and it is apparent why the area is fast becoming
   Vietnam's smuggling capital.
   
   There is no mountain range, river or forest to demarcate the border,
   just dry rice paddy as flat as a tennis court for as far as the eye
   can see.
   
   If it was not for Cambodian flags flying above the occasional village
   there would be nothing to tell the two countries apart.
   
   Pitched battles between a fledgling anti-smuggling task force and
   smugglers seeking to protect an increasingly hectic trade are common.
   
   Of the fights with the criminals, who arm themselves with sticks,
   bricks and stones, a senior anti-smuggling officer said: "We don't see
   it as serious anymore. We are used to it."
   
   So are the smugglers, who say they only risk fines - not jail - and
   rarely encounter trouble.
   
   "There are just too many of us," said one.
   
   The officer said enforcement of the 240-kilometre border was virtually
   impossible during the dry season as local farmers on both sides took
   up the trade.
   
   Cigarettes, Thai pornography, hard liquor and hashish are key
   commodities for an increasingly sophisticated consumer market in Ho
   Chi Minh City, Vietnam's growth centre.
   
   Oil, precious stones and gold flow in the other direction, but
   Vietnam's stiff tariff regime and tough cultural laws ensure the trade
   is very much in Cambodia's favour.
   
   Observers estimate as much as US$100,000 (HK$773,000) worth of gold
   flows into Cambodia each day to fund the trade.
   
   Other figures suggest just five per cent of all trade is official,
   costing Vietnam millions in lost revenues.
                    ___________________________________
                                      
   Monday - Mar 10, 1997 [43]... Back to headlines 
   
   _[INLINE] UNHCR chief in HK to resolve boat-people issue _
   
   HONGKONG (AFP) -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
   (UNHCR) Sadako Ogata arrived in Hongkong yesterday in a high-profile
   bid to try to resolve the issue of Vietnamese boat people crowded into
   camps before the July handover.
   
   After visiting the Pillar Point Refugee Camp, she told reporters that
   conditions were "not bad".
   
   The camp houses 1,751 refugees, including those waiting to leave for
   Western countries. It is also home to 14 Vietnamese illegal
   immigrants, whom Vietnam has refused to repatriate.
   
   China has called on the Hongkong authorities to clear out all illegal
   immigrants by June 30.
   
   Using forced repatriation, in addition to a voluntary return programme
   organised by the UNHCR, the Hongkong government has reduced the
   boat-people population from more than 61,000 in October 1991, to 4,527
   as of last Friday.
   
   But the government's methods have come under attack from the New
   York-based Human Rights Watch/Asia which released a report to coincide
   with Mrs Ogata's visit. The report accused the Hongkong government and
   the UN refugee agency of endangering the rights of the asylum-seekers
   due to "pressure from China".
   
   Secretary for Security Peter Lai said on Saturday that Hongkong could
   not guarantee the boat-people issue would be resolved before the
   handover because of the need of assistance and cooperation from
   Vietnam.
   
   Refugee lawyer Pam Baker said she would press the high commissioner on
   the question of the 1,000 people she believes will be left stateless.
                    ___________________________________
                                      
   Sunday - Mar 09, 1997 [44]... Back to headlines 
   
   _[INLINE] Vietnam and India sign trade accords, to forge defence ties _
   
   NEW DELHI (AFP) - Vietnam and India signed accords to boost trade
   Sunday as Hanoi called for New Delhi's help in defence production and
   for the setting up of stock exchanges.
   
   The accords including one to promote bilateral trade and protection
   and promotion of investments, were signed in the presence of
   Vietnamese Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet and his Indian counterpart H.D.
   Deve Gowda.
   
   Officials said the two sides also signed an agreement on cooperation
   in the field of environment and a 10-million-dollar credit from India
   to Vietnam to boost exports from the Southeast Asian nation to India.
   
   "Vietnam also asked India to offer its expertise in the field of
   defence production and in the setting up of stock exchanges in the
   country," an Indian official said as Kiet left for Bangladesh on a
   two-day visit.
   
   He said in talks between Kiet and Deve Gowda, Vietnam also sought help
   from India in the development of nuclear energy.
   
   India has offered to help in the setting up of stock exchanges and
   would soon send a team of experts to Vietnam, the official said,
   adding that Hanoi also asked for help in offshore exploration for oil.
   
   "India-Vietnam relations have touched new heights," the United News of
   India announced as the two nations signed the accords, the first in
   several years which aim at bolstering sagging bilateral trade.
   
   Kiet, meanwhile, promised to back India's campaign for a seat in the
   Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Pacific
   Economic Cooperation (APEC), an Indian spokesman said.
   
   Kiet and Deve Gowda also agreed to intensify political and cultural
   ties in talks during the Vietnamese leader's two-day official stay in
   India.
   
   Kiet, who also held talks with President Shankar Dayal Sharma, told
   Vice President K.R. Narayanan: "It is the substance of cooperation
   that counts and in this visit we endeavour to give new momentum to our
   relations and nurture it with mutual trust and understanding."
   
   Kiet, on his first visit to India, was accompanied by Minister of
   Foreign Affairs Nguyen Van Cam, Minister of Trade Le Van Triet and
   Pham Gia Khiem, minister of science, technology and the environment.
   
   Despite long-standing relations between Vietnam and India, bilateral
   trade had weakened with last year's figure hovering at 170 milllion
   dollars.
   
   India was one of the few nations to back Vietnam after its invasion of
   Cambodia to oust the Khmer Rouge in 1978, which led to ostracism by
   Hanoi's non-communist neighbours and a brief border war with China.
   
   Vietnam established diplomatic ties with India in 1954 and with
   Bangladesh in 1972.
                    ___________________________________