VN news (May 4)

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

May 04: Vietnam hopes to inspire country rebuilding Ho Chi Minh Trail 
May 04: Vietnam and Thailand move ahead with joint fishing patrols 
May 04: Vietnam's National Assembly votes in drug law changes


Vietnam hopes to inspire country rebuilding Ho Chi Minh Trail

By Pascale Trouillaud

HANOI (AFP) - Vietnam's latest proposed super-project to build a
second highway linking the north and south along the former Ho Chi
Minh Trail has more to do with re-mobilizing the population than with
serving the country's urgent economic needs, analysts say.

Unveiled recently with a fanfare of publicity, the "crucial highway"
is the brainchild of the communist party's politburo and has been put
at the top of the government wish list.

Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet has even thrown his full weight behind the
project.

"All visionary leaders love big projects, and the premier is a
visionary," said a western diplomat. "But in the short term, their
money could be better spent."

"Truong Son Road", named after the mountain chain that forms Vietnam's
backbone," will cost 5.5 billion dollars and is scheduled for
completion in 2010, if not 2020.

Plans also include mobilizing the free labour of up to one million
Vietnamese to build the massive scheme.

Tracing a portion of the legendary Ho Chi Minh trail -- which supplied
Viet Cong troops during the Vietnam War -- this second national artery
will duplicate the length of the existing National Highway No. 1,
which is all but cut off for half the year by typhoons and floods.

The controversial project has attracted much heated debate in the
current session of the National Assembly where deputies have cast
doubts on the economic viability of the road, and have asked how the
cash strapped government will pay for it.

Western observers also questioned the need for such a mega-project
when Vietnam faces so many other pressing needs.

"Even if we really need a new north-south highway, 2,000 kilometres
(1,200 miles) is a lot, and a strategic transport analysis has not
been done," said one multilateral institutional representative in
Hanoi.

The Asian Development Bank--which has committed hundreds of millions
of dollars to rehabilitate the existing north south route-- has
already said it would not fund a second highway, and it is hard to see
that either the World Bank or Japan, Hanoi's largest source of foreign
aid, would be any more willing to commit to the project.

So while analysts universally agree Vietnam is in dire need of
developing its infrastructure, they also discern a heavily political
element behind the road.

"It's a way of rallying the population around momentous projects at a
time when they are officially denouncing 'individualism.' It's aimed
at turning a youth without values away from unemployment and drugs,"
one diplomat said.

For the party it is also "a way of showing that it's still in charge,
continuing the legacy of Ho Chi Minh," she said.

In line with tradition, local residents will be asked to work free for
10 days, alongside the army. Those who do not wish to dig in will be
asked to pay money instead.

Communist party chief Do Muoi has rejected the term "forced labour,"
preferring the official jargon of "public utility work."

Explaining in Vietnam "all is done thanks to the people" he has said
it is "the obligation of young people to participate voluntarily in
the construction of the country."

But analysts question the ability of Hanoi to mobilize the masses.

"It's not possible any more to organise the kind of extensive
voluntary campaigns one saw in the Soviet Union and China in the 1950s
and 1960s. People have no desire to do anything for free when they can
do everything in business," one western diplomat said.

Another diplomat sees the project as a rallying point for nationalism.

"The Vietnamese are ashamed of having been colonised, they're telling
the international community they can survive on their own," said
another diplomat.

And despite the apparent drawbacks, the project is likely to go ahead
as scheduled.
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Vietnam and Thailand move ahead with joint fishing patrols 

HANOI (AFP) - Vietnam and Thailand have agreed to begin jointly
patrolling fishing activities in disputed waters in October, an
official Vietnamese report said Sunday.

Following a meeting in Bangkok on the establishment of joint sea
patrols and naval liaison points in the Gulf of Thailand, the two
countries are now working on a draft accord detailing the patrols, the
Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.

The idea of having two navies jointly patrolling the area, which
covers about 7,000 square kilometres (2,800 square miles) was
reconfirmed during the visit in March to Vietnam by Thai prime
minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh.

Navies from both countries have periodically arrested fisherman who
have strayed into each other's territorial waters.

Thailand will seen a first draft of the agreement to Hanoi next month
and the two navies are expected to meet in September to prepare for
patrols beginning in October, VNA said.
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Vietnam's National Assembly votes in drug law changes 

HANOI (AFP) - Deputies at Vietnam's National Assembly have begun
voting on proposals to tackle the production, trafficking and use of
illicit drugs, the press reported Sunday.

Under an amendment to the current laws voted in Saturday, drug users
caught reoffending after undergoing medical treatment will face up to
five years in jail, the Vietnamese Communist Party mouthpiece Nhan Dan
reported.

The changes also bring fines of between 50 and 1,000 dollars for opium
cultivators.

But the fines are relatively low in the face of Vietnam's strict drug
laws because opium production presents a "complicated question," the
newspaper said. Although opium cultivation is illegal it is also often
the only means of survival for ethnic minorities in the mountainous
regions of the country, particularly in the northwest near the Chinese
border.

There was no mention of laws on drug trafficking, which poses a
growing problem in Vietnam, particularly because of the neighbouring
Golden Triangle of Thailand, Burma and Laos, a major transit point for
drug trafficking to the west.

A tightening up of the law is likely later in the current session of
the National Assembly, which has been sitting for one month now.

Anyone caught with more than one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of heroine in
Vietnam faces the death penalty.

The changes come as the country's largest drug trafficking trial
continues in Hanoi, where 22 people are accused of bringing in nearly
400 kilograms (880 pounds) of heroine into Vietnam. Twelve of the
accused face the death penalty.
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