VN news (May 10-11)

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

May 11: Death penalty demanded for eight in Vietnam's showcase drug trial ...
May 11: Vietnam and US look to new era as ambassador starts work
May 10: Leaders locate funds from defeated South in US banks 


Death penalty demanded for eight in Vietnam's showcase drug
trial ...

Hanoi (AFP) - Vietnam prosecutors have demanded the death penalty for
eight of 22 accused in the country's biggest drug trial, newspapers
reported Sunday.

Among the eight are the main defendant, Vu Xuan Truong, an interior
ministry criminal division captain, Dao Xuan Xe, a driver for a
transport company, and two women: Lai Thi Ngan and Nguyen Thi Hoa.

Life jail terms have been demanded for eight more, including the main
Laotian defendant, Xieng Kham Chan. For the rest jail terms of between
one year and 20 years have been sought, said the communist party daily
Nhan Dan.

The defendants, who include eight police officers and three border
guards, are accused of smuggling more than 400 kilogrammes (880
pounds) of heroin and several hundred kilos (pounds) of opium into
Vietnam in the past five years.

Vietnam's biggest heroin smuggling trial has been on for a week and is
expected to finish Monday.

Last Tuesday, Truong attempted to commit suicide by smashing his head
against the wall of his cell. He has denied playing a major role in
the drug trafficking from Laos, claiming he was only a pawn in the
network.

The death penalties were sought Saturday with the prosecution
highlighting the extent of the complicity of the eight whose execution
has been requested.

The prosecution has highlighted the "dangerous character" of the
defendants and the alarming amount of drug consumption and trafficking
in the country.

Since 1993, a total of 28 people, including seven foreigners, have
been sentenced to death for drug trafficking by Vietnamese courts.

There are 183,000 drug addicts, 70 percent of them young people,
according to official figures.

Following recent law changes, anyone found with 100 grammes of heroin,
against one kilo before, can now be sentenced to death.
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Vietnam and US look to new era as ambassador starts work 

HANOI (AFP) - Washington's first ambassador to Hanoi, former POW
Douglas "Pete" Peterson, is beginning his tasks of spearheading
efforts to build closer economic ties with Vietnam and laying to rest
the war legacy.

The return here of the former fighter pilot, who spent more than 6-1/2
years as a prisoner of war, is seen by Washington and Hanoi as
symbolizing their desire to heal the wounds of the past.

It is also viewed by the Vietnamese government and many US
businesspeople here as a way to hasten the pace of economic
normalisation which has dragged on at a glacial pace since Washington
lifted the embargo against Hanoi in February 1994.

"It is the beginning of a new era of constructive relations between
Vietnam and the United States," Peterson told a crowd of 100 people at
the airport after his arrival Friday.

He has said the 1,589 Americans still listed as missing in action
(MIA) after the Vietnam war would be top of his agenda.

Peterson, 61, who has visited Vietnam twice since he was released in
1973, has never returned to the site where his plane crashed, 50
kilometres (30 miles) outside Hanoi on September 9 1966, while on a
bombing mission.

That experience makes him something of a celebrity here and on
Saturday he signed autographs for Americans and Vietnamese while he
drank coffee with embassy staff at a cafe run by an
American-Vietnamese businessman.

He is keeping a low profile until he officially presents his
credentials as ambassador to the Vietnamese government, expected to
take place within the next 10 days.

Another priority will be full economic liberalisation. Both trade and
investment between the two countries have been hamstrung by the
absence of mutual most-favoured-nation (MFN) status, and lack of
access to US government export financing schemes for US companies
hoping to carve out markets in Vietnam.

"We hope to conclude a comprehensive trade treaty soon," Peterson
said. "Simply put, US policy is to help Vietnam become a prosperous
country, at peace with its neighbours and integrated into this dynamic
region."

Vietnam used the ambassador's arrival to make its own predictions
about the accord.

The official Vietnam News Agency said over the weekend that the two
sides "should by August sign a bilateral trade agreement and reach
most favoured nation status."

However, Americans close to the negotiations say the two sides remain
deeply divided on certain key issues of the pact, including a
provision that would give US businesses unlimited access to the
Vietnamese market.

There is also resistance in Washington to moving too rapidly on
economic normalisation but observers hope Peterson's influence in
Washington will help lawmakers overcome the Vietnam syndrome.

"Sensitivities in the US are a factor -- there is a political fear
that every step has to be absolutely vetted, said Greig Craft, a US
businessman who has been living in Hanoi for seven years.

"Hopefully Peterson will help heal the wounds of the war and help
overcome the Vietnam syndrome that the US is hung up on," he added.

"Having a fully fledged ambassador here will provide a level of
credibility and respect in Vietnam that we have not had here before,"
said Chuck Searcy, Hanoi-based director of the Vietnam Veterans of
America foundation.

"But also Ambassador Peterson can be very persuasive in arguing for a
more coherent and enlightened American policy in Washington that is in
the best interest of both countries," he added.

Vietnam's ambassador to the United States, Le Van Bang, arrived in
Washington on Friday.
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Leaders locate funds from defeated South in US banks 

By GREG TORODE
South China Morning Post

As Vietnam's historic rapprochement with the United States reaches its
final stages, Hanoi is still chasing down funds within the US that
once belonged to the former South Vietnam.

Most of the money owed to Vietnam, under a 1995 agreement with
Washington to unfreeze former Saigon regime funds, now sits in one
account opened by Hanoi in the Federal Reserve, diplomatic sources
said.

But new accounts have recently been discovered in private US banks and
Hanoi is quietly trying to gain access - without making a fuss that
disturbs the wider friendship.

An estimated US$1.5 million (HK$11.6 million) has been discovered in a
string of banks in Chicago and California that somehow was missed when
the first deal was concluded.

"We have made it clear to the US that we are dealing with the banks
directly to get what is now rightfully ours," one source said. "We
only go to Washington for official help as a last resort."

The matter is likely to be one of the first matters dealt with by
Vietnam's new Ambassador to Washington, career diplomat Le Van Bang.

Sources say the funds, however small, will "soften the blow" of a deal
signed last month with US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin making
Vietnam accountable for up to US$145 million worth of development and
trade loans from Washington to Saigon during the regime's last years.

In all, some estimates put the total windfall from the former South
Vietnamese funds as high as US$300 million, but the Foreign Ministry
has yet to announce the exact sum now in its possession.

The mystery is compounded by the history of chaotic last days of the
Saigon regime as communist forces closed in during April 1975.

Dozens of South Vietnamese officials were rumoured to have left having
looted official coffers of millions. Other attempts to clear out the
State Bank of gold failed, however, and considerable funds were
thought to remain at the time of the fall.

Many Vietnamese officials are now hoping the US will soon start formal
aid to Vietnam.

Vietnam's state presses continue to warn about the conflict's
devastating legacies such as deaths from unexploded bombs and birth
deformities caused by defoliants.

Hanoi has never pressed for formal war reparations, despite insisting
on their inclusion in the 1973 Paris Peace Accords that led to the
withdrawal of US forces.
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