VN News (May 17, 1997)

[Vu Thanh Ca <vuca@envi.env.civil.saitama-u.ac.jp>]

May 17: Vietnam police arrest 13 in biggest private sector corruption case 
May 17: Cambodian pirates seized by Vietnam attacking fishing boats 
May 17: Hanoi slams puppeteers seeking asylum in Australia 


Vietnam police arrest 13 in biggest private sector corruption
case

Hanoi (dpa) - Police have arrested 13 more people involved in a
corruption case that is the largest to date to hit Vietnam's fledgling
private sector, officials said Saturday.

Among those arrested were nine directors and other senior officials of
subsidiaries of the Minh Phung Co., once hailed as one of the
country's most successful companies, but which is now at the center of
the scandal that now appears to involve several hundreds of million of
dollars in bad loans.

Investigators from the economic crime unit of the Ho Chi Minh City
made the arrests Wednesday, said police, who said they were under
strict orders not to reveal more information.

The company chief executive, Tang Minh Phung, 39, was arrested March
24 at his home, where his wife Tran Thi Thuong, who has also been
charged in this case, is currently being detained.

The same day, Lien Khui Thin, the director of EPCO, another leading
firm that also allegedly played a key role in the case, was also
arrested.

Both man have been charged with fraud and embezzlement of state assets
and if found guilt could face the death sentence.

Phung apparently used large quantities of goods, borrowed from EPCO,
as collateral to take out loans from state banks, but the goods were
subsequently sold by EPCO to repay bank loans of their own.

According to initial reports more than 44 million dollars' worth of
loans were at risk but more recent local press reports say the figure
may be closer to 390 million dollars.

Phung, who was mostly involved in garment manufacturing and
construction, was frequently portrayed in the Vietnamese press several
years ago as a shining example of the success of the country's
market-oriented economic reforms.
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Cambodian pirates seized by Vietnam attacking fishing boats 

Hanoi (dpa) - Four Cambodian pirates have been arrested and are being
held for questioning by police in Kien Giang province in southern
Vietnam, officials confirmed Saturday.

The four were arrested May 7 after one Vietnamese fishermen jumped
overboard from his seized ship and managed to swim ashore and alert a
provincial border police unit, the officials said.

Brought ashore in Ha Tien district which borders Cambodia, the four
Cambodians have subsequently been brought to the provincial capital
where they remain under border guard police custody.

``They are being held in the capital for questioning and will be
prosecuted according to the laws in force in Vietnam,'' said an
officer with the police's information department.

Cambodia's consul general in southern Ho Chi Minh said he had not been
informed about the arrests yet.

``I was in Kien Giang province last week but I was resolving another
problem and nobody told me about this,'' he said by telephone, adding
at that as far as he knew there were no Cambodians in Vietnamese
jails.
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Hanoi slams puppeteers seeking asylum in Australia

Hanoi (Reuter) - Vietnam lashed out on Saturday at a Hanoi-based
troupe of puppeteers for seeking refugee status in Australia and said
they had broken the law.

``Everything that the members of the group say is preposterous,'' the
Foreign Ministry said in a statement. ``The Song Ngoc ensemble has no
reason to ask for political asylum.''

``The fact that the Song Ngoc group has not returned after ending its
contracted tour in Australia is entirely the individuals' own
calculation and they have violated the law.''

Australia's immigration department said on Friday that it was unable
to confirm a newspaper report that seven members of the water puppetry
troupe had sought asylum because they feared persecution at home for
performing with Western artists.

The newspaper said that the puppeteers, who were due to return to
their communist homeland last month after arriving in Australia in
December, were living in a rented house in western Sydney.

It said they had been granted bridging visas while their applications
for refugee status were being processed.

``If we have to return to Vietnam, we would rather die here,'' troupe
manager Anh Bich Luong told the newspaper. ``In Vietnam, you can be
jailed up to 15 years for writing a poem.''

Hung Van Nhu, another spokesman for the group, said the Vietnamese
government wanted to stop them from working with Australian performers
because secrets of the 1,000-year-old art of water puppetry might be
revealed.

He said Vietnamese authorities were upset because the performers had
come in contact with foreigners and because they consider water
puppetry to be a national cultural asset.

The foreign ministry said that Vietnam had in recent years created
favourable conditions for its artists, including many water
puppeteers, to perform abroad as part of its policy of promoting
cultural exchange with other countries.

The number of people seeking political asylum from Vietnam has dropped
in recent years following the end of the boat people saga, which saw
thousands scrambling to flee the country after the communist victory
in 1975.

Vietnamese citizens are required to get special exit visas to travel
abroad and are not allowed to settle in third countries.