VN news (June 18)

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

Four children drown in central Vietnam river
Vietnam War architect returns to debate the past
US to open Ho Chi Minh City consulate
HK to send ex-US spies in Vietnam to the United States
Iranian vice-president arrives in Vietnam for bilateral trade talks
Vietnam Communist Party slams corruption
Appeal of Vietnam's biggest heroin trial set for June 24
Vietnam seeks to stay out of Khmer Rouge hunt
Vietnamese family sentenced for heroin trafficking
Hanoi rejects charges of violating religious freedoms
Vietnamese Newspaper Highlights - June 17, 1997
Vietnam exports up, trade deficit narrows
Vietnam Nike suppliers sacks 447 workers
Central Vietnamese Provinces Attract Little Investment
Freedom's Reward: Asia's Most Vital Arts Scene Thrives In Vietnam
Coppola's film company to shoot road movie in Vietnam
  _________________________________________________________________

Four children drown in central Vietnam river 

Hanoi, June 18 (Reuter) - The four children of a farmer's family in
central Vietnam were drowned in a fast-flowing river last week, an
official at the Nghe An province People's Committee said on Wednesday. 

The official said that the children, the youngest of whom was four, had
gone to swim in the Lam river on June 10, but were swept away by the
current. Their bodies were found further downstream the same day. 

Seperately, the daily Vietnam News reported that help was on its way for
103 victims of a landslide in the southern province of Bac Lieu. 

The report did not say whether anyone had died in the landslide and local
officials were not available to comment on the incident. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Vietnam War architect returns to debate the past

By John Chalmers

Hanoi, June 18 (Reuter) - America's Vietnam War defence secretary, Robert
McNamara, arrived in Hanoi on Wednesday to attend a conference on missed
opportunities for peace during a conflict whose scars are still carried by
both nations. 

McNamara is the most senior member of a non-government U.S. delegation of
researchers and historians who will debate the events of more than two
decades ago with Vietnamese government ministers and academics from June
20 to June 23. 

General Vo Nguyen Giap, Vietnam's revered military strategist and
mastermind of victories over both the French and Americans, will meet his
old rival at the end of the seminar. 

The visit is McNamara's second to Communist-ruled Vietnam. He first
visited in November 1995. 

The conference comes at a time of warming relations between Washington and
Hanoi, which exchanged ambassadors for the first time last month and are
now seeking to speed progress towards a bilateral trade agreement. 

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who will visit Vietnam late
next week, is expected to discuss the trade accord, human rights and
migration as well as Washington's priority in Vietnam -- accounting for
servicemen still missing from the war. 

Some 58,000 Americans died in the war and 2,124 are still listed as
missing in Indochina. 

Although 22 years have passed since communist troops captured U.S.-backed
South Vietnam, Americans are still debating whether the war was waged for
a just cause or all for nothing. 

"The Vietnam War won't go away," Ernest Lefever, a Senior Fellow at the
Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote in a recent paper.
"Its ghosts still haunt the American psyche like fragments of a twisted
nightmare." 

He said that without a cohesive national memory of the war, Americans
would suffer from "a kind of historical schizophrenia." 

"A common understanding of such events allows history's wounds to heal,
creating a national psyche equipped to grapple with future crises,"
Lefever said. 

In memoirs published in 1995, McNamara dealt with how and why the United
States stumbled into the Vietnam War and his own painful, emotional
struggle with the role he played. 

"We...who participated in the decisions acted according to what we thought
to be the principles and traditions of this nation," he says in the
opening of his book. "Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it future
generations to explain why." 

Roughly half of Vietnam's 77 million people were born after the war ended,
but the collective memory of a conflict which cost more than three million
Vietnamese lives is still strong. 

Earlier this week, the official Vietnam News Agency (VNA) catalogued the
country's losses from a war which it said was still exacting a toll in
lives and suffering today. 

It said more than two million people had been affected by toxic chemicals,
including the Agent Orange herbicide which was sprayed by U.S. troops to
defoliate jungles where communist forces hid. 

The state-run Vietnam Investment Review ran an article on the same day
which described the sufferings of veterans exposed to Agent Orange and the
appalling deformities of their children. 

Foreign diplomats in Hanoi said they believe Hanoi is paving the way for
an official request for compensation from the United States for Agent
Orange victims. 

"The issue is coming up much more on the radar screen," said one foreign
diplomat, pointing to last week's offer by Vietnam to return documents on
the effects of Agent Orange which were seized from an American scientist
at Hanoi airport in 1995. 
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US to open Ho Chi Minh City consulate

WASHINGTON, June 18 (AFP) - The United States will open a consulate in Ho
Cho Minh City, the former Saigon, next month, a ranking US diplomat said
Wednesday. 

"That's where most consular, refugee proceesing, visa passport activity of
the United States in Vietnam currently is occurring," said Jeffrey Bader,
State Department deputy under secretary for Southeast Asia. 

"Most of the commercial interests of the US will be in the South," he
added. 

The consulate, which will cost about 10 million dollars to set up, will
have a staff of about 20 including employees reporting to the Commerce
Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service. 

Vietnam plans to open a consulate on the US west coast, in San Francisco. 
  _________________________________________________________________

HK to send ex-US spies in Vietnam to the United States

HONG KONG, June 18 (AFP) - Ten Vietnamese who spied for the United States
during the Vietnam war in the 1960s were heading for America with their 41
family members Thursday in search of a better life, one of them said. 

"We've spent a total of seven years in detention camps and were only
recently granted the refugee status," Chenh Hin-ching, 52, said in a
telephone interview as he and nine family members prepared to leave the
New Horizon Vietnamese refugee departure centre in Kowloon for North
Carolina. 

Others were going to California and Washington state. 

Born in Haining in Northern Vietnam, Chenh spied for the US from 1967-72,
passing sensitive information on North Vietnamese strategy. 

"Of course, it was extremely dangerous. That was why I changed my name
from Vong Gun-sang to the present one and moved to another province after
the fall of Saigon," Chenh said. 

>From 1972 until 1990, he worked in Vietnam -- he will not give specifics
-- and sneaked his family into Hong Kong when Vietnamese authorities
discovered his past connections with the US. 

Chenh said he and his family were first detained in the Sek Kong refugee
camp in the New Territories and later transferred to the Tai A Chau camp
which was their home this month. 

"It was lucky that the staff of the US Consulate in Bangkok came here to
help certify my identity which eventually enabled me to get refugee
status," Chenh said. 

But, after seven years of isolation and detention here, Chenh had
bittersweet feelings about the future. 

"We were kept isolated from the community for so many years," he said. "My
children did not get formal education. We wasted too much of our time." 

The first group were to leave Thursday followed by a second group on
Friday. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Iranian vice-president arrives in Vietnam for bilateral trade talks

Hanoi, June 18, (dpa) - Iranian first vice-president Hassan Habibi arrives
in the Vietnamese capital Thursday for a three-day meeting aimed at
bolstering bilateral relations, especially trade, said embassy officials. 

Vietnam is now a major supplier of rice to Iran and this and other
agricultural commodities are expected to figure in talks between the two
sides, they said. 

At the same time Iran wants to export asphalt equipment and a tea
processing factory and has also offered its expertise in the oil and gas
sector. 

"The forthcoming visit aims to step up cooperation and implementation of
agreements which the two countries have signed," reported the Saigon Times
Daily. 

A number of agreements, most of which were not made public, were signed
between the two countries during President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's
October 1995 visit to Hanoi. 

Last year Iran imported 380,000 tonnes of rice from Vietnam, which made up
about 90 per cent of an estimated 130 million dollars in bilateral trade,
according to diplomatic sources. 

Rice purchases were expected to increase and Iran is also interested in
buying rubber and black tea from Vietnam, embassy officials said. 

During the "official friendship visit" - which comes at the invitation of
Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet - Habibi is expected to be accompanied by about
60 officials from various ministries. 

The delegation, flying on a private jet, is coming directly from Tehran
and will return there after the Vietnam visit which includes one-day
stop-over in southern Ho CHi Minh City, officials said. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Vietnam Communist Party slams corruption

HANOI, June 18 (Kyodo News) - Vietnam's ruling Communist Party wound up a
key party meeting Wednesday with a strong condemnation of corruption and
abuse of power among the party elite. 

"All this erodes the people's trust in the party and slows the country's
development," the Central Committee said in a communique. 

The communique, issued at the end of a 10-day Central Committee plenum,
said the committee pointed to serious shortcomings of party officials,
including corruption, wastefulness, bureaucracy and abuse of power. 

"In the current context of the market mechanism and the broadening of
international exchanges, the party must pay special attention to quality,
virtue and healthy lifestyles among officials," party chief Do Muoi was
quoted as saying. 

Muoi also noted the importance of improving "democracy" in the one-party
state, the communique said. 

"The forms of democracy through people-elected representatives must be
further brought into play along with the gradual application of the forms
of direct democracy," Muoi was quoted as saying. 

The meeting, the third since the committee was elected by party members
during last July's party congress, started June 9. 

Vietnamese leaders have regularly called for "democracy" along narrowly
interpreted lines, but at the same time have strictly forbidden moves to
introduce pluralism and multiparty democracy. 

Citizens elect members of the National Assembly, a body which is largely
subservient to the party. But the party, constitutionally mandated the
leading role in political life, approves all candidates, almost all of
whom are party members. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Appeal of Vietnam's biggest heroin trial set for June 24

HANOI, June 18 (AFP) - The appeal in Vietnam's biggest heroin smuggling
trial in which eight people were sentenced to death is set to start June
24, official reports said Wednesday. 

The official Vietnam News Agency said 19 of the 22 people convicted for
their role in a massive drug smuggling ring involving 414 kilograms (910
pounds) will appeal. 

Among those sentenced to death were former police captain Vu Xuan Truong,
who masterminded the ring. 

Saigon Giaphong newspaper quoted police as saying that since his
conviction on May 2, Vu Xuan Truong has twice tried to commit suicide. 

A police major, Vu Huu Chinh who received a life sentence and Laotian
Sieng Kham Chan are not appealing, reports said. Pham Van Tai, who faces a
two-year sentence for gambling has also not filed an appeal. 

The court plans to mobilize 500 security police in Hanoi during the trial
the Lao Dong newspaper reported. During the final day of the trial in May
police strongarmed crowds outside the Hanoi courthouse using cattleprods. 

On Monday, Hanoi police director Pham Chuyen said convicted Laotian
trafficker Sieng Phenh should receive clemency for helping expose the
ring, the Tuoi Tre newspaper reported. 

Sieng was arrested for smuggling 15 kilograms (33 pounds) in January 1995
and received a last minute reprieve from the firing squad by giving
prosecutors information which helped uncover Truong's drug ring. 

Since the original trial 40 more people have been arrested in connection
with the case, the Saigon Giaphong reported. Their trial date has not yet
been set. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Vietnam seeks to stay out of Khmer Rouge hunt

HANOI, June 18 (AFP) - The Vietnamese government vowed Wednesday not to be
drawn into events in Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge is said to be on the
verge of disintegration. 

"It is the internal affair of Cambodia," said a foreign ministry
spokesman. "Vietnam always wants stability for the Cambodian people to
allow the development of the country in the interests of Cambodia and the
region." 

Vietnamese newspapers only used international agency reports on the fate
of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, without making a comment. 

Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979 to end Pol Pot's murderous "Killing
Field" regime that left up to two million Cambodians dead. 

And the latest events are being closely watched in Vietnam which does not
want to see its integration into the international community held back by
instability in southeast Asia, experts said. 

The two neighbours regularly reaffirm their desire for good relations, but
tension is under the surface. 

In the past year there has been shooting on the frontier, which is one
source of dispute, the murder of ethnic Vietnamese by the Khmer Rouge and
a dispute over a statue dedicated to Vietnamese soldiers killed in the
1979 invasion. 

After setting up a pro-Hanoi government in Cambodia, Vietnamese forces
remained in the country for a decade. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Vietnamese family sentenced for heroin trafficking

HANOI, June 18 (AFP) - A court handed down the death penalty and life
imprisonment to two members of a Vietnamese family found guilty of heroin
trafficking, a report said Wednesday. 

The 32-year-old daughter of the family, Luu Thi Nga, was Tuesday sentenced
to death by the People's Court of Quang Ninh province for heroin
trafficking, the Lao Dong newspaper said. 

Four members of Nga's family including her parents and sister were also
sentenced to jail terms ranging from three years to life imprisonment. 

The family was accused of selling 1.866 kilograms (4.1 pounds) of heroin
in just one month before their arrest in September last year. They were
also convicted of having involved in heroin trafficking activities since
1995. 

Conviction for possession or trafficking of at least 100 grams (3.5
ounces) of heroin is punishable by death in Vietnam. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Hanoi rejects charges of violating religious freedoms

HANOI, June 18 (AFP) - Hanoi rejected Wednesday charges by an
international Buddhist organisation that its communist government was
guilty of "serious violations of religious freedom." 

"This is a statement that is totally without foundation," a foreign
ministry spokesman said, adding that the accusation was "intentionally
based on false information to slander Vietnam." 

In an open letter to Vietnam's leaders, representatives of the
International Buddhist Information Bureau, which is based in France,
demanded an end to a "systematic policy of repression" against all monks
and followers of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV). 

It also demanded the "immediate release" of UBCV members who were being
held in custody. 

But the spokesman said: "We believe that under the terms of the statement
this organisation is not only undermining Vietnamese Buddhist communities
but has olso compromised its own image." 

Hanoi regularly rejects accusations against it by Buddhist dissidents in
exile about its policy on religion. 

About 70 percent of Vietnamese are Buddhists but the government only
recognises a church run under the supervision of the communist party-run
Fatherland Front. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Vietnamese Newspaper Highlights - June 17, 1997 

HANOI, June 17 Asia Pulse - Highlights of Vietnam's daily newspapers
today: 

NHAN DAN: 

- The technology modernisation of the Thanh Cong Textile Mill in Ho Chi
Minh City has helped its workers have more stable jobs and higher income. 

VIETNAM NEWS: 

- The Vietnam Ministry of Planning and Investment has submitted a
feasibility study to the Prime Minister on the restoration and upgrading
of a railway route stretching from Ho Chi Minh City to Di An and Loc Ninh
on the Cambodian border. 

- Subject credit system offers students learning flexibility. 

HANOI MOI: 

- Vietnams first training course in geographic information systems and
water management for industry finishes in Hanoi tomorrow. 

- The Vietnam Steel Corporation is launching five major projects to boost
its future development. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Vietnam exports up, trade deficit narrows

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - A near twofold increase in coffee exports helped
boost Vietnam's total exports 31.8 percent through the first five months
of the year compared with the same period in 1996, an official report
said. 

Coffee exports alone increased by 99.6 percent from January through May,
reported the state-run New Hanoi newspaper, citing Trade Ministry figures. 

Tea, rice and rubber exports each increased by more than 50 percent, the
newspaper reported. 

Total income from exports from January through May was $3.4 billion. 

The increased exports helped cut the trade deficit during that five-month
span by 40 percent compared with the same period last year. 

The value of total imports dropped to about 4.4 billion. Most domestic
companies have reduced imports by 4.6 percent. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Vietnam Nike suppliers sacks 447 workers

HANOI, June 18 (AFP) - A Korean supplier making shoes for Nike in Vietnam
has sacked 447 workers at its Ho Chi Minh City factory, a report said
Wednesday. 

According to the official labour union newspaper, Lao Dong, the workers
would be laid off this month after the expiry of their apprenticeships and
be paid roughly 12 dollars compensation. 

Sam Yang employs nearly 6,000 workers in its factory located in the Cu Chi
district of Ho Chi Minh City and produces shoes exclusively for Nike. 

The firings at Sam Yang are the latest labour incident surrounding Nike,
whose suppliers in Vietnam have been embroiled in labour problems. 

Nike and Sam Yang first hit the news in April 1996 when one of Sam Yang's
Korean supervisors slapped 15 Vietnamese workers on the side of the head
with a shoe upper. 

In March this year, a Taiwanese supervisor at Nike supplier Pou Chen Shoe
Factory was suspended after forcing 56 women to run around the factory
floor on International Women's Day. 

Workers at Sam Yang in April staged a two-day strike over work conditions
then being negotiated. Reports at the time said 3,000 workers walked off
the job, but Sam Yang put the figure at 800. 

According to Lao Dong, workers were protesting labour conditions and
accused management of behaving "arrogantly" in contract negotiations. 

In order to make sure its suppliers toe the line, Nike appointed a
dedicated labour practices manager in Vietnam last year to help oversee
the roughly 35,000 workers in five separate factories turning out products
made exclusively for Nike. 

In April, a New York-based labor activist group highlighted low pay and
instances of corporal punishment at two of Nike's subcontracters in
southern Vietnam. 

Nike officials said at the time they recognised the need for greater
supervision of working conditions and labour practices. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Central Vietnamese Provinces Attract Little Investment

Hanoi, June 17 (VNA) - Vietnam's fourteen central provinces from Thanh Hoa
southward to Khanh Hoa have attracted 114 foreign-invested projects
operating with a combined investment capital of over US$1.5 billion. 

Due to poor infrastructure the region accounted for only seven percent of
the country's number of foreign-invested projects, and 5.7 percent of its
investment capital. 

Most of the projects are operating in localities with relatively good
infrastructure. 

Thanh Hoa province is host to five projects capitalised at more than
US$418 million, including the US$300 million Nghi Son cement factory. 

Da Nang City has 35 projects worth nearly US$387 million; Khanh Hoa
province, 18 projects valued at US$222 million; Nghe An province, 7
projects worth US$220 million; Thua Thien-Hue, 8 projects capitalised at
US$106 million; and Dac Lac and Quang Tri provinces each with one project
capitalised at US$1-2 million. Other central provinces have attracted from
two to seven projects with combined investment capital of from US$5 to 95
million. 

The region is expected to draw more foreign investment when infrastructure
construction projects are completed. These projects include the Industrial
Zone - Dung Quat port in Quang Ngai province, Industrial Zone-Chan May
harbour in Thua Thien-Hue province, and upgrading of transport networks,
especially National Highway No. 1. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Freedom's Reward: Asia's Most Vital Arts Scene Thrives In Vietnam 

Hanoi (dpa) - "Don't leave," the girl at Number 7 Hang Kay Street begs.
"I've sold nothing at all today." 

Darkness is falling over the Hoam Kien lake in the middle of Hanoi, and
with the new illuminated advertisments and the smart Cafe Au Lac,
Vietnam's capital can stand comparision with the world's most beautiful
metropoles - this part of it at least. 

Number 7 Hang Kay Street is one of more than 50 galleries in the Old City,
where trading is best in the evenings. The competition is fierce - too
fierce - but an indication at the same time of pulsating vitality. 

Asia's most lively art scene is thriving in the old Shop Houses. And all
involved are interested in one thing only - dollars. 

To be sure not everyone is able to buy 1,000 paintings at the same time,
as a new, and to date largely empty, hotel did recently. 

Of all places Ha Noi, City on the Red River, home to one of the last
communist governments in the world, where signs of former glory are marked
by decay, has become the heart of an artistic scene that, together with
the galleries of Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, is attracting
international interest. 

Among the street kitchens and souvenir shops, one gallery after another,
some simply passages, show their exhibits. Traders and collectors follow
one another through the doors in quick succession. 

By no means all the works on offer are of high quality, with much that is
kitsch and sentimental, but those prepared to search will find something
worthwhile - perhaps in the Nam Son Gallery in Hanoi or the Gallery Saigon
in Ho Chi Minh City. 

The clients are drawn by the relatively low prices. From 300 dollars - the
equivalent of a year's average earnings in Vietnam -and up to 30,000
dollars is the price asked for an original by one of the New
Expressionists. 

Their names, despite their strange sound, are attracting the attention of
experts: Nguyen Quan, Le Quang Ha, Nguyen Van Cuong, and the "Gang of
Five", as well as Nguyen Xuan Tiep, whose pictures have found takers in
the expensive galleries of Hong Kong and Singapore. 

Among the most popular are Pham Luan's near impressionist street scenes,
such as "Spring on Hao Dao Street", that could have been painted in the
South of France, but for the unmistakeable conical hats of the rice
farmers. 

Alongside oils and gouache, young Vietnamese artists are also taking to
modern forms like Perormance Art and Installationt. 

The Hong Kong magazine Asian Art News devoted an entire issue recently to
the Vietnamese art scene. 

Doi Moi has been the name for almost 10 years of the renewal politics
under which the aged party leadership has introduced cautious reforms
opening the country to the outside world. 

The new freedom has paid off in the art scene. But the country's complex
heritage has also played its part. 

The School of Art of Indochina founded by the French in Hanoi in 1925,
skills in draftmanship formed in decades during which materials were in
short supply, and the socialist realism that dominated into the 1980's
have all contributed to this heritage. 

Not least havens like the Cafe Lam, where since the 1950's an artist has
been able to pay with his unfinished pictures, have helped - a whiff of
Paris even under the shadow of war. 
  _________________________________________________________________
         
Coppola's film company to shoot road movie in Vietnam

HANOI, June 18 (AFP) - Francis Ford Coppola's film company has received
permission to shoot a film in Vietnam based on an American's motorbike
ride down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a film official said on Wednesday. 

California-based Zoetrope Studios has been given the green light from
Vietnam's Culture and Information Ministry to produce a film based on the
book "Sparring with Charlie", the official said. 

Do Duy Anh, head of the International Relations Office of the Vietnam
Cinema Department, said the film's script had been approved by authorities
after undergoing rigourous scrutiny by the ministry watchdog. 

The project will be entirely foreign financed, but Zoetrope will be
working with Vietnamese film association Hodafilm. 

Only a handful of foreign film companies have received permission to film
in Vietnam, producing mainly French titles including "Indochine" and
"Cyclo". 

Setting up film production is difficult in Vietnam where media and art are
strictly controlled. So far, only one US filmaker, Vietnamese born Thi
Thanh Nga, has received permission to shoot in Vietnam, resulting in the
autobiographical documentary, "From Hollywood to Hanoi." 

Earlier this year makers of a James Bond film were forced to abandon plans
to shoot the next 007 movie here when the government reversed its decision
to give the project the green light. 

Zoetrope's film will be based on the non-fiction book written by American
Christopher Hunt in 1994. 

The feisty account of his travails while traversing the country on a
Belarussian-made motorbike in 1994 never received critical acclaim. 

When Francis Ford made the blockbuster hit Apocalyse Now in the late
1970s, he filmed all Vietnamese scenes in the Philippines. 
  _________________________________________________________________