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Open Letter to the Leadership of the Vietnamese Catholic Church |
Your Eminences, Your Excellencies,
Dear Reverend Fathers:
We the undersigned, four representatives of the Priest Nguyen Kim Dien Group, respectfully submit to you our thoughts on the upcoming general election in Vietnam.
The 12th general election of representatives to the National Legislative Assembly is only one month away. As in the previous 11 elections organized and manipulated by the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) from 1945 to 2002, this coming election will also be based on the principle “party nominates, people vote”. This means that all the candidates will be carefully vetted by the Party, and the proportions of elected candidates have been predetermined: 90% for the candidates representing 2 millions of the VCP’s members and 10% for the candidates representing more than 80 million ordinary Vietnamese.
In order to give the election a democratic appearance, the government decided to invite non-Party candidates to run. Ironically, of the initial 238 independent candidates only 13 remain in the race after the deliberations and negotiations of the Front of the Motherland, an arm of the Party.
According to the Vietnamese and foreign media, many candidates have either voluntarily withdrawn, or were forced to withdraw, their decision to run as a result of government-endorsed “electors’ assessments” which were reminiscent of the shameful and barbarous practice during the tragic “Land Reform” campaign of the early 50’s. Thus all the constructive and sincere appeals for a free, democratic, and multiparty election have come to naught.
For this reason, instead of being a supreme body in the government structure (as stipulated in Article 83 of the Constitution), the National Legislative Assembly will continue to remain an instrument of the Party, a rubber-stamp organization (as described by the world media) working under the direction of the Party, and specifically under that of a handful of members of the Politburo.
The winners in this election won’t be the people’s representatives but rather the Party’s representatives, who will do whatever the Party asks them to do. This is the reason why over the last 60 years, the National Legislative Assembly has passed many laws which served only the interests of the Party, and not those of the people. The National Legislative Assembly is simply one of the three components of the party-controlled system of work division, and not the system of power separation implemented in most democratic, civilized countries.
This is also the reason why, under the Communist regime, voting has always been something that people carried out only reluctantly. The Party and the government have resorted to all means to force people to go to the polls, from the more subtle form of ‘family proxy voters’ to the more blatant pressure in threatening non-voters with the prospect of difficulties in business, employment or in applying for certification of documents, etc. The most atrocious form of these threats is to punish those who refuse to vote because, in their conscience, they feel their most sacred right as citizens is usurped by the Party to preserve and consolidate its dictatorial regime.
As a consequence of this policy, elections in Vietnam haven’t brought about a transparent system of governance and a truly democratic and free political regime. They haven’t produced representatives who are devoted to fulfill people’s wishes, who are only accountable to the people, and who only rely on the support and respect of the people in carrying out their duties and to make laws in the interest of the people. The people of Vietnam are still deprived of the basic human rights such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of election, etc., and, are thus hampered in their aspiration for a just and democratic system enjoyed by people in more civilized societies.
We call on you to help because of:
- your traditional mission to teach and show examples of honesty, equality, and bravery (elements of basic human virtues), as citizens, Christians, and the leaders of the Church,
- your community letter of 2006 (No. 7): “In order to build an equitable society, in addition to an education on the respect for people’s fundamental rights, we also need an appropriate system to protect these rights. This requires contribution from different segments of society. Equity must go hand in hand with respect for the truths, because this is the condition of a compassionate community”,
We respectfully ask you to assist us
in boycotting the general election. We also call upon you
to join Group 8406 (appeal of January 8, 2007), the Alliance for
Democracy and Freedom in Vietnam (appeal of January 27, 2007), 60 Vietnamese
organizations overseas and inside Vietnam (appeal of March 15, 2007), and tens
of millions of people in Vietnam.
By boycotting the election we exercise the right of every citizen to get involved in politics as taught by the late Pope John Paul II in a statement published in La Stampa newspaper in Italy in March 1991: “I think that we shouldn’t understand politics in its narrow sense. The Pope’s responsibility is to teach the Bible, but there are people in the Bible, there is respect for people, that is respect for human rights; there is freedom of the conscience and everything that pertains to people. If all those things have political attributes, then the Pope is involved in political activities. The Pope always relates to people. The Pope always protects people.”
As respected spiritual leaders with authority and wide support of Catholic followers, your boycotting of the election, through open and official statements and through concrete actions, will have a strong impact on improving the current undemocratic state of the country. It will portray the Church as a brave witness of the truths and as a compassionate fighter for reason. It will encourage Christians to get involved in social changes to carry out the teaching of the Bishops’ Conference held in Tokyo, Japan, in 1986: “Above all, politics must become a common activity. All Christ’s children must get involved in those activities, because the Bible asks Christians to bring Christian values -- compassion and equitability – into Asia’s economic, political, cultural, and social activities. Those who absolutely refuse to ask for political changes in Asia also disavow their Christianity.
We respectfully hope that Christ will bestow upon you blessings to make you His fire and winds in order to reform this world, and to change the social situation of Vietnam.
Made in Vietnam – Easter Season, April 20, 2007
Representatives of the Priest Nguyen Kim Dien Group
Signed:
- Stephano ChanTin, Redemptorist Mission
- Phaero Nguyen Huu Giai, Hue Congregation
- Taedo Nguyen Van Ly, Hue Congregation
- Phaero Phan Van Loi, Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Notes: