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Sydney APEC 2007: a meeting of leaders and three gangsters |
Ðằng Vân
Point of View
This Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is an economic forum for 21 countries or political entities to discuss regional economic, trade and investment, as well as other areas of cooperation. It is important in that it represents about 60% of the world economy. As a rule, heads of member governments are convened once a year at a gathering be called APEC economic leaders meeting.
This year, it is the turn of Sydney to host the meeting. Despite all the publicity generated, many sydneysiders are justly angered by the traffic chaos and inconvenience they have to put up with. The beautiful city of Sydney suddenly becomes Fortress Sydney surrounded by road blocks and barbed wires. It is entirely possible that APEC will not be a vote winner for Australian PM John Howard who is fighting for his political survival in his own Sydney electorate of Benelong.
Currently there are 21 member countries including:
Australia, Brunei, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philipines, New Zealand, Singapore, Republic of Korea (South), Thailand, USA, Republic of China, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Chile, Peru, Russia and Vietnam.
Although, the USA head of state George W Bush appears to be the target of most protesters in the streets of Sydney, he is clearly not the most dangerous of those heads of government.
In my humble opinion, protesters should specifically single out three individuals who are menaces to their own people:
Chinese President Hu Jin-Tao, Vietnamese president Nguyen Minh Triet and Singapore’s PM Lee Hsien-Loong.
These three could not be called true political leaders because they are never elected by their people, in free and fair democratic elections. They are rather leaders of their political parties in one-party dictatorships. As such they are more akin to gangsters rather than political leaders. They are not the servants of their people, rather the overlords and masters of the poor people under their iron rules.
Hu Jin-Tao and his Chinese Communist Party has suppressed human rights and religious freedom in China, invaded Tibet and subjected the indigenous Tibetans to untold humiliation and cultural eradication. The Western powers have ignored this because they do not want to jeopardise trade relations with China. The West has also turned a blind eye to the harvest of human organs, especially organs of tens of thousands of followers of the Falun Gong Buddhist Sect and other prisoners in various Chinese jails. All political dissent in China are pitilessly destroyed.
His loyal servant Nguyen Minh Triet, Vietnam’s president, is not much better. His Communist Party of Vietnam reigns supreme in his native land. Article 4 of the constitution gives his party political power for eternity. PM John Howard can only dream of it. He recently lectured his armed forces on their duty, not to protect the nation’s borders, but to protect the party. He said words to the effect that to abolish article 4 would be suicide for the party and he would never condone such action. It had never occurred to him that the death of the Communist Party of Vietnam would augur a new era of real freedom, democracy and happiness for the whole nation. That it is the duty of the armed forces to serve the people and the nation, not to serve his party and his fellow gangsters. Members of the Vietnamese community have organized a demonstration to protest against his presence in Sydney. They are rightly angry and ashamed that their nation is being ruled by gangsters instead of true political leaders elected by the consent of the majority.
Last but not least is a son of his father Lee Hsien Loong. His father had the temerity to create an island state, rule it with an iron hand through a gang called the People’s Action Party. His son now inherits his fiefdom, suppressed all opposition and now “represents” his nation at the summit.
Evidently, the world of the 21st century is truly without borders, especially for gangsters. Hu Jin-Tao, Nguyen Minh Triet and Lee Hsien Loong (or rather his father Lee Kuan Yew) are really in bed together. Their aim is to help each other on how to best exploit their peoples and enrich themselves and their cliques. They seek each other’s counsel regularly. However, the relationship between Hu Jin Tao and Nguyen Minh Triet is a little different in that Hu is the master and Nguyen the servant.
Thus it is a shame that a forum like APEC, because of the presence of the above trio, has turned out to be a meeting of political leaders and three gangsters of international fame.
As usual, President Bush paid lip service and called for Asia-Pacific democracy. He especially called for more political openness in China, the release of political prisoners in Burma and early democratic elections in Thailand (Sydney Morning Herald September8, 2007).
Mr. President,
Please pay a little more attention to Vietnam, will you? For God’s sake!
Although this could be called a meeting of leaders and three gangsters, leaders who condone tyranny for material gains are not really true leaders. Would a “charade of international proportion” be a more appropriate name for such gathering?
A lot of inconvenienced sydneysiders would definitely agree.
Ðằng Vân
8 September 2007