Đối Thoại Website: Doi-Thoai.com Email: toasoandoithoai@yahoo.com
|
Ðằng Vân: WTO and the Need for Constitutional and Legal Reforms in Vietnam |
Point of View
Week Ending 22 October 2006
According to Vietnamnet (23 October 2006) Vietnam is expected to become a member of WTO on 7 November 2006. Vietnam’s National Congress will ratify its official entry on 28 November 2006.
Concurrently, on the official Website of the APEC CEO Summit 2006, Hanoi Vietnam, an open invitation, signed by Dr. Vu Tien Loc (Chairman, APEC CEO Summit 2006) to this important meeting which will take place from 17 November to 19 November 2006, was published.
This is an open letter to business leaders of the international community and part of it reads:
“Under the theme “Towards One Community: Creating New Opportunities for Shared Development”, the APEC CEO Summit 2006 in Hanoi, Viet Nam will be another opportunity for business leaders to deliberate on most imperative issues that will advance APEC towards a community of sustainable development. We also do believe that Asia-Pacific business leaders will discover abundant business and investment opportunities in Vietnam, one of the fastest growing economies in the world.”
Thus the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is preparing Hanoi for big times: Not only will it accede to WTO but it will also host one of the most important economic and political forums at an international level.
The CPV is convinced that it has earned such rewards and accolades because it has been skilful in manipulating the too credulous governments and dignitaries of foreign nations totally ignorant of Vietnam’s politics. Indeed externally, by being extremely pliant to foreign powers on the one hand, and by applying extremely harsh repressive and punitive measures to control dissent within the ranks of its own people, the CPV believes that it has the secret of permanent power in Vietnam. It ceded considerable land and sea areas to the Chinese to pacify its northern borders. It ceded considerably in terms of industrial laws to give maximum profit to foreign corporations and to its own mandarins who are now allowed to become home-grown captains of industries, at the expense of the ordinary Vietnamese workers. It will no doubt, under the WTO requirements, create a dual legal system where, under the thumb of the CPV, courts will favor foreign corporations, and err against the interests of local residents, in order to avoid accusations of bias and injustice by foreign investors who can take the matters to international jurisdictions. This would leave all Vietnamese citizens helpless within a legal system controlled by the CPV.
The CPV has earlier signed into laws administrative decrees to restrict citizen’s use of and access to internet sites, to outlaw and restrict assemblies of more than 5 persons without official approval, to severely restrict freedom of the press even where the press is 100% government-owned. All religious, political dissidents are imprisoned or harassed by the police and/or outlaws hired by the police themselves to sow terror on them. Some dissidents were released in recent months with a view to assuage international concerns. No doubt repression will resume and intensify next year, after Hanoi’s entry to WTO and in the aftermath of the APEC meeting.
Thus the above theme: “Towards One Community: Creating New Opportunities for Shared Development” will be true only for foreign investors and CPV mandarins, at the expense of the Vietnamese workers and at the expense of all dissidents in Vietnam.
However, the CPV is facing insurmountable dilemmas and tensions on several fronts:
1. Corruption is so systemic and rampant that no amount of lip service or even reforms, short of drastic constitutional changes leading to radical reforms in the legal system, would be able to restore a modicum of public confidence in the regime. Even entry to WTO or the hosting of the 2006 APEC summit shall not be enough to reinvigorate faith in the CPV and rescue the regime. The end of the regime is no longer a matter of “if” but rather “when”.
2. The tension and gulf between the ruling elite comprising CPV mandarins and the ordinary Vietnamese workers will grow even wider as a consequence of ascension to WTO. Social discord and disorder will pose serious threat to the stability of the regime.
3. The lack of confidence in the judicial system by the citizens and rank and file members of the CPV leads to a situation where all allegations of corruption against officials, even against the few who are not corrupt, are invariably considered well-founded by the public. Thus allegations and counter-allegations are no longer legitimate legal tools to fight corruption, but merely tactical or strategic means to exert pressure on political or factional foes with the ultimate aim of ridding oneself of dissenters from within the ranks of the CPV itself. The latest allegations of corruption against the Governor of the National Bank (Le Duc Thuy) and his son, are illustrative of this phenomenon. All CPV members with a conscience and vision for the long term existence of the Party as a political force in Vietnamese history should sit up and take notice of this, or there will be no future for the CPV. In the end, constitutional reforms towards a pluralist political system, in which a system of legitimate rule of law is implemented, are the only ways in which the CPV can purge itself of corruption and survive as a legitimate political party in future. The sooner it realizes this, the better it is for the CPV, for other political forces within the nation and for the people themselves.
Thus the above tensions and dilemmas created by the dictatorial nature of the regime, and exacerbated by free trade within the framework of WTO, are on the one hand real difficulties the CPV must face, but are also real opportunities and challenges that may be taken head-on by the CPV, in order to open a new chapter for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, for all political forces, all religious organizations and the entire Vietnamese nation.
Ðằng Vân
23 October 2006