SEOUL MEETING: PROMOTING DEMOCRACY IN CLOSED SOCIETIES: THE CASE OF VIETNAM, speech by Vo Van Ai, President, Quê Me: Action for Democracy in Vietnam

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12/11/2002 | SEOUL MEETING: PROMOTING DEMOCRACY IN CLOSED SOCIETIES: THE CASE OF VIETNAM, speech by Vo Van Ai, President, Quê Me: Action for Democracy in Vietnam

SECOND MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE OF THE COMMUNITY OF DEMOCRACIES
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA, 10-12TH NOVEMBER 2002

On the occasion of the Second Ministerial Conference and the NGO Forum of the Community of Democracies meeting in Seoul, Quê Me: Action for Democracy in Vietnam calls on all members of the Community of Democracies, both governments and NGOs, to support Vietnamese democrats in their nonviolent movement for democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

In today's world, democracy is increasingly accepted by as a universal, unalienable right. But this right is far from being universally recognized. In countries under totalitarian, dictatorial or authoritarian rule, democracy is perceived as a threat to internal stability, and governments use violence and repression to stifle democratic freedoms and suppress civil liberties and rights.

We believe that democracy is not a threat. On the contrary, it is a peaceful process that responds to the aspirations and needs of people across the globe. As we move away from the cold war era and embark upon a new Millennium, promoting democracy means developing interdependence between nations as a mutually-reinforcing process, and recognizing the interdependence between peace, development, human rights and democracy as the key to peaceful coexistence. It means going beyond conflict and concretely supporting democratic individuals and movements in closed societies to strengthen democratic institutions and processes.

We realize that democracy is not an overnight phenomenon. In Western countries, the democratic process began almost three centuries ago, and remains in constant evolution today. In Asia, democracy is an ancient concept, rooted in the teachings spread by Sakyamuni Buddha over 2,500 years ago. Yet in many Asian countries, particularly Vietnam, people have never enjoyed a time of peace to plant and nurture these democratic seeds. Over the past three centuries, Vietnam has known nothing but colonization, oppression and war. Subjected to exploitation and obscurantism under French colonial rule, then locked in a spiral of violence throughout the Indochina and the "Vietnam" war, Vietnam has never had the chance to develop its own culture of democracy and human rights.

All Vietnamese aspire to democracy. Yet today, twenty-seven years after the end of the war, the Vietnamese have still not gained their democratic freedoms and rights. As Vietnam opens its economy to the free market system, it remains closed to political liberalization and democratic reform. The one-party Communist State rejects "Western-imposed" democratic values, yet the 1992 Vietnamese Constitution enshrines the monopoly of a "Western-imported" doctrine - Marxist-Leninism - to the exclusion of all other political expression and thought. Freedom of opinion and expression, religion and association are curtailed. There are no independent NGOs, no opposition parties, no free press. Thousands of prisoners of conscience are detained on "national security" charges simply for the peaceful advocacy of democracy, religious freedom and human rights.

In antiquity, closed societies built great walls and fortresses to immure their people and seal themselves off from the world. In Vietnam today, the state uses has erected systems of control, surveillance and intimidation to close society from within, locking up people's minds and immuring them in a climate of self-censorship and fear.

Despite this, Vietnamese democrats from all walks of life are braving harassment and detention to assert their civil and political rights. Three recent examples of persecution against democratic activists in Vietnam ;

- On November 8th 2002, on the eve of this Conference in Seoul, 32-year-old lawyer and cyber-dissident Le Chi Quang was sentenced to 4 years in prison and three years house arrest at a closed, unfair trial in Hanoi for "dissemination of propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam" under Article 88 of the Vietnamese Criminal Code. Specifically, he was accused of "advocating pluralism and a multiparty system", participating in an independent anti-corruption association led by dissidents Pham Que Duong and Tran Khue, and "calling for the abrogation of Article 4 of the Constitution" (on the political mastery of the Vietnamese Communist Party). He was arrested on 21, February 2002 and detained in the notorious B 14 Prison near Hanoi for publishing articles on the Internet calling for democracy and criticizing the Sino-Vietnamese Border Treaties. Clearly, this sentence not only violates the right to freedom of opinion and expression enshrined in Vietnam's own Constitution (Article 69), but also the fundamental provisions of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to which Vietnam has been a state party for the past twenty years. Indeed, the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva endorsed Le Chi Quang's concerns during its examination of Vietnam's report on the ICCPR in July 2002. In their Concluding Observations, the Committee deplored the lack of political pluralism and observed that several provisions in Vietnam's Constitution, notably Article 4, were incompatible with international human rights law;
- the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, 85-year-old Patriarch of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), is spending his 20th year under house arrest without charge. He was arrested in 1982 and sent into internal exile in the remote province of Quang Ngai for his peaceful advocacy of democracy, religious freedom and human rights. Detained alone, routinely threatened and harassed by Security Police and deprived of all medical care, Thich Huyen Quang has continued to call for democratic freedoms and reform. In November 1993, he issued a landmark "Declaration" calling for the legalization of opposition parties, free elections under UN supervision and a multiparty system;
- Buddhist monk and prominent dissident Venerable Thich Quang Do, the UBCV's Deputy leader, is detained under "administrative detention" at the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery in Ho Chi Minh City because he launched an "Appeal for Democracy in Vietnam". This 8-point transition plan for peaceful, democratic change was endorsed by over 300,000 Vietnamese inside and outside Vietnam as well as hundreds of international personalities around the world. Thich Quang Do, 74, is accused of "threatening national security" and is now detained incommunicado, deprived of medical care and denied all visits. A Nobel Peace Prize nominee in 2002, Thich Quang Do has spent over 20 years in detention for his nonviolent democratic advocacy.

Quê Me: Action for Democracy in Vietnam, therefore makes the following proposals to the Community of Democracies and the NGO Forum for promoting democracy in Vietnam:

- To support individuals and organizations working inside and outside Vietnam to strengthen democratic processes and institutions, especially in their efforts to promote freedom of expression, religion, association and the right to a free press;
- To work with governments and international organizations to press for the release of citizens detained for the peaceful expression of their opinions and beliefs, notably Thich Huyen Quang, Thich Quang Do and Le Chi Quang;
- To press governments and international institutions to implement "human rights clauses" in cooperation agreements, and condition development aid on compliance with democratic principles and human rights ;
- To ensure that the principle of "non-interference in internal affairs" is never invoked as a pretext to condone impunity, and assert the right of states to intervene when democracy is under threat ;
- To work for the abolition of broadly-defined "national security laws" in Vietnam and other Asian countries and promote legal reforms; to incorporate the recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee and Special Rapporteurs into Vietnam's 10-year Legal Reform Strategy, so that Vietnamese citizens may enjoy the effective exercise of the freedoms and rights embodied in the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
- To establish "Democracy Caucuses", i.e. groups of democratic countries within the United Nations and other international fora as proclaimed in the 2000 Warsaw Declaration of the Community of Democracies, to provide specific mechanisms fo strengthening the advancement of democracy worldwide.

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