The Viet Weekly Controversy by Phu Le
and Jean Libby, VietAm Review.
Comments from Phu Le, community
activist: Lately, there is much to
say about the controversial stand of Viet
Weekly. About a month ago, Viet
Weekly published an article under the name of Ha Van Thuy. This article
praised Ho Chi Minh as a savior of the Vietnamese people. It also said that the
I want to focus on the pro-communist stand of Viet Weekly. To response to numerous protests from the Vietnamese community, Viet Weekly defended itself by arguing that the article was a “paid article” and did not express any stands of Viet Weekly. Actually, this was not a paid article; this article was posted in talawas’s website some two years ago. Viet Weekly intentionally re-published it but hid its intention behind a paid article. There should not be any excuses for its lying to the public when the article back-fires on the newspaper. By promulgating this article, nobody would believe in Viet Weekly’s denial that it did not act as a communist mouthpiece.
There are other issues to be raised with Viet Weekly: When the famous anti-communist Nguyen Chi Thien comes out to denounce Viet Weekly, its staff reprised by claiming that Mr. Nguyen is a communist agent. This is an insult to the truth: Can Viet Weekly provide any proofs to that falsified accusation?
Another issue is in regards to Viet
Weekly’s infamous reason its staff cited to explain why they did not
publish the famous photo of Father Ly with his mouth covered by a secret police
officer in his trial by a communist court March 30, 2007. That reason was
totally fabricated: they said that they were present at a meeting with the
media in
To conclude: Viet Weekly can not hide its pro-communist stand. When its act is caught by the Vietnamese community that is predominantly anti-communist, its staff instead of recognizing the wrong doings and apologize to the community, they aggravated the problems by committing plenty of lies to cover them up. This cover-up can be seen as a “small scale Watergate scandal” within the Vietnamese media and the Vietnamese community. By spreading lies and inventing facts to back them up, Viet Weekly can no longer be trusted as a credible media organization.
English translation by Mr. Phu Le of some of the Vietnamese language articles about and in Viet Weekly Magazine will be posted on www.vietamreview.net/Community_Pages.html
Comments
from Jean Libby, VietAm Review
My experience with these events is to research the American Embassy in
The Viet Weekly posted an audio file of the event on April 6 at the Hilton
Hanoi at which Le Vu was present to record.
This file was posted on June 14 after the complaints of the community in
This audio file is clearly manipulated. I invite everyone to listen to it with bilingual friends and to read the transcription that is posted with Issue #25. You can hear the Ambassador saying “We did not discuss the trial” in answer to an English-language reporter’s question. That is never written by the Viet Weekly. You will hear sentences that do not make sense in English and are at different sound levels. This is evidence of audio clips. You will hear sentences in Vietnamese that are the opposite of what the Ambassador is saying: “in front of” is interpreted as “behind.” You will hear a lot of static that is man-made—a microphone being rubbed on cloth. It is not machine static.
After the press release of April 5, 2007, in which Ambassador Michael Marine
criticized the Vietnamese government specifically for political imprisonment
and naming Father Ly, the American Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez who was escorting the wife of a political
prisoner to the Ambassador’s home was prevented from entering. The Vietnamese woman was physically prevented
by Communist police. After the
Ambassador protested this to the Deputy Prime Minister Kheim with the American
Congressional delegation on April 6, he was reportedly asked to resign by U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. His
resignation takes effect July 31. His
nominated replacement is the Ambassador to APEC Michael Michalak. The appointment to APEC was made in November 2005 and confirmed by the Senate in February 2006.
The press release of Ambassador Michael Marine can be read in full on http://vietamreview.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/6/15/3025254.html
The confrontation outside the residence of Ambassador
Michael Marine on April 5, in which he tells his visitors (including
Congresswoman Sanchez) that it is useless to talk to the police because “they
have orders” and promises to bring up the issue to Deputy Minister Kheim is on
YouTube http://youtube.com/watch?v=p1MbiAFvxrE&mode=related&search=
