Vietnam Currents

December, 2007

 

by Hai V. Tran

 

Messrs. Manh, Triet, Dung, Trong: You have shamed the nation!

 

It is strange, very strange!

 

On November 20, 2007, China's National People's Congress approved a county-level administrative body called Sansha to manage the archipelagos in the South China Sea, including the Paracel (Hoang Sa) and Spratlys (Truong Sa). A week later, a little notice in the Tuoi Tre online paper reported the news. And nothing else.

 

When the people in Vietnam began to angrily denounce China's annexation of the islands, the spokesman of Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs was strutted out to read the statement: "Vietnam has sufficient historical evidence and legal bases with respect to the sovereignty of Paracel and Spratlys archipelagos."

He read the exact mantra when Chinese navy opened fire and killed 8 Vietnamese fishermen near the Paracel islands in January 2005.

He parroted the same thing when Taiwan built an airstrip on one of the Spratly islands in April 2007.

He repeated that Orwellian statement when the Chinese navy sank several Vietnamese fishing boats while Vietnamese navy ships just looked on in August 2007. 

During those incidents, each of Vietnam's gang of four rulers went to China and toasted the "relationship between China and Vietnam being the best in years."

When there was no news of the rulers doing or saying anything about recent official declaration of the Chinese land grab, some college students from Hanoi and Saigon decided they had had enough. Using the Internet, blogging, instant messaging, and cell phones, they exhorted a few hundred people to demonstrate in front of the Chinese embassy in Hanoi and Consulate in Saigon. "Down with Chinese (pause...) communists," they shouted.

To pour oil onto fire, the spokesman of Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement, "Those gatherings are spontaneous and unauthorized. Relevant forces were immediately deployed and order was restored."

 As if the Hanoi communists wanted to assuage Beijing that those "gatherings" were the illegal acts of a few and that China has nothing to worry about.

 As of today, December 14, 2007, there has been no statement from the four communist rulers of Vietnam.

 
Indeed, their silence is deafening!

 
The Vietnamese people all know that the current ruling clique is underwritten by Chinese during the internecine power plays before the 10th communist party congress in April 2006. But nobody could image they could be so obsequious and kowtowing to their masters in Beijing.

 
The people are beginning to ask the question, "Where does their allegiance lie?"

 
During the Vietnam War, they were able to lie, cheat and deceive the Vietnamese people and the world at large that they were mere nationalists who would die to protect the country from invasive Americans.

 
Will they stand up to defend the integrity of the nation this time against the Chinese, Vietnam's perennial bully?

 A review of their past behavior does not inspire much confidence.

After they swallowed South Vietnam in April 1975, layer by layer, their true faces are revealed to those still paying attention:

- On September 4, 1958, communist China's People's Congress passed a resolution claiming sovereignty of the Spratlys and Paracel islands. On September 14, 1958, then Prime Minister Pham Van Dong sent a diplomatic message to Chu An Lai, then China's Premier, to acknowledge and accept China's claim of sovereignty over these two archipelagoes. It should be noted that Ho Chi Minh was party chairman and state president at the time. Without Ho's direction, Pham Van Dong would never have dared to sign away the territories.

When the people got words of Pham Van Dong's sell-out, they began to object. Truong Chinh, then Chairman of the National Assembly, just demoted from the general secretary job due to the massacres of 174,000 people during the 1953-1956 Land Reform campaign, explained Pham Van Dong's traitorous act this way, "China is our socialist brother. China controls the islands is the same as we do. Whenever necessary, we just request and China will return the islands." Yeah, right!

 
- Furthermore, on December 30, 1999 and December 25, 2000, then communist party head Le Kha Phieu signed treaties with the Chinese on land border and sea territories. The contents of these two treaties have not yet been made public, prompting the people now to question as to what exactly the Hanoi communists offered China. "What was the quid pro quo?" they asked. Lawyer Le Chi Quang tried to visit the land border region to see what the reality was. He was arrested and imprisoned for 4 years. Today, he is still under house arrest.

 
Did Mr. Phieu sign over the land and sea territories in exchange for the continuous underwriting of their monopoly of political power in Vietnam?

 The incidents this month have unmasked the Hanoi communists to be traitorous sell-outs of Vietnams's ancestral lands and sea territories, walking with their knees in front of the Chinese invaders but treating their Vietnamese masses  with ruthlessness and brutality.

 The silence of the Vietnamese rulers says it all. As for the students, they could still feel the adrenaline of being in a spontaneous demonstration, something they haven't been able to do for 32 years. Because of thuggish and total control by the security police, any gathering of 5 people or more is illegal and stands the chance of being arrested, there has not any been any demonstration that was not organized and required by the communist authority.

 
One of the demonstrating students said, "This sense of freedom is wonderful; how could have we lived without it all these years?" 

 
For that enlightenment, they should thank the Chinese. And the Vietnamese communists should begin their countdown.


Hai V. Tran, Virginia
=====
You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.


 

http://www.vietnamexodus.org/vne/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3039

 

Phát biểu nhân cuộc biểu tình phản đối Trung Quốc xâm chiếm Hoàng Sa và Trường Sa ngày 16-12-2007
LM Phan Văn Lợi

 

Kính thưa Quý Lãnh đạo Tinh thần và Thân hào Nhân sĩ
Kính thưa Quý Đại diện cộng đồng, cơ quan, đoàn thể
Kính thưa Quý Đồng bào thân yêu đang hiện diện.


Giờ phút này đây, tại quê nhà yêu quý, đồng bào quốc nội đang sục sôi biểu tình trước tòa đại sứ và tòa lãnh sự Trung Quốc ở hai đầu tổ quốc để mạnh mẽ phản đối việc họ xâm chiếm hai phần thân thể của Đất nước là quần đảo Hoàng Sa và Trường Sa. Dù cách xa nửa vòng trái đất, tấm lòng tưởng nhớ cố quốc và thương yêu đất Mẹ đang đưa chúng ta lại gần đồng bào và muốn đập cùng một nhịp tim, nung cùng một ý chí với những người con ái quốc và can đảm của dân tộc.

………….

Tổ quốc đang lâm nguy, biên thùy đang dậy sóng, lòng dân đang rúng động, trước kẻ ngoại thù Đại Hán và kẻ nội thù cộng sản. Cả hai đã phối hợp để ngăn chận cuộc biểu tình hôm 09-12 và có thể đang tìm cách trấn áp cuộc biểu tình hôm nay. Vậy hỡi đồng bào thân yêu, chúng ta phải biểu lộ ý chí bảo vệ tổ quốc, phải khơi lại khí phách giữ gìn đất mẹ, phải làm sống dậy tinh thần hào hùng, thái độ bất khuất trước thù trong giặc ngoài của đất nước, dù chúng mạnh mẽ và xảo trá đến đâu. Chúng ta sẽ đấu tranh mãi mãi, biểu tình dài dài, cho đến khi Trung Quốc trả lại Hoàng sa, Trường sa, trả lại ải Nam quan, thác Bản giốc, trả lại biên thùy phía bắc và lãnh hải phía đông. Dân tộc ta nhỏ bé nhưng đã chống lại cả biết bao đế chế hùng cường xâm phạm bờ cõi. Nay chúng ta cũng tiếp tục truyền thống giữ gìn đất nước của cha ông tiên tổ, hy sinh vì đất nước của anh hùng liệt sĩ, để tổ quốc VN mãi mãi nguyên vẹn. Nguyện hồn thiêng sông núi phù trợ cho chúng ta. 


Phát biểu từ Huế, ngày 15-12-2007
Chúng tôi, linh mục Phêrô Phan Văn Lợi.


***********************************************************************

http://www.tdngonluan.com/pdf/TuDoNgonLuan_So41_15December2007.pdf

 

Tu Do Ngon Luan

Xem Bán nguyệt san TỰ DO NGÔN LUẬN, tự ý phát hành trong nước. -Số 41, phát hành ngày 15 tháng 12 năm 2007. Tiếng nói của Người Dân Việt Nam đòi Quyền Tự Do Thông Tin Ngôn Luận.