Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Public Security Le Quy Vuong on September 14 said that Vietnam had “prevented attempts of “riot, terrorism, sabotage” and vows “not to allow the formation of opposing political organizations in the country,” according to the official website of the country’s highest legislative body National Assembly.
Reporting the results of crime prevention and law violations in the field of national security at the parliament’s headquarters in Hanoi, Mr. Vuong said that “hostile forces at home and abroad continue to boost anti-state activities” in many fields.
“Homeland security has many potential factors that can cause instability, economic security is complicated,” said Senior Lieutenant General Vuong. “The situation of disclosing state secrets on cyberspace is becoming more serious. Illegal entry activities are complicated, especially during the outbreak of COVID-19. The denunciation situation is still very complicated.”
However, according to this general, the Ministry of Public Security has coordinated with the ministries, branches, and localities to actively implement measures to “defeat all conspiracies and destructive activities of hostile and reactionary forces.”
Since then, the Ministry of Public Security has “prevented the conspiracy of riot, terrorism, sabotage, not to allow the formation of opposition political organizations in the country,” Vuong said, emphasizing that “not to be passive or being surprised in all situations.“
“Timely conduct the investigation of national security infringement cases, contribute to the defense of national security, maintain political stability, and serve the development of the country,” Mr. Vuong was quoted by the National Assembly’s news page at the meeting.
One of the most recent cases related to “ensuring national security” in Vietnam is the arrest and probe of Hanoi Chairman Nguyen Duc Chung, who served as the Hanoi Police Department’s director, with accusing “appropriating state secret documents.”
The Ministry of Public Security previously prosecuted the case of “appropriating state secret documents” of Nhat Cuong company with the involvement of two of Mr. Chung’s close subordinates.
The Ministry of Public Security in recent months has increased activities to “ensure national security” especially when Vietnam is about to hold the ruling party’s National Congress scheduled for early next year.
The head of the Ministry of Public Security, General To Lam, in early July instructed the concerned agencies to “completely settle the mass lawsuits, not to let the hostile forces take advantage of the destruction” during the party’s congress, according to VietNamNet.
Earlier in June, the domestic media quoted Lt. Gen. Luong Tam Quang, another deputy minister of Public Security, also voicing warning that the “conspiracy to operate against, causing a riot to overthrow the regime of the hostile and reactionary forces” in Vietnam” is more and more harmful and dangerous.”
Lt. Gen. Quang predicted that “the hostile forces never give up the plot against us, want to overthrow and defame our regime. These are conspiracies that have never been so strongly launched as today.”
Recently, in an article preparing for the 13th National Congress of the Party, General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong still emphasized that “extremely wary of increasingly sophisticated and sinister plots and tricks of hostile forces, reactionaries, and political opportunities, especially in the political field, thought” and “raise vigilance, defeat all the plans, activities of the hostile forces; not to be passive, unexpected in all situations.”
The accusation of “conspiracy to overthrow the government” has been applied by Vietnam in the cases of Vietnamese foreign citizenship in recent years. Most recently last June, Vietnamese-American citizen Michael Phuong Minh Nguyen was sentenced to 12 years in prison on this charge.
According to international human rights organizations, although Vietnam has achieved many economic reforms and is more open to changes in society, the ruling Communist Party still exercises strict control on the media and does not tolerate criticism directed at the government.
During the meeting with the Standing Committee of Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee on September 3 on giving comments on the draft documents and personnel work plans submitted to the 11th Congress of the City Party Committee in 2020- 2025 term, General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong said that it is necessary to further report on the Party building work, not just forcus on economy.
According to the leader of the Communist Party of Vietnam, if the Party is not good, the cadres are not exemplary, it is impossible to raise the economy, if the economy cannot improve, how can the people be peaceful, in addition, the economy is associated with sociocultural.
With experience as a writer who used to work for the Communist Magazine, independent journalist Nguyen Vu Binh said:
“He means the issue of morality and personality of Party members and take that as the root, not only in many aspects but also in economic development. When he questioned the organization of party building, party members, emphasized on it. These stresses are always true, but in reality, the opposite is true, that is, there are no good people to build what he says because senior officials are corrupted. They are people having conditions to be corrupted to use their illegally-obtained assets to buy their positions. So he was right in principle, but in reality, it was from that root that the society like this, all kinds of negative things, corruption into statehood, economic and social weakness, everything that happened from the root. Just that person.”
With the same point of view, Dr. Nguyen Quang A gives more evidence for Mr. Nguyen Phu Trong “speaking well, but only saying one way and doing another.”
“Certainly his words are not true to the current situation because of his main mechanism that he is exhorting not only Ho Chi Minh City but the whole country is imitating that he still insists on Marx-Lenin, thought Ho Chi Minh.
Marx-Lenin, the whole world threw it in the trash, Ho Chi Minh said he had no thoughts at all.”
So all of that, although he said the leader with achievements, with other things was not wrong in terms of governance, but the real mechanism of the Communist Party of Vietnam, he just said it could be played like that.
Because it is these things that give birth to spoiled, corrupt, corrupt people, in the end the words that seem very scientific, very cliché are really just tricks.”
However, also at the meeting on September 3, General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong said his views on the Hanoi government mechanism were not the same as that given by social observers.
Specifically, Mr. Nguyen Phu Trong’s words were quoted verbatim by the VietnamNet newspaper as follows: “It has been very painful recently to discipline some officials, it is necessary to strictly review why this happened. There are misleading opinions, saying that due to the mechanism, why are they still that mechanism and other places people do well?”
According to journalist Nguyen Vu Binh, this statement of the General Secretary showed that he did not understand the problem. Binh explained:
“He did not understand why people say the mechanism that leads to the corruption. He does not understand, or does not want to talk about or hide. In the past, when it comes to the mechanism, people are right and correct. Why mechanisms lead to corruption? Because our nation has no criticism, no pluralism to compete, to compete with each other fairly, how not to lead to absolute monopoly is the principle.
He said it was not because of the mechanism, but because he did not understand or deliberately said so, but everyone said it was due to the mechanism.
Still according to journalist Nguyen Vu Binh, if you want to really change the country, the Hanoi government needs to change the following:
“Putting the country’s comprehensive issue and asking the party’s problem to fight corruption requires a change of mechanism. In the party and for society, there must be a democracy, there must be political parties to solve the problem radically.
And all other words, all other reasons are fallacies, must be from the mechanism, from that root, if the root is not there, it cannot do anything.”
Dr. Nguyen Quang A also said that only democracy improves staff thinking:
“The country needs to eliminate a one-party regime to ensure fair competition. Only fair competition will select talented people to work for state agencies. I am not saying that there are no talented people in the Vietnamese Communist Party right now. Those talented people have to mobilize themselves by their activities, to compete with other people at that time to appear talented people. When we criticize, he labels us as e hostile forces, this and that … that is, in his statement was full of contradictions.”
Thoibao.de (Translated)
