It's that Ca Mau spirit

Agence France Presse -- English
February 9, 2007 Friday 8:17 AM GMT

Online, Vietnam's PM offers rare personal glimpse
BYLINE: Frank Zeller

DATELINE: HANOI, Feb 9 2007

Vietnam's prime minister offered a rare glimpse into his family life and wartime past Friday as he took online questions from the public in what the government billed as a show of openness.

In the premier's two-hour web chat, a first for the one-party state, Nguyen Tan Dung also touched on sensitive issues such as corruption and press freedom in a forum flooded with more than 20,000 questions.

Although entries were screened, the event received an enthusiastic response in the authoritarian state where state and party directives are usually delivered through tinny neighbourhood loudspeakers.

Asked why Dung, a veteran of what is called here the "American War," had later sent his son to study in the United States, the 57-year-old premier from southern Vietnam gave an unusually candid and detailed response.

"I spent 23 years fighting the US aggressors in Vietnam's southern battlefield," he wrote, saying that he lost his father and uncle to what was then a hated enemy and personally suffered 30 injuries.

"We, like all Vietnamese, hated the former aggressive regime and the US invasion troops, but we did not hate the entire US nation.

"We were thankful to those Americans who poured onto the streets to demonstrate against the war in Vietnam. We also felt for the American mothers who lost their sons and husbands in the Vietnam invasion."

Dung said that now Vietnam's ruling party and state wanted to "close the past, head toward the future and at the same time build and develop cooperative and equal relations between the two countries."

The premier also said he was surprised when he was chosen as premier last year but said he loved his job: "Some people said that as a senior leader, one may feel very lonely," he wrote.

"But I have never felt lonely. I don't know what other people think, but I feel life is always beautiful."

Many questions focused on corruption, which has caused much resentment here and which Dung has pledged to tackle hard.

Asked what he loved and hated most in life, Dung said: "I love honesty most, and I hate cheating most."

A graft fighter, he said, must tackle corruption "no matter who those corrupt officials are or what positions they have, and not fear complications, revenge or losing his position."

Many questions were technical, but in one of the most sensitive queries, Dung was asked why he last year signed an order to prohibit private media, and whether this contradicted Vietnam's official goal of freedom and democracy.

"It's true that on behalf of the government, I signed an instruction to strengthen the management of the media to best promote the role of the press in national development," Dung said.

He added that "this instruction is in accordance with Vietnamese law, and the majority of the Vietnamese people's aspiration. I think compatriots should support it and the press should obey it."

Dung said that while "achievements by the media must be respected... their mistakes must be seriously treated in accordance with our law."

The answer was telling in marking the limit of Vietnam's media freedom despite Friday's high-profile event, which the government says opens a new two-way channel of communication between the leaders and the people.

Cybercafes have mushroomed and Vietnam had 14.6 million Internet users late last year, or 17.6 percent of its population, according to the Vietnam Internet Network Information Centre.

But human rights groups and IT experts warn that Vietnam censors not only its traditional media but also the Internet, filtering and blocking websites and hunting a fledgling movement of online democracy activists.

Journalist Nguyen Vu Binh, one of the country's most prominent "cyber dissidents," has remained in a Vietnamese prison since his 2002 arrest for allegedly passing information to overseas groups through the Internet.