(Zuc) Tang Duc Dao, Solicitor - In the last few days, the online community of Vietnam has witnessed one of the most creative, intriguing and exciting events in its history. That is the birth of the “We Want to Know” Movement led by members of the Bloggers Network of Vietnam, a civil society organization founded by private citizens and independent of the vast network of media outlets funded by the state and subject to the absolute control of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV).
We, the people want the state (read CPV) to inform us of decisions affecting the nation, in particular, the content of the private agreement between the CPV and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at the Chengdu inter-party Convention of 1990.
At this infamous convention, the CPV was represented by then General Secretary Nguyen Van Linh, Prime-Minister Do Muoi and Adviser to the Central Committee Pham Van Dong. The CCP was represented by then General Secretary Jiang Zemin and Premier Li Peng.
It is common knowledge in Vietnam that during this convention, in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union and the entire Communist Bloc of Eastern Europe, the CPV had sold out Vietnam to China, in order to curry Chinese support for its continued hold on power in Vietnam.
The extent of such selling-out of the national interests could range from territorial and sea areas concessions to the gradual absorption of Vietnam into China, as a province or autonomous region, on par with Tibet or Inner Mongolia.
The CPV has kept jealously as a secret the content of that meeting from the public. Under its draconian state secrecy laws and secret service rule, all oppositions are silenced without pity.
It is now clear to concerned citizens of Vietnam that subsequent to the Chengdu Convention, the CPV, through its puppet Congress, had legislated or consented to cede part of Ban Gioc Fall, the Nam Quan Pass, tens of thousands of square kilometres of the North Vietnam Bay to the Chinese. Furthermore, the feeble and laughable reactions of the CPV to Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and Vietnamese continental shelf are indicative of the treacherous nature of such national sell-out.
Why did the We Want To Know Movement strike such a cord in the minds and hearts of the Vietnamese people?
The reason could partly be attributed to the world wide web. Indeed, within a couple of decades, the internet has brought untold knowledge and power to the people. They want to know because they are aware that, simply as the people, they are born endowed with the right to know.
They also know that this right to know has been enshrined for centuries in the constitutions of all democratic nations of the world, both at legal and institutional levels and the peoples of other nations have been enjoying this right totally unfettered.
Perhaps the best illustration of the importance of the people’s right to know could be found in the following quote by James Madison, the Fourth President of the USA:
“A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” (Letter to W.T. Barry 1822)
This right to know is part of a dual concept fundamental to all democratic government: transparency and accountability. While transparency in government finds immediate resonance in the right of the people to know, this concept will not be sustainable unless there is accountability in government.
That is unless government is responsible to a higher authority with real power to rein in its potential abuses.
In the USA, under the presidential system of governance, Montesquieu’s horizontal separation of powers is applied. The president, wielding executive power, is accountable not only to Congress (which holds legislative power and in which government and opposition representatives and senators are legitimately part of) and the Supreme Court (which holds independent judicial power), but also accountable to a vibrant, prosperous privately owned media which leads civil society and reports directly to the people any government misdemeanours.
In democratic nations under the parliamentary system of government, such as Great Britain and Australia, although Montesquieu’s separation of powers is not strictly implemented, similar accountability practises are in place and the existence of an official opposition in the parliament compensates for the lack of separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches.
The question is: why this right to know by the people is at issue in Vietnam?
The answer lies in her socialist heritage.
Superficially, the 2013 constitution, at a legal level, made mention of fundamental principles found in all true democracies such as the existence of three branches of government, the right to vote, free enterprise and market economy. However, this is only a farce. This constitution also enshrines concepts that actively undermine these fundamental democratic principles. Indeed, article 4 gives monopoly of political power to the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), the bizarre Leninist concept of democratic centralism subjugates lower echelons of society to central authority, the Fatherland pre-selects candidates for elections on behalf of the CPV, state enterprises prevails over private enterprises and the economy must follow socialist orientations.
If we ponder further on the above quotation from James Madison, it appears to lead to the conclusion that the people’s right to know varies in proportion with democratic freedoms. The more democracy, the more knowledge for the people about government decisions.
The next question thus arises: what should be done to bring about democracy to Vietnam?
For a democracy and thus the people’s right to know to be established, there must be not only unfettered legal recognition of democratic principles, but equally importantly, democratic institutions must also be created.
Under the CPV rule, these institutions are totally banned. There are no opposition political parties to question any CPV decision, the party and government are identical, there is no independent judicial power, there is no independent electoral commission and no free election. Candidates are pre-selected by the Fatherland Front, the CPV controls all three branches of government, all media outlets belong to and are funded by the CPV government. Under these conditions, instead of being transparent and accountable, the Vietnamese government is opaque and unaccountable.
To paraphrase Lord Acton, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The CPV is corrupt to its teeth. It is apparent to the people that the CPV has sold out Vietnamese sovereignty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for political power and for cash to its leaders.
The extent of such sell-out is probably unfathomable and with the dawning of the information age, the people want to know.
But this knowledge can come only over the dead body of the CPV and many of its prominent leaders. They are now fighting for their survival.
The 21st century thus promises an epic battle between the Vietnamese people and the CPV, over the issue of the people’s right to know. And when the people do know, the CPV will be a goner and relegated to the dustbin of history, to paraphrase no other than Vladimir Ilich Lenin.
Constitution Hill 11/9/14
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