Thought Control in Vietnam Triggers Dissent

SAIGON (DNSI)-The recent sentencing of two Vietnamese Catholic priests to nine months in prison on charges of "dissemination of ideas considered favorable to the Communists" many become a major embarrassment for the Thieu government.

Sentenced were Father Truong BaCan, historian and essayist, and Father Chan Tin, editor of the monthly Doi Dien, now closed by the government. The two were convicted after the magazine published a three-part series by Father Can on the history of the Communist revolution in North Vietnam.

The convictions put President Thieu, a Catholic, in almost direct confrontation with what is considered his most stable power base, the Catholics. Already significant segments of the Catholic church have come to the defense of the two priests, including those considered staunch anti-Communists.

At issue is whether intellectuals and journalists in South Vietnam have the freedom to analyze affairs in North Vietnam without following the straight anti-Hanoi line of the Saigon government. In the past, Catholic intellectuals have generally had greater latitude for criticism and analysis.

While Father Tin is appealing the decision and calling on peace forces and journalists to oppose the government move, Father Can has decided to spurn his chance for appeal and to go to prison.

Father Tin, in an interview with this writer last week, said the government is "now very embarrassed" by the case. "It is now trying to find some means of keeping Father Can out of jail," he said.

He cited the opposition that the sentences have stirred among Catholic circles as the reason for Thieu's concern.

The editor of a Northern Catholic newspaper, Xay Dung, said in an editorial that the Church 'needs a generation of men like Can," praising his "dissent and idealism." Even Father Hoang Quynh, a leading figure among Northern Catholic refugees, who has no use for the left-leaning Doi Dien, has criticized the government move as being connected with the coming Presidential election.

THE decision to sentence the two priests comes on the heels of a government defeat in attempting to issue a decree designed to "muzzle" the press during the coming election. Thieu was forced to withdraw the decree after an outraged press reaction.

Asked how Thieu could have made such an apparent blunder, Father Tin said, "He has used strong measures to rule. He has used them against the students and veterans last year and succeeded. Now he thinks he can do the same with the press."

"They would like to gag the press," Tin said, "by throwing two journalist priests in jail. Other journalists will think if they can do that to two Catholic priests, what will they do to me?"

The major themes of Doi Dien's articles in the past year (confiscated off the newsstand for eight straight months), have been not only an end to the war, but also opposition to American dominance of South Vietnam. It has appealed for reconciliation between Communist and non-Communist Vietnamese.

Unlike most Vietnamese Catholics, Father Tin has refused to indulge in unconditional anti-Communism. He has insisted on regarding North Vietnam first of all as "half of Vietnam."

The essay which sparked the government move against Doi Dien is a three-part series entitled "25 Years of the August Revolution: Building Socialism in North Vietnam." Father Can noted in an interview that the first part, 'Ho Chi Minh's government's war to win independence from the French," was omitted from the government's indictment.

'The French are no longer here," he said. "It is more dangerous to discuss the Americans."

The essay represents the first effort by a Vietnamese historian to publish an account of the Communist regime's politics and their effects, without being committed to either the Communist Party line or the anti-Communist viewpoint of the Saigon regime.

It recounts the basic decisions made by the Hanoi leadership regarding land reforms, the collectivization of agriculture, and the effort to build an industrial sector in part through the sacrifice of peasant consumption and income. Although the tone of the essay is dry and dispassionate, it does not hide the author's respect for the accomplishments of North Vietnam.

Father Can does not deny the economic hardships endured by the North Vietnamese nor the existence of widespread dissatisfaction with the lack of essential goods. But he concludes the path followed by Hanoi was a necessary one.

"The problem is to choose between today and tomorrow," he writes in summing up the results of the Vietnamese revolution. "The ordinary people see only the needs of today. Those needs are worthy of respect, but they must also be reconciled with the demands of tomorrow."

The Vietnamese press office says the content of the articles and of Don Dien generally have the character of "promoting Communist North Vietnam and creating the illusion that only communism is good."

(Copyright Dispatch News Service International)