Dissidents' Deliverance
Vietnam's liberation of prominent political prisoners signals change--and an economic distress call
By TIM LARIMER Bangkok
In a 12-sq-m cell inside an isolated Vietnamese prison camp, Doan Viet Hoat's days were numbingly alike. He would wake up, practice yoga, eat a few spoonfuls of rice, walk in a circle for an hour or so, bathe with water from a small spigot, sleep. When it wasn't too hot, he would step out into a small garden attached to his cell and tend vegetables. "That's all I did for four years," he says. "That, and think."
Hoat's incarceration ended last week when Vietnam freed the 55-year-old pro-democracy activist and at least eight other prominent political and religious dissidents. In a bizarre end to their Kafkaesque incarcerations, several shared a common prison outside Hanoi in their final three days behind bars. Next to Hoat's cell was Jimmy Tran, a Vietnamese-American convicted in 1993 of trying to blow up government buildings. Nearby was Thich Quang Do, head of an outlawed Buddhist church who was jailed in 1994 on charges of trying to overthrow the government. And there was Ly Tong, another Vietnamese emigre to the United States who in 1992 hijacked a commercial airliner, dumped anti-communist leaflets over Ho Chi Minh City and parachuted down to lead the revolution he thought the pamphlets would incite. The prisoners couldn't see each other, but they spoke by shouting through air conditioning vents. "It was incredible to be together like that," says Tran, contacted by phone in California.
The mass release of so many Vietnamese dissidents was unprecedented. Besides the high-profile cases, Hanoi set free more than 5,000 prisoners of all stripes. The move reflected, in part, the desire of Vietnam's recently installed government to make its mark. "It's a tradition that the new emperor always lets free the prisoners of the old emperor," says Hoat's wife, Tran Thi Thuc. But economic considerations may have been the primary motivation. Vietnam desperately needs foreign investment to revitalize its moribund economy. Its poor human-rights record has strained relations with the U.S. and Europe and kept potential investors away. The E.U. this summer passed a resolution condemning Vietnam's treatment of dissidents. The release of Hoat & Co. is apparently designed to answer such concerns. The leadership "finally realized these human-rights cases were obstacles in the way of developing the country," says an American who was involved in negotiations aimed at securing Hoat's release.
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