VZCZCXRO3451
PP RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHHI #0848/01 1041003
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 141003Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY HANOI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1467
INFO RUEHHM/AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY 0939
RUEHZS/ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HANOI 000848 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/MLS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR VM
SUBJECT: Party Facing Turmoil on Eve of 10th Congress 
 
Ref: A) Hanoi 839; B) Hanoi 771; C) HCMC 320 
 
HANOI 00000848  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1. (SBU) The Communist Party of Vietnam's (CPV) Central 
Committee has scheduled an unusual 15th plenum to nail down 
still undecided senior leadership positions and address a 
widening corruption scandal.  With a number of senior GVN 
officials implicated in the affair, the Party is scrambling 
to ensure that damaged officials are not among those being 
considered for Central Committee slots or other coveted 
positions.  It appears that, because of the corruption 
scandal, Party Secretary General Nong Duc Manh will face 
some tough scrutiny, possibly endangering his ability to 
stay on as Party chief.  Although publicly denied by Deputy 
Prime Minister Vu Khoan (ref A), a new way of electing the 
Party Secretary General may still be in the cards.  At its 
10th Party Congress, the CPV is being urged to address both 
the broader issue of corruption and the specific example 
that is unfolding in real time.  Whether and to what extent 
the Party takes on corruption at the congress will be 
closely watched by an increasingly fed-up public.  End 
Summary and Comment. 
 
PMU-18 Personnel Scramble 
------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan's laconic and by-the- 
numbers preview on April 12 (Ref A) of next week's 10th 
National Party Congress masked serious turmoil within the 
Communist Party as its leadership works to deal with the 
fallout from the PMU-18 scandal involving misuse of foreign 
aid funds earmarked for large-scale projects (Ref B).  Ngo 
Cuong, Editor-in-Chief of the Judicial Journal and a protege 
of Central Committee member and Supreme People's Court 
Presiding Judge Nguyen Van Hien, said told Poloff an unusual 
15th Plenum of the Central Committee will be convened April 
14-16 to address pressing personnel and corruption issues 
prior to the April 18 opening of the Party Congress.  First 
and foremost, the plenum's discussions will finalize the 
selections for Party Secretary General, Politburo and Party 
Secretariat. 
 
SIPDIS 
 
¶3. (SBU) There will also be an urgent focus on putting 
together a new list of candidates for the next Central 
Committee, Cuong continued.  As the PMU-18 scandal continues 
to expand, a number of previously vetted candidates 
representing carefully allocated slots from various Party 
cells have been dropped from contention.  These include: 
former Minister of Transportation Dao Dinh Binh, who was up 
for re-election to the Central Committee; former Vice 
Minister of Transportation Nguyen Viet Tien, who was the 
ministry's Party Secretary and in the running for a first- 
time Central Committee membership; and, Major General Cao 
Ngoc Oanh, Deputy Director General of the People's Police, 
who was also up for his first election to the Central 
Committee. 
 
¶4. (SBU)  According to multiple private sources, and 
confirmed by two news outlets April 14, Oanh had also been 
in contention for one of the Ministry of Public Security's 
vice minister slots.  However, he was not on the list of 
four new vice ministers announced on April 14.  The list 
includes two internal security officials, one senior MPS 
training/personnel officer and the former MPS chief of 
staff; very importantly, it does not indicate that the 
current four vice ministers have been replaced or 
reassigned.  This gives MPS eight current vice ministers, 
which is too many for one ministry.  The distribution of the 
eight ministers between training, police and security 
functions, however, represents a potentially comprehensive 
slate of deputies for two ministries, one police and one 
security - a structural change widely rumored to be on the 
agenda for the Tenth Party Congress. 
 
Secretary General on the Hot Seat 
 
SIPDIS 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) Professor Ngo Van Hoa from the History Institute, a 
well-connected contact, said that the plenum will look hard 
at whether Party Secretary General Nong Duc Manh should 
retain his position as Party chief.  Both Manh and Party 
Personnel Commission chair Tran Dinh Hoan -- who are 
concurrently chief and deputy chief, respectively, of the 
Party's personnel task force for the Party Congress -- are 
expected to "get slammed," Hoa said.  Adding to Secretary 
General Manh's woes was confirmation April 13 that his son- 
in-law is an (as yet untainted, at least not publicly) 
 
HANOI 00000848  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
employee at PMU-18 (Ref C).  Conventional wisdom is that 
Manh's son-in-law was "under the wing" of Vice Minister 
Tien, who was sacked and arrested.  The confirmation of 
Manh's family's linkage to the epicenter of the PMU-18 
scandal is extremely damaging. 
 
¶6. (SBU) More "progressive and uncorrupted" factions within 
the Party are fighting for the nomination of HCMC Party 
Secretary Nguyen Minh Triet to become Party chief, Hoa 
 
SIPDIS 
continued.  Many people believe that Nong Duc Manh is 
supported strongly by retiring Politburo members, who want 
him to continue to serve as Party chief in order to avoid 
"disruption."  It is hard to predict what may happen at the 
congress, Hoa noted.  ConGen HCMC reports that dissident web 
sites are carrying a newly leaked internal Party document -- 
labeled top secret -- from the standing vice chairman of the 
Party's Committee on Inspection and Control that strongly 
criticizes the arch-conservative former President Le Duc 
Anh.  Although dated from 2001, the document goes to the 
heart of ongoing reformist wing criticisms of Anh and what 
they charge is his undue influence and interference in Party 
personnel and ideology decisions. 
 
A New Way of Electing the Party Secretary General? 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶7. (SBU) In his April 12 preview of the Party Congress, 
Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan rebutted speculation that the 
Party statutes would be revised to allow the over-1,100 
Party Congress delegates to vote directly for the next 
Secretary General.  However, in an interview April 13, Party 
 
SIPDIS 
Secretariat standing member Phan Dzien left the door open 
 
SIPDIS 
for such a change, noting that while the Secretary General's 
election by the Central Committee is "better suited for 
Vietnam," the Party Congress will decide whether to revise 
the statutes or not. 
 
General Giap: Congress Must Address Corruption, PMU-18 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) Ho Chi Minh City-based Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper 
carried an essay April 13 by Vietnamese hero and Ho Chi Minh 
contemporary General Vo Nguyen Giap in which he urged that 
corruption and the case of PMU-18 be on the formal agenda of 
the Party Congress.  He wrote that the current Central 
Committee must make an initial review of the case and that 
it not be put off until after the congress. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) The revelations surrounding the PMU-18 scandal 
could not come at a more delicate time for the Party 
leadership.  This is almost certainly not an accident; 
considering the wealth of targets for corruption 
enforcement, the random emergence of this scandal at this 
moment is unlikely to be a coincidence.  At the moment, the 
popular sentiment for a housecleaning exists, and may 
manifest itself in the National Party Congress, especially 
if the rules are revised to allow direct election of the 
Party Secretary by delegates.  General Giap's heroic status, 
patriotism and revolutionary credentials are unassailable, 
and his arguments reflect the broader sentiments in society. 
Whether and to what extent the Party uses the Congress to 
commit itself to tackling corruption will be watched closely 
by an increasingly fed-up public and an activist HCMC press. 
End Comment. 
 
MARINE