VZCZCXRO8565
PP RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHHI #1368/01 1560023
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 050023Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY HANOI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2255
INFO RUEHHM/AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY PRIORITY 1290
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RHHMUNA/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI PRIORITY
RUEHZS/ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 2187
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 0491
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 0198

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HANOI 001368 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/MLS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: HUMANR PREL PGOV PHUM VM
SUBJECT:  SITREP: VIETNAMESE NEW PARTY DISSIDENT 
DEVELOPMENTS 
 
REF: A) HANOI 1338; B) HANOI 1320 
 
HANOI 00001368  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary:  Activists report that following the June 
1 announcement of the re-establishment of the Democratic 
Party of Vietnam (DPV) police have harassed some of its 
members.  The activists have publicly called for help. 
Other western diplomats are cautious about maintaining 
contact with the DPV.  Meanwhile MFA officials suggest that 
the GVN believes it can live with any consequences of 
locking up the DPV leadership.  We will deliver the message 
to the DPV leadership that while we might want Vietnamese 
law to change, until it does, they are subject to severe 
penalties for their political actions, and if they are 
arrested, there will be little that the U.S. Government can 
do about it.  End Summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) On the morning of June 2, Nguyen Phuong Anh, 
founder of the "Bach Viet Democracy Party," and Dai Nguyen, 
advocate for the DPV, both sent broadcast e-mails to western 
participants in the ref B May 30 meeting.  Anh stated that 
after the meeting, he was called in for questioning by the 
police (NFI). "They said many things terrible and non- 
acceptable about democratic people," he asserted, including 
"all democratic people are mad men."  He also claimed the 
police told him that because Vietnam wants to join the WTO, 
the GVN instructed the police not to arrest advocates of 
democracy, but as soon as Vietnam has successfully joined, 
"all democratic people will be arrested at once."  The 
police also threatened to arrest Anh if he did not comply 
with orders to report on DPV founder Hoang Minh Chinh and to 
report on his interactions with prominent Hanoi dissident 
Nguyen Khac Toan. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Dai reported that at 6 p.m. on June 1 two security 
officers took him from his office to a police station where 
he was questioned about his relationship with Chinh.  He was 
also asked if he organized the meeting with foreign 
diplomats (ref B).  At the conclusion of the meeting, they 
informed him that his political activities are illegal.  Dai 
announced in his e-mail that following this meeting he 
decided to cease cooperating with police and other GVN 
security officials because they hold that the only lawful 
political activities are those the constitution explicitly 
delineates, as opposed to his own interpretation that all 
political activities not expressly prohibited by the 
constitution are legal.  He concluded with a somewhat 
forlorn plea for help from foreign missions to prevent his 
incarceration in the coming days. 
 
¶4. (SBU) On June 2, poloff discussed this turn of events 
with poloffs from the UK, French, Australian and EC 
embassies.  The EC noted that it cannot intervene on behalf 
of a political party, but might raise Dai or Anh's cases as 
individual human rights concerns if either is arrested.  In 
the meantime the EC will wait to see what happens next.  The 
French poloff stated that his embassy feels burned by Dai 
and the DPV's internet press release of the ref B meeting 
and is therefore hesitant to get involved in either case. 
The UK poloff was more forward leaning, but also expressed 
concerns that Dai in particular should be told to limit his 
expectations of what foreign missions can do for him.  The 
Australian noted that his embassy has not received official 
permission to meet with dissidents from the GOA and thus 
must avoid any kind of public role in either case or in the 
development of the DPV.  Poloff suggested that western 
missions acknowledge receipt of both e-mails without comment 
to be followed up by a verbal message conveyed to Dai later 
in the week of June 5 by poloff on behalf of all missions 
stating that, while diplomats will continue to meet with 
dissidents, including DPV members, this should not be 
misconstrued as active support presaging intervention with 
the GVN.  The others agreed. 
 
¶5. (SBU) On June 5, Dai sent another e-mail claiming that 
over the weekend the GVN attempted to cut off all of his 
communications including internet and cell phones. 
 
The MFA on the Potential Bilateral Impact of the DPV 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
 
HANOI 00001368  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶6. (SBU) On June 3, poloff had a lengthy discussion with the 
Deputy Director General and a Section Chief of the Americas 
Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the 
potential effect on the U.S.-Vietnam bilateral relationship 
of this new political party.  The MFA officers said that in 
recent weeks there has been an intensifying debate within 
the GVN (and even within the MFA) regarding the pace and 
extent of the U.S.-Vietnam bilateral relationship.  "Some 
people think we are moving too far too fast with the United 
States and upsetting the balance between the United States 
and China," the Section Chief said.  "They think we should 
slow down and think a bit to make sure Vietnam is going in 
the right direction."  The other side, according to the DDG, 
feels that Vietnam should take what it can get (particularly 
in the realms of ODA and trade) now when things are going 
smoothly, recognizing that eventually something will happen 
to slow the pace of the relationship anyway. 
 
¶7. (SBU) The MFA officers said that the MFA and the GVN are 
convinced that the relationship could survive the kind of 
"hiccup" that would result if Vietnam takes strong action 
against the DPV, such as imprisoning its leaders.  Poloff 
suggested that such an action would inflame human rights 
activists with a potentially negative impact on the PNTR 
vote in the U.S. Congress, which would in turn antagonize 
prickly nationalists in Vietnam.  "It wouldn't stop PNTR," 
the Section Chief said confidently, "though maybe there 
would be conditions attached to the PNTR vote - and we could 
deal with that." 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) The MFA officials we talked to June 3 were 
unusually confident (without the usual caveats and 
disclaimers characteristic of MFA pronouncements), and the 
ease with which they discussed the GVN position on this 
suggested that they had recently participated in (or 
listened in on) an internal policy discussion on the 
subject.  Taken at face value, their comments suggest that 
the GVN is ready to lock up the DPV leadership, despite what 
the dissidents reported about the police waiting until after 
Vietnam's WTO entry.  We will deliver the message to the DPV 
leadership that while we might want Vietnamese law to 
change, until it does, they are subject to severe penalties 
for their political actions, and if they are arrested, there 
will be little that the U.S. Government can do about it. 
 
MARINE