Talking Story 
by Polo

From The Asian Reporter, V20, #5 (February 2, 2010), page 7.

Late afternoon a couple of Wednesdays ago, after only a single day of tense trial, Le Cong Dinh along with three other political reform activists were pronounced guilty as charged. Guilty of attempting to overthrow the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. A crime for which each can be executed.

Activist lawyer Le Cong Dinh was arrested last summer during a Ministry of Public Security raid on his Ho Chi Minh City law office. He was dashed to undisclosed detention and was not seen until that awful Wednesday afternoon, except, of course, for a surprise August 2009 televised appearance during which Mr. Le recited a confession of having violated Article 79 of Vietnam’s Criminal Code (prohibiting activity intended to overthrow the People’s Administration).

No serious soul really accepted his closed-circuit TV statement as an admission of treason. Mr. Le had never denied his belief or his work toward a more representative form of government. Vietnam is a single-party political regime. Only the Communist Party is permitted by law.

So, on that fateful Wednesday afternoon, January 20, 2010, the Judgement Council sentenced lawyer Le Cong Dinh to five years but spared the life. Likewise, internet firm director and popular blogger Tran Huynh Duy Thuc got 16 years in prison, and their two co-defendants received five- and seven-year jail terms.

The increasing prosecution across Vietnam of priests, writers, teachers, other respected professionals, and community voices is widely perceived as the central government’s warning against public dissent, particularly against open discussion of multi-party political processes as the nation approaches her 11th Communist Party Congress next year.

Of those activists arrested and jailed, perhaps the most familiar outside of Vietnam and Viet Kieu communities is 63-year-old Roman Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly, also known as Father Thaddeus. Amnesty International adopted Father Thaddeus as a Prisoner of Conscience in recognition of his nearly nonstop incarceration for his nonviolent protest against government restrictions on religious belief and practice.

Father Thaddeus was first sent to prison in 1977 for resisting government restrictions against his church. His 1983 conviction for "opposing the revolution and destroying the people’s unity" earned him a nine-year jail term. In 2001, his stubborn defiance of "laws against public order" finally got him convicted of violating provisions of his parole, and got him another 15-year prison sentence.

Father Thaddeus’ imprisonment was reduced in 2004, and authorities placed him under house arrest in his Hue parish. Three years later, a court ruled he had again violated his release agreement by signing the pro-democracy manifesto "Bloc 8406." Father Thaddeus was sent back to court, then sent back to jail to serve out eight years of his prison term.

Unhappily for edgy Hanoi Politburo members, a two-minute news video of elderly Father Thaddeus’ protesting out of order and getting his mouth muffled by an angry court official was broadcast by the BBC then quickly posted on YouTube. The image crisscrossed the worldwide web, driving deeper the polarized resolve of both protestors and the authorities.

Bloc 8406 was so-named for April 8, 2006, the date of the document’s signing by its original 118 political dissidents. The manifesto of basic social and political rights has since been affirmed by thousands. While the declaration lays out nothing new from ideologically aspirational statements long approved by national leaders since the time of republic founder Ho Chi Minh — its open and unadorned appeal to overseas Vietnamese and "international friends" for assistance in a peaceful process that will eclipse the singular legal authority of the Communist Party, was and remains a threat to the current leaders of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

Two months ago, Father Thaddeus suffered a stroke that substantially paralyzed him. He was moved from prison to a Hanoi military hospital. According to family he is able to speak some and is slowly recovering.

Roman Catholic Fr. "Thaddeus" Nguyen Van Ly is living and suffering a vow of fidelity he took as a man of god. And U.S.-trained attorney Le Cong Dinh is following the edicts of his solemn vow to uphold the highest standards of the rule of law. While no one would want the same convictions to take down someone we know and love well, all of us should have two quiet hopes for what remains of our lives on our shared and pretty planet.

First, you have to hope that we each might just get such a chance, just one chance to be as big as these two men are; a chance to do what only you or me can do, given our natural strengths and our acquired skills, on our individual journeys.

And second, you’ve got to hope that when that monster moment meets us, face to face, that we actually can contain our galloping hearts and decide on an act of courage, an expression of courage that will make our ancestors and elders proud, the kind our kids can carry as credit for their and their kids’ entire lives. Their long-long lives.