Quê Me Quê Me: Action for democracy in Vietnam & Vietnam Committee on Human Rights
PARIS, 11th February 2008 (IBIB) – The International Buddhist Information Bureau expresses sincere condolences on the death of former high-ranking Communist Party member and leading dissident Professor Hoang Minh Chinh, who died in Hanoi on 7 February 2008 after a long struggle against prostate cancer. Former Dean of the Hanoi Institute of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, Hoang Minh Chinh spent over 20 years in prison and under house arrest for criticising the Communist Party of Vietnam. Jailed in the 1960s for “anti-Party revisionism”, he became a vocal advocate of democratic reform. Despite renewed imprisonment, house arrest, intimidation and acts of violence against himself and his family, Hoang Minh Chinh continued his activities for democratic change, reactivating the unofficial Democratic Party in 2006 (formerly a Communist-Party sanctioned body, dissolved by the Party in the 1980s).
 |
|
Hoang Minh Chinh at his home in Hanoi during an investigative mission by lawyers of the International Federation on Human Rights (FIDH) (1)
|
In November 2007, whilst Hoang Minh Chinh was gravely ill in hospital, he expressed the wish to become a Buddhist and asked Thich Quang Do, Deputy leader of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, to be his master. Thich Quang Do agreed, and held a ceremony in Saigon on 27th November 2007 to convert him to the faith. He gave Hoang Minh Chinh the Buddhist name “True Heart” (Chan Tam). Hoang Minh Chinh’s family report that he regained consciousness and became more serene and alert on hearing this news.
In Hoang Minh Chinh’s testament, communicated to IBIB by his daughter today, the former VCP veteran wrote: “What I tell you now is very important. I believe with all my heart that Freedom and Democracy will come to Vietnam. It is ineluctable. Long live the victory of Freedom and Democracy for all our people ! Tell Venerable Thich Quang Do: I have absolute faith in Buddhism, and I have absolute faith in Thich Quang Do. He, along with all [Buddhists in the UBCV] are resolutely committed, to the point of forgetting their own lives and security, to democratisation and freedom for Vietnam. For that reason, I have no doubts or worries whatsoever”.
Professor Hoang Minh Chinh and Venerable Thich Quang Do exchanged contacts in 2005, after Thich Quang Do sent a “New Year’s Letter” (2) calling on Vietnamese intelligentsia in the North and South to rally together for pluralism and democratic change. This appeal, sent through the intermediary of IBIB and Quê Me to avoid government censorship, succeeded in forging unprecedented links of solidarity and understanding between Communist dissidents in the North and democrats in the South. Hoang Minh Chinh then wrote: “Thich Quang Do’s proposals for democracy and pluralism are fundamentally important and absolutely urgent. He proposes the very things that all our people have been aspiring to with all their hearts for the past half century and more. I have seen the letter circulating widely in Hanoi. Everyone who has read it has found it totally convincing, extremely moving, and worthy of their wholehearted support…
“Indeed, I want to say how much I admire the actions of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. Thich Quang Do, along with all the UBCV clergy and followers, have waged a courageous combat for decades, since the fall of Saigon until today. We Vietnamese have suffered misery and humiliation for too long. It is time to unite. I call on all Vietnamese to join together in support of Thich Quang Do’s proposals and struggle fearlessly to achieve them. We do not fear repression, imprisonment, intimidation. We must keep up the struggle for democracy, pluralism and human rights. This is the only way we can escape from our condition of slavery today…”
In April 2006, Hoang Minh Chinh and Thich Quang Do were jointly awarded the “Democracy Courage Tribute” by 600 democracy activists gathered at the Fourth Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy (WMD) in Istanbul (3). The WMD praised these “two particularly heroic figures… Even from prison, these men and many others like them from both the secular and religious communities have dared to disseminate messages defending human rights, increased pluralism and the rule of law in Vietnam”.
Accepting the award on their behalf, Mr Vo Van Ai, IBIB Director and President of Quê Me: Action for Democracy in Vietnam, stressed the significance of honouring these two men with the award:
“For 2,000 years, Vietnam was one country, with one language and one culture. But conflicts of ideology split our country into two, north and south, separating our people and forcing them to live apart under different political regimes.
“The two dissidents you are honouring today, Thich Quang Do and Hoang Minh Chinh, reflect this political divide. Thich Quang Do in the South, symbolises the peaceful struggle of the Buddhists, Vietnam’s largest civil society and democracy movement. Hoang Minh Chinh in the North speaks out for a whole generation of Communist Party veterans and dissidents, who are calling out today for democratic reform.
“After the Vietnam war, the Communist Party re-unified Vietnam into one country, but they failed to unite the people’s hearts. Today, by recognising these men as members of the global democratic community, you are marking the emergence of a united democracy movement in Vietnam. At the same time, you are succeeding where the regime has failed, in unifying the Vietnamese people’s hearts”.
(1) Prominent International Organizations issue Mission Report on Human Rights Defenders in Vietnam (23rd April 2007)
(2) Buddhist dissident Thich Quang Do appeals to the Vietnamese intelligentsia to rally together for democracy and pluralism in Vietnam (IBIB, 11th February 2005)
(3) At the World Movement for Democracy’s Fourth Assembly in Istanbul : World Movement for Democracy awards “Democracy Courage Tribute” to Vietnamese dissidents Thich Quang Do and Hoang Minh Chinh (Vietnam Committee on Human Rights, 6th April 2006)
