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Pilot Gets Jail Time in Hijack Stunt AP - Friday December 26, 1:28 AM

Former bomber in South Vietnam's air force, Ly Tong, waves as he is taken to a police van back to the prison after hearing a court verdict at Rayong provincial court in Rayong, Thailand Thursday, Dec. 25, 2003. Ly Tong was sentenced Thursday to seven years and four months in jail for hijacking a small plane in Thailand to fly illegally over a Vietnamese city to scattering anti-communist leaflets in 2000. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)

A Vietnamese-American pilot was sentenced Thursday to seven years and four months in jail for hijacking a small plane in Thailand and flying illegally over Vietnam to scatter anti-communist leaflets.

Ly Tong, a former bomber pilot in South Vietnam's air force who has staged similar stunts, was originally sentenced to 11 years but Judge Pairath Noonpradej of the Rayong Provincial Court reduced the punishment to reward his cooperation in the trial.

Ly Tong was arrested in November 2000 after he returned from his audacious mission to drop the leaflets over Ho Chi Minh City, just before then-President Bill Clinton's visit to Vietnam.

He claimed during his trial that he did not hijack the plane but bribed the pilot with $10,000 to turn over control of the plane and help him dump the leaflets.

The time Ly Tong spent in detention since Nov. 17, 2000 will be deducted from his jail term, which means he will serve only about four years, said the prosecutor, Surasak Pransilp.

Ly Tong, 55, said he will not appeal but will apply for transfer to a U.S. jail to serve the remainder of his sentence under an agreement between the United States and Thailand.

"I am frustrated but I don't care anymore. All I needed was a verdict so I can get a transfer to USA," Ly Tong told reporters.

Ly Tong, branded by Vietnam's government as a "dangerous international terrorist," has many admirers among Vietnamese who fled communist rule in their country.

During the final days of the Vietnam War, Ly was captured by North Vietnamese troops after his plane was shot down. He escaped a prison camp in 1980 and was granted asylum in the United States.

In 1992, he wrested control of a Vietnam Airlines jetliner that took off from Bangkok, Thailand, and forced the crew to fly him over Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon.

Ly dumped 50,000 leaflets before jumping out a cockpit window and parachuting into the city. He was arrested and was sentenced in 1993 to 20 years in prison.

After serving six years, he was granted amnesty and freed. He returned to the United States.

In January 2000, he rented a plane in Miami and flew over Havana, showering Cuba's capital with leaflets calling for the ouster of President Fidel Castro.

HANOI : Human rights groups and some diplomats may disapprove, but year after year the donor community chooses not to link its massive aid programme to Vietnam to an improvement in the communist nation's rights record.

Bilateral and multilateral donors pledged Wednesday 2.84 billion dollars in 2004 to help poverty reduction and economic growth efforts in the country, a 15 percent increase on the 2003 figure.

This came despite a series of heated exchanges over the past year between Vietnam and some of its donors, particularly the United States and the European Union, over the arrests and trials of religious and political dissidents.

On Tuesday, the New York-based Human Rights Watch called on donors to link aid to improvements in the nation's "dramatically" worsening human rights record. The organisation said the Vietnamese government had "spent the year arresting and imprisoning dozens of Buddhists, political dissidents, 'cyber-dissidents' and ethnic-minority Christians."

But the appeal seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

The European Union stressed the "promotion and protection of human rights should go hand-in-hand with the sustainable development of a country" but then pledged 528.95 million euros (640 million dollars).

"Greater tolerance of dissent and acceptance of different views are critical for investor confidence," the United States echoed, before pledging more than 50 million dollars.

"I don't think donors will want to derail existing and long-standing aid programmes. To attach conditionality would be counter effective," said Carl Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the Australian Defence Force Academy, before the meeting.

"There is a broader view that if other social and economic targets are met, an environment will be created where the political and civil aspects of human rights could be improved."

But this analysis is not shared by everyone. Some diplomats believe the bilateral and multilateral working groups set up to discuss human rights with the government are ineffective.

"If humans rights are not a clear objective in countries' commercial policies or development aid programmes, the Vietnamese government will only make the changes they want when they want to," said a long-time Vietnam watcher.

Working groups "do not work because there is no stick," another diplomat said.

Human rights compliance is rarely ever linked to a particular country's more broader national interests, he added.

"Unless someone tries to reduce or cut aid, Vietnam won't make a move. But nobody is ever willing to do it because human rights never top the agenda. All the countries take into account their national interests."

The only real pressure to cut aid comes from parliamentarians.

The US Congress is currently considering legislation that would link non-humanitarian assistance to Vietnam to improvements in its humans right record. And the European Parliament and the US House of Representatives both passed resolutions last month condemning religious repression in Vietnam.

"A certain number of member states refuse to attach conditions to assistance," said Olivier Dupuis, a member of the European Parliament representing the Transnational Radical Party.

"I don't think we should talk about sanctions. But we could attach conditions to some aid programmes with concrete progress in democratisation," added the Belgian deputy.

In reality, however, there tends to be a strict separation between a country's business interests and any human rights concerns, particularly since Hanoi objects violently to what it deems interference in its internal affairs.

In July when the US House of Representatives passed the human rights amendment, the foreign affairs committee of Vietnam's National Assembly hit back, saying it "revived the negative precedent of Cold War practice in international relations".

"Many diplomats do not believe this bill is a good idea," said one envoy who believes a combination of dialogue and cooperation is the only successful formula to improve the human rights situation in Vietnam.

"Confrontation is not a good approach in this country. It risks having Vietnamese tell us that they don't need us," he said.

"There is a risk of strong rejection and one cannot make advances in a country by isolating it."

- AFP

When Phuong Tram phones back home to Vietnam, his brother says that after he visits a church or a temple, the Vietnamese government gives him a hard time.

"It sends a security officer to his home to harass him or threaten him with jail," said Tram, 46, a Harvey resident originally from the outskirts of Saigon.

Out of concern for his brother and others taking heat from the Vietnamese government, Tram has helped to organize a 24-hour "hunger strike" today to draw attention to recent religious repression of Buddhists, Catholics, Protestants and others in his homeland. Included are several members arrested for association with the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, which is distinct from the government-sponsored version of Buddhism.

The event, which is open to the public, will start at noon on a one-acre vacant lot on Chef Menteur Highway, where a Vietnamese community center is planned. The eastern New Orleans site is about one mile east of Michoud Boulevard and is marked by two large flags -- America's and the orange and red emblem of the former Republic of South Vietnam.

Among those expected to show up in support, about 10 people of Vietnamese heritage will fast for 24 hours, sitting together in silence, Tram said. He will be among them. Like his brother, Tram practices a blend of Buddhism and Christianity.

The event, which will include opening prayers from several denominations, is sponsored by the Free Vietnam Alliance, a worldwide movement to bring democracy to Vietnam through nonviolent means, said Tram, who is vice chairman of the group's Louisiana chapter. Similar events are being planned in other states and countries.

At the New Orleans event, Quan Huynh, president of the Vietnamese American Community in Louisiana, an umbrella agency that includes the state chapter of the alliance and about 25 other organizations, will talk about Vietnam's latest crackdown on religious freedom.

"I still think about the people of Vietnam," Tram said. "They have no freedom of speech, no freedom of religion -- no human rights at all."

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1070699267135680.xml

PALAWAN, PHILIPPINES - (KRT) - There is no sign. No indication anymore of the significance of this abandoned refugee camp that once changed thousands of lives.

But a few miles from Puerto Princesa Airport on the island of Palawan, past endless rows of bamboo huts and cinderblock shacks, past a sign that reads "Puerto Princesa - the cleanest and greenest in the Philippines," comes the turnoff.

Down this overgrown dirt road are the last of the last. The squatters of old Palawan Camp, known officially as The Philippine First Asylum Camp.

Inside these bamboo shacks, Vietnamese who once risked their lives to escape communism eat 3-day-old fish from a tin pot, cook with stagnant rainwater from a concrete cistern, and climb a homemade ladder to a wall-less bathroom in a rear shack. To flush, they carry a bucket of water up the ladder.

"I left Vietnam to find freedom, to find a better place," says Thuong Thi Nguyen, 54, offering her best chair - a worn stool - to a visitor and turning on an old fan that takes a full minute to begin spinning. Here in Palawan, everything moves slowly. Even the electricity.

"I didn't expect to be stuck in the Philippines, in this condition," says the mother of one, who tried to flee Vietnam 10 times before finally escaping in 1992. "I worry that I might die here and leave my son alone. In the United States, I could die in peace."

Dreams of reaching America - vanquished 14 years ago on this island - began resurfacing last month with news that the United States is considering taking this final, forgotten group of some 1,500 Vietnamese boat people to close the books, once and for all, on the Vietnam War.

Thuong Thi Nguyen dreams of reuniting with a cousin in Costa Mesa, Calif.

"If I saw him again," she says, "I couldn't say a word. I'd just cry."

She grows quiet. The only sound is from the cheap fan carving the Philippine humidity. The only movement is from three brown dogs - Minnow, Bo and an unnamed puppy - lolling on a concrete floor beneath a coconut- leaf roof.

It's quiet now, but these 25 acres bustled with activity from 1979 to 1996, when an estimated 350,000 Vietnamese boat people passed through the Philippines seeking freedom. In those days, some shacks housed 26 people at a time, but no one cared. Life was bursting with promise. With hope. With an image of America.

Thuong Thi Nguyen's older cousin, Xuan Nguyen, is one of the lucky ones who made it to America. The parts assembler hasn't seen Thuong Thi Nguyen since 1980 but he writes often and sends money when he can.

"I would be happy to sponsor her," he says through an interpreter. "I would take care of her. I would drive her around to do all her paperwork. I would introduce her to life here."

But that might never happen. Life changed for Vietnam's boat people on March 24, 1989, when the world community decided that those fleeing Vietnam were no longer escaping political persecution but rather a bad economy. They were no longer considered automatic refugees.

In 1996, refugee camps in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong returned their boat people. The Philippines tried. But the Catholic Church interceded. The boat people protested. The world watched. And the Philippines relented after one planeload.

Since then, an estimated 1,500 Vietnamese have been stranded throughout the Philippines. Most are not as poor as those on Palawan. Still, they have no rights to own property or to hold jobs, no police protection, no chance to settle elsewhere and no desire to return to Vietnam. They are forgotten. Stateless. Abandoned.

"This is my life, whether I like it or not," says Thuong's son Niem Hoa Quy, 17, who strums "Hotel California," on a discarded guitar. "This is my life. And I wonder, `Is there a better life?'"

Each evening under dim light, he studies English from five tattered books before retiring to his cot, where he dreams of becoming an engineer or lawyer - or, on some magical nights, of becoming the president of Vietnam.

"I feel free as a child who can study or play here," he says, "but if you look at my future, I cannot become what I dream of. I cannot be a lawyer or an engineer, but just a tricycle (taxi) driver."

Today, 14 years after many of these boat people first landed in the Philippines, their fate remains unknown. And disputed.

Today, their lives rest in the hands of two opposing forces - one a demure, aging nun; the other a gregarious young attorney - locked in a battle of immense consequence to Thuong Thi Nguyen and her son.

The nun, many here say, once held the answer. But the young attorney - a refugee himself, who grew up in Australia and sounds like Crocodile Dundee - offers something they haven't felt in an eternity: Hope.

In the six years since Melbourne's Hoi Trinh, 33, began volunteering to resettle the boat people, he's persuaded Australia to accept 258 of them. And now he's persuaded 20 U.S. senators and representatives to urge the State Department to accept most of the rest. Trinh just spent the two weeks in Washington, D.C., talking with officials at the State Department and a special assistant to President George W. Bush.

"The State Department told me that a decision is imminent," he says by phone. "We are very, very close to a decision."

On Palawan, such news tastes like a slice of heaven.

"If I have a chance to go to the United States, I will get a second life - again," says Mai Tuyet Thi Pham, 44, squatting in a rented shack in a back alley of downtown Puerto Princesa - a half-world away from her sister's impeccable home in Westminster.

It took her 12 years to escape Vietnam. To get here. A cockroach scurries across the floor of the home she shares with her husband and three children. A home where the beds have no mattresses, the back entrance no door, and some windows no glass. Mosquitoes, on this island known for malaria, buzz everywhere. She is squatting to demonstrate how she rode for seven days and nights with 111 people on a 40-foot boat to escape Vietnam. "You couldn't move at all," she says, through a translator.

"We did not eat anything because of all the waves," she says. "We just drank water and lemon."

How much water?

"It's really hard to describe," she says, "but it's very, very little."

She is asked to try, and she points to a tiny bottle of water, maybe eight ounces.

"That's it?" she is asked. "A cup?"

She takes the bottle and opens it. Carefully, not to spill any, she tips a few drops into the cap. Less than half-full.

"Very little," she repeats. "Very, very little."

Mai Pham left with the second of three waves of refugees that fled after the Vietnam War, according to the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center in Washington, D.C. The number of Vietnamese refugees and their American-born children now living in the U.S. is close to 1 million.

The first wave of more than 130,000 came with the fall of Saigon in April 1975, their fate indelibly burned in the American psyche by TV news footage of those who clung to overcrowded helicopters.

The second wave became known as the "boat people," for that is how more than 1 million escaped from the late 1970s through the 1980s. Many were ex-soldiers, teachers and intellectuals associated with the South Vietnamese Army who lost jobs and homes before being sent to "re-education camps," and then new economic work zones. Families often tried and failed at dozens of escapes over more than a decade, intentionally splitting family members to increase the odds of at least some succeeding.

The third wave came in response to piracy and drowning at sea (which some estimates put at more than 50 percent) when the United Nations arranged for nearly half a million political prisoners, their dependents and others to leave Vietnam.

The largest number of Vietnamese refugees now live in Southern California, like Mai Pham's oldest sister, Lan Thi Pham, 66, of Westminster.

Lan Thi Pham, her husband and five children all were boat people. They arrived in America in 1979 with $26, scrubbed floors and cleaned toilets until they learned English and could take better jobs. Today, their children are engineers and lawyers and businessmen. Life is good.

Lan Pham stares at recent photos of her sister's family and weeps. Her hands rush to her to face. She leans in close, speaking to herself in Vietnamese between sniffles. "Very harsh conditions," she whispers, her tears nearly enough to fill the bottle cap her sister held just days earlier.

"It really hurts me," Lan Pham says. "I still wait for the day when we can be reunited again, but it's been so long. I used to have really high hopes, but now it's been such a long time."

Then she sees a picture of her sister's children and smiles. One boy holds a sign, hand-written in English, that reads: "Welcome lawyer hero Trinh Hoi."

She recognizes the name. Many Vietnamese-Americans in Orange County know it.

"They tell me," Lan Pham says, crying, in her well-appointed home of polished furniture and plants, "he will try very hard to get them permission."

Hoi Trinh says he is close. Others agree, including Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, one of Trinh's earliest supporters.

"We've been working on this for almost three years," says Sanchez. "A State Department attorney said, `Yes, we decided to grant them refugee status.' So supposedly the State Department has agreed. Now, have we seen movement of that process? Not yet."

She, Hoi Trinh and many Vietnamese-Americans in Orange County await a formal decision, which must come from the State Department. Meanwhile, half a world away, Sister Pascale Le Thi Triu, a Vietnamese Daughter of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, is petitioning the Philippines Senate to take action that could undermine Trinh's efforts in the United States.

The sister has long sought permanent residence for the boat people stuck in the Philippines. And now she is pushing the Senate to pass such a bill before it ends its session in December. Passage would likely thwart any chance of the Untied States considering the boat people refugees.

Senate President Pro-tem Juan M. Flavier has asked the bill be deferred until the United States makes a decision, vowing, "I will delay." Flavier is backed by the boat people themselves, who now live throughout the Philippines, but whose jobs are limited to taxi driving and selling small items door to door. Many show up each day at the Senate to see which way their fate will turn. They want to go to the United States. Only should that fail do they want Sister Pascale's bill to go forward. Not until then.

"If we do not try to catch this chance," says Tranh The Ha, president of the Vietnamese Community in the Philippines, representing the boat people, "we might never get it again."

It is that one final chance that former refugee Hoi Trinh is trying to catch. When he first started lobbying the State Department three years ago, a midlevel bureaucrat told him, "Hoi, none of them are dying."

"I remember thinking, `Man, if you're going to wait till they die, I don't need you. I need coffin makers.'"

"In Washington," he adds, "you don't hear people crying."

In Palawan, you do.

It is dark now in Puerto Princesa. The mosquitoes are out. Over in the old Palawan Camp, Niem Hoa Quy, 17, is dreaming of becoming an engineer or lawyer or president of Vietnam.

A few miles away Hong Thi Tran, 43, sits barefoot for hours waiting to talk to a visitor from the United States. Silent. Stoic. Strong. She has been waiting 14 years for this moment. Since she and 42 people rode a boat for 15 days to escape Vietnam in February 1989. On day 10, they ran out of food and water. To survive, they had to drink their own urine. For five days. Her brother eventually made it to Montana. Her cousin made it to Garden Grove. She shows pictures of both.

"The cost of freedom is so high," she says. "Fifteen days on that boat, 14 years in Palawan - that's how much you pay for freedom."

She fights tears to get out the words that have stuck in her throat all these years.

"It isn't fair," she says, calmly folding her hands. "It isn't fair. I know that freedom costs a lot. If you want to have freedom, you have to sacrifice. The thought of freedom is what helped me overcome the pain."

Finally, she cannot hold back. Tears roll down her cheeks.

"I always pray to God, `Please, help my family get to the United States,'" she says. "Because we have paid a heavy price."

It is late. Time for the boat people of the Philippines to scatter. Hoping their fate is not forgotten like the cockroaches on the floors of Palawan.

---

TIMELINE

April 30, 1975: Saigon falls. First wave of refugees leaves on cargo planes, military ships.
May 1975: First Vietnamese refugees arrive in Philippines.
1979: Second wave of refugees begins leaving Vietnam by boat. Refugee status granted automatically.
1979: Palawan Camp opens.
March 24, 1989: Refugee status test established. Those screened out face repatriation to Vietnam.
December 1995: Military confines refugees in Palawan Camp.
Feb. 13, 1996: President Fidel Ramos and Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines denounce forced repatriation.
Feb. 14, 1996: The Philippines halts the forced repatriation of some 1,500 Palawan Camp refugees after one plane load has been sent to Vietnam.
1997: Palawan Camp closed.
July 3, 1998: Voluntary Repatriation Program opens. Fewer than 70 people join.
2000: One-third of remaining refugees live in Palawan. Of 1,605 registered, 1,000 fail to qualify for emigration to a third country.
2003: U.S. State Department considers allowing remaining refugees into America.

---

© 2003, The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.).
Visit the Register on the World Wide Web at http://www.ocregister.com
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services

Thousands of members of Sydney's Vietnamese community will today protest against SBS's continued broadcast of a Hanoi news service that former refugees say contains offensive and distressing communist propaganda.

Organisers expect about 10,000 protesters - double the number that marched on SBS's Artarmon headquarters a month ago - before an SBS board meeting on Friday, when the program's future will be decided. It will be the first time the SBS board has ever considered changing the broadcaster's fundamental charter responsibilities and code of practice over a programming issue.

Since October 6, SBS has shown Thoi Su, a 35-minute bulletin produced by the Vietnamese Government-controlled VTV4, from Monday to Saturday as part of its WorldWatch news and current affairs package. The Vietnamese Community of Australia (VCA), which has organised today's protest, says Thoi Su is deeply offensive and distressing to many Vietnamese-born Australians who fled the communist regime.

Before the fall of Saigon in 1975, there were fewer than 1000 Vietnamese-born people in Australia. There are now more than 150,000, according to the 2001 census, the vast majority of them refugees or their relatives.

A spokesman for SBS, Mike Field, said the broadcaster was facing a unique challenge. "Most communities are delighted to get a news service in their language," he said. "What's unusual here is there is a proportion of the Vietnamese community that vehemently opposes it."

Tien Manh Nguyen, vice-president of the VCA, is a GP in Cabramatta, but before he came to Australia he was an army surgeon for South Vietnam, a concentration camp prisoner and refugee. He said images of the communist Vietnamese flag and Ho Chi Minh on Thoi Su were distressing to many of those who had fled Vietnam. The program's lack of reports on political arrests and religious oppression in present-day Vietnam were also offensive, he said.

SBS says that in determining the schedule of WorldWatch, it looks for programs that match Australia's ethnic composition.

As Vietnamese speakers comprised the sixth largest language group in Australia, Thoi Su was added to the schedule when a satellite connection became available. It is provided at no cost to SBS.

"It is inevitable that in some cases the content of the news bulletins may be politicised, but SBS does not endorse the content of these news bulletins," the broadcaster said in a statement. "SBS leaves any judgement of the content of these bulletins to its viewers."

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/01/1070127351359.html

PHUC

MANSFIELD -- When Kim Phuc escaped her village in Vietnam after a napalm strike 31 years ago, her body was covered in third-degree burns, her home destroyed and her sense of fear piqued.

But when Phuc, also known as "The Girl in the Picture," spoke to the congregation of Calvary Baptist Church about her experiences Sunday, her words and faith in God conveyed the attitude of someone who has faced some of the worst life has to offer and persevered.

Phuc was 9 years old when a Pulitzer Prize-winning image was taken of her running naked from the smoke of the strike during the Vietnam War. She was then helped by the photographer, Nick Ut, who took her to a hospital for her burns.

A petite woman, Phuc had an infectious smile, and spoke with much emotion as she conveyed how accepting Jesus into her life and learning the power of forgiveness has helped her cope with the physical and emotional scars the war left her.

"Thirty one years ago, I thought my life was over," she said.

Before the war, Phuc did not remember being afraid. Then there was the day that soldiers came by, pounding on her family's door, urging them to flee.

"For the first time, I knew fear," she said to the audience, some of whom could be seen with a tissue.

Part of a video documentary of her and her family was shown, capturing the footage of the bombs dropping and sending a ball of fire throughout the area. Phuc and her family were seen running and screaming, and carrying babies badly burned. She later reported nothing remained of her village.

The photo that resulted from that moment, she said, changed the way people saw the Vietnam War, and all war.

She recuperated in a Vietnam hospital. She later decided to study medicine. Despite being accepted into medical school in Saigon, authorities put a stop to her studies, and instead told her she needed to speak to journalists entering the area about her experiences as a child thrust in the midst of the war.

As Phuc searched to end the emotional toll resulting from being a piece of propaganda, and searched for meaning to her life, her prayers were answered as a family member took her to his church. It was then, 10 years after the war, that she accepted Jesus into her life, helping her overcome physical and emotional obstacles.

"Pain never disappears. You just learn how to deal with it," she said.

Phuc referred to Psalms 56, a Bible verse she found that helps her with the tough times, and which ends with the following words: "... For you have delivered me from death, and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of life."

She even found the power to forgive.

A video showed Phuc meeting, and publicly forgiving, a pilot who dropped bombs on the bunkers around her village -- a village, the pilot was told, that was supposedly vacated when the bombs were dropped. Then he saw the next day's paper.

"It's like an entire world being lifted off of my shoulders," the pilot said on screen as he and Phuc embraced emotionally.

Though she did not go back to finish her medical studies, Phuc said she has found her purpose in life, to share the importance of having a relationship with Christ as well as knowing the importance of freedom.

"Time is so short, we must tell people about Jesus Christ. We must share the Gospel with others," said Phuc, who after her marriage to husband Toan defected to Canada, where she now lives with their two young sons. She has since published a book and developed The Kim Phuc Foundation, which aims to help children affected by war, both physically and emotionally.

After her presentation, congregation member Pam Farnam said she was affected by how God used Phuc's life for a purpose. "I think He gets the glory out of it," she said.

Her remarks were not lost on the Rev. Harry Strachan, either.

"We've had a little part in history today, and we thank God for it," he said.

A human rights group Amnesty International has slammed the Vietnamese government for jailing at least 10 people for online activity, saying the government is using national security legislation to prosecute government criticism on the Web.

With only 2.5 million Internet users out of a population of 80 million, and most accessing the Internet through Internet cafes, the Vietnamese government wants to encourage use of the Internet for economic growth. However, it closely controls and monitors Internet use and has jailed at least 10 people for online activity since 2001, Amnesty International said.

Amnesty International, a London-based human rights organization, released a 34-page report on Vietnam the same day of an annual human rights talk between Vietnam and the European Union in Hanoi.

"In Vietnam, clicking on the 'send' button carries the risk of being sent to prison and having your friends and family put under 24 hour surveillance," the report said.

The report documents 10 cases, with six "cyber-dissidents" serving long prison sentences, and the others awaiting trial. Some cases involve emails to U.S. based activists reporting religious activism and farmer protests in Vietnam.

In one highlighted case, a 48-year-old former soldier and businessman, Nguyen Khac Toan was jailed for 12 years on espionage charges for sending information about farmer protests to overseas Vietnamese groups. Another businessman, Pham Hong Son had his 13 year sentence reduced to five years after an international outcry, for the crime of posting online an article about democracy.

"How can the sharing of information, which is already in the public domain and criticizing the government, be interpreted as 'espionage' resulting in lengthy prison sentences?" the report questioned.

Amnesty called for unconditional release of those imprisoned by the Vietnamese government for expressing their views, and for Internet restrictions to be lifted.

At least 10 people have been jailed for criticising the Vietnamese government online, according to an Amnesty International report.

One, Pham Hong Son, was initially sentenced to 13 years in prison for posting an article about democracy on the Web.

"In Vietnam, clicking on the 'send' button carries the risk of being sent to prison and having your friends and family put under 24 hour surveillance," the report said.

Amnesty praised the Vietnamese government for embracing the Internet as a tool of economic development, but said that, "government critics are kept under high levels of surveillance that cover every aspect of their lives, often for many years".

"Security legislation is being used by the authorities to criminalize peaceful political dissent," the report said, adding that this is a violation of fundamental human rights of the population under the Vietnamese Constitution.

www.amnesty.org

Amnesty International accused the Vietnamese government of using national security as a pretext to silence cyber-dissidents and stifle freedom of expression on the Internet.

In a new report, the human rights group said the crackdown was the result of the communist regime's concern over use of the Internet by political dissidents to circulate opinion.

"In Vietnam, pushing the 'send' button can result in dire consequences including years in prison and family and friends put under 24-hour surveillance," Amnesty said.

The 34-page report by the London-based organization coincided with Wednesday's one-day annual human rights talks in Hanoi between the European Union and Vietnam.

Since 2001 at least 10 people critical of government policies have been arrested for exchanging e-mails with overseas Vietnamese, posting articles critical of the government on the Internet and expressing dissenting opinions.

Six of these cyber-dissidents have been sentenced to long prison sentences after unfair trials, Amnesty said. Others are awaiting trial.

"These arrests attest to a sense of paranoia among the leadership of the government who feel under threat and fear a 'peaceful evolution' which could threaten the current supremacy of the Communist Party of Vietnam," it said.

Vietnam maintains tight control and surveillance over the Internet, to which around 2.5 million people out of a population of 80 million have access, mainly through Internet cafes.

Websites critical of the authoritarian, one-party system are firewalled, while Internet cafe owners have also been instructed to prevent their customers from accessing "subversive and poisonous" material.

Amnesty called for the immediate and unconditional release of all "prisoners of conscience detained solely for peaceful expression of their opinions".

The organization highlighted the case of two nephews and a niece of imprisoned Catholic priest Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, a lifelong critic of Vietnam's religious rights record.

Nguyen Vu Viet, Nguyen Truc Cuong and their sister Nguyen Thi Hoa were jailed in September for three to five years for emailing information about their uncle and the religious situation in the country to US-based activists.

Amnesty says their appeal trial is due to take place on Thursday.

In December last year, Nguyen Khac Toan, a 48-year-old former soldier and businessman, was also jailed for 12 years on espionage charges for passing information to overseas Vietnamese groups about protests by farmers in Hanoi.

And in June this year 35-year-old businessman Pham Hong Son was handed a 13-year sentence after he posted an article about democracy on the Internet. It was reduced to five years on appeal following an international outcry.

Amnesty also pointed to the paradox between the government's desire to harness the Internet for socio-economic growth and its censorship activities.

"The Vietnamese government appears unwilling to recognize that the Internet can only be a tool for development and prosperity if the right to freedom of expression and information is respected fully in both law and practice."

The Vietnamese foreign ministry was not available for comment.

Government corruption and slow progress in reforming the financial sector will jeopardise Vietnam's economic and social development unless immediate steps are taken, the World Bank warned yesterday.

Within the past decade a third of Vietnam's population, or as many as 20 million people, have been lifted out of poverty, "but these dramatic gains remain fragile," said World Bank country director Klaus Rohland.

`PRO-POOR' GROWTH

"While the pro-poor nature of economic growth in Vietnam over the last decade provides good reason to be optimistic there are also clear signs that development is becoming less inclusive," he added.

Rohland said the challenge now is to ensure that the benefits of economic growth filter down among all regions and sectors of the population.

The World Bank estimates that the Southeast Asian nation will record economic growth of around 7.0 percent this year, making it the world's fastest growing economy after communist China.

Rohland's comments came ahead of next week's annual meeting of aid donors to the communist nation and the publication of a joint donor report on poverty.

In a statement, the World Bank criticized the govern-ment's slow progress on restructuring Vietnam's ailing state-owned enterprises and implementing financial sector reform.

It warned that a "portion of today's economic growth will have to be devoted, sooner or later, to clearing bad debts" and protecting the solvency of financial institutions.

"On the governance front, the abuse of public office for private gain risks making everyday life miserable when it happens at low levels and leads to resource misallocation and waste when it affects collective decision-making."

FIGHTING CORRUPTION

The fight against corruption, the World Bank said, should be a priority to maintain equitable economic and social development in Vietnam.

"Tackling difficulties on these two fronts is key for Vietnam to remain a success story in the longer term," it said

Failure to address these issues, the bank warned, could lead to "the emergence of a variant of crony capitalism already seen elsewhere, not to the development of a vibrant market economy with a socialist orientation."

Vietnam began doi moi, or market reforms, in 1986.

The two-day Consultative Group meeting of foreign donors to discuss the country's aid programme, one of the biggest in the world, begins Tuesday.

Last year, donors pledged US$2.5 billion in assistance to Vietnam for this year despite concerns over corruption in the disbursement of funds and the communist regime's human rights record.

Nearly three decades after the Vietnam War ended, land mines kill and maim farmers and other Vietnamese almost weekly, and de-mining efforts are focusing on the wrong areas, according to the first comprehensive postwar study, released Wednesday.

The study, funded by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, is the first look at the ongoing casualties after the war. No national studies on land mines and unexploded ordnance have ever been done.

The study, conducted over a three-week period in August 2002, takes an in-depth look at one district in central Quang Tri province, the site of the former demilitarized zone.

Especially hard-hit was Trieu Phong, a rural, rice-farming community where many villagers are missing one or more limbs. Some 1,270 people have been killed or injured in the district since 1975. Nearly half the victims were aged 16 to 30, and 80 percent were men, the study found.

Researchers found 46 percent of the accidents in Trieu Phong occurred among farmers working the fields _ an indication de-mining efforts, mainly targeting former U.S. bases, are not concentrated where they would have the greatest impact.

"The real problem up to now that's been causing death and injuries has not been the old military bases, but it's debris and ordnance in the communities and around the house and in the fields," said Chuck Searcy, country representative for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which funded the study through a partnership with Quang Tri provincial officials.

"Very little resources have been applied to that, and it's very obvious now that that should be the top priority," he said

Farmers Le Tat Ha, 59, and his son, Toan, 31, from Trieu Thuong village, are examples of the impact of the leftover explosives. Ha accidentally hit a bomb with a hoe while farming in June 1975, two months after the war ended. The explosion, which threw him more than 30 feet and broke his arms, left shrapnel embedded in his chest, arms and legs.

"I still feel pain now, especially when the weather changes," he said.

His son set off another explosion more than a decade later while tilling the fields as a teenager. The fingers on his left hand were blown off, making most farm work impossible.

The Vietnamese military conducted sweeps of the area for a decade after the war ended, but efforts only focused on removing ordnance found above ground.

Non-governmental organizations and other humanitarian groups have assisted in de-mining operations more recently, but flooding, soil erosion and farming have continued to unearth deadly ordnance.

Over a five-day period during the survey, 428 unexploded devices were found, including mortars, artillery shells, cluster bomblets, rockets and grenades.

The study also found that 8 percent of all incidents involved scavengers searching for ordnance to sell for scrap metal.

Phan Xuan Quang, 32, said he's lost many friends that way, but he must accept the risk. As a farmer, he makes only $64 a year.

"We don't have enough land to grow rice or trees," said Quang, who earns $6.50 to $13 for each bomb he digs up. "I know it is dangerous. (But) there's nothing I can do to earn extra money to support my family."

According to another recent study funded by UNICEF and the veterans' group, only 6 percent of the 6,788 casualties in the province since the war were on old military bases.

Both studies found the number of victims has decreased as public awareness grows through school programs and television ads. But the casualties in Quang Tri province alone still surpass rates in places with more recent conflicts, such as Kosovo, Croatia and Yemen.

Local officials say they hope the findings will attract the interest of international mine clearance organizations.

"Many people come here and don't have the information and the numbers," said project coordinator Hoang Nam, "They can (now) know how serious it is."

A lawmaker yesterday accused a Web site of trying to auction off Vietnamese brides to men bidding the highest prices.

Hsu Chung-hsiung , of the opposition Kuomintang, showed reporters the Chinese-language Web site that posted the women's pictures and introduced them as virgins who come from the countryside. They can speak Mandarin and cook Taiwanese food, the site said.

The bidding started at NT$250,000, according to the KIMO auction site, one of Taiwan's most famous auction sites.

Hsu called for a crackdown on the auction, saying it was a humiliation because Taiwan prides itself on its human rights protection.

"It's like going back to the age when black slaves were auctioned in the U.S.," Hsu said.

The women's pictures were quickly removed from the site following Monday's legislative session.

But Chen Tse-he, an Interior Ministry official, agreed to investigate.

There are about 43,000 Vietnamese women residing in Taiwan after marrying Taiwanese men. Many Taiwanese, mostly laborers or older men who can't find wives in Taiwan, have gone to Vietnam and China to look for wives.

Vietnamese women from poor villages are preferred for their good looks and willingness to do household chores.

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