Party Facing Turmoil on Eve of 10th Congress

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SUBJECT: Party Facing Turmoil on Eve of 10th Congress

Ref: A) Hanoi 839; B) Hanoi 771; C) HCMC 320

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Summary
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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
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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.

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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

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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)

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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

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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?
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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

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Secretariat standing member Phan Dzien left the door open

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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
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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
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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