Vietnamese government officials and state-run media are using a
propaganda campaign that depicts Vietnamese fishermen as heroes, who
cling to the sea, protect their territorial waters, and help defend
their country’s sovereignty. In doing so, these officials put the
fishermen’s lives in threat, at the same time as they themselves avoid
doing their duty to defend Vietnam. This act by of the Vietnamese
government and the Communist party is irresponsible and cruel.
Vietnamese fishermen, who have repeatedly suffered the brutal attacks of
Chinese invading forces on the Vietnamese East Sea waters, are now used
to promote the ‘patriotism’ of this Communist regime.
Whenever the nation is threatened by foreign invasion, fishermen are
attacked and killed. The Vietnamese Minister of Defence, General Phung
Quang Thanh, has shamelessly stated, ‘Viet Nam has exercised a
high-level of restraint, not used airplanes, frigates, battleships. We
have only used vessels of fisheries surveillance forces, coastguards and
fishing boats in coordination with the law enforcement forces to
protect national sovereignty.’(1)
He ignores the fact that his military forces, not the fishermen and
their fishing boats, are responsible for defending and preserving the
country’s territory and waters. To support the Minister of Defence in
his plan of using fishermen to do the army’s task, the Minister of
Public Health, Nguyen Thị Kim Tien, has contributed her part with her
‘Health Department and fishermen cling to the sea together’ program.
When the boats of Ly Son’s fishermen were rammed and sunk by Chinese
vessels, Vietnamese fishermen were killed and injured, falling into the
sea without being helped or rescued by any Vietnamese Navy forces.
Minister Kim Tien’s response was to donate 300 medicine cabinets and
medical equipment to the fishermen. She said: ‘It is very important
that each member of the Public Health Department should express their
national spirit, their love for the country, and their determination to
protect the country’s sovereignty, alongside with the fishermen, against
the infringement of sovereignty of the Chinese when they installed oil
rig Haiyang Shi You 981 in our territorial waters.’
In Parliament, Dong Nai MP Dang Ngọc Tung said, ‘Fishermen are willing to go off-shore for fishing and at the same time protect the Vietnamese traditional fishing zone.’ However, in an interview, he said, ‘I’ve
talked to the fishermen, especially to the members of the Vietnam
Fisheries Trade Union, and they have complained of having borrowed loans
with extremely high interest rates from the usurers. So the fishing
profit cannot cover all the expenses...’ If the fishermen did not go
to sea they could not repay their debt, and would starve. But he went
on to say that the fishermen had a mission of being ‘willing to go
off-shore for fishing, protecting the Vietnamese traditional fishing
zone, and at the same time protecting the motherland territory.’
What other help have the fishermen had, apart from the nutritious
supplements of the Minister of Public Health? When asked by Voice of
America, ‘Will Vietnamese law enforcement forces have any plan to
escort and guard the Vietnamese fishing boats the same way China does to
theirs?’, Nguyen Ngọc Oai, head of the Department of Fisheries and Resources Protection replied, ‘Oh
no! We do not escort and protect them as our resources are limited. We
only have 30 boats for the entire waters, and we concentrate on
propaganda, our main job. And as for the fishermen’s incidents, we watch
them from a distance to observe and support, but we do not follow to
protect the fishing boats.’
Despite many tragedies that occurred to the Vietnamese fishermen on the
sea by the Chinese invasion, the party propaganda machine still keeps
singing the songs of the death in such articles as: (2)
- Fishermen of Central Vietnam go off-shore protecting maritime sovereignty and islands
- Fishermen of Ly Son’s families bravely defend maritime sovereignty and islands
- Fishermen cling to the sea to determine national sovereignty and make money
- Building high performance steel vessels for fishermen to go off-shore
- On the rough sea
- Giving 1000 national flags to the fishermen
- Phu Yen, various types of propaganda, support fishermen to cling to the sea
The People’s Police newspaper even goes further into the
‘patriotism and defending sovereignty’ of the poor fishermen by a ‘real
people-real story’ article: ‘An aged fisherman in Danang built a high
performance ship to go off-shore, make money, and rescue fishing boats
in the Paracel fishing zone.’
Certainly, the Vietnamese images described by the police are so valiant!
The elderly fisherman has built a big, powerful boat on his own to make
money and ‘rescue’ people in danger, while the law enforcement boat
stays far away, watching, and ‘checking… the fish’. They praised the
fisherman’s wife as a fearless superwoman. ‘Ms Mung even boasted of her
family's courage. After each fishing trip, she was the first person to
hear about the deadly clashes of the fishermen of Central Vietnam from
the father, Toan, and his son. And more than anybody else, she knows
that to get a full of catch for her family’s boat and of other
fishermen’s boats, the fishermen have to pay with their own lives, their
courage, and their patience against the appalling tactics of the
Chinese vessels.’
The Vietnamese Communists have been very manipulative in using their
people for their own purposes. That strategy was used by Ho Chi Minh and
is still used today by his successors. It means that the longer the
party rules the country, the smaller the country will be, as its land
and sea are gradually lost into the hands of China.
Translated by Jasmine TrầnTrần
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Notes:
(2) Vũ Đông Hà: Đảng đem ngư dân vào chỗ chết
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