Communist Crackdown in Vietnam

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Asia News
DECEMBER 29, 2009

Vietnam Convicts a Pro-Democracy Army Officer of Subversion
By JAMES HOOKWAY

Vietnam convicted a former army officer who pushed for democratic reforms of subversion on Monday, sentencing him to five and a half years in prison and sending a stark warning that the room for political dissent is quickly shrinking in this rigorously controlled Communist state.

The brief trial of Tran Anh Kim -- the court hearing in northern Thai Binh province began in the morning and was over by lunch -- is the first in a series of prosecutions of pro-democracy and human-rights activists in Vietnam. Four other people, including prominent human-rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh, were charged with subversion last week and potentially face the death penalty for allegedly attempting to undermine the state by promoting democratic freedoms.

Political analysts say the crackdown comes at a time when hard-liners in the ruling Communist Party are rolling back the few freedoms they had allowed as Vietnam's economy rapidly expanded over the past decade.

Authorities often turned a blind eye to criticism and allowed a greater degree of freedom for religious groups as they worked to smooth Vietnam's entry into the World Trade Organization in early 2007.

However, Vietnam's economy suffered a destabilizing bout of inflation in 2008, and its exports were badly rocked by the impact of the global economic crisis. The government's response has been to uproot dissent to prevent Vietnam's economic problems from weakening the Communist Party's hold on power, analysts say. Many expect the repression to deepen ahead of a party congress in January 2011. A congress takes place every five years and is often the focus of conflict between the party's reformist and conservative wings.

Mr. Kim, a 60-year-old former lieutenant colonel, was accused by authorities of joining Bloc 8406, an organization that promotes multiparty democracy -- an illegal act under Vietnam's constitution, which reserves power solely for the Communist Party. Prosecutors also said Mr. Kim posted pro-democracy articles on the Internet and joined the outlawed Democratic Party of Vietnam.

During the trial, Mr. Kim, who won three military-service medals during the Vietnam War before being dismissed from the army and expelled from the Communist Party for alleged financial mismanagement, told the court he stood up for his beliefs and for campaigning against corruption, according to the Associated Press.

"I am a person of merit," the AP quoted him as saying. "I did not commit crimes."

Foreign media and diplomats were allowed to follow Monday's court proceedings by closed-circuit television. The presiding judge, Tran Van Loan, said when announcing the sentence that Mr. Kim had helped organize crimes against the state and cooperated with "reactionary Vietnamese and hostile forces in exile."

Mr. Kim could have faced the death penalty, but prosecutors sought a more lenient sentence because of his military record. His conviction came less than a month before the trials of the human-rights lawyer, Mr. Dinh, and three other activists are due to begin.

Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com

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Al Qaeda Emboldened by Spectral Presence [Annotated]

Al-Qaeda Chief Contained but Elusive
By David Blair in London
Published: December 27 2009 16:26 | Last updated: December 27 2009 20:13

As the US air force made entire mountains shake with the impact of “daisy-cutter” bombs weighing 7.5 tonnes, Osama bin Laden prepared for death.

On a frozen range of peaks, known as Tora Bora, he was driven to compose his will. “Allah bears witness that love of jihad and death in the cause of Allah has dominated my life,” wrote Mr bin Laden, according to an investigation last month by the Senate foreign relations committee before instructing his wives never to remarry and apologising to his children for having devoted everything to the struggle against “the pagans”.

That was December 14 2001, and the world’s most wanted man, the mastermind of the bloodiest terrorist attacks in history only three months earlier, had reached his nadir. In just a few weeks, the US onslaught in Afghanistan had toppled the Taliban regime, destroyed Mr bin Laden’s network of terrorist training camps and forced him to flee, in mid-winter, to this last redoubt on the frontier with Pakistan.

For a few tantalising days, Mr bin Laden was all but within America’s grasp. Yet in spite of their fury, the air strikes on Tora Bora were a sign, most analysts concur that US commanders had made a critical error. They had chosen to leave the task of finishing off Mr bin Laden to the air force, a few teams of US special forces soldiers, less than 100 strong, and a motley collection of about 2,000 Afghan militiamen.

On December 16, Mr bin Laden escaped over the border into the tribal areas of Pakistan. The trail went cold and, in spite of rumours and unsubstantiated reports, it has essentially remained so ever since.

The Senate committee report which disclosed that Mr bin Laden had written his will concluded that the swift deployment of 3,000 US troops could have prevented his escape, thus avoiding much of the subsequent bloodshed in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“The decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure,” said the report. “The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism.”

So it was that Mr bin Laden, now 52, has retained his status as the world’s most wanted man. His supporters have been able to release at least 24 authenticated taped messages from him since the September 2001 attacks. The most brazen emerged shortly before polling day in the US presidential election in 2004, when Mr bin Laden apparently tried to alter the outcome by urging Americans to reject George W. Bush.

Expert opinion is divided over whether Mr bin Laden’s survival is still crucial. David Livingstone, from the security programme at London’s Chatham House think-tank believed killing him could be counter-productive.

“If you capture or execute him, you turn him into a martyr and al-Qaeda will continue because it has become a brand name. If you keep him alive, you don’t allow him to become a martyr. The aim, as a least worst option, has to be to contain him,” said Mr Livingstone.

The signs are that Mr bin Laden has been contained. One indicator is the dwindling flow of messages. This year, Mr bin Laden managed only four audiotapes – whereas seven emerged in 2007. Not a single videotape of him has appeared since 2004.

But even if Mr bin Laden has been reduced to doing nothing but hide, he remains of immense significance, according to Peter Bergen, an expert on terrorism who interviewed the al-Qaeda leader in 1997. “Al-Qaeda is bin Laden’s idea, it is his baby and 9/11 was his operation and it would psychologically be a victory for the civilised world if he was killed or captured.”

Mr Bergen added: “People make a difference. If von Stauffenberg had killed Hitler on July 20 1944, then world war two would have ended a year earlier.”

Moreover, constant attacks by US drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan have eliminated a raft of al-Qaeda’s core leaders. Mr bin Laden is no longer surrounded by possible successors. “There is nobody who could replace him as the head of this network,” said Mr Bergen.

General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, clearly agreed. Mr bin Laden’s very survival “emboldens al-Qaeda”, he told the Senate, adding: “I don’t think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he is captured or killed.”

But first America will have to find him – and there is no hard information about his whereabouts, beyond a strong probability that he is somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Pakistan’s prime minister recently alleged that Mr bin Laden was in Afghanistan but these claims were routinely made by Pakistani leaders anxious to avoid responsibility for capturing al-Qaeda’s leader.

Simply by remaining a permanent if spectral presence for the last decade, Mr bin Laden can claim a victory of sorts.

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Russia: Same old, same old . . . "They Killed My Lawyer"

They Killed My Lawyer | Foreign Policy
A story of Putin's Russia.
BY WILLIAM BROWDER | DECEMBER 22, 2009

EXCERPT: Sergei Magnitsky was our attorney, and friend, who died under excruciating circumstances in a Moscow pre-trial detention center on Nov. 16, 2009. His story is one of extraordinary bravery and heroism, and ultimately tragedy. It is also a story about how Stalinism and the gulags are alive and well in Russia today.

Ultimately Sergei died for a principle -- he died because believed in the rule of law in Russia. When he stumbled upon an enormous fraud against his clients and the Russian government, he thought he was simply doing the right thing by reporting it. He never imagined that he would die for his efforts.

The precise circumstances of his death are still unclear. We do know Sergei died suddenly at the age of 37, after an 11-month detention. At first, the detention center where he died said the cause of his death was a rupture to his abdominal membrane, but on the same day the prison officials changed their story, saying he had died of a heart attack. They refused his family's request to conduct an independent autopsy. His diaries are reported to be missing.

Because Sergei is no longer alive to tell his story, I feel it is my duty to tell it for him. I am not a writer or a journalist, but a fund manager at Hermitage Capital Management. I ran what was the largest investment fund in Russia. Sergei was our Moscow-based outside counsel who worked for the American law firm Firestone Duncan.

Sergei wasn't involved in politics, he wasn't an oligarch, and he wasn't a human rights activist. He was just a highly competent professional -- the kind of person one could call up as the workday was finishing at 7 p.m. with a legal question and he would cancel his dinner plans and stay in the office until midnight to figure out the answer. He was a smart and honest man working hard to better himself and to make a good life for his wife and two kids.

The tragic events that led to his death began on June 4, 2007. That day, 50 police officers from the Moscow Interior Ministry raided Hermitage's and Firestone Duncan's offices, under the pretense of a tax investigation into a Hermitage client company. There was no reason for the raid, as the company they were investigating was regularly audited by the tax authorities, and they never found any violations.

In the course of the raid, the police officers took away all the corporate seals, charters, and articles of association of all of the fund's investment companies -- none of which had anything to do with their search warrant. The significance of these seizures would only become apparent later.

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Subversion Conviction for Liu Xiaobo by ChiComs Nets 11 Years

CHINA | 25.12.2009
Rights Groups, West Blast China Over Sentence for Leading Dissident

Western nations and human rights groups have reacted with concern to the sentencing of Liu Xiaobo by a Beijing court to 11 years' imprisonment for subversion. Liu is a leading pro-democracy campaigner in China.

China's most prominent dissident, Liu Xiaobo, has been sentenced by a Beijing court to 11 years in prison for "incitement to subvert state power." The verdict has been met with sharp criticism by rights groups and the international community.

Sweden, which holds the European Union's rotating presidency, condemned the decision, saying it raised concerns about freedom of speech and right to a fair trial in China.

"The Presidency of the European Union is deeply concerned by the disproportionate sentence against the prominent human rights defender Liu Xiaobo." it said in a statement.

The German government also strongly criticized the verdict.

"Despite the great progress in other areas in the expression of views, I regret that the Chinese government still massively restricts press freedom." said Chancellor Angela Merkel in a statement.

A US diplomat commented after the verdict that Washington would "continue to call on the government of China to release (Liu) immediately and to respect the rights of all Chinese citizens to peacefully express their political views in favor of universally recognized fundamental freedoms."

Human rights groups said the sentence was one of the longest a Chinese court has given on the subversion charge.

"Since 2003, China has sentenced more than 35 people using the vague charge of 'inciting subversion of state power' to prison terms ranging from 1.5 to 11 years," said Amnesty International in a statement.

"Among those, Liu Xiaobo's sentence is the longest to have been handed down since 2003, according to Amnesty International's records."

Human Rights Watch meanwhile called the sentence a "travesty of justice."

In Hong Kong, several people were injured in protests that broke out following Liu's sentencing, reported German news agency dpa.

Guilty for speaking freely

Liu, 53, was a main author of the "Charter 08" manifesto which called for sweeping political reforms in China. The Beijing court ruled Liu was guilty for his involvement in the manifesto and for publishing online essays critical of the ruling Communist Party.

Liu was not allowed to respond to the court's decision, though his wife, Liu Xia, said she "felt calm when the judge read out the sentence, because all signs were they wanted to hand out a long sentence." Liu's wife was allowed into the courtroom to hear the verdict being delivered, but she was prohibited from entering during the actual trial.

"Later we were allowed 10 minutes together and he told me he would appeal, even if the chances of success were low," she added.

Western diplomats from more than a dozen countries and journalists were also excluded from the court proceedings.

Liu had already served a prison sentence over his involvement in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests.


Beijing rejects criticism

Western diplomats and officials were barred from the courtroom

In the weeks leading up to the trial, the European Union and the US had called on China to unconditionally release Liu and "end the harassment and detention" of fellow signatories of the "Charter 08" manifesto.

Beijing reacted angrily to those calls, referring to the EU and US statements as "unacceptable" and representing interference in China's internal affairs.

"China is a country ruled by law," a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry had responded. "The fundamental rights of Chinese citizens are guaranteed by the law."

The spokesperson said China's courts acted "independently" and other nations have "no right to interfere."


mk/dfm/AFP/Reuters/dpa
Editor: Andreas IllmerSphere: Related Content

US Intelligence: "We have NO friends." ~ But, hey, it's Canada -- eh.

Comment: Despite all the "happy talk" by politicians, defense analysts and other "experts" featured on TV -- any Counterintelligence or Human Intelligence Case Officer who has been in the field more than 5 minutes will solemnly assure you that the United States has NO friends. Yes that's right ~ NO friends. None. Not Canada, Not the UK or Australia, or Germany or anyone. No one. Sure, we have temporary, mutually beneficial relationships. The UK's has been termed "special" -- Israel has its own peculiar sponsorship arrangement. But, don't kid yourself -- the United States has NO friends. Be glad that our senior, professional, career intelligence officers ask "Who knows?" about the Canadians. That's because the answer to the question is: No one. It's not paranoia ~ it's experience.

Secret Pentagon e-mails: Trust Canada? 'Who knows'
By TED BRIDIS (AP) – Dec 3, 2009

WASHINGTON — Can Canada be trusted?

In the midst of what turned out to be a bogus espionage scare over commemorative coins, senior Pentagon officials speculated whether Canadians — widely considered to be among America's closest allies — might be "bad guys" involved in the spy caper. "Who knows?" one official wrote in secret e-mails obtained this week by The Associated Press.

The espionage warnings from the Defense Department caused an international sensation a few years ago over reports of mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters, until they were debunked. The culprit turned out to be commemorative "poppy" quarters with a bright red flower manufactured in Canada.

But at the height of the mystery, senior Pentagon officials speculated about Canada's involvement, according to e-mails marked "Secret/NoForn" and obtained by the AP under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. The messages reflect the no-holds-barred attitudes over an inherent lack of trust within U.S. spy agencies.

"I don't think it is an issue of the Canadians being the bad guys," the Pentagon's counterintelligence chief wrote, "but then again, who knows."

In the e-mails, released to the AP with names blacked out but job titles disclosed, Pentagon officials question whether they should warn military officers in the U.S. Northern Command, who regularly met Canadian counterparts about classified subjects inside bug-proof, government meeting rooms. The rooms are known as secure compartmentalized information facilities, or SKIFs.

"Isn't the Canadian piece something that should be briefed to Northcom since the Canadians sit in their SKIFs?" asked the Pentagon's deputy director for counterintelligence oversight.

"Good point," replied the Pentagon's acting director for counterintelligence. "It is possible that DSS (the U.S. Defense Security Service) sent their report to Northcom. Then again, I don't think it is an issue of the Canadians being the bad guys, but then again, who knows."

Who knows?

Canada is among the closest of U.S. allies, its continental northern neighbor and the leading oil supplier for the U.S. The intelligence services of the two countries are extraordinarily tight and routinely share sensitive secrets. President Barack Obama chose Canada as the destination of his first foreign trip, to underscore what he described as the two countries' long-standing and growing friendship.

"I love this country and think that we could not have a better friend and ally," said Obama, whose brother-in-law is Canadian, during his February visit to Ottawa.

The State Department, with tongue in cheek, reiterated Thursday that the U.S. trusts Canada.

"From the State Department's point of view, Canada is a trustworthy ally," spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. "I'd refer you to the Pentagon for anything else."

In sensational warnings that circulated publicly in late 2006 and early 2007, the Pentagon's Defense Security Service said coins with radio transmitters were found planted on U.S. Army contractors with classified security clearances on at least three occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.

In January 2007, the government abruptly reversed itself and said the warnings weren't true. But the case remained a mystery until months later, when AP learned that the flap had been caused by suspicions over the odd-looking Canadian "poppy" quarter with a bright red flower. The silver-colored 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy — Canada's flower of war remembrance — inlaid on a maple leaf.

What suspicious contractors believed to be "nanotechnology" on the coins actually was a protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy's red color from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada's 117,000 war dead.

The Pentagon turned over the latest e-mails from inside its Office of the Undersecretary for Defense for Intelligence nearly two years after the AP requested them under the Freedom of Information Act. Many of the e-mails were censored over what the Pentagon said was national security and personal privacy.

Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan declined to identify the names of the Defense Department officials who held those job titles in early 2007 and invited the AP to file a lawsuit to uncover their identities. "We're not going to be complicit in providing information that is protected," Lapan said in a statement.

One e-mail included a curious message on the same day the Defense Security Service publicly disavowed its warning about the spy coins. "I am guessing y'all know the status of the Canadian coin situation," it read. It called for an internal meeting "to chat about the next step to put Humpty together again" and suggested notifying the media — and the Canadians.
On the Net:

E-mails: http://wid.ap.org/documents/canada_northcom.pdf

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The CIA's "Italian Job" Gets Weirder

CIA Operative Demands Spy Agency Protect Her Cover

By Jeff Stein

SpyTalk Columnist

December 23, 2009

What good is a cover story if the U.S. government won't back it up?

That's essentially the question former CIA officer Sabrina DeSousa is asking a federal court to decide, in a lawsuit against the Departments of State and Justice and the CIA, accusing three of its operatives of incompetence and neglect for exposing her to criminal charges of kidnapping in Italy.

De Sousa, 53, was listed as an American diplomat in Milan on Feb. 17, 2003, when U.S. agents snatched an al Qaeda suspect, known as Abu Omar, off a local street and secretly flew him out of the country for interrogation.

Omar was taken to Egypt and tortured during an interrogation where he said an American was nearby.

The operation was plagued by miscues.

Because of lax CIA security, Italian police easily cracked the missing person case and charged over two dozen Americans, all but one CIA agents, with kidnapping.

In November, following a long, off-again, on-again trial in absentia, an Italian court convicted DeSousa and 22 other Americans, all but one alleged to be CIA personnel, on kidnapping charges.

The verdict means DeSousa (and the others) risk detention and prison in Italy if she travels outside the United States, but particularly in Europe, where a Europol warrant has been issued for her arrest.

DeSousa's suit -- technically a petition to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for permission to file suit -- maintains that because she was listed as a State Department political officer, first in the American embassy in Rome and later the U.S. consulate in Milan, the department should have shielded her from criminal charges by invoking her diplomatic immunity.

The Justice Department should have paid for her defense from the days she was named a defendant, she also says.

The suit also names Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, accusing her of ignoring DeSousa's pleas for help.

"By July 2006, having exhausted all available internal mechanisms, De Sousa began seeking assistance from then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by way of written letters," says her suit, filed by the Washington, D.C., law firm of Mark S. Zaid, which specializes in representing CIA personnel with beefs against the spy agency.

"Specifically, [DeSousa] requested that the [U.S. government] formally invoke diplomatic/consular immunity with respect to De Sousa's alleged involvement in the kidnapping of Abu Omar and provide her with legal representation to counter the charges in the Italian criminal proceedings," the suit adds.

"She never received a response," the suit days, from either Rice or Clinton, when she became Secretary of State in January.

DeSousa says three former CIA officials share blame for her plight: Jeffrey Castelli, the spy agency's Rome station chief in 2003, Robert Seldon Lady, its Milan base chief, and Susan Czaska, listed as a "consulate official" in Milan.

Italian police discovered a treasure trove of CIA documents related to the Abu Omar rendition when they raided Lady's home.

"A reasonable official would have not have engaged in conduct which allegedly included maintaining classified files on a personal home computer and failing to maintain pre- or post-operation secrecy," DeSousa's suit says of Lady, now retired from the CIA.

"Castelli's alleged authorization of the alleged operation and alleged failure to maintain pre or post-operation secrecy ... subsequently resulted in the Italian criminal and civil proceedings implicating De Sousa," the suit also says.

DeSousa also blames her former colleague Susan Czaska for careless security, "sending an e-mail from an unclassified email account to another unclassified e-mail account in which an allegedly classified CIA operation is referenced and alleged CIA employees' identities and involvement are revealed" -- including DeSousa's.

"The lawsuit is designed to force the State Department to provide the protection Sabrina was deprived of when it failed to invoke diplomatic immunity for her when she was charged (and later convicted) in the Abu Omar case," says her lawyer, Zaid.

"It also seeks to clear her good name and hopefully restore her ability to serve this country again overseas. The suit also seeks an unstated amount of restitution for her legal costs."
The CIA has consistently refused go comment on the Milan case.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In August the Justice Department informed DeSousa that it would pay her legal costs, following her initial suit in May, after years of unsuccessfully pressing her case in private.

"Unbelievable! The United States Department of Justice just 'approved' an attorney to defend me, a month after the trial ended, knowing full well that an attorney at this stage will make little or no difference to the outcome or verdict," DeSousa said then.

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