Vietnam celebrates 30 years of unification
Ho Chi Minh City (AsiaNews) Tomorrow Vietnam will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the country's unification and the end of what the Vietnamese call the "American war".
The event is taking place at a time of sustained economic growth and widening the social divide both of which are aggravating unjust social conditions. The anniversary is also being commemorated in a context of limited respect for human rights and religious freedom.
Celebrations will be relatively low key so as to not to upset the United States. In the former South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, which fell at 11 am of April 30, 1975, the ceremony will involve fireworks and a single military parade.
Cuban Vice-president General Raúl Castro Ruz will be the only important foreign dignitary in attendance. Cuba along with the Soviet Union and China was allied to North Vietnam in the war against the United States.
In spite of the country's Communist ideals of equality and prosperity, 30 years after the war only an elite in the country's major cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City can claim to be enjoying the fruits of economic progress.
In Kim Lien, a rural village in central Vietnam that is home to1,600 people, the average income per year is US$ 300; that is less than a dollar a day.
The situation is even worse for ethnic minorities living the highlands of central and northern Vietnam. They have barely access to health care and education.
"The gap between the rich and poor remains great and the trend is that it's growing wider. It poses many social problems that we have to tackle," says Tran Khac Viet, a political scientist in Hanoi.
One of the main reason for this gap is the high level of economic growth, one of the highest in the world. Vietnam's leaders have said they want to turn the country into a modern and developed nation by the year 2020. This means investing in industries that are centred in urban areas at the expense of agriculture which supports rural communities.
International organisations such as the World Bank and the United Nations Development Fund share this optimism. Even though Vietnam's average annual income is US$ 545, which makes it one of the poorest in the world, World Bank data show that poverty levels have dropped. In 1990 87 per cent of the population eked out a living with only two dollars a day, a proportion that dropped to 53 per cent in 2004.
The international community is less optimistic about human rights and religious freedom in Vietnam.
Diplomats from European Union countries have been monitoring the conditions of 21 dissidents considered "at risk" who are currently under house arrest or in jail.
Despite some gestures such as allowing some Buddhist monks to return from exile after 40 years, the regime in power continues to exert oppressive and total control over religion through laws such the Ordinance on Religions and Beliefs which was adopted on November 15, 2004.
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