WASHINGTON (AFP) — They rub shoulders with US President George W. Bush and lawmakers in Washington but are shunned as "terrorists" by Vietnam's communist leadership -- members of US-based Viet Tan are stepping up their campaign for democratic reforms in their motherland.
Short for Vietnam Reform party, Viet Tan has built up a vast membership of Western educated Vietnamese spanning the globe and is fuelling an underground dissident network inside Vietnam. Now, the group is boldly testing the limits of the authorities in Hanoi by secretly sending members to the tightly governed Southeast Asian state, taking the pro-democracy campaign right to the home ground. Three of its members -- two Americans and a French -- were caught last month by the Vietnamese authorities together with three other Viet Tan associates -- a Thai and two locals -- in Ho Chi Minh City as they were preparing to distribute pro-democracy pamphlets." In full @ AFP: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iOtP7l62eNx7eGczXXzs8x0Eua7g
