TS. NGUYỄN BÁ LONG ++UKRAINE

From Yanukovych’s betrayal to Ukraine, let’s think about servants for Beijing in Vietnam

The Viet Democratic Side’s International Forum

After escaping Ukraine to Russia near the end of February 2014, Yanukovych appeared on a Russian TV station and loudly spoke that he is still the legitimate President of Ukraine, and he asked Mr. Putin to help stabilize the situation of Ukraine (surely for his regaining of the President seat of Ukraine under the presence of the Russian army). Unfortunately, Putin just occupied Crimea and helped the Crimea government (with its new self-appointed Prime Minister Aksyonov) to hold a referendum on March 16, 2014 for Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, with more than 96% of the voters cast YES, according to the Crimea government; then Putin got the fierce reactions of leaders of the G-7 as well as the international community on Monday and Tuesday (March 17 and March 18), when he signed the bill incorporating Crimea into the Russian Federation. Economic sanctions and travel bans have been applied to many Russian officials and Ukrainian officials who were responsible for the current crisis in Ukraine, especially those who were involved in the Crimea referendum and Russian military action in Crimea. Until Tuesday, the list of Russian and Ukrainian officials under economic sanctions and travel bans by the U.S., EU and Canada correspondingly is as follows: US = 11, EU = 21 and Canada = 17 additional officials besides the first ones.

Among Ukrainian figures under the sanctions, we need to pay attention to Yanukovych who is now described by most people of Ukraine as well as the international community as a leader who betrayed his country by inviting Putin to intervene into Ukraine for recovering his position and interest. In Vietnam, near the end of the 18th century, there was a king (Le Chieu Thong) who escaped VN to Beijing (to avoid a revolution in the homeland which could have cost him his life and the throne) and requested Emperor Qian Long of the Qing Dynasty to expedite their army to Vietnam to help recover Le’s throne. The more than 200,000 invading troops were then defeated by King Quang Trung of Vietnam in a fierce and short military campaign (about 10 days) attacking on Thang Long (Vietnam’s capital at the time) which made tens of thousands of invaders lose their lives and more than 20,000 taken as prisoners of war. 

The battle took place in 1789 (Chinese General Cen Yi Dong’s head was cut off; General Sun Shi Yi had to hide in a big copper pipe for Chinese soldiers to drag along with them. The 1789 military campaign led by King Quang Trung was the biggest victory of Vietnam over China in our struggle history to avoid China’s domination. The attitude and action of Yanukovych of Ukraine in asking Putin to intervene into his country to recover his president seat was equivalent to King Le Chieu Thong of VN who requested Emperor Qian Long of the Qing Dynasty to send China’s expeditionary army to Vietnam to occupy Thang Long capital and other areas of North Vietnam for the purpose of reinstalling him as king of Vietnam. But the Chinese army was defeated by King Quang Trung and King Le Chieu Thong later died in China. Le Chieu Thong became a symbol of traitor to the people of Vietnam, like the case of Yanukovych to the people of Ukraine.

The more important thing is the projection of the servants for Beijing in Hanoi who are thought to be the potential traitors against the motherland once the communist regime in VN is overthrown by the people of VN or by the prevalence of a new political party to be formed by the communist progressive elements who left the Communist Party of VN (due to its failure to meet the aspirations of the people of VN) to form a new party, like the case of 200 members of quintessence elite of the Communist Party of France who left the Party in 2010 to form a new party to politically struggle in a multi-party system of the democratic regime of the French republic. In that case, the new party to replace the current CPV will receive the unanimous support of the people of VN and the servants for Beijing in Hanoi will react to save their positions and their lives for sure. Their reactions may be like Le Chieu Thong or Yanukovych, i.e. to invite Beijing to intervene into VN for their recovery of their position and interests. What should the people or the revolutionary forces do to prevent the servants for Beijing from acting as such?

When such forces as the victims of injustice, students, followers of religious beliefs, workers, ethnic groups etc rise up, they need to form a body to take charge of arresting the servants for Beijing at the right times, not let them escape to China to request China’s intervention into Vietnam. Another approach is to form special courts to deal with those leaders who were criminals to the nation, such as violations of human rights, corruption, religious suppressions, crushing the demonstrators against China’s aggression in the East Sea, suppression of the victims of injustice etc. For those servants for Beijing who prepared to escape VN to China to avoid answering to the people before the courts, the revolutionary forces or the new regime led by the new party originated from the communist progressive elements should arrest them quickly and urgently bring them to courts, avoiding their moves similar to Yanukovych who escaped Ukraine to Russia to request Putin intervene into Ukraine.

More approaches and methods to deal with the problems similar to Le Chieu Thong or Yanukovych can be suggested, but there are space limitations for this issue in English reports; please refer to the original in Vietnamese. There were several articles and reports in Vietnamese for this issue and the Ukraine situation written by such famous authors as: Dr. Nguyen Ba Long, Dr. Nguyen Thanh Giang, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Phuc Lien...

(Dr. Long Ba Nguyen, The Viet Democratic Side's International Forum)