Vietnam's Communist Party chief warned again Tuesday that the freewheeling metropolis of former Saigon was a breeding ground for political disorder, economic sabotage and social pollution.
In an interview with the Cong an Thanh pho Ho Chi Minh (Ho Chi Minh City's police) newspaper, Do Muoi said Ho Chi Minh City was vulnerable to "hostile forces" aiming to subvert the regime."The city is . . . the place hostile forces consider prime ground for `peaceful evolution,' causing political disorder, sabotaging the economy, causing social and cultural pollution, aiming to overthrow the regime established by great personal sacrifices," he said.
"Peaceful evolution" is a term used by Hanoi to refer to the threat of back-door subversion resulting from increased exposure of the country's 74 million population to outside, especially Western, ways of thinking and cultural products.
Muoi's feisty rhetoric was almost identical to that which he used during a party congress in Ho Chi Minh City last month. But this time his call for watchfulness was aimed at the country's police force.
Until 1975 the capital of U.S.-backed South Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City was viewed with suspicion in the years after the Vietnam War. The official party line now is that the era of north-south differences is over.
Muoi's comments come less than two weeks before a landmark national party congress.
Anxious to assert its authority ahead of the meeting, the party has taken a series of hardline steps, including a blitz on "social evils" such as prostitution, drug abuse and gambling, all of which are problems in Ho Chi Minh City.
At least 19,200 people have been arrested as part of the clampdown launched earlier this year.
Muoi, a 79-year-old northerner, said the June 28-July 1 policy-defining congress was a chance to turn the dreams and aspirations of generations of Vietnamese into reality.