Word: nguyens
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...Even more confusing is the fake blog for Prime Minister Dung. The impostor "Nguyen Tan Dung" sounds less like a dissident than a Communist fanboy, posting items including "Have a Strong Belief in Communist Party" and most recently warning against attempts to "sway" the population against the government and also criticizing several jailed dissidents by name. The same post also featured nine-line poem praising the late communist independence leader Ho Chi Minh...
...There was a new flurry of attention online this month when it seemed that Dung, along with other top officials, had launched his own web logs. The official "Blog of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung" debuted in late July, and by this week had accumulated more than 140 "friends" - including, apparently, Nong Duc Manh, the Communist Party general-secretary. The blog offered the Prime Minister's thoughts, insights and even a personal poem. Vietnamese netizens were amazed at the gesture of openness. "Can this really be the prime minister?" asked one poster...
...turns out, the answer is no. Vietnamese officials revealed Thursday that the site is actually the work of a clever impostor. "The Prime Minister doesn't blog. He has too much other work to do," Dung's spokesman Nguyen Kinh Quoc told TIME. Separate blogs purportedly run by Manh, the Party leader, and President Nguyen Minh Triet, the official head of state, are also fakes. The government only became aware of the faux blogs this week, and vowed to track down the impersonators...
...fake bloggers remains a mystery. The rhetoric of their postings mimics official jargon, but is subtly peppered with anti-communist barbs. The fake "Nong Duc Manh blog," for instance, features a post on corruption that states: "Corruption is the desire of Vietnamese officials." Similarly the blog attributed to "Nguyen Minh Triet" on July 6 posts an entry chastizing state-controlled media for "not reporting the truth" of a month-long land-rights protest of hundreds of people in Ho Chi Minh City last month and "ordering" government censors to lift blocks on anti-communist websites...
...Vietnamese web forums are hotly debating the fake blogs, with some participants appearing to take the postings at face value. On the "Nguyen Tan Dung" blog, one of the first comments is from a spiky-haired Vietnamese (from his photo) calling himself "Romeo" who enthuses " I know our country has a lot of difficulties, but the Party and State are still paying attention to the younger generation." Another poster called Nguyen Tuan Kien, identified as a student, says "I totally support the prime minister." If the fake blogs are indeed a dissident ruse, it may have been a little...