Word: vietnamization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Vietnam has a history of expelling foreigners: the Chinese in 1428, the French in 1954 and the Americans in 1975. Fortunately for tourists, those who come in peace are welcomed with open arms. Hanoi, Vietnam's well-preserved capital, is a cosmopolitan mélange of Chinese temples, French colonial architecture and American consumerism. Remnants of French rule stand out the most (think baguettes, berets and wide, tree-lined boulevards), but that can't mask Hanoi's distinct Vietnamese flavor: nightlife as fiery as the local chilies, and street life as memorable as the fish sauce...
...Vietnam is paradise for anyone with an adventurous palate, and its tastiest dishes can be found curbside - but pick the wrong curb and you could face intestinal meltdown. At Quan An Ngon, tel: (84-4) 942-8162, diners can experience all of the flavors with none of the risk, as former street vendors prepare their specialties - such as banh cuon (ground pork and mushrooms steamed in rice-flour crepes) and rice porridge with eel - in a clean, open-air courtyard...
...latest arrests say a lot about Vietnam's intolerance for dissent, but the circumstances of the raid - the democracy seminars - also illustrate new strategies that Vietnamese groups overseas are adopting to challenge the ruling Communist Party. For a long time, in Little Saigons around the world, anti-communist groups tended to be dominated by former officers of the South Vietnamese regime, pushing to create a government in exile, and had little contact with the people in Vietnam itself. Some groups continued to advocate violence: As late as 2001, members of the California-based Government of Free Vietnam were convicted...
...recent years, a younger generation of Western-raised Vietnamese has taken a different approach. These new activists - characterized by 35-year-old Hoang, a former investment banker who left Saigon in a boat with his family at age 12 - have been leading a p.r.-savvy campaign for Vietnam's hearts and minds, ditching anti-communist rhetoric in favor of pro-democracy advocacy and strenuously denouncing violence in favor of peaceful grassroots movements. Viet Tan, founded in 1982, uses mass emails to recruit new members inside Vietnam (it won't say how many) and coordinate them with dissident groups. It raises...
...Regardless, the new-style pro-democracy groups have had difficulty making even the smallest political change inside Vietnam. Association with any overseas group - Hanoi still classifies most as terrorist organizations - is grounds for arrest; several of the Vietnamese activists put on trial this year had their links to overseas groups like Viet Tan used as evidence against them. "They are on the right side, advocating non-violent political change, but are they doing good?" asks Carl Thayer, a veteran Vietnam analyst who lectures at Australia's National Defence University. "Any action like that provokes repression. The key leaders...