Rich-poor gap widens in communist Vietnam, but millions climbing

Rich-poor gap widens in communist Vietnam, but millions climbing out of poverty

[ Eds: The Vietnam war ended on April 30, 1975.[ AP Photos DL101, 103-104[ By DENIS D. GRAY= Associated Press Writer= HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -

Denis D. Gray Associated Press/Hanoi

Chu Thi Thanh Ha, who grew up studying by the light of an oil lamp and eating rationed rice, dines in trendy restaurants, vacations in the United States and is daily chauffeured to her office at Vietnam's largest private IT enterprise.

"We want to establish a vital community of the young on the Net. Every year we must produce new services to get more customers -- and make more money," says the deputy managing director of FPT Communications, her voice crackling with energy.

At 31, Ha is among those in the postwar generation who have seized opportunities in communist Vietnam's increasingly free enterprise economy to make very good through talent, grit and sometimes graft.

"Even my parents couldn't have dreamed of what has happened to their daughter," the smartly dressed executive says in fluent English.

The new elite, centered largely in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, snaps up US$100,000 luxury cars and real estate with Tokyo-high prices -- with cash or gold up front.

But 30 years after the Vietnam War ended and reconstruction began, anything approaching such prosperity has yet to spread to the masses, despite the country's espousal of communism's ideals of equality.

The average per capita income among the 1,600 residents of Kim Lien, the rural commune in central Vietnam where communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh was born, hovers around US$300 a year -- or less than a dollar a day. Hanoi's yuppies think nothing of paying more than double that daily wage for a latte.

And far worse off are the remote mountainous areas of central and northern Vietnam, many inhabited by ethnic minorities who eke out a subsistence level existence, with little access to health care or education.

"The gap between the rich and poor remains great and the trend is that it's growing wider. It poses many social problems that we have to tackle. We cannot sacrifice social justice for economic development," says Tran Khac Viet, a political scientist at the Ho Chi Minh National Political Academy in Hanoi.

Recent government statistics say that the richest 10 percent in Vietnam earn 13.5 times more than the poorest 10 percent. The figure was 10.6 times in 1996.

There's danger that this gap may increase as Vietnam gallops toward its goal of becoming a modern, developed nation by 2020, in part by developing an industrial instead of an agricultural economy.

The few acts of open defiance against the tightly controlling, one-party state have erupted in impoverished rural areas, particularly the Central Highlands where troops have quelled violent protests over landlessness and other economic grievances.

Viet believes that continued high economic growth -- and Vietnam has registered among the world's highest rates in recent years -- will span the economic divide along with government projects targeted at eradicating poverty.

International organizations like the World Bank and the United Nations Development Fund are likewise optimistic, given Vietnam's remarkable record. While the annual per capita income of US$545 leaves Vietnam among the neediest third of nations, the bank says the number of poor has dropped notably. In 1990, 87 percent of the population was living on less than US$2 a day, while last year it had plummeted to 53 percent.

"The leaders are very aware of the equity issue and they take it very much to heart. In just about every speech they address the gap, sort of implying that if they can't solve it they'll lose their right to rule. I don't think it's just rhetoric," says Bradford Philips, who heads the Asian Development Bank office in Vietnam.

Kim Lien, 300 kilometers south of Hanoi, remains very different from Ha's world of broadband, bright lights and opportunity. But in stark contrast to its own history of suffering and deprivation, villagers say things are looking up and will be even better for the next generation.

"Before we could only wish for enough food to eat and clothes to keep warm. Now, the food is delicious and clothes are not a problem," says Vuong Que, a 91-year-old retired teacher who can recall landlords repressing the landless in French colonial times, American bombers wiping out the nearby city of Vinh, and 300 village youths marching off to war, most never to return.

When one neighbor, Tran Huy Chat, did come back from the battlefield one year after the war ended he found unrelieved misery around him.

Ironically, it was not the socialism of hometown hero Ho that brought Chat and many fellow villagers better times but "doi moi," the capitalist-style reforms introduced in 1986. And it was the putting of rice fields like Chat's into private hands that sparked Vietnam's growth, eventually spawning the "golden youth" of the big cities.

In recent years, the 53-year-old farmer says he's been able to buy a television and motorbike and build a new house. His 20-year-old daughter is studying tourism in college.

"We don't mind those Hanoi people making a lot of money because we're also moving forward," he says. "From our side, we rural people are trying to reduce this gap between the rich and the poor."

GetAP 1.00 -- APR 27, 2005 07:31:28