Yahoo News
written by Ben Stocking, Associated Press writer
Monday January 11, 2009 3:35 am pst
HANOI, Vietnam – A famous Zen master has accused Vietnam's communist government of hiring mobs of people to violently evict his Buddhist followers from two monasteries.
Thich Nhat Hanh, who helped popularize Buddhism in the West and has sold millions of books worldwide, has also called on Vietnam to lift restrictions on religious freedom and respect human rights.
Nhat Hanh made the comments in a letter to his Vietnamese followers in late December, days after they were pressured by a mob and government authorities to leave the Phuoc Hue temple in the southern province of Lam Dong.
"Our country does not yet have true religious freedom, and the government tightly controls the Buddhist Church machinery," Nhat Hanh wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press on Monday. "The Buddhist Church is helpless, unable to protect its own children. This is a truth clearly seen by everyone."
The monks and nuns had sought refuge at Phuoc Hue after being forced from the nearby Bat Nha monastery on Sept. 27.
"In the case of Bat Nha and Phuoc Hue, government officials hired the mobs and worked together with them," Nhat Hanh wrote in the letter, dated "the last days of 2009."
At a news conference Monday, Vietnamese officials denied Nhat Hanh's assertions. [NO SURPRISE!]
"This is a dispute between two Buddhist factions," said Nguyen Ngoc Dong, vice chairman of the Lam Dong provincial government. "We have tried our best to ensure safety and social order for the people involved."
The tensions in Lam Dong were the result of disagreements between Nhat Hanh's followers and Duc Nghi, the abbot at Bat Nha and member of the official Buddhist Church, said Nguyen Thanh Xuan, chairman of Vietnam's central Committee on Religious Affairs.
But Nhat Hanh's followers say they have been harassed because their teacher called on Vietnamese authorities to abolish government control of religion during a 2007 meeting with President Nguyen Minh Triet.
Asked about that accusation Monday, Trung did not directly respond. Nor did he say why the government had not allowed Nhat Hanh's followers to worship together in another location, as some local representatives of the Vietnamese Buddhist Church have suggested.
In his letter to his followers, Nhat Hanh said the mobs at Phuoc Hue and Bat Nha were hired by police and the Fatherland Front, a communist party organization. At Phuoc Hue, they were paid 200,000 Vietnamese dong ($11) a day, he wrote.
"Where did the money come from to pay these mobs? Was it tax money?" asked Nhat Hanh, 83, who was born in Vietnam but has lived in exile for more than four decades. He now teaches at his Plum Village monastery in France.
Since the dispute between Nhat Hanh's followers and the government erupted in late June, Nhat Hanh has maintained a low profile. He wrote one previous letter praising his followers for remaining peaceful throughout the conflict.
He did so again in the new letter, saying they had followed the example of India's Mohandas Gandhi, who pioneered the concept of nonviolent resistance.
They remained calm, Nhat Hanh wrote, even though some of their senior monks were "dragged, throttled, choked and thrown into cars as if they were trash cans."
The conflict between the government and Nhat Hanh marks a dramatic turnaround from 2005, when Nhat Hanh returned to his homeland, a move seen by many as a step forward for religious freedom in the communist country.
In spite of the Bat Nha conflict, Nhat Hanh said in his letter that he believes Vietnam will eventually open up its society. Young Vietnamese, he wrote, "realize that Vietnam needs more democracy, more citizen rights and more human rights."
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