SBTN rolled over and played chicken. Again
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
Faced with controversy, the CEO of a top Vietnamese satellite TV station cried uncle, capitulated, insulted his personnel on air, and cancelled a talk show hosted by a popular poet.
This is not the first time spineless SBTN’s Cuong Nguyen (Vietnamese name: Nguyễn Tự Cường) bent over and submitted to the will of a few. A little more than a year ago, when controversy arose over music of the late antiwar musician Trịnh Công Sơn (see here), Nguyen went on air, insulted the musician, and repudiated any affiliation with the concert - which his station early had promoted heavily.
This SBTN, by the way, is the same SBTN whose reduced-rate ads given to OC supervisor candidate Hoa Van Tran resulted in a complaint to the state Attorney General as a possible illegal campaign contribution. See here.
This most recent controversy involves the legacy of South Vietnam’s first president, who was brought down following a wave of popular protests led by Buddhist monks, something like the one in the photo to the right.
The station had broadcast an interview with an author who claimed the protesting monks were communists. A group of Buddhists clamored for a retraction, and Nguyen went on air to repudiate the interview, slash out at the interviewer, and cancel the program on the spot.
In recent years and especially in the U.S., the late President Ngo Dinh Diem has enjoyed a comeback of sort, where people pretty much forgave his dictatorial ways, his cronyism, and his favoritism of Catholicism. Instead, they remember him as a corruption-free individual (just him, not necessarily his underlings) who was fervently anti-communist.
Riding that wave of newly arisen support for President Diem, an author published a book attacking the Buddhist leaders who had brought down the man’s presidency.
Liên Thành is a former commander of the police force in Huế, the city in central Vietnam that was home to most Buddhist activists. Entitled “Biến Động Miền Trung” (Turmoil in Central Vietnam), the book has been extensively 
quoted and excerpted electronically, posted on various web sites (such as this one) and sent around the various right-wing listservs.
Essentially a long diatribe, the book’s main claim is that the Buddhist forces that brought down Diem and continued to oppose various policies of the Saigon government were, well, communist.
Always happy to see more accusations of commies, former South Vietnamese military initially came out in droves to support the book. The publisher is the association of former South Vietnamese Rangers. Many came to the book signing all dressed up and wearing a red beret, the symbol of the Rangers, proving how seriously they took the author and his accusations. The photo to the left is taken from a Viet Bao story, here.
