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.
On a special Tet broadcast on the same SBTN, Lien Thanh was invited to speak about the atrocities committed by communists during the Tet Offensive in Hue. After all, he’s now the expert on communists in the city. (Click on photo below to go to video on Blogspot.)
That was when Lien Thanh was the darling of conspiracy theorists who love the fact that he’d unearthed a whole organization of commies.
A few months into the lovefest, however, people began having second thought. The same (supposedly commie) Buddhist forces that once opposed President Diem are now opposing the communist government’s attempts to take over Buddhist temples and teachings in the country.
If those same Buddhists were communists then, what does it make them and their disciples now? All of a sudden, Lien Thanh’s red-baiting doesn’t seem as attractive as it used to be.
Into this quandary stepped Du Tử Lê. One of the most creative and frequently cited poets of the late 20th century, Du Tử Lê has had many of his poems set to music to become very popular songs (Khúc Thụy Du – Anh Bằng, Khi Cuộc Tình Đã Chết – Phạm Đình Chương, etc.)
Du Tử Lê has his own show on SBTN, so he invited Lien Thanh to participate. By then, however, he’s no longer the anti-communist knight in shining armor. He has become (gasp!) a controversial figure.
So Du Tử Lê had his interviews with Lien Thanh and broadcast them in several installations. All hell broke loose. The two camps, pro-Lien Thanh and anti-Lien Thanh, began loudly proclaiming the other one communist.
On Halloween Day, SBTN rolled over and played dead. Half of its midday news broadcast consists of a meeting between a group of Buddhists and its CEO Cuong Nguyen.
Interestingly, SBTN devoted much of its coverage to the delegation heaping abuse, not on Lien Thanh, but on the interviewer Du Tử Lê.
The clip cuts away just as one member of the delegation started talking about Lien Thanh. Even SBTN’s reporter Thanh Toan, who has been spending most of last year enjoying the good life in communist Vietnam, in his voice-over also craps on Du Tử Lê.
Probably afraid that a group of pro-Diem people would show up next, SBTN steered clear of any criticism of Lien Thanh’s claims.
And then, bending backward, the CEO admitted that his approach to any controversy is actually to go along with whatever the people sitting in front of him say – whom he calls “the community.” He agreed with the group, threw the old poet under the bus, and announced that he would cancel the show even if nobody has asked for it.
SBTN is being financed by mostly people with trade with Vietnam, from Du hoc to phone card to Vietnam. All red money.
SBTN is being manipulated by Hanoi to re-fire the flame of Ngo Dinh Diem to divide Vietnamese community here, instead of focusing on religious struggle in Vietnam.
Other sources of ad revenue for SBTN are from those fraudulent “feel good” elixir tonic medicine, and loan modification scams.
* These quack pills claim to cure all diseases, from cancer to high blood pressure. These companies should be reported to FDA.
* These loan modification companies are nothing but criminals, should be reported to the State Attorney office.
@Money talk:
Yes I see those commercials on Vietnamese TV fairly often. But they have the same type of stuff on American TV so……
BTW, this goes out to everyone, join my WSJ group (I just created today) “Vietnam and the World”
http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/vietnam-world-683/topics
the Communists are trying to dig up the bones of Ngo Dinh Diem to divide Vietnamese community.
You will see those communists on SBTN soon.
Buddist monks seem very busy about politic .lol .Catholic ,Budda and Talaban are in the same main stream of thought .
The Taliban wants to eliminate all non-believers. Ngo Dinh Diem wanted to eliminate all non-catholics, just like the Taliban, ask the CIA
SBTN is starting a campaign to bring back Ngo Dinh Diem.
Is it hard to let go of materials ,buddist people ? lol .I die because i laugh so hard .
From Wikipedia :
Diệm’s rule was authoritarian and nepotistic. His most trusted official was his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, leader of the primary pro-Diệm Can Lao political party, who was an opium addict and admirer of Adolf Hitler.
He modeled the Can Lao secret police’s marching style and torture styles on Nazi designs.[18] Ngô Đình Cẩn, his younger brother, was put in charge of the former Imperial City of Huế.
Although neither Cẩn or Nhu held any official role in the government, they ruled their regions of South Vietnam, commanding private armies and secret police.
Another brother, Ngô Đình Luyện, was appointed Ambassador to the United Kingdom. His elder brother, Ngô Đình Thục, was the archbishop of Huế. Despite this, Thuc lived in the Presidential Palace, along with Nhu, Nhu’s wife and Diệm.
Diệm’s rule was also pervaded by family corruption. Can was widely believed to be involved in illegal smuggling of rice to North Vietnam on the black market and opium throughout Asia via Laos, as well as monopolising the cinnamon trade, amassing a fortune stored in foreign banks
** Diem was selling rice to North Vietnamese communist, and smuggled opium into South Vietnam **
Nguyen Cao Ky is being criticized for admiring Hitler; Ngo Dinh Diem and his family worshiped Hitler, his Can Lao party was fashioned after the SS.
By the time Diem was selling rice to North VN ,ho chi minh was busy to suck Mao’s ding dong .
Ngo Dinh Diem & Ho Chi Minh were quite busy doing the same thing.
no Hot air , Mao’s ding dong is for specialist ” ho chi minh ” blows only .
Religious tensions in South Vietnam from 1960 to November 1963, Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem issued a ban on public Buddhist flags and ceremonies. Just like the communist doing right now. Shooting and arrests of dissidents.
monks don’t belong to politics at all .reread the budda’s book ,stupid monks .
i’m sorry monks ,you’re not stupid ,you’re retarded .
Chout,
you are one big red commie !
Rat,
You red commie, go back to your rat hole.
Rat,
you can worship Ho Chi Minh or Ngo Dinh Diem or Hitler all you want, red commie !
You are just a red commie, trying to bring back Ngo Dinh Diem, to divert attention from Vietnam
Chuot is a very appropriate name for you, a commie rat, trying to bring back Ngo Dinh Diem first, then Ho Chi Minh later.
Hot air ,say 3 times for me : dit cai lon me theng` ho chi’ minh .lol
Why you idiots ruin this blog? Du ma’ma`y!
your mom is busy sucking ho chi minh’s ding dong .don’t fu$k your mom ,Cu Lan .let ho does it for you .
Bolsavik, this entry is very misleading. I don’t understand if you are talking about Cuong Nguyen or the buddhist monks, Catholics, President Diem, the poet, or the soldiers or everyone mentioned. I think you are hinting that they all belong to some side show to the main attraction called Little Saigon.
Nevertheless, what I find surprising is that many Viets who participated in the VN War seem to feel as though they have deep rooted knowledge in the war as though they sat along with the planners and generals of the super powers deciding the fate of VN.
Really when you think about it, the VN War was a war by proxy by the super powers, and VN was the stage, so most of these participants are nothing more than minions carrying orders. Would they have solid knowledge of anything? Most likely not!
Thank you Mr Baba Ganoush, you really nail that homerun with the above statement….We the Viet refugees are here because of that battlefield between the big guys, that s it.
But let me also give you an advance warning, that self-claimed fool guru Jung Kim will be calling you names very soon, why you may ask?…Just because your knowledge of the whole situation is too logical, it might sounds a little weird….but let me assure ya….Despite what he calls himself a Viet, a Van Tran supporter, a community watchdog….blah blah blah….He also suffer a non-cure disease called Attention-Whore-Syndrom, very very rare..One out of trillions.
Any and every posts on the net, if it sounds smart?.Any sense of humor?..Or just simply logical and accurate like yours…. will trigger his very few remaining IQs to go nuts, then he will have to run like a maddog to Lee Sandwitch to post a reply calling people nasty name in a desprate hope to turn them off from posting again, that way his dumb negative comments do not look so bad, catch my driff right?..It s safe because he knows hiding behind the computer and playing warrior are not very risky at all. So just incase he calls you names?..Please don t consider him a typical everyday Viets, we do have some very low class alright…but none compared to this guru.
He called Tien Huynh, a very respected poster here, an Arabian the other day…and i was just merely asking the fact of how he knows?…Then i got a cute Diaper Butt name, then Massage Parlor Trainee ( i actually like this one), then Poop Chow……and so on….I m gonna play a guess game to see what i got next…Well, free entertainment?…
But let me warn ya Mr Baba, whatever Mr Guru Jung says. Remember…
He s not a typical retard, and i don t know how he learned to read and write either.
Gotta sleep now, can t wait to see my new name tomorrow, watch.
I have to give credit to the few and strong Viets who raised hell to attract world attention and sympathy for the rest. Who knows what would have happened to them all. Of course, those people are rarely or never mentioned at all.
As for the rest, who can attest their deeds or misdeeds when most of that generation are no longer present?
Actually, if not because of our country s geological location makes it an ideal playground for the big and powerful guys?….We re fully capable of defending ourself, a fact proven by thousands of years of history.
Let me ask you this very simple question Mr Baba.
If Israel, a little tiny country right in the middle of those Arab foes, can defend itself without the help of US and allies?….
Please be honest here….I personally think there s no way they can last more than two three generations max. And you know we ve been fighting the North aggression for how long?..Before Jesus or Budha were born?..So we Viets are not easy to fold, and that made us equal to if not better than Jews?
I think Tien Huynh or maybe Country First are really good at digging out facts, too bad they don t like this place no more with all the name calling. This place will be call Bolsadick soon IMHO.
Oh, and this entry is just a personal fight between this Bolsavik and SBTN, don t let it confuse ya. Good day mate.
Du Tu Le and Lien Thanh was talking about the past of the controversy at Hue while SBTN is truely doing business .Business means monie talk .Back down or play chicken is to protect the income of the business .
SBTN news ladies wear thin ao dai, showing their bras and clevage. News is nothing but a sex show. One of the news caster is a teacher during the day, and a show girl on TV at night.
One lady even fakes northern accent. It is all farce.
Free people, read this terrible news about U.N. Resolution on religion. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603218.html. It appears that religious people want to impose their view on other people’s mind. Perhaps Mr. Diem and his religious family wanted to impose religion on Viet people. Perhaps the monks also wanted to obtain power and influence.
@Tien Huynh,
By the same logic, are you saying the current Catholic Thai Ha is for obtaining power and influences ?
When Catholics protest, you call it religious struggle
When Buddhists protest, you call it power influence.
Do you see your own illogic ?
I did not advance any argument at all. I just provided my own subjective observation that religious people tend to impose their view on others and tend to promote their religion. The historical facts provide that President Diem promoted Catholic people to high ranks in government and military. During the chaos periods in Hue, the monks wholeheartedly supported General Nguyen Chanh Thi, a Buddhist.
And perhaps it appears that people want to impose their power on other either through religions, political parties, and ….ideological belief.
After all communism is a religion which took rather strong influential affect on people minds.
The only explanation for what has made thousands and thousands of young men who were drunken by the grant vision of heroism created by HCM and his cronies.
Just want to put things in perspective, what Diem did was nothing compare to the VC terrorists done to innocent lives.
See the parallel between the Muslim nut jobs and the VC terrorists yet? Mr. Tien Huynh?
Gentlemen:
let’s not oversimplifying concepts and confuse any possible uninformed reader. for one, communism is a political concept, and religion is a spiritual practice. the two cannot be compared together in any form. people use the expression, “communism is a religion which took rather strong influential affect on people minds…” figuratively, but there may be uninformed readers who may read it literally…which is unfornate.
furthermore, can we discuss each individual in his/her own right? to many, hcm destroyed more than he claimed to build, while mao tse tung probably built modern china today despite his early blood thirst rule…regardless how we view people, it is best to judge any individual by their own worthwhile or evil standards (IMHO).
@ Mr. Country First:
It has too long since we last heard from you…will you please enlighten us with your useful research? I thank you.
I read somewhere that there are more non-Arab Muslims than Arab Muslims in the world. So, I asked this individual who once lived in the region in question. His answer is the following:
Rich Arab muslims go places like poor Africa and Asia, and they bring their wealth with them with the intention of converting these individuals through wealth. If the poor local wants to work for the rich shiek, then he/she has to convert to Islam to secure employment.
The conversion is a thorough ongoing process which their faith is tested rigorously and over an extended period of time. If the individual is caught faking it, then he/she or possibly family may meet their death. Remember that these are far and desolate places where there are no laws and might is right.
The communism is a religion……. the word “God” has been replaced by the one individual or junta proclaiming he represents/knows the will of the people..conveniently without asking for their input.
Clearly the communism is another word for dictatorship.
Jung Kim;
I hate to say this, but I has to agree with you 100% this time.
Communist IS a religion, a biggest cult in the world, how else can you explain what made people jump to their deaths? A few millions lives have been wasted because of their leader false promise for a new Utopia.
May be communism is not a religion based on its definition but the world can see that there are similarity and comparable practices. The painting of a Socialist Utopia is very much that of a Nirvana and God’s Heaven.
The “Trannies” is a religion ….. the word “God” has been replaced by the “God Father” and all the followers jump to attack whoever like to express their opinion about their “God Father”.
Clearly the “Trannies” is a cult !
Mao has died way before China economy took off. I would not give credit to Mao for the prosperous modern China today…
What mao, hcm has used communism as a religion to wreck havoc on their people and their countries? everybody knows, and after the war, the poor get poorer and the rich get rich, everybody knows….
Their accomplishments was well written in history. Wonder why some dumb-intellectuals still come into this blog to sing for their achievement?…Well, it would take a long and arduous winding discussions on this subject and I do not like to get sidetracked here (sigh).
All dictatorial groups competing for political power usually resort to terrorist tactics. Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Communist parties (Russia, Viet,China…) Colonialist French, Colonialist British, Islamic Taliban, Iran, Iraq, Arab Saudi, Al Qaida, Catholic IRA, etc., have used the same terrorism.
Loretta, you are right!
Mr. Van Tran is going to replace Loretta with support from his voters! Gotcha!
Tien Huynh;
You forgot the United of America, too.
Any political world leaders and power thirsty cult leaders would be using the terrorist tactic one way or another to put down their enemies, we all know that. I hope you did not think we need to be enlightened on that history tit bits.
But there were no comparison to what mao, ho, il, did to their OWN people…before, during and after the war….
‘Goal Justify Means’ has been their motto.
Loretta, I love you dearly.
got what giun kim? ADHD may be?
Loretta can kiss good bye to her office crickets and join the jail birds.
SBNT Thanh Toan used to be a hard-core anti communist; after a few trips to Vietnam and few visits to the whore hotels, he is now an enlightened commie.
SBTN manager will have to cut him out, too.
SBTN newscaster Diệu Quyên is a teacher during the day, and moonlights at night a TV sex symbol.
Bad for her students.
Viet Herald and the Bolsavik.com viet bao giong nhu bao “La’ Cai?” khong biet viet bao de kiem tien song hay vi nghe nghiep. Ban bien tap lam on di cho ro huong di cua minh.