HANOI, Vietnam (Reuters) - Vietnam's communist government said Tuesday it did not think the detention of a prominent Buddhist dissident last week would affect ratification of a historic trade pact with the United States.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Sy Vuong Ha said in a statement authorities in Ho Chi Minh City had reactivated a restriction order against 73-year-old Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Quang Do from May 31.
Responding to a question on whether the detention might complicate ratification of the trade pact signed last year with Vietnam's former enemy the United States, Ha replied:
"We think this case is totally unrelated to the trade agreement between Vietnam and the United States."
The statement referred to Do by his lay name of Dang Phuc Tue. It said authorities had reactivated a five-year surveillance order against him effective from 1998 that would expire in September 2003. It gave no reason.
Such an order restricts an individual to a set area. In Do's case, that is his monastery in Ho Chi Minh City.
Do, a past Nobel nominee who has been nominated again for this year's Peace award, has spent more than 20 years in jail or detention for his campaigns for religious freedom and democracy.
Monday, the United States called for his release and for Vietnam to respect the autonomy of all religions and to allow people to practice their faith freely.
The U.S. Senate is expected this week to consider ratification of the trade agreement.
Ratification is vital for Vietnam if it is to meet ambitious growth targets mapped out for the next 10 years.
U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick said in Shanghai Tuesday he would meet Vietnam's Trade Minister Vu Khoan on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific trade ministers meeting in the Chinese city later this week.
"The United States is planning to send up the Vietnam bilateral trade agreement to the Congress this week, so that will give me a good chance to talk with him about that process," Zoellick told a news conference.
CRACKDOWN A "FABRICATION"
Do was convicted and jailed for five years in 1995 for "sabotaging the policy of unity" and "abusing democratic rights" but granted amnesty and released from prison in 1998.
The government spokesman dismissed as a "total and ill-intentioned fabrication" a report by the Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau that said police had detained three other monks and surrounded "hundreds" of pagodas in eight central and southern provinces last week.
The Buddhist bureau said the crackdown was to prevent Do leading a mission planned for Thursday to take UBCV patriarch Thich Huyen Quang, 83, from detention in Quang Ngai province to Ho Chi Minh City for urgent medical treatment.
A statement from the Buddhist bureau Tuesday said police had surrounded Quang's Phuoc Quang pagoda and strip-searched anyone trying to approach it. It said police had also blocked entrance to Do's monastery and cut the telephone lines to 115 pagodas in central Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City.
It said the three monks detained at the same time as Do had been freed on condition they not set foot outside their pagodas.
The government spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Buddhist bureau's latest report.
The State Department also called for the release of Quang, who the UBCV says has been detained for the past 19 years, and Nguyen Van Ly, a dissident Catholic priest arrested last month after he called for the United States not to ratify the trade pact until Vietnam's rights record improved.
10:07 06-05-01
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