Understanding nature of Vietnamese communism

THE case of the four Vietnamese who were jailed last month for flying the flag of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) - a former enemy state supported by the United States - demonstrates that they still prefer life under that kind of a regime.

But ironically, neither the RVN (the Saigon regime that controlled South Vietnam until 1975) nor the US was ever interested in bringing democracy, free speech and stability to the south.

The RVN's flag really represents a dictatorship under successive South Vietnamese presidents whose governments received billions of dollars in economic and military aid from the US to fight communist North Vietnam.