Do Muoi Quotes
As long as government exists, corruption will exist. It is an illness of government and can only be cured by the people.
Do Muoi, General Secretary, Vietnam Communist Party, Interview with Seth Mydans, New York Times, June 30, 1996
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The United States had just ousted the popularly elected leader Patrice Lumumba {640611}, and backed Mobuto. Lumumba was an idealist who was not corrupt at all, but were not so sure about our new protégé. Sadly he turned out to be one of the worst kleptocrats of all time, and he stole with more United States money than we gave to many nations in toto. Many believe that one of the reasons, corruption of our “allied” leaders was so bad lies in the wording of this cable. Note that to the State Department writers there was “normal” corruption as opposed to excessive corruption. Once that view is taken there is a constant battle to determine whether each new act of corruption is “normal “ or not, and corruption is simply lessened by pushing back against the most abnormal schemes. These critics advocate a zero tolerance for corruption especially with United States AID money. The State Department has been ambivalent and have often used the corruption system to bribe leaders to obtain national objectives.
Đỗ Mười was a Vietnamese communist politician. He rose in the party hierarchy in the late 1940s, became Chairman of the Council of Ministers in 1988 and was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) at the 7th Congress in 1991. He continued his predecessor's policy of ruling through a collective leadership and Nguyễn Văn Linh's policy of economic reform. He was elected for two terms as General Secretary, but left office in 1997 at the 3rd plenum of the 8th Central Committee during his second term.
