Party punishes top Vietnam Air Force officials for land use violations

Colonel General Phuong Minh Hoa, former Vice Chairman of the Political Bureau of the Vietnam People's Army, former deputy Party unit chief and former Commander of the Air and Air Defense Force, received an official warning on Saturday.

The Secretariat of the Central Committee Communist Party of Vietnam, the Party's highest implementation body, imposed the punishment as it deemed Hoa's violations, as exposed by the Party's Central Inspection Committee, were "serious."

Lieutenant General Nguyen Van Thanh, former Party unit chief and Political Commissar of the Air and Air Defense Force, also received an official warning at a three-day meeting of the Central Inspection Committee that closed in Hanoi on Thursday.

Vietnam's Party has four modes of punishment against members: reprimand, warning, demotion and expulsion.

Disciplinary action has also been recommended against the Standing Committee of the Air and Air Defense Force's Party unit for the term 2010-2015.

Last month, the committee had concluded that the Standing Committee of the Air and Air Defense Force's Party unit had committed several serious violations.

It had violated the principle of democratic centralism as also working regulations, and been negligent in leading, managing, inspecting and supervising the Air and Air Defense Force.

These violations in turn enabled further violations in the management and use of military land, including its illegal use for economic purposes and irregularities in a housing project for soldiers.

Inspectors held Hoa mainly responsible for the violations of the standing committee. He was also found to have directly signed papers to give up military land illegally for economic purposes.

Thanh was also deemed responsible for the committee's violations as its leader, and found to have allowed unqualified people to benefit from the military's housing projects.

Inspectors concluded that the violations of Hoa, Thanh and the Standing Committee of the Air and Air Defense Force's Party unit were "serious," damaging the reputations of the Party and the Army.

The Party inspectors this week also urged disciplinary actions against seven top officials of the Ministry of Public Security for violations in protecting state secrets.

A series of dismissals and warnings against high-ranking officials are adding heat to Vietnam's corruption crackdown spearheaded by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Scores of top officials and businesspeople have been put under probe or sent to jail over the past couple years. Trong, 74, has repeatedly said that the corruption fight would keep up momentum and continue moving forward, sparing no one.