08:18
Tieng Anh Vui
PICTURES of pets adorn the façades and menus of restaurants in Nam Dinh, a city in a part of northern Vietnam where cats and dogs are commonly consumed. “Delicious,” says Vu Van Thu, a taxi driver, as he downs a plate of sautéed feline in one eatery. Down the road, terrified puppy-eyes stare out from a metal cage beside a dog restaurant’s kitchen. A victim yelps as a butcher raises his knife. The proprietor says his staff gets through scores of kilograms of dog meat per day.
Vietnam, a one-party state, already has many critics of its repression of dissent, its corruption and a banking sector plagued by bad debt. Amid negotiations for free-trade agreements with America and the European Union, the government wants to avoid even more bad publicity that may damage its image; even relating to the treatment of animals.
Animal-cruelty scandals are myriad in Vietnam. Gangs of thieves steal dogs and sell them to restaurants. Tuan Bendixsen of Animals Asia, an NGO in Hong Kong, reckons that dog thieving for this purpose has become even more widespread in Vietnam since 2013. Neighbouring China cracked down on dog-eating in Beijing when it hosted the Olympic games in 2008, but it remains popular in some parts of the country, especially in winter when it is considered to help keep the body warm.
Cats in Vietnam are also on the back paw. In January the police seized three tons of them (see picture) as they were being smuggled from China to fill soup pots in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital. The authorities buried them, even though some were still alive. Animal lovers in Vietnam and abroad were horrified by the cats’ fate. “The anger is huge,” says Trac Thuy Mieu, an animal-rights campaigner in Ho Chi Minh City.
Foreign criticism, and the growth of a pet-owning middle-class at home, is putting pressure on the government. Along with other South-East Asian countries, Vietnam pledged in 2013, albeit non-bindingly, to stop the dog-meat trade. A draft of the nation’s first veterinary law is due for debate in May in the National Assembly, Vietnam’s legislature. It is expected to require that animals be treated humanely.
Đăng ký: Hoc tieng anh
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