Former POW Mike Benge and local community activist Wattana Bounthong, a spokesperson of Lao descent, addressed the question of how the Nine Commentaries applied widely to Southeast Asia, reaching beyond China. Bounthong cited the opening lecture of the Nine Commentaries, while explaining the impact that this book can have, worldwide: "The CCP [i.e., Chinese Communist Party] has close connections with the world's most brutal revolutionary armed forces and despotic regimes. In addition to the Khmer Rouge, these include the communist parties in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Burma, Laos, and Nepal—all of which were established under the support of the CCP. Many leaders in these communist parties are Chinese; some of them are still hiding in China to this day."

Bounthong said that, as the Nine Commentaries has brought over 6 million withdrawals from the Chinese Communist Party, the spread of the Nine Commentaries in Vietnamese will provide great support for those in Vietnam, Cambodia, and in his home country of Laos.

American POW relates his experience of communist rule

American Mike Benge spoke of how the Vietnamese Communist Party was largely controlling the governments of both Laos and Cambodia. He told the story of a Laos general who had attended a meeting in Hanoi, last year. The general took the opportunity to express dissent with the Vietnamese Communist directives. He was carried out of the meeting, dead, with the announcement that he had suffered a heart attack.

Speaking Vietnamese, with apologies for his pronunciation, Benge shared that in Vietnam there is a saying among the young people, which comprise a vast majority of the population, "When the old men die off, we'll have liberation [from communism]". Benge mentioned that along with the efforts of the younger generation, religion, economics, and democratic forces outside of the country--information was a key element greatly needed to bring an end to communism in Vietnam. He lifted up the Nine Commentaries for the participants of the press conference to see, "Hopefully, this can provide some very important information if we can get this inside of Vietnam."

Benge expressed that the great amount of work in this direction lay in the hands of the Vietnamese from outside of Vietnam who are able to reach those Vietnamese who are still behind the censorship and terror of communism in the Vietnam Socialist Republic (VSR). He urged a need for more work to be done, including the spread of the Vietnamese translation of the Nine Commentaries—the CuuBinh--in Southeast Asia.

Benge further asserted that the Nine Commentaries' English translation provides information greatly needed by the policy-makers and business leaders in North America. He cites how many people in the West spoke of communism as having disintegrated with the fall of the Soviet communist bloc, while that is not actually the case. Listing the many remaining communist countries in addition to China, Benge illustrated how the "free" countries as we know them have become complicit nurturers of the communist states, providing technology and trade which is used to fund communist policies of widespread human rights abuse.

Benge, who was a prisoner of war for 5 years in Vietnam, mentioned how Google search engines in Vietnam block key words such as "democracy" and "religion." "These are Americans," Benge reveals, corroborating the work of others to unveil this issue. "These are our companies here in the U.S., working with the communists to maintain power." At this point, Benge explained that the official religion of communist states is communism, itself—a political religion requiring fervent belief and sacrifice. Because all traditional religions and spiritual beliefs threaten the "constructed, political religion of communism," communist societies are in opposition to any other beliefs and forcefully seek to eradicate them, no matter how peaceful the nature of these traditional religious and spiritual beliefs—or how deeply held they are by the people. Such an unfortunate situation is also described in detail in the Nine Commentaries; Benge has independently corroborated this through his own experience, and has been seeking to let others know this through speaking out in Washington.

Speaking candidly afterwards, Benge expressed his concern for the Hmong Protestants, a minority group in the northern highlands which effectively utilized protests to oust a communist Vietnamese leader in 2001. At this time, he said, armed soldiers are deployed during the holiday season to keep the Hmong from celebrating their Christian beliefs.

Support from Government of Laos Abroad

Three Co-Prime Ministers of the Government of Laos Abroad, Dr. William K. Bouarouy, Mr. Jack Boungnasiri, and Mr. Kossadary Phimmasone, expressed their support for the Vietnamese Nine Commentary Forum through phone calls; they also expressed a wish to join, in person, a Nine Commentary discussion in the future. In a letter of salutation, 1st Prime Minister Dr. Bouarouy wrote, "On behalf of the Government of Laos Abroad, (GLA) would like to congratulate you and your team to conduct this activity. I am writing this letter in support of the Nine Commentary Forum on the future of China, Southeast Asia, and the world at George Mason University, Arlington, Virginia, on Saturday, December 17th, 2005." Dr. Bouaroy added, "Now is the time to announce to the CCP to know that the communism will disintegrate, everywhere around the world."