Hearing of the House Foreign Relations Committee's International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight Subcommittee - Human Rights in Vietnam

Interview

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REP. LOFGREN: Thank you, Chairman Delahunt, for your gracious introduction and for holding this important hearing on the deplorable human rights situation in Vietnam. And I thank you for this opportunity to testify before the subcommittee

I've been a co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Caucus on Vietnam for many years now. And despite what the current administration has said to the contrary, the human rights situation in Vietnam is now as bad or worse than it has been in previous years, as mentioned by some of you.

President Bush gave assurances to the Congress last year that the passage of the normal trade relations with Vietnam act would strengthen human rights. You know, I voted against that, along with 160 other members of the House, which I think surprised the House leadership at the time. Unfortunately, the Vietnam permanent normal trade relations, although defeated the first time, was brought up again and passed as part of a large omnibus package.

You know, it's ironic that at the time of these trade discussions, one of my constituents, who's here today and will testify later, American citizen, Cong Phan Do (ph), was detained while vacationing in Vietnam with his family. Why? For writing pro- democracy articles on the Internet from his home in San Jose, California. He was detained without charges for more than a month. The administration was pressing to establish permanent normal trade relations with a country that was detaining one of our own for his free speech, telling the truth, while living in the United States.

Over the objection of many members, Congress approved the measure. And as we know, Vietnam joined the WTO in January. We've seen the consequences of these disastrous actions. We lost our leverage on human rights reform in Vietnam.

Vietnamese police in March of this year arrested a pair of human rights lawyers, Nguyen Van Dai and Le thi Cong Nhan, for organizing training sessions for political activists in the capital. There are many other dissidents who have been imprisoned simply for expressing their thoughts and attempting to practice their faith freely and openly.

Nguyen Van Dai has since been convicted of disseminating propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and received a five-year sentence. Le thi Cong Nhan was sentenced to four years.

A particularly troubling case was that of Le Kwuk Kwun (ph), who was arrested on March 8th, the day he returned to Vietnam from his congressionally sponsored National Endowment for Democracy fellowship in the United States. His arrest was not only a human rights violation; it was a calculated insult to America and specifically to the United States Congress. He was released days before Vietnamese President Triet met with President Bush.

On July 18th, peaceful land reform protesters assembled in Ho Chi Minh City to express their disappointment with the Vietnamese government's policy of forced government land seizures. The Vietnamese responded to these peaceful protests with overwhelming force. Approximately 1,500 police were dispatched to break up a sit- in of 1,700 peasants. Reports indicated that approximately 30 peasants were severely injured through acts of violence by the police.

I wrote to Vietnamese President Triet about this widely documented incident, and the response I received stated that -- and here I quote -- "The complainants willingly dispersed themselves, and there was no arrest or overreaction by the police." I can't say I'm surprised by the Vietnamese government's response. This is just one in a series of lies and whitewashes.

Vietnam claims it's made significant progress in allowing more freedom of religion, but it's just not true. Despite new laws that purport to allow registration of congregations and churches and a flood of applications, few have been approved for legal operation and, of course, no real progress has been made.

The litany of human rights abuses by the Vietnamese are really too many to mention here, but the United States Commission on International Religious Freedoms report gives one an idea of the breadth of targets for the Vietnamese government.

According to the report, and I quote, "The Vietnamese government continues to remain suspicious of ethnic minority religious groups such as Montagnard and Hmong Protestants and Khmer Buddhists.

Those who seek to establish independent religious organizations, such as the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, the Hoa Hao, the Cao Dai, and those it considers to pose a threat to national security or solidarity, such as Dega Protestants, individual Mennonite, Catholic, Buddhist, and church house Protestant leaders -- who else would you get? It's all religious (and faithful ?).

I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the Vietnam section of the 2007 United States Commission on International Religious Freedom report.

With all the human rights problems in Vietnam, the question we as policymakers ask is, what can we do to help? The United States has the power to influence Vietnam on these important human rights issues through the use of our many diplomatic and economic tools. But the president and Congress need to have the political will and moral courage to use them.

When the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued its yearly report, the commission made the same recommendation last year. Vietnam should be placed on the State Department's list of Countries of Particular Concern because of the government repression of many religious believers. And I believe it was a mistake, as my colleague from California has mentioned, for the administration to take Vietnam off the list.

I've written letters to the president and to Secretary Rice urging the administration to follow the recommendation of the U.S. commission and redesignate the country a country of particular concern. If they do not, perhaps we ought to legislate that.

I believe the U.S. ambassador should provide financial support to the loved ones of the political detainees using the Human Rights Defenders Fund. The wives of these political prisoners are left without any financial support. The United States has a moral commitment not just to the peaceful pro-human rights dissidents who have been imprisoned unjustly; we have a moral obligation to relieve the financial burden that these arrests cause for their families and these brave defenders of freedom. And trade, as I mentioned, is perhaps the best leverage that we have.

I don't believe the Congress and the president should have granted PNTR to Vietnam without securing further progress on human rights. And to correct that, I've introduced H. Res. 506, which states that we should remove permanent normal trade relations status with Vietnam unless all political and religious prisoners are released and significant and immediate human rights reforms are made by the government of Vietnam.

In closing, until the thugs in the Vietnamese government make real progress on human rights, I will continue to urge Congress and press this administration to stand up for the rights of the Vietnamese people to speak their minds and to practice their faith.

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence in letting me go over the five minutes. Thank you.

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REP. LOFGREN: Very briefly, I agree with what my colleagues have said. I would just note that I think that sentence in the CRS report, I think, is incorrect. And I've not seen any evidence that would support it.

I think this hearing that you all are having today is an important step in making sure that the truth actually is out in the public arena. And I appreciate your doing that. To have a relationship that's formal with a puppet communist supposed legislature, I don't think, would likely advance our cause of human rights. But I appreciate the question.

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REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): Well, I will be brief, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for letting me participate. I know because of our very long vote that we have another panel after this.

I'll just say that the testimony that we have just heard is strikingly at variance with other things that we have heard from, not only the Congress members who have visited, but others. On page seven of your testimony, you indicate that "all individuals raised by the United States as prisoners of concern for reasons connected to their faith have been released." However, there are religious figures that are still in prison. Have with just not asked -- for example, that Father Ly be released?

MR. MARCIEL: Madame Congressman that's a very good question -- and it gets to, I'm afraid, a question of splitting hairs, in effect. Father Ly was released, as you know, and then was reimprisoned.

REP. LOFGREN: Right.

MR. MARCIEL: You can argue about it but, fundamentally, he seems to be in prison for political activism, not because he's -- because of his faith as a Catholic. It doesn't make it any better. I'm not defending it at all. But it seems to be a political act that's landed him in prison.

REP. LOFGREN: And would that be -- I disagree with that, but would that be your assessment of the Buddhist leaders that are still in prison?

MR. MARCIEL: Who did you have in mind, specifically?

REP. LOFGREN: Well, we'll get some testimony on it later.

You know, rather than proceed on this, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to let my time go back so that we can hear from the other witnesses, if we could. I yield back.

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REP. LOFGREN: Well, I would just like to say something, and I -- just because the government of Vietnam has statutes to allow registration of churches, doesn't mean that they've actually allowed churches to register. I mean, it's my understanding that only about 2.5 percent of the applications have actually been approved. And so, I mean, to use the statute as evidence of anything, I think, is a big mistake. I mean, the Soviet Union had a great constitution but it didn't make them a free country. And I think we've got the same situation here.

So I -- you know, I certainly appreciate your service to our country, but I must say that I look upon your testimony with a great deal of skepticism. And it does not appear to me that it is thoroughly supported by the information that we have received from so many sources.

And I would just note, Mr. Chairman, that if there's a difference of opinion, you know, I guess that's what makes horse races and politics, but we might ask the department to ask for the release of the Buddhist leaders and Father Ly. At least an argument could be made that they are there because of their religious beliefs. And if -- if the Vietnamese government is willing to release religious prisoners, we'd ask them to let Father Ly out. I think that would be very important.

I remember, I was reminded, we had a Vietnam caucus hearing a number of years ago. Father Ly was not able to leave, but he smuggled out his testimony which was read by another person at our hearing. And as his testimony was being read in-in this building in Washington, D.C., in the U.S. Congressional hearing, the Vietnamese police went and arrested him at that very same moment to give a message to us I think in the Congress.

I think that the behavior is reprehensible, and I really don't see that we are pushing as hard as we should, honestly. And I think if-just my personal experience, when my constituent, who will be a witness on the next panel, was arrested a year ago August, one of the things that we said was, you know, if they think they are going to get PNTR while they're holding Americans in jail for what they said in America, they've got to be smoking something. This is not going to happen.

And, okay, now they have PNTR, we don't have that leverage, and I think they are thumbing their nose at the United States. And unless we come up with some-some teeth to what we're saying, that little nose-thumbing is going to continue, and the human rights situation in Vietnam is going to deteriorate.

I realize that every country is different and there is no way that we are going to-to impose an exact replica of the United States culture on many other countries. I wouldn't even suggest that. But I don't think it's wrong to say that you have to have a minimal level of human rights and religious freedom which is lacking there.

I'm very disturbed that we have taken our leverage away, and I think that we ought to take steps to regain it. And I think if we did, they would do a lot to have an economic relationship. It's a very-it's of marginal importance economically to the United States, it's of overwhelming importance to Vietnam. And I think they would do a lot if they felt that that economic relationship was threatened because of their poor behavior.

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REP. LOFGREN: Mr. Chairman, could I just say one quick concluding thing?

REP. DELAHUNT: Please.

REP. LOFGREN: Well, two quick things. First, this testimony has been very very helpful, and I appreciate that you stuck with us, and you gave us this information.

Mr. Do obviously is a heroic figure in what he went through, but someone who hasn't been mentioned who is a heroic figure is his wife, Jane, who was a tireless advocate, and I just wanted to recognize her as a very special person who will always have a warm spot in my heart, as will you, Mr. Chairman, for your courtesy and graciousness in convening this hearing. It makes a difference, and you are really a spectacular leader in human rights, and you honor us by holding this hearing.

Thank you so very much.

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