Hearing of the House Foreign Relations Committee's International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight Subcommittee - Human Rights in Vietnam
Statement
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REP. SMITH: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
REP. DELAHUNT: Just for your edification, it's anticipated we're going to have a series of votes coming imminently. So I'm going to ask you if you can -- six, seven, eight minutes, Chris. You've been known to run over, you know.
REP. SMITH: As the chairman knows, when I chaired the committee, both he and I used to have seven- and eight-hour hearings. (Laughter.)
REP. DELAHUNT: Not like Rohrabacher and myself, of course.
REP. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to associate myself with the remarks of my distinguished colleagues, both on the dais and at the witness table, and thank them, all of you. And this is a collective, truly bipartisan effort at promoting human rights and humanitarianism in Vietnam. And so thank you again for this hearing.
Mr. Chairman, during the lead-up to the House and Senate vote late last year on permanent normal trade relations, PNTR, and subsequent accession of Vietnam into the World Trade Organization with the full and robust backing of the United States, it looked as if Vietnam might, at long last, ameliorate at least some of its repressive conduct; it might mitigate at least some of its abuse of nonviolent pro-democracy dissidents, religious believers and labor union activists.
Much of that hope and expectation, however, came crashing down earlier this year as Hanoi instituted a new, sweeping, barbaric wave of arrests, beatings, bogus trials and incarcerations. Some of us had warned repeatedly that conveying enormous economic benefits to Vietnam ought to be preceded by systemic democratic reform.
For some of us, it was deja vu. Remember the U.S.-Vietnam bilateral agreement. There was no linkage to human rights reform in that agreement, an omission that has had predictable consequences, and dire consequences at that. Nor was human rights a sufficiently relevant factor for either Congress or the executive branch to require durable reform when PNTR was under consideration last December.
This past Sunday I attended a brilliant lecture by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who pointed out that while anger in the face of tyranny is justified and even necessary to combat injustice, hate, he admonished, is never moral, nor is it justified -- never.
When I've visited Vietnamese dissidents in Hanoi, Hue and Ho Chi Minh City, I have been utterly amazed by their profound lack of hate or malice towards a government that tortures and jails them. The activists only seek a better tomorrow, a Vietnamese government that comports its behavior within international human rights standards and rights, a government worthy of a proud and noble people.
Father Nguyen Van Ly recently got eight years in prison. Prominent human rights attorney Nguyen Van Dai got five years, both on ridiculous and absurd charges, an embarrassment to Vietnam, both internally as well as on the international stage. These men and many others who are in prison today seek only nonviolent transition to democracy and respect for human rights.
In my conversations with them, my take-away has been awe and profound respect at their obvious courage. And I was truly astonished by their innate goodness and kindness, the absence of hate, in the spirit of Elie Wiesel.
It is worth noting that both of these men and others who are now in prison are signers of the 8406 Human Rights Manifesto signed April 8, 2006; hence the name Block 8406. And these individuals have been singled out for jail time and crushing abuse. It is as if the government took those signers and, one by one, are hunting them down and putting them in prison.
For our part, we can't act with indifference or look the other way. So, on the one hand, I am very much encouraged that the House of Representatives gets it. Several weeks ago the House voted 414 to 3 for my bipartisan bill, H.R. 3096, the Vietnam Human Rights Act.
This is the third time I've brought that measure to the floor, and I'm extremely grateful to Chairman Tom Lantos, to you, Mr. Chairman, to Dana Rohrabacher, to Ed Royce, to my two distinguished colleagues here at the table, because all of us have joined in to push for this bill and to push for human rights in Vietnam. The vote was a substantial improvement over the tally of 323 to 45. Members of Congress are getting it. This time we only had three members who voted no.
In the Senate, however, the Vietnam Human Rights Act has been blocked from even coming to the floor on two occasions by Senator John Kerry. And on another occasion we actually had it worked out in an appropriations bill. Judd Gregg and Frank Wolf actually put it into their State Department appropriations bill. When it went to the full committee, it was blocked and was pulled out, and we lost another opportunity.
So I would respectfully ask you, Mr. Chairman, to help us this time around to encourage them to refrain from putting that hold, which is a death-knell to the bill, and let the full Senate express its will.
The Vietnam Human Rights Act, in (pertinent part ?), conditions and freezes '07 levels of certain non-humanitarian foreign aid to Vietnam unless it makes substantial progress towards releasing all political and religious prisoners from jail, house arrest and other forms of detention, as well as substantial progress towards respecting freedom of religion, returning confiscated church properties, combating human trafficking, and allowing Vietnamese nationals free and unfettered access to United States refugee programs.
The bill also authorizes funds to overcome the jamming of Radio Free Asia and to support democracy. And I would like to note here especially the great work that Ed Royce has done, extraordinary leadership on behalf of Radio Free Asia. We've got to continue those efforts. The jamming needs to be overcome.
As my colleagues know, Michael Cromartie, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, recently led a delegation to Vietnam to press for meaningful reform. Chairman Cromartie and the delegation met with Prime Minister Dung and others to urge the immediate release of Father Ly and Dai and others.
The delegation, which just returned, discussed police abuse, continuing reports of forced renunciations of religious beliefs, severe restrictions on and cruelty towards the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, as well as other reprehensible government behavior.
I would note parenthetically that, like my colleagues, I've met with the venerable Thich Quang Do and others. These are peaceful men. It just boggles the mind why Vietnam is so frightened and so afraid of men who just want to practice their faith as they see fit.
Prime Minister Dung told a delegation that he was willing to meet, quote, "with any religious leader." Oh, really? I wouldn't hold my breath. But, you know, we can have some hope. But even if such a meeting does occur, then what, more jail time if they speak out of place?
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to also draw the attention of this committee, and hopefully the Congress by extension, to a lesser-known but no less egregious human rights abuse occurring in Vietnam today, and that is the abuse of missing girls as a direct result of Vietnam's two-child-per-couple policy and sex-selection abortion.
According to a recent U.N. report, quote, "Reasons for this include pressure to adhere to the two-child-per-couple policy, with preference for sons and the ready availability of ultrasound and abortions." That, just like in China and in India, is not only gendercide, the killing of girls simply because they are girls -- and Asia is missing well over 100 million girls; China alone is probably missing 100 million girls itself -- it becomes a magnet for trafficking, for other kinds of abuse, because of this gross imbalance, plus the lost girls themselves.
And finally, Mr. Chairman, as our lengthy hearing earlier today pointed out, the Internet is now being used as a means of repression against dissidents. We call them cyber-dissidents. I met with the wife of Dr. Sung (sp) in Hanoi several months ago. I couldn't believe it. Here's a man who simply took an essay entitled "What Is Democracy?" which was posted on U.S. Embassy Hanoi's website, translated it into Vietnamese, posted it for some friends and some communist government officials, and for that he gets 13 years. Because we all spoke out, it was dropped to five. Because we continued to speak out, he now is under house arrest.
But what does that say about a regime who takes a man who simply posts an essay about democracy, yanks him off, as we saw in the Father Ly picture, and puts him into jail? When I met with his wife, she was fearful for her life. And right next door, just a couple of feet away, as we were discussing it in a Hanoi hotel, her husband's case, right next to us were these bully boys from the secret police standing up with their cameras, taking pictures of her and us meeting with her; nothing but intimidation, harassment, and just, again, an ugly insight into this barbaric regime.
Again, I thank you for holding this hearing and yield back the balance of my time.
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REP. SMITH: I would say, on an ad hoc basis, those kinds of contacts are extremely important. But if you institutionalize it, I think you run the risk of unduly legitimizing a parliament that does not have true elections, do not have candidates who run in opposition, and there's a good -- I mean, we did this with the Soviet Union. I remember having exchanges with members of the Duma before they were freely elected, and then we made it a little bit more systematic when they became truly, you know, the result of true balloting.
And we also say that the issue of corruption -- dictatorships always want to weed out corruption. It is political and fundamental human rights that they don't touch with a 10-foot pole. You know, the government wants to get its -- you know, wants corruption weeded out, of course, unless some of its players are political leaders. But you find, even in the PRC, even in North Korea, corruption campaigns are often being announced and everyone joins in.
So there you get all kinds of openness. And as John Q. Businessman or whoever gets a long prison sentence for corruption, everybody applauds. But on human rights, it's a whole different matter.
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