A bill co-authored by New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith (D-4th Dist.) and currently making its way through committees in the House of Representatives aims at prohibiting the United States from giving any non-humanitarian aid to Socialist Republic of Vietnam unless that country’s government makes strides toward increasing civil liberties.
Entitled the Vietnam Human Rights Act, the bill is meant to respond to various reports of government-sponsored religious, political and commercial oppression.
But city director of veterans’ affairs Jaime Vazquez, a Vietnam War veteran who just returned from an 11-day tour of the nation, said the legislation would severely cripple a nation that is making great strides toward improving the lives of its people.
“People keep on saying Vietnam is a totalitarian regime, but it’s not,” Vazquez said this week. “There is no limitation that I’ve been able to notice, on religious freedom and expression. There are hundreds of churches, pagodas and temples. There are even monks [walking freely] on the street.”
But others in the United States remain unconvinced. News reports have streamed out of Vietnam in the past 15 years that have told the world sordid tales of unfair imprisonment, deplorable prison conditions, tightly controlled access to information and administratively-placed roadblocks that make independently-formed religious or political citizens’ groups virtually impossible to organize.
“Vietnam is a government that consistently employs a policy of harassment, discrimination, intimidation, and – increasingly in the last three years – imprisonment and other forms of detention against those who peacefully express opposition to Hanoi’s extreme policies against religion and freedom,” Rep. Smith said in a release. “This is a government that punishes not just individuals who oppose it, but also often their family members.”
Added Smith, “The Vietnam Human Rights Act will impose significant penalties on the dictators in Hanoi for their ongoing and egregious persecution of their own people. What this bill is all about is standing with the oppressed rather than the oppressor.”
On the record
The ruling government of Vietnam, however, insists through the exposition of demographic data that its human rights record is practically impeccable. Currently controlled by the Communist Party of Vietnam [CPV], the government maintains that its laws and constitution protect civil liberties more vigorously than other developing countries, including the United States.
“While the United States has still not passed an equal rights amendment, gender equality is enshrined in both Vietnam’s constitution and laws,” said a document issued by the Vietnamese Embassy in the United States. “The Constitution ensures ethnic equality among the 53 groups that make up Vietnam. Institutionalized racism does not exist.”
In regards to freedom of political expression, Vietnam says the existence of more than 650 daily newspapers, weekly or monthly magazines and journals with an annual circulation of more than 600 million is adequate enough proof the nation fosters intellectual freedom. About 70 radio stations and 68 television stations exist in the country, with an approximate average of 85 percent of households having access to either. The embassy document makes no mention of the ownership of these media outlets.
“It’s a quickly developing country,” Jersey City’s Vazquez said. “It’s a market economy. There are people selling, buying and competing all over. And I saw more police at a nightclub than I did on the streets. People are not followed. When I was on my own, I was really on my own.”
Added Vazquez, “Part of the problem is that people over here are being influenced by Vietnamese expatriates who are critical of the [current] Vietnamese government. It’s the same as Cuba.” Vietnamese expatriates have no first-hand knowledge of how far the country has come since they left, he added.
The majority of complaints and instances of government-sponsored repression date before the year 2000, the year in which the Vietnamese government freed many political and religious dissidents in its largest ever amnesty effort.
On April 30, 2000, Vietnam released 12,264 prisoners to commemorate the reunification of the country and a further 10,693 on National Day on Sept. 2. In addition, a new contract with a United States-based internet service provider coincides with an explosion in the number of citizens with access to the Internet. Vietnam’s annual Internet user growth rate is 250 percent, the highest in the world. Vietnam also liberalized its small business laws two years ago, causing the number of small, independently-owned businesses to balloon.
“They’re moving in the right direction,” Vazquez said. “This new law will hinder their progress in the right direction. There’s an activity, a vibrancy, among these people. And they live under the most inconspicuous government I’ve ever seen. You don’t see police with AK-47s or people being routed. It just doesn’t exist.”
Vazquez will appear before the House Committee on International Relations to testify within the next few weeks.