VIETNAM WAR--
NOT YET OVER FOR VIETNAMESE

(This article appeared originally, in a shorter and slightly different form, in the April 18, 1995, issue of the Christian Science Monitor under the title: "Vietnam: Open for Business but Keeping Grip on People.")

By Robert A. Senser
Even though North Vietnamese troops captured Saigon more than 20 years ago, the Vietnam war has not really ended. The leaders of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam have yet to make peace with the people of Vietnam.

It is true that the Hanoi regime, recognizing the desperate need for American dollars to prop up a sagging economy, has retreated from its hostility toward the United States. It has smoothed the way for millions of dollars in remittances from Vietnamese exiles in the United States and in Europe. It now eagerly welcomes foreign trade and investment, and since 1993, when the U.S. government stopped vetoing assistance to Hanoi, it has received $475 million in loan commitments from the World Bank. By making such adjustments to correct its economic failures, Hanoi has won wide praise for a new "openness" and for progress toward a "free market." But open for whom? And freedom for whom? Not for the people of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. They are still treated as enemies. Despite a revival of economic activities, the gap between the rich and poor is increasing, as the Far Eastern Economic Review has confirmed. Worker unrest in new industrialized enterprises has become commonplace. Making a virtue out of a necessity, the government in 1994 adopted a new labor code that seemingly legalizes the right to strike but in fact criminalizes it. By hedging in that right with impossible conditions, the law gives the government a statutory weapon against strikes whereas before it had to rely solely on the dictates of the party/government bureaucracy. At the same time the Party maintains its own, strictly enforced monopoly on labor organization and forbids workers to form unions or to take any other initiatives independent of the Party.

U.S. business people in Vietnam have formed the American Chamber of Commerce, with more than 100 member firms in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Foreigners enjoy the freedom to form their own organizations in Vietnam. Vietnamese workers do not.

That should not be surprising, since the Party maintains a rigid organizational monopoly in every area of life for ordinary Vietnamese. The Party even has its own church for Buddhists, in an effort to supplant the religion of most Vietnamese. Monks and lay leaders who defy this religious monopoly face systematic persecution. Among the Buddhists now under arrest is the Very Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, 75, patriarch of the independent (and outlawed) Unified Buddhist Church. He recently earned the Party's wrath by broadening his church's concerns beyond religious freedom. In a remarkable public declaration, he charged that the Hanoi regime "combines the very worst of Communism with the very worst of wild-cat Capitalism," and called on the Party and government to change course and promote "the development of a civil society by guaranteeing the fundamental rights to freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience and religion, and freedom of association."

The Venerable Quang is not the only dignitary in Vietnam to uphold human rights as authentic Asian values. In defiance of the regime, a leading physician, Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, in 1990 publicly issued a manifesto in Saigon asking the Politboro to "dismantle the Hanoi war machine," the security apparatus that "stifles the voice of the people," to respect the "rights of the Vietnamese citizens to be citizens and property owners." He also tried to found what he called " the Non-Violent Movement for Human Rights in Vietnam.".

As a result, Que, 54, the only known member of Amnesty International in Vietnam, is now serving a 20-year sentence in a labor camp, often in solitary confinement though he is in frail health. Pro-democracy Vietnamese and their allies will mark May 11, 1996, the sixth anniversary of the manifesto, as Vietnam Human Rights Day in ceremonies on Capitol Hill in Washington and in other cities around the world.

The State Department has pressed Hanoi for the release of Dr. Que and the Venerable Huyen Quang. But both have insisted they want freedom, not just release from imprisonment.

In the United States, despite shrill political rhetoric calling for assuming more personal responsibility instead of relying on the federal bureaucracy, many corporations are vigorously demanding governmental action to promote and subsidize their commerce with Vietnam. One proposal would qualify Vietnam as a "Most Favored Nation" of the United States; another would qualify Vietnam as beneficiary country under a foreign assistance program called the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). Both these proposals would give corporations generous tax breaks (through reduced or no tariffs) for their exports from Vietnam into the United States. Another proposal would have their businesses in Vietnam insured and financed by a U.S. government agency, the Overseas Private Investment Corp. A Republican Congressman, John R. Kasich (among others), has criticized OPIC as dispensing a form of "corporate welfare" that should be abolished.

He is right. Shouldn't those who traffick with a regime like Hanoi's do so at their own risk and without government subsidies? Might it not be appropriate for them to assume personal responsibility for their actions without running to Washington for help?

Senser, who writes on human rights issues, invites comments via
e-mail: 76470.302@compuserve.com
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Contents

[Hope and Prosperity Home Page]
[Vietnam: Land of Hope and Prosperity]
[Human Rights Development in Vietnam]
[Vietnam War: Not yet over for Vietnamese]
[Human Rights Workshop:
Burma, China, Tibet and Vietnam]
[Vietnamese Web Sites]


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