[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CONTINUING REPRESSION BY THE
VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENT
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 4, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-70
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
TED POE, Texas GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MATT SALMON, Arizona THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
MO BROOKS, Alabama DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
TOM COTTON, Arkansas ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
PAUL COOK, California JUAN VARGAS, California
GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania Massachusetts
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
TREY RADEL, Florida GRACE MENG, New York
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
TED S. YOHO, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
LUKE MESSER, Indiana
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Anh ``Joseph'' Cao (former Member of Congress)..... 6
Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D., executive director, Boat People SOS.... 16
Ms. Holly Ngo, victim of property confiscation................... 27
The Venerable Danh Tol, victim of religious persecution.......... 33
Mr. John Sifton, Asia Advocacy director, Human Rights Watch...... 51
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Anh ``Joseph'' Cao: Prepared statement............. 10
Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D.: Prepared statement..................... 19
Ms. Holly Ngo: Prepared statement................................ 29
The Venerable Danh Tol: Prepared statement....................... 35
Mr. John Sifton: Prepared statement.............................. 54
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 78
Hearing minutes.................................................. 79
Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D.: Material submitted for the record...... 80
CONTINUING REPRESSION BY THE VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENT
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:46 p.m., in
room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H.
Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The hearing will come to order and good
afternoon to everyone.
I do apologize for starting late. We had a series of
hearings on the floor which made it impossible for all of us to
be here, so thank you for your patience.
I would like to begin by recognizing the many distinguished
leaders who are joining us in conjunction with the Vietnamese-
American Meetup.
Many thanks to all of you for taking the time to come to
Washington, to meet with your representatives here in Congress
and for joining us here for this hearing that will look at some
of the many human rights abuses being committed by the
Vietnamese Government.
This is the second hearing held by this subcommittee, which
handles human rights, on Vietnam this year. We'll be taking a
greater in-depth examination of some of the fundamental human
rights violations that we discussed at our first hearing in
April, particularly land confiscations in the context of
religious and ethnic persecution.
Although the relationship between the United States and
Vietnam improved substantially in 1995 when relations were
normalized, the human rights situation in Vietnam did not
improve.
As the U.S. has upgraded Vietnam's trade status, the
Vietnamese Government has continued to violate a wide range of
fundamental human rights. To cite just one example, despite the
State Department's decision in 2006 to remove Vietnam from the
list of Countries of Particular Concern, or CPC, as designated
pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act, Vietnam
continues to be among the worst violators of religious freedom
in the world.
According to the United States Commission for International
Religious Freedom's 2012 annual report,
``The Government of Vietnam continues to control all
religious communities, restrict and penalize
independent religious practices severely, and repress
individuals and groups viewed as challenging its
authority.''
The commission concludes that Vietnam should be designated
a CPC country. It appears that the State Department decided to
allow political considerations to trump the facts and the
brutality of Vietnam's record of religious persecution.
In the department's latest International Religious Freedom
report that was released on May 20th, Vietnam once again was a
glaring omission in the list of Countries of Particular
Concern.
Compared to the disturbing clarity of the U.S. Commission
on International Religious Freedom report, or USCIRF, the State
Department's description of the state of religious freedom in
Vietnam is a whitewash and an extreme disservice to the truth
about the religious persecution that is prevalent in that
country.
I repeat my past appeals to the administration to follow
the letter as well as the spirit of the International Religious
Freedom Act and hold Vietnam to account as a Country of
Particular Concern.
I met courageous religious leaders during my last trip to
Vietnam who were struggling for fundamental human rights in
their country. Unfortunately, many of them, including Father Ly
and the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, remain wrongly detained
today.
There are disturbing reports that Father Ly is suffering
poor health. Leaders of religious organizations are not the
only ones victimized by the Vietnamese Government on account of
their faith. Individuals in small communities are also targeted
by the regime.
Witnesses and experts at our past hearings have recounted
the brutality suffered in 2010 by Con Dau parishioners at the
hands of police in the course of a funeral procession.
This persecution continues to this day in response to the
villagers' opposition to the illegal and unjust confiscation of
their land.
Today's hearing will take a closer examination of ethnic
and religious persecution in Vietnam, particularly through the
government's practice of confiscating land. The government has
unlawfully taken property belonging to families that include
many Vietnamese-Americans.
Not only is land forcibly taken but any compensation
provided by the government is far below the fair market value.
If the rightful owners do not accept what is offered or show
resistance, security forces are dispatched to overwhelm any
opposition and brutally suppress them.
The arbitrary taking of real property not only violates the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights but even Vietnam's own
domestic laws. To address this and numerous other violations of
human rights by the Vietnamese regime, I have reintroduced the
Vietnam Human Rights Act, H.R. 1897.
This legislation, co-sponsored by a large number of members
including our chairman, Chairman Royce, and members of the
bipartisan Congressional Vietnam Caucus, has been reported out
of this subcommittee and is awaiting consideration, hopefully
soon, by the full committee.
This legislation seeks to promote freedom and democracy in
Vietnam by stipulating that the United States can increase its
nonhumanitarian assistance to Vietnam above the 2012 levels
only when the President certifies that the Government of
Vietnam has made substantial progress in establishing democracy
and promoting human rights including respecting freedom of
religion and releasing all religious prisoners, respecting
rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association,
releasing all political prisoners, independent journalists and
labor activists, repealing and revising laws that criminalize
peaceful dissent, independent media, unsanctioned religious
activity and nonviolent demonstrations in accordance with
international human rights standards, respecting the human
rights of members of all ethnic groups, and taking all
appropriate steps including prosecution of government officials
who have any complicity in human trafficking.
It also calls on the administration to redesignate Vietnam
as a Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom and
takes measures to overcome the Vietnamese Government's jamming
of Radio Free Asia and oppose Vietnam's membership on the U.N.
Human Rights Council which will be voted on this fall.
It also seeks to help those who have been denied the access
to our refugee programs, many of whom, because of corruption,
never got the break that they were entitled to.
We are fortunate, again, to have a distinguished panel of
witnesses here today to discuss these critical issues. I, and I
know my colleagues, look forward to their testimony.
I yield to my friend and colleague, the ranking member, Ms.
Bass.
Ms. Bass. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In April, we previously held a hearing on Vietnam and the
many human rights challenges faced by the Vietnamese people.
In my remarks from that day, I noted that while there have
been some advances in the government's crackdown on various
freedoms, this is no means widespread.
Human rights organizations including those that have
presented to this committee in the past and those that are here
today continue to document the full extent of the government's
efforts to undermine and trample on the rights of its citizens.
Mr. Chairman, I wish to yield my remaining time to open to
my colleague, Representative Alan Lowenthal, who has a large
constituency of Vietnamese.
Mr. Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Ranking
Member Bass, for allowing me to address the subcommittee on
this very important issue today.
First, I want to begin by thanking all the distinguished--
all the members of this distinguished panel who are testifying
before us today. Congressman Joseph Cao, it is an honor to see
you again.
I last saw you at the last hearing and I commend your
dedication to upholding human rights in Vietnam, both in and
out of Congress, and I'm happy, again, as I mentioned to see
you once again before this committee.
Ms. Holly Ngo, thank you for coming from all the way from
Garden Grove, which is part of my district, to highlight the
very, very important issue of the expropriation of property in
Vietnam by the Vietnamese Government, an issue that affects
literally thousands of Vietnamese-Americans.
It's really the dedication of all of you on this panel and
all of us that are in this room that continue to shine a
spotlight on human rights violations in Vietnam and pressure
the Government of Vietnam to put an end to these violations.
This past weekend I hosted the United States Ambassador to
Vietnam, Mr. David Shear, at a town hall meeting in my
district. My meetings with Ambassador Shear reassured me that
the United States continues its commitment to human rights
improvements in Vietnam.
Meanwhile, I'm also very much reminded by my constituents
how important this issue is to them. I'm inspired--you know,
one of the things it's not just those that were boat people who
escaped from Vietnam but I am very inspired by the thousands of
young Vietnamese-Americans who were born and raised in the
United States who wish to fight for freedom and democracy in
the land of their parents and their grandparents. I find that
very, very important and impressive to hear that commitment.
But, sadly, we hear today that human rights violations in
Vietnam continue. They continue to increase as the government
targets groups that include students, religious leaders, ethnic
minorities, democracy activists and even United States citizens
who offer their help are targeted.
The United States and Vietnam in recent years have become
closer trading partners and both have benefited from the
increasing economic ties between our countries.
As the people of Vietnam enjoy the benefits of our shared
prosperity, the Vietnamese Government should also join us in
recognizing the freedom and rights of every human being.
As we continue to negotiate the Trans Pacific Partnership
and we continue further economic ties with Vietnam, I believe
we must insist that the government in Vietnam improve its
record on human rights violations.
We must work together to build a lasting relationship with
Vietnam that is based upon respect for the basic freedoms for
all, and I yield back my time and thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much.
Mr. Meadows.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
being with us today. Some of you, welcome back. It's good to
see you again and certainly as we look at Vietnam it is, one, a
large trading partner of the United States. It's growing larger
by the day.
Obviously, the Vietnamese Government has been very involved
in ongoing negotiations over the Trans Pacific Partnership,
TPP, and is also applying to be a recipient of the Generalized
System of Preferences.
The United States is already Vietnam's largest export
market. Both the TPP and the GSP status would grow that
relationship. But there are certain standards that we require
of countries who want our business and we must ensure that
Vietnam is living up to those standards.
Vietnam is still a nonmarket economy with a large number of
state-owned enterprises, as we've heard here before, and we
also heard here in testimony before this subcommittee we've
heard about Vietnam officials that have worked to keep
international human trafficking rings operational, something
that we cannot tolerate.
Ethnic and religious minorities still face persecution on a
regular basis. Vietnam claims actual ownership of all land and
land confiscation is often used to play favorites.
We cannot move forward with a GSP status as long as these
issues are unsettled and Vietnam is unwilling to seriously
address human rights issues and I look forward to hearing your
testimony on how we can do that.
And with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much and welcome to Mr. Stockman.
I'd like to now introduce our distinguished panelists,
beginning first with Congressman Anh Cao, who was born in
Vietnam at the age of eight, was able to escape to the United
States with his siblings.
After learning English he did well in school and earned an
undergraduate and Master's degree before teaching philosophy
and ethics in New Orleans. Congressman Cao went on to earn his
law degree and work for Boat People SOS to help poor Vietnamese
and other minorities.
He lost his home and office in Hurricane Katrina but helped
lead his community as it started to rebuild. In 2008, he became
the first Vietnamese-American elected to the U.S. Congress
representing Louisiana's Second Congressional District, and I
can say having worked so closely with him that he is and was
then as a Member of Congress an outstanding champion of human
rights. So welcome back, Congressman Cao.
We'll then hear from Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang, who came to the
United States as a refugee from Vietnam in 1979. After earning
his Ph.D. he began volunteering with Boat People SOS in 1988.
Now serving as the head of Boat People SOS, Dr. Thang has
worked for the past 25 years on virtually every human rights
issue as it relates to Vietnam but especially on the resettling
and helping to gain access to the U.S. tens of thousands of
boat people and other refugees who escaped from Vietnam.
And I can say parenthetically that when the Clinton
administration wanted to send back and close the CPA, the
Comprehensive Plan of Action, and say they're all going back
there, they're economic migrants, they're not true refugees, it
was Dr. Thang who came to this committee and to me and to my
staff, Ambassador Joseph Rees and said we believe that tens of
thousands of true refugees have been improperly screened out
and are going back to new economic zones or to the gulag and
will be mistreated. He said that they need to be re-reviewed
and reassessed because they are refugees. As a result of his
intervention we held four hearings in my committee.
I offered an amendment that said no money of the U.S. will
be used to forcibly repatriate any of those 40,000. The
administration agreed and sent U.S. adjudicators and Embassy
folks to refugee people to reevaluate and 20,000 plus people
came to the United States, and it's all become of Dr. Thang. So
thank you so very much for that. He's also the leader on
fighting human trafficking.
We'll then hear from the Venerable Danh Tol, who was born
in 1981 in Vietnam and became a Buddhist monk in 1996. He
continued his Buddhist education until '07 when he led a
peaceful demonstration to demand religious freedom.
For leading this demonstration he was jailed and he was
tortured until he was released almost 2 years later following
pressure from the international community.
After his release he was granted refugee status and
resettled abroad. Since 2010, he has met with many human rights
organizations to speak about religious persecution and
especially against the Khmer Krom indigenous people. Welcome to
the Venerable Danh Tol.
We'll then hear from Ms. Holly Ngo, who escaped from
Vietnam by boat and arrived in the Philippines in 1978. In
1980, she joined her mother and other family members in the
United States, went on to earn a Master's degree in 1990.
She has been an IT professional for 27 years and has done
volunteer work in the local Vietnamese community in Southern
California. Recently, she joined the fight against human
trafficking of Vietnamese to various countries and we certainly
welcome that important advocacy.
Her family was a victim of multiple waves and forms of
property confiscation by the Government of Vietnam.
Then we'll hear from Mr. John Sifton, who is the Advocacy
Director for Asia at Human Rights Watch where he focuses on
South and Southeast Asia.
He has extensive experience doing international human
rights work with a focus on Asia, but he has also worked on
issues related to human trafficking, terrorism as well as
refugees.
Mr. Sifton has travelled to Vietnam where he has
investigated the human rights situation and other developments
and written extensively about that.
He works with a wide range of government officials from
many countries to provide policy advice and raise awareness of
Vietnam's human rights record. Mr. Sifton, welcome to you as
well.
I'd like to now go to Congressman Cao. He is recognized.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO (FORMER MEMBER OF
CONGRESS)
Mr. Cao. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass and esteemed
members of the subcommittee, again I would like to thank you
all for your interest and for you all being the voice of the
Vietnamese-American community here in the United States.
As you all know, the history of Vietnam and the history of
Vietnamese-Americans is a history bathed in tears, a history of
unbearable suffering but also a history with a proclamation Of
hope.
April 30, 1975, was the day of infamy for the millions of
Vietnamese whose future was dashed when their freedom was
extinguished by the brutal assault on South Vietnam by
Communist forces in blatant violation of the 1973 Paris Peace
Accord.
Having known or faced Communist cruelty, thousands of
Vietnamese left their homes and family, climbing and clambering
over one another to fight for space on that last plane, on that
last boat to escape imminent atrocities.
What transpired in Vietnam after the Communist takeover
could only be described by analogously linking the tragedy of
Vietnam to such unconscionable events in human history as the
Holocaust, the Killing Fields and the Great Purge.
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the Communist
government arrested and forcefully detained hundreds of
thousands of former military personnel who were loyal to the
Republic of South Vietnam and threw them into Nazi-style
concentration camps along with thousands of political
dissidents.
Viewing religion as an existential threat to Communist
orthodoxy, churches and temples were shut down and religious
leaders were arrested and sent to prison like common criminals.
Economic policy lacking scientific and philosophic
justification were implemented with devastating effects as
countless of thousands were evicted from their homes and sent
to the new economic zones where many died of malaria and other
deadly diseases.
Facing starvation from ill-conceived economic policies,
over 1 million Vietnamese left their home and country and set
sail for the high seas, facing pirates, storms and death to
seek freedom and a new future in foreign lands.
It is estimated that over 300,000 of these boat people
perished in the oceans of the world. However, many successfully
escaped and resettled in the United States. Through the
generosity of the U.S. Government and its people, hundreds of
thousands of Vietnamese were able to adjust to a new culture
and become productive citizens.
I am one of the many thousands who benefited from this
generosity. I can recall very vividly and endearingly an
elderly couple in Goshen, Indiana, who I would come to call
Mamoo and Papoo, driving me to school, taking me to shopping
and buying me my very first snow sled.
I along with thousands of Vietnamese became U.S. citizens
for one simple reason--to defend the Constitution of the United
States and in return be defended by the same Constitution.
Vietnamese-Americans now invoke this Constitution and
respectfully request this Congress to protect them against the
illegal expropriation of the land left behind when they fled
the evils of Communism.
Mr. Chairman, to make the story short, on April 4, 1977,
the Communist Republic of Vietnam, SRV, issued an executive
order placing the properties of Vietnamese who fled Vietnam
under temporary state administration.
Then in 1980, the SRV declared through its constitution
that land belongs to the entire people with the state as the
representative owner, thereby declaring in principle its policy
to nationalize all land.
On December 29, 1987, the National Assembly proclamated
Vietnam's land law to implement this new policy, placing all
land under the people's collective ownership and the
government's administration.
On July 14, 1993, the Vietnamese National Assembly passed a
new land law declaring that the government shall not return
land expropriated to its rightful owners once that land has
been assigned to other entities.
This law, however, affected only Vietnamese nationals. Not
until 2003 did the National Assembly pass a resolution that
allowed the state to expropriate land of Vietnamese-Americans.
The 2003 land law authorized the Vietnamese Government to
spurn any claim for the return of land already placed under the
state administration prior to July 1, 1991. This land law
officially completed the process of nationalizing all land and
housing under the administration of the state.
Mr. Chairman and esteemed members of the subcommittee,
Congress has been very clear in its intent that the United
States shall not provide assistance to governments that have
violated the rights of U.S. citizens.
The Trade Act of 1974 requires that a beneficiary of the
Generalized System of Preferences may not have nationalized,
expropriated or otherwise seized properties of U.S. citizens or
corporations without providing or taking steps to provide
prompt, adequate and effective compensation or submitting such
issues to a mutually agreed forum for arbitration.
22 USC Section 2370 is explicit in this prohibition against
the granting of assistance to countries that have nationalized,
expropriated or seized property of U.S. citizens, especially
countries with Communist ties.
The statute mandates in pertinent parts that the President
shall suspend assistance to the government of any country to
which assistance is provided under this chapter or any other
act when the government of such country or any government
agency or subdivision within such country on or after January
1, 1962, has nationalized or expropriated or seized ownership
or control of property owned by any United States citizen.
And in the statute itself it explicitly mentions the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam as one of the countries that
assistance shall not be provided.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Bass and esteemed members of
the subcommittee, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has failed
to take appropriate steps to discharge its obligations under
widely accepted general principle of international law to fully
compensate Vietnamese-Americans for properties unlawfully
nationalized or expropriated.
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has failed to foster the
establishment of any genuinely democratic system and respect
for internationally recognized human rights including the right
to own property, the right to political speech and expressions,
the right to freely practice any religion or belief and the
right to life.
Instead of improving its human rights record, Vietnam has
increased its repression of democratic ideals since obtaining
its entry into the World Trade Organization in 2007.
Its repression and aggression have been the greatest
against religious institutions. As part of this wave of
repression, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has aggressively
expropriated land from religious communities including the
Catholics, the Montagnard Protestants, the Hmong Protestants
and the Khmer Krom Buddhists.
The case of Con Dau Parish that the chairman is very
familiar with illustrates the Vietnamese Government's policy of
wiping out an entire Catholic parish through expropriation of
farm land, cemetery plots and residential homes of
parishioners.
On May 4, 2010, the authorities even prohibited the burial
of a 93-year-old parishioner in the parish cemetery. To make
their act even more heinous, as parishioners proceeded with the
funeral the police attacked them brutally, causing injuries to
over 100 parishioners including the elderly and children.
The police arrested 62 people and tortured them for days
during detention, killing one of the detainees.
Mr. Chairman and esteemed members of this subcommittee, the
U.S. Government should not be complicit in the repression of
democratic ideals in Vietnam. This government should not be
complicit in the Vietnamese Government's infringement on the
rights of U.S. citizens.
We therefore request that this Congress to do the
following. One, demand the administration to stop all
assistance to Vietnam as required by law, not ratify any trade
agreements with Vietnam until Vietnam shows concrete
improvements in the promotion of democracy and religious
freedom for its people and adequately compensate U.S. citizens
for the land that they illegally expropriated, and three, pass
the Vietnam Human Rights Act and the Vietnam Sanctions Act.
Again, I would like to thank the chairman, Ranking Member
Bass and this subcommittee for providing me the opportunity to
testify.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cao follows:]
----------
Mr. Smith. Congressman Cao, thank you very much for your
testimony.
Dr. Thang.
STATEMENT OF NGUYEN DINH THANG, PH.D., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BOAT
PEOPLE SOS
Mr. Thang. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, Congressman
Meadows, Congressman Lowenthal and other distinguished members
of this subcommittee, from cities across America today some 800
of us, Vietnamese-Americans, gather in the halls of Congress to
demand human rights for the 90 million Vietnamese people in
Vietnam, our loved ones and also for the hundred of thousands
of U.S. citizens that have been affected--that is, ourselves
here in America.
Confiscation of land has been used by the Government of
Vietnam as a tool for corruption and also to repress the
independent churches.
However, it's a little known fact that over the past 38
years the Vietnamese Government has also violated the rights
and interests of U.S. citizens by illegally confiscating land,
real estate and other properties of up to \1/2\ million U.S.
citizens of Vietnamese origin.
We estimate the total amount of compensations owed by the
Vietnamese Government to be between 50-100 billion U.S.
dollars.
Many of the victims, ardent U.S. citizens, are here in the
audience. In 1975 and ensuing years, the Communist Government
of Vietnam occupied land and homes left vacant by those who
left the country in the face of persecution.
However, the government only nationalized these lands and
homes in November 2003 under a resolution already mentioned by
Congressman Cao.
But by that time, some 600,000 Vietnamese refugees in the
U.S. had already become naturalized U.S. citizens.
So essentially that new law, that resolution, nationalized
the properties of U.S. citizens. This confiscation of the
properties of U.S. citizens continues to this day.
For example, in the same case of Con Dau referred to by
Congressman Cao in Da Nang City the government has used force
to evict the parishioners in order to take over their lands and
homes, some of which belonged to U.S. citizens through
inheritance.
Right at this moment as we speak, government workers
escorted by the police are about to bulldoze their ancestral
home that belong to Vietnamese-Americans present in this
audience. I have here a picture of the bulldozer escorted by
the police right now in Vietnam.
With the chairman's permission, I also would like to
include for the hearing's record the report by the Association
of Con Dau Parishioners that has been submitted to the U.N.
Human Rights Council for the UPR review of Vietnam.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Thang. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
U.S. laws are very clear toward a government--from
governments that confiscates the properties of U.S. citizens.
The Federal Claims Settlement Commission has the responsibility
to adjudicate claims of U.S. citizens against foreign
governments.
The Foreign Assistance Act stipulates that the President
shall suspend all assistance to a country the government of
which has appropriated the properties of U.S. citizens and the
U.S. Government shall vote against loans to that government
from international financial institutions such as the World
Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
The Trade Act already mentioned by Congressman Cao bars the
U.S. President of according GSP to a foreign government that
has nationalized, expropriated or otherwise seized properties
of U.S. citizens or corporations.
I have personally helped numerous Vietnamese-Americans,
including my own parents, to write to the State Department's
Legal Adviser's office.
In response, this office has provided a list of law offices
in Vietnam and told claimants to contact--verbatim to contact
and hire an attorney in Vietnam to help pursue any rights and
remedies that you may have with regard to your property under
domestic law in the local jurisdiction. We expected a lot more
from own government.
I have also helped these same Vietnamese-Americans to write
to the U.S. Trade Representative asking him to include
compensations for confiscated properties of U.S. citizens as
part of the ongoing trade negotiations with Vietnam including
the TPP.
According to the USTR's response, again verbatim, the
United States has a broad and multifaceted relationship with
Vietnam. Vietnam's participation with us on a range of trade
initiatives creates significant new possibilities for U.S.
exporters.
No mention about the properties of thousands--tens of
thousands and potentially hundreds of thousands of U.S.
citizens that have been confiscated illegally by the Vietnamese
Government.
And last August, our organization, BPSOS, launched an
online petition using the White House's We The People Web site,
calling on our own President to defend the rights and
properties of U.S. citizens of Vietnamese origin.
No response so far after 10 months. It is understandable
why our administration has not taken an interest in defending
the rights and properties of U.S. citizens of Vietnamese
origin. Doing so might derail its policy of strategic
engagements with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
I therefore would like to call on Congress through this
committee, subcommittee, to one--number one, request that the
USTR includes immediately in the TPP negotiations with Vietnam
our Government's demand that the Vietnamese Government must,
first, agree to pay compensations for all affected U.S.
citizens including those of Vietnamese origin; to request of
the Legal Adviser's office at the State Department to espouse
the claims of U.S. citizens against the Vietnamese Government;
to negotiate with that government's terms of settlements and
demand the suspension of all land expropriations from now on,
at least temporarily, throughout the country until a process is
in place to ensure that no properties of U.S. citizens will be
further expropriated without due and fair compensations.
We call on the President to immediately suspend all
assistance to Vietnam pending the results of such negotiations.
We also call on Congress to authorize the U.S. Federal Claims
Settlements Commission to start adjudicating claims by
Vietnamese-Americans against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,
and finally, to commission the GAO, the General Accountability
Office to study the different forms of confiscation of
properties employed by the Vietnamese Government over the past
38 years and also to assess the respective impact on U.S.
citizens.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thang follows:]
----------
Mr. Smith. Dr. Thang, thank you so very much.
Ms. Ngo.
STATEMENT OF MS. HOLLY NGO, VICTIM OF PROPERTY CONFISCATION
Ms. Ngo. Mr. Chairman Smith and members of the committee,
thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of my family and
many other Vietnamese-American families that are similarly
situated.
My name is Holly Ngo. I escaped from Vietnam by boat in
December 1978 and arrived at a refugee camp in the Philippines.
I was resettled as a refugee to France in 1979 and stayed in
Paris until September 1980.
I then joined my family in the U.S. in October 1980 and
became a U.S. citizen in 1985. I live in Garden Grove,
California, and I'm currently working for Avery Dennison in
Brea, California, as a senior Peoplesoft technical developer.
My mother, Kim Hoang, fled Vietnam by boat in May 1979 and
stayed in a refugee camp in Malaysia. She arrived in the U.S.
in 1980. She acquired U.S. citizenship in September 1996.
My father stayed behind in Vietnam until 1991 and he joined
our family in the U.S. in 1991 and became a U.S. citizen in
January 2000.
On behalf of our family, I am seeking congressional
intervention in the matter that affects our family and many
Vietnamese-Americans.
In 1979, one of our houses was placed under state
management because we did not live in the house. In 2003, the
Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam nationalized
our land and our house and this is the English translation of
the title of our real property in Vietnam.
This is the bill of sale in 1970 and this is worth at least
800,000 U.S. dollars now in Vietnam.
In 1977, the Vietnamese Government forced my family to
deposit 2.384 kilograms of gold at the National Bank. They have
not returned that gold, which is worth at least $135,882 at the
present market value, and this is the receipt of our deposit
dated February 1, 1977. This is the original.
In other words, the Vietnamese Government is unlawfully
withholding access of U.S. citizen with no intention to return
it. And my parents also has a second house in Vietnam.
When my father sold it in 1990 to migrate to the U.S. the
government kept 50 percent of the sale proceeds because my
mother was in the U.S. at that time.
They said they kept it for my mother but they never
returned the money to her and at that time it was approximately
5,000 U.S. dollars in 1990 and this is the receipt. As I said,
they kept 50 percent for my mother.
On September 10, 2012, I sent a letter to Senator Barbara
Boxer, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez,
Ambassador Ron Kirk of the Office of the United States Trade
Representative, and Mr. Hongju Koh, the Legal Adviser of the
Department of State, to ask them to raise this issue to the
Vietnamese Government at every possible occasion encouraging
the Vietnamese Government to send delegation to meet with our
family and our legal counsel to discuss the return or the fair
compensation of our property.
I believe that my mother's claim met all the three standard
criteria that the Department of State used to assess the merit
of similar claims. I have spent the past decade to seek local
remedy.
The Vietnamese Government will not entertain any claim for
the return of land or residential housing already placed under
statement management such as the case of our family.
U.S. law is very clear that when a foreign nation
expropriates property of a U.S. citizen the Foreign Assistance
Act of 1961 stipulates that the President shall suspend all
assistance to a country the government of which has
expropriated the property of a U.S. citizen and the U.S.
Government will vote against loan to that government from
international financial institutions.
Congress is in the position to demand that our State
Department apply U.S. law passed by Congress. Please forward
our case and the case of so many other Vietnamese-Americans to
the Legal Adviser for the Department of State and the U.S.
Trade Representative and ask them, number one, what are their
procedure and criteria they would use to assess the merit of
our claim against the Vietnamese Government; number two, what
is the threshold to apply the Trade Act of 1974 regarding not
granting the Generalized System of Preference to the government
that has expropriated property of a U.S. citizen; number three,
what is the threshold to apply the Foreign Assistance Act of
1961 regarding the suspension of foreign assistance to a
government that has expropriated property of a U.S. citizen.
I know that the Clinton administration intervened on behalf
of an American and successfully secured of U.S. dollars like
$200 million in compensation for an American whose property has
been expropriated by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
We expect the Obama administration to show the same
treatment toward Americans of Vietnamese origin and we expect
equal protection of rights and property of all Americans.
However, this is not the case.
I therefore am very grateful for this opportunity to appeal
to our Congress to do what is right to protect the rights and
the property of the U.S. citizen.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ngo follows:]
----------
Mr. Smith. Ms. Ngo, thank you very much for your testimony
and for asking such pertinent questions of the U.S. Department
of State and of the administration.
I think such a violation of your rights and the rights of
your mother, as you pointed out, cannot go unanswered. So thank
you so very much.
I'd like to now yield to the Venerable Thich Danh Tol.
STATEMENT OF THE VENERABLE DANH TOL, VICTIM OF RELIGIOUS
PERSECUTION
[The following testimony was delivered through an
interpreter.]
Ven. Tol. Mr. Chairman, I would like to take this
opportunity to thank the committee, the chairman, for inviting
me to come here and testify before your subcommittee.
Before I present my statement and recommendation, I wish to
offer my prayers and my thoughts to the victims of the Oklahoma
tornados. I wish them speedy recoveries.
I wish to summarize my statement and I wish to include my
written statement for the record.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, yours and all of the
witnesses' full statements and any attachments will be included
in the record.
Ven. Tol. My name is Venerable Danh Tol. I'm a Khmer Krom
Buddhist monk in Vietnam. I was ordained into the monkhood in
1996.
I led a peaceful and nonviolent demonstration on February
8, 2007, in Soc Trang with over 200 monks--Khmer Krom monks in
order to demand the freedoms of religion to practice Theravada
Buddhism.
I was arrested, defrocked by force and imprisoned on
February 26, 2007, for 4 years. Others arrested and imprisoned
were the Venerable Kim Moul, Venerable Thach Thuong, Venerable
Ly Hoang and Venerable Ly Suong.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I would like
to inform you that I was tortured and beaten incessantly by the
police forces and I was in general tortured and interrogated at
night time. I was tortured and I was interrogated and forced to
admit the wrongdoings of which I did not commit.
The Vietnamese Government have the police forces to arrest
the Buddhist--the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks as well to torture
them in order to force them to admit the wrongdoings which they
did not do and during the tortures, beatings and sufferings
have incurred.
For approximately up to 6 months, I was held in isolation,
in darkness and naked. During the imprisonment I was held and I
was beaten incessantly and I suffered mentally, emotionally,
physically, and was forced to admit what I did that I didn't
do.
After the interrogation and tortures I was bleeding and was
left unconscious. After waking up I was tortured again and
again and I did nothing wrong. The thing what we did--I didn't
do anything wrong and they kept forcing me to admit wrong
things.
I was imprisoned for 4 years. I was in prison for 4 years.
I was released on January 17, 2009. Under the pressure from the
foreign interventions I was released on January 17, 2009.
On April the 20th, I fled the country and into Thailand. I
was released--I was never convicted. I left Thailand in 2009.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I would like to
inform you that even right now the Vietnamese authority is
still accusing other Khmer Krom Buddhist monks for peaceful
religious activities, in violation of their human rights.
Even right now the Government of Vietnam has arrested three
Khmer Krom Buddhist monks and they are Venerable Lieu Ny,
Venerable Thuol, and Venerable Chanh Da.
Even the followers of the Theravada Buddhism were arrested
for supporting the Khmer Krom monks. Three women and three
follower men have been arrested but I just can't remember all
of the names of the prisoners being held by the Vietnamese
Government right now.
My apology, Mr. Chairman. I am really emotional and at this
time I would like the committee--would like your support to
allow the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks--I would like the committee
to urge the Vietnamese Government to unconditionally release
Venerable Lieu Ny, Venerable Thach Thuol, Venerable Phum Rich,
and Thach Tha.
I believe that while they were in prison they would be
tortured incessantly just what they did to myself. I believe
that the other two venerables are being imprisoned right now,
Venerable Lieu Ny at the Tra Set Temple and the Venerable Thach
Thuol also at the Tra Set Temple and also Venerable Ly Chanh Da
at the Prey Chop Temple.
Also in this regard, I would like to recommend the
committee to urge Vietnam to allow Khmer Krom Buddhist monks to
create an independent religious organization free from
interference from the Government of Vietnam.
We would like to have the violations of human rights
against Khmer Krom Buddhist monks stopped and I would urge the
committee to advise the U.S. State Department to redesignate
Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern for the violations
of the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks.
And I would urge Vietnam to respect the human rights of the
Khmer Krom people as well as the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks in
the Mekong Delta, to avoid violation and stop violations of the
human rights of the Khmer Krom people and Khmer Krom Buddhist
monks.
Again, I would like to thank the chairman and members of
the subcommittee for the opportunity for me to be here.
[The prepared statement of Ven. Tol follows:]
----------
Mr. Smith. Venerable Danh Tol, thank you very much for your
testimony and for sharing with us the horrific experience that
you encountered as your religious freedom was violated.
Mr. John Sifton.
STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN SIFTON, ASIA ADVOCACY DIRECTOR, HUMAN
RIGHTS WATCH
Mr. Sifton. Thank you, and thank you for inviting me to
testify as well in today's hearing. Today's date is June 4th.
It's, of course, a day of infamy among human rights groups and
it's fitting and proper that we remember why for a moment.
It was on this day in 1989 that the Chinese Army in a
vanguard of tanks and bullets pushed across the streets of
Beijing to end the massive protest at Tiananmen Square and
countless people were killed on that day 24 years ago calling
for democracy and freedom.
That quest, the quest for human rights, is, of course, not
limited to China and it didn't die at Tiananmen. In Vietnam
today, people from really across the spectrum of society are
regularly engaging in protests and other forms of free speech.
All kinds of people--students and workers and teachers and
farmers and bloggers and religious leaders and even former
police and soldiers, Vietnam's citizens criticizing their
government, reporting on corruption and poor governments or
even mocking the Communist Party's stridency.
There was a protest just 2 days ago in Hanoi criticizing
the government for its China policy and, of course, it bears
remarking here that many of these protests are resulting in
arrests and convictions. They're involving dissidents
protesting land seizures. A lot of these protests are about
that.
The record is getting worse. We now know that in 2012 40
people are known to have been convicted and sentenced to prison
for peaceful dissent cases.
This was an increase from 2011 which itself was an increase
from 2010 and already this year, in the first 5 months of this
year, more than 50 people have been convicted now in political
trials which more than matches last year's record.
So to repeat that, in the first few months of this year
more people have been convicted in political trials than in the
whole of last year in Vietnam.
Since I last testified in April there have been almost no
improvements, just more prison sentences. On May 16th, two
activists, Nguyen Phuong Uyen and Dinh Nguyen Kha, were
sentenced to 6 years and 8 years in prison respectfully.
These women were sentenced--this one woman and one man were
sentenced for handing out pamphlets. A 21-year-old woman is
going to jail for 6 years for handing out pamphlets.
On May 26th, just a week ago, police arrested blogger
Truong Duy Nhat and charged him with abusing democracy and
infringing on the interests of the state, a violation of
Article 258.
And on May 28th, just a few days ago, there was a trial of
eight ethnic Montagnards arrested in June of last year. They
were convicted of violating Article 87, undermining national
unity.
Most of them received sentences of 7 to 11 years in prison,
and on May 5th, earlier in the month, the case of these human
rights picnics occurred. In four separate cities police broke
up peaceful human rights picnics at which young bloggers and
activists were disseminating and discussing the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
Peaceful protests where people were sitting in parks
reading aloud the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were
broken up violently and some of the people had their laptops
confiscated and when they went to police stations to attempt to
get them back one of them was punched in the face, his mother
was burned with a cigarette on her forehead and her sister had
her teeth knocked out.
This was on May 5th. The anti-China protests I mentioned
just this past Sunday ended with arrests and more beatings by
police as well. So in summary, the trend lines are showing a
worsening situation.
It's not just another bad year in Vietnam. I also want to
give the subcommittee a update with respect to media freedom,
an important issue that's come up lately. As Human Rights Watch
and other groups have reported previously, the government
continues to engage in blocking and filtering of Internet Web
sites but recently the authorities also tightened rules on
television.
Authorities promulgated a new restriction known as Decision
20, requiring that outside broadcast companies licensed to
carry cable or broadcast in Vietnam, for instance CNN and BBC,
they have to pay for translational editing of their content.
This is censorship, the editing part at least, and this
will be performed by a Vietnamese agency licensed by the
government.
The regulation also notes that content can only be
broadcast which is appropriate to the people's healthy needs
and does not violate Vietnamese press law.
There are, of course, many other human rights issues to
discuss with Vietnam, religious persecution chief among them,
land evictions, which we've already heard about, a ban on all
unauthorized unions and other labor organizations and
administrative detention and forced labor for alleged drug
users--40,000 people in administrative detention without due
process for alleged drug use.
Some of them are drug users. Others are not. But either
way, forced labor in forced labor camps. Show trials with
courts that lack independence continue and in addition to all
this the basic brutality. Police regularly engage in
mistreatment, sometimes torture. They beat detainees and even
produce fatalities.
So this is Vietnam today. The nation's governance is
characterized by brutality and systematic suppression of
freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly with
frequent persecution of those who question the government's
actions or call for democratic alternatives.
So what can the United States do about it? It's time for
the United States Government to see things for what they are.
There was a hope a few years ago among administration
officials that attempting a military strategic dialogue with
Vietnam and opening trade negotiations in the context of a
bilateral investment treaty or in the Trans Pacific Partnership
might serve as an incentive to the government to make changes
and perhaps soften its authoritarian edge.
It now appears that that hope was misplaced. Vietnamese
authorities have not unclenched their fists. So Human Rights
Watch would urge this subcommittee and the other subcommittee
in tomorrow's hearing to keep asking the Obama administration
very, very tough questions about its continuing dialogue with
Vietnam.
And I think it might be useful to talk realistically about
what exactly the United States can do to change the Vietnamese
Government's behavior and weigh what kinds of things would
impact them more than others.
Cutting all assistance to Vietnam in the generality might
sound good but in practice it means cutting assistance to Agent
Orange remediation, to PEPFAR for vital HIV/AIDS interventions,
to global health programs for drug-resistant tuberculosis.
These are things which perhaps the Vietnamese Government
would care less if the United States cut them and yet doing so
would have real impacts for ordinary Vietnamese citizens.
So it might not be appropriate to just cut all U.S.
assistance. Instead, the right questions would be asking the
administration what really hurts the Vietnamese Government.
Is it suspending negotiations with Vietnam in the context
of bilateral trade investment treaties, the TPP? If the
Pentagon pulls back on its engagement? If the Pentagon puts up
a complete brick wall to any discussion of lethal arms
transfers ever and makes it very clear that none of that will
happen unless very stringent standards are met?
We at Human Rights Watch think the time has come to start
asking those kinds of tough realistic questions about what
exactly the U.S. hopes to do to get Vietnam to change its
behavior.
It's not just another year in Vietnam's long sad history.
It's been one of the worst years in quite a long time and I
think it's time for U.S. foreign policy to change.
Thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sifton follows:]
----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much, Mr. Sifton.
It is an honor to recognize the chairman of the full
committee, Congressman Ed Royce.
Mr. Royce. And I appreciate that and let me share with you
all why I think it's so important, Chris, that you've held this
hearing today.
The subcommittee chairman has held this hearing because
tomorrow at 2 o'clock o'clock we're going to have the State
Department here with us as I'm sure he's mentioned and what I
really want to glean from this hearing today is--goes to the
issue of is it the problem of the State Department not pushing
hard enough in these meetings?
Is it a question of not having an agenda for the meetings
that they'll have coming up with the government in Hanoi? What
specifically should we be saying?
I know one thing is for sure and that is the report that I
have read is the antithesis of the report from Human Rights
Watch.
Human Rights Watch documents the same types of abuses that
I hear from my constituents and that I see in the press. On the
other hand, the State Department reports that the government
continued to ease restrictions placed upon most religious
groups.
In other words, what I am reading in the State Department
report from last year I no longer believe and I thought I'd
start, Mr. Sifton, by asking you because you've read the
report.
The government generally respected the religious freedom of
most registered religious groups, says State, and then I go
through Human Rights Watch and these other reports as well as
the reporting from the international news media and I get the
facts.
And how do we--how do we try to determine what the purpose
is of the State Department in understating the human rights
abuses? What's your read on that?
Mr. Sifton. Well, obviously, I would defer--I would ask
that that question be placed firmly into the State Department's
court tomorrow--is there any reason we can trust that this is
an accurate report, given the discrepancies that you've
mentioned.
The key word in the passage you just mentioned was
registered. It's easy enough to say that Vietnam respects the
rights of registered religious groups.
Mr. Royce. Well, this was the point that the Venerable
Thich Quang Do made to me when I visited him. He was under
house arrest and he said the reason we're not going to
register, the reason--we don't want to change our text.
We don't want to change our holy books to what the party
wants us to do because this is our religion. It's not the
Communist Party manifesto, essentially.
He didn't use those words but he said this is our religion
so we want to--we don't want to make these changes, and I
gather from what I've heard from the Hoa Hao and the Cao Dai
Buddhist Church and what I've heard from others is that when
you come under the control of the government it means that you
also have to suppress part of the teachings in order to--and so
if we're overlooking everybody who's independent it means we're
overlooking everybody who's trying to exercise their
religious--their religion independent of state control.
Maybe I could ask some of the other participants about that
and, John, do you have any other observations on that?
Mr. Sifton. All I would say is I think the report does
contain some information about some of the abuses that are
happening and the main State Department report obviously is
pretty unvarnished.
I should also note that the U.S. Commission for
International Religious Freedom has an excellent report.
Mr. Royce. Yeah, they have an excellent report. Yeah.
Mr. Sifton. At the end result, though, the question is what
is the State Department going to do about it. I think that they
are pushing hard and they do have an agenda.
The question is when do you give up and when do you say
Vietnam, you're not negotiating with us in good faith. We don't
get a sense that you're going to change your behavior and when
do you then change your context and say I'm going to stop
negotiating with you. We're not going to keep expanding these
Pentagon mil-to-mil relationships----
Mr. Royce. Yes.
Mr. Sifton [continuing]. Until you get better.
Mr. Royce. Let's hear from some of the other panelists.
Mr. Thang. Yes, I would like to follow up on your question,
Mr. Chairman.
One question that should be asked tomorrow of the State
Department officials is that how many registered churches there
are in Vietnam compared to how many churches that have tried to
register but have not been allowed to, such as the Khmer Krom
Buddhist Church has not been allowed to and we have a list--
about 651 Hmong Protestant Churches that have tried for many,
many years to register but they have not been allowed to.
The same question would be like this. Now since the State
Department doesn't have access directly to those members of the
unregistered churches, have they tried to talk to people like
the Venerable Danh Tol right here?
We brought him to the State Department last year suggesting
that they should interview him and others like him to obtain
accurate information for the next report on international
religious freedom.
They didn't do that. The copy that they just released
didn't contain any interviews with the witnesses that are
available here right here in the U.S. So why--how many have
they interviewed, have they talked to? Those would be the two
questions I'd like to suggest.
Mr. Royce. Other observations? The Venerable Danh?
Ven. Tol. First, I would like to--first of all, I would
like to stress that the violations of the Khmer Krom Buddhist
monks in particular are ongoing.
And the reason why the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks doesn't
want to register their faith with the Government of Vietnam it
will slow down--it will force all the Theravada Buddhism faith
to have to ask for the permission from the government for any
ritual.
And the arrest of the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks by the
Vietnamese Government is to eliminate their belief of the
Theravada Buddhism of the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks.
The reason why the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks exist at this
moment just because of the existence of the Khmer Krom temples
in the Mekong Delta. The customs, the cultures and the
practices of the Khmer Krom people are emanated from the Khmer
Krom temples.
This is the reason why they're forcing the registrations of
every Buddhist, of every religious sect is in order to
eliminate the religious faiths of the followers.
The Khmer Krom Buddhist monks have not been able to access
any public media either through Internet or through the public
media or to newspapers and the reason why the Government of
Vietnam does not want them to know about it is in order to
force them not to recognize the Buddhist.
And we'd also like to thank our Vietnamese brothers and
sisters for being here with us and to support the reporting on
the violations of the human rights of the Government of
Vietnam. And Khmer Krom is also a human being--one of the
human--of the family of human beings.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Royce. Yeah, let me close with this. One of the--one of
the cases that really captured my attention was the Reverend
Nguyen Hong Quang who was interrogated over 200 times, beaten
several dozen times and we talked about the disparate
sentencing. His latest sentencing was 15 years.
So, clearly, for those who are not knuckling under to the
regime the consequences can be brutal. I've seen photographs
after the beating and--beatings, I should say. I mean, it's
relentless.
So given this reality, I think it's important--and I know
the State Department is following this hearing today--I think
it's important that when they come here tomorrow they have a
concrete idea of how to explain the agenda, a concrete agenda,
in what they're going to say and do in these negotiations and
what we're going to offer up by way of leverage in order to get
to some modicum of humanity in terms of the way people are
treated with respect to religious liberty and other freedoms in
Vietnam.
And Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Chairman Royce.
And let me just ask a couple of questions and I'll yield to
my colleagues. And, you know, Mr. Sifton, you mentioned, that
if we enforce some of the current laws including the Foreign
Assistance Act of 1961 as amended in 1964, then that might be
counterproductive.
And I know you know this--the Vietnam Human Rights Act
makes it very clear that humanitarian and health initiatives
including the Agent Orange, HIV/AIDS, and the combatting human
trafficking moneys that we provide to Vietnam would be
exempted.
The idea is to really hold this country and this government
to account in a very calibrated and focused way. So, I think
your point was very well taken.
Dr. Thang, you do point out that the U.S. laws are very
clear toward any foreign government that confiscates the
properties of U.S. citizens and you cite the 1949 International
Claims Settlement Act, the Foreign Assistance Act and the Trade
Act, which precludes conferring GSP if a country has
nationalized, appropriated, or otherwise seized property of
U.S. citizens or corporations without providing or taking steps
to provide prompt, adequate and effective compensation or
submitting such issues to a mutually agreed forum for
arbitration.
It is beguiling and disappointing that the administration
has not used existing law to really aggressively push the
interests of American citizens as you all have so eloquently
stated in your testimonies. If you want to elaborate on that, I
would welcome you to do it.
And Dr. Thang, you point out that repeated appeals by
Vietnamese-Americans for equal treatment have been ignored by
the present administration.
The U.S. Department of State Legal Adviser's office, which
is tasked with the responsibility of representing U.S. citizens
in disputes has set three conditions. You go through those
three conditions, which have been met by Ms. Ngo, as she
pointed out.
But then you make a very, very important point, that the
Legal Adviser at the State Department said contact and hire an
attorney in Vietnam to help you pursue any rights and remedies,
and as you point out, there is no local remedy. It does not
exist.
I would point out for the record that when I met with
Nguyen Dai, a lawyer in Hanoi who subsequently was arrested,
harassed, he was trying to raise simple human rights issues and
for that the fist of the dictatorship came down upon him
extraordinarily hard.
This needs to be a government-to-government endeavor, not
``Here, go find yourself a lawyer somewhere in Vietnam and good
luck,'' because as you say, there is no remedy.
If you could expand on that. Not only does it put the
lawyer and the individual at risk, it is a fruitless endeavor
and I'm amazed that the Legal Adviser would make such a
suggestion.
Mr. Thang. Actually, Attorney Nguyen Van Dai, whom you have
met, tried to help on a number of cases and again and again the
government said no, and not only that, as Congressman Cao----
Mr. Smith. Cases of----
Mr. Thang. Yes, of confiscated properties of U.S. citizens.
And Congressman Cao pointed out that there was a resolution
passed by the National Assembly of Vietnam on November 26,
2003, declaring without any ambiguity that the Vietnamese
Government will not return the properties that they have
confiscated from anyone who had left Vietnam including hundreds
of thousands potentially of Vietnamese-Americans, period.
So there's no point in spending and wasting more time and
money hiring lawyers in Vietnam to fight the system that has
declared that they are not going to return the properties.
And therefore that's why we really need the intervention of
this government, and the laws are very clear. They have been
implemented multiple times including against Vietnam for claims
against Vietnam.
How come that when it comes to Vietnamese-Americans the
same laws don't apply? And we wonder very much about that.
Mr. Smith. You mentioned that Boat People SOS launched an
online petition to President Obama on the We the People Web
site and you stated our President should demonstrate his
commitment to defending the rights and interests of U.S.
citizens by applying prohibition clauses of the Foreign
Assistance Act to Vietnam, calling on its government to freeze
further expropriations of U.S. properties and conditioning GSP
or any further trade benefits on the return of all properties
that belong to U.S. citizens or payment of fair compensation.
You say that you collected well in excess of 25,000
signatures within 3 weeks' time and to this date there is no
response?
Mr. Thang. There has been no response 10 months later.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask the Venerable Danh Tol--one of the
issues that I've raised repeatedly with interlocutors in
Vietnam and with the State Department is about the registry. I
thought your question was great for tomorrow, Dr. Thang, but as
we all know, the Vietnamese Government sets up parallel faith
bodies.
That's why the Venerable Thich Quang Do can't operate
anymore because they just outlawed the Unified Buddhist Church
of Vietnam and then they turn around and set up a shell of an
organization that they control.
What has been your response if any and anyone's response
from the State Department in doing this? You know, it seems to
me that when we talk about registering and not registering
well, the real issue is that they're setting up bogus
organizations to be the faith community for that particular
denomination or belief system.
Ven. Tol. I believe that--I believe that if they register
and the inclusions of the Theravada Buddhism together with the
United Buddhist Church Association in Vietnam I believe that
the Government of Vietnam will continue to oppress and then
oppress the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks, never stop--never stop
oppressing them.
Another reason is that the Government of Vietnam right now
just don't want to help the Theravada Buddhism faith in
existing in the Mekong Delta.
And another reason I would like to leave here with the
committee that there is also demonstrations in Vietnam from
various sects of the Buddhist monks but why there were not any
forced defrocks of the Buddhist monks with the exception of the
Khmer Krom Buddhist monks have been forced to defrock and to
tortures and to be imprisoned.
This is to show that the Government of Vietnam just does
not want to see the Khmer Krom Theravada Buddhism's continued
existence in the Mekong Delta.
That's why I would like to urge the committee to help
Vietnam respect and then having the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks
forming its own independent organizations independently from
the government Buddhist organizations right now and to respect
the religious belief of the Khmer Krom Buddhist monks.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask one final question and then I'll
yield to Mr. Meadows.
Dr. Thang, in your testimony you talked about how on the
heels of the U.S. human rights dialogue that the violation of
human rights actually intensified.
It's deplorable, as you put it, but not surprising and you
point out--and this is a very important paragraph--in April the
U.S. delegation led by the Department of State was in Hanoi for
a 1-day dialogue on human rights.
It was attended by Vietnamese rank and file government
officials. Ten days later, a large U.S. delegation led by the
acting U.S. Trade Representative spent 3 days to negotiate the
Trans Pacific Partnership. They met with the Vietnamese
President, the Deputy Prime Minister, several ministers and
deputy ministers.
The message to the Government of Vietnam was very clear.
The U.S. cares more about trade and, I would add, profits, than
human rights. It's all about prioritization. Would any of you
like to respond to that?
They are your words, Dr. Thang, but it just sums it all up.
They take the measure, they look us in the eyes and we say
we've got to do an obligatory human rights dialogue, have a
nice day, go and abuse all you'd like, and we don't really
care.
And as you pointed out, up to a \1/2\ million U.S. citizens
of Vietnamese origin have had their properties confiscated.
That's very serious, plus, of course, the torture and the
ongoing repression. It's all about priorities and I am sickened
at heart by the lack of prioritization of human rights toward
Vietnam.
And as Mr. Sifton pointed out, it is other countries as
well. We had a hearing yesterday about Tiananmen Square twenty-
four years later and Sophie Richardson from your organization
testified about it and Wei Jingsheng and some of the great
leaders of the Tiananmen Square movement which continues to
this day as well as the repression.
Again, no prioritization of human rights. It's a bullet
somewhere on a page, and that is so unfortunate, unnecessary
and I would say deplorable. If any of you would like to
respond--Mr. Sifton and then Dr. Thang.
Mr. Sifton. I would like to say that that's exactly the
right question to be asking the State Department. All I would
say in their defense is that they're not monolithic. The folks
that went for that 1-day dialogue did raise human rights and
they raised the issues and they pushed the issues and even
Ambassador Shear pushes the issues.
The question is priorities. There are other parts of the
State Department which are prioritizing trade preferences and
improving all of that.
So there's a fight even within the State Department in
which I think this committees and--the full committee and the
other subcommittee can play a huge role in strengthening those
parts of the State Department that actually want to do the
right thing.
But it might be useful to just focus for a second on what
exactly is going on here with the religious persecution. You
know, it looks like the government distrusts unregistered
groups because they're worried that they're politically active
and a risk to the party and they're worried about them in the
same way they're worried about unions because whenever people
without the approval of the government get together and start
organizing it's a threat to the party, and that's what they're
worried about.
To get them to not do that is going to require a heavy
amount of pressure from outside authority because they really
do fear--perhaps very paranoid but they do fear that
unregistered religious groups are somehow a threat to their
rule.
Mr. Thang. Yes. Mr. Chairman, last year before the
publication of the annual report of the State Department's on
international religious freedom the director of the Office of
International Religious Freedom of the State Department went to
Vietnam, met with the leadership of a Buddhist Church.
And when we found--we asked--I talked to her and it turned
out that she talked with the leadership of the Vietnamese
Buddhist Sangha which was set up by the Government of Vietnam.
She did not have any chance to talk to Venerable Thich Quang
Do, for instance.
She came back and a few weeks later the report was
published and, clearly, the content was disappointing. And
that's why we brought a number of Khmer Krom Buddhist monks who
have suffered, are witnesses and victims and we suggested that
her office interview them to improve on the quality and the
accuracy of this year's report. Nothing happened, and they are
here available.
And I would like to say that your remark, Mr. Chairman,
that the Vietnamese Government has been very deft at setting up
bogus religious organizations to present to the world and that
applies to many religions in Vietnam including the Cao Dai
Church, whose representatives are back here.
You see those men and women in white tunic right here
sitting right here. They set up a bogus Cao Dai Church,
likewise a bogus Hoa Hao Church--Buddhist Church, so on and so
forth.
So it is very imperative that we talk to the right churches
that are truly independent, that are truly promoting religious
freedom in Vietnam and not the ones that are set up by the
government in Vietnam to cover up the abuses against religions.
Now, I'd like to point out one other thing. Yes, we
understand that there's a need to balance concerns about human
rights against other concerns, other strategic priorities of
national interests of this governance and to the American
people.
However, I truly believe that defending the rights and the
properties, the assets of American citizens, should not be
trumped by any other national interest. It should be of the
highest priority for this government.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank each of you for your testimony and I want to follow
up a little bit on what you just highlighted, Mr. Sifton, if I
can.
You talked about we needed to put an emphasis to
strengthen, I guess, the priority within the State Department
where human rights gets the same, I guess, influence that the
trade side of the State Department gets.
How will--you know, if you were sitting in my seat how
would you go about doing that?
Mr. Sifton. Well, unfortunately, I don't think there's any
mechanical way to do it. But every time a House member a set of
members or a hearing asks tough questions and pushes on the
State Department, it reverberates around their offices in ways
that perhaps you never get any feedback on.
But I do know that the pressure gets to them and gets under
their skin, and when there are questions about the human rights
priorities not getting enough prioritization, it has an effect
on the prominence that the trade part of the package is given--
a negative impact. It just does.
The problem is there are a lot of incentives behind that. I
mean, there's an enormous amount of money at stake and huge
amounts of added profits that would accrue to Vietnamese
business interests as well as American if GSP, for instance,
goes forward.
So on that side you have a lot of incentives that are
financial and on the other side what you have is civil society
and religious groups and human rights groups, and although
they're well organized and fervent and devoted, they just don't
have the same amount of resources.
If you look at the comments from the GSP in 2008 that were
solicited by the USTR, the majority of them are from
corporations and trade groups and things like that and only a
few are from civil society. That tells you----
Mr. Meadows. Are you suggesting that corporations aren't
civil society?
Mr. Sifton. What I mean is we will do our best but at the
end of the day I think Congress will play a huge role in
balancing the equation so that human rights are prioritized
just as much because the 3-day to 1-day ratio is----
Mr. Meadows. Right.
Mr. Sifton [continuing]. Obviously inappropriate, given the
severity of the abuses that are underway.
Mr. Meadows. So are you saying that what the chairman
pointed out in the 1-day versus 3-day priority that that is
systemic?
Is that something that you've seen over and over again, not
just with Vietnam but with other countries where human rights
abuses still occur?
Mr. Sifton. It's certainly a problem worldwide but I think
rather than focus on pushing each of the sides of the State
Department as--to balance it out there's another issue that
needs to be discussed too, which is that there is a one-
government policy in the administration.
In reality, according to the policy, the U.S. Trade
Representative is supposed to raise human rights issues. That's
how it's supposed to work now.
Every part of the U.S. Government, from the Commander in
Chief of the Pacific Command to the U.S. Trade Representative
to a visiting Under Secretary for who knows what who goes into
Hanoi is supposed to raise human rights concerns in the context
of whatever it is their dialogue is about.
Unfortunately, that often doesn't happen as much as it
needs to.
Mr. Meadows. Well, Chairman Royce pointed out earlier that
maybe it does get raised but what the State Department is
reporting back is that everything is looking rosy and that
according to your testimony is not happening.
Mr. Sifton. I don't think they say it's looking rosy but
definite--because let's be honest about that. The Embassy does
put out statements and is pretty good and the rights report was
pretty tough hitting. But in the grand scheme of things, no,
the message is not coming back about the severity.
There is a deteriorating situation. It's not just another
bad year in Vietnam. We have a trend line going down. More
people going to jail, closing space, more and more tension.
The economic concerns are obviously causing instability and
then last but not least this land crisis--as land gets taken
away in increasing amounts of hectares it's going to cause more
and more unrest and that's going to have repercussions.
Mr. Meadows. Well, with that trend trending down, I mean,
would you say that that's due more to civil unrest or
government enforcement?
Mr. Sifton. It's probably a perfect storm both of folks
speaking out more but the government becoming more sensitive at
the same time. So it's kind of both sides are amplifying their
actions and it's going to cause further intensification.
I mean, we've already gotten to 50 convictions this year.
That puts us on par for about 120 by the end of the year----
Mr. Meadows. Right.
Mr. Sifton [continuing]. Which is an exponential increase
since last year in political show trials.
Mr. Meadows. So let's go--and this is for the entire
panel--let's talk a little bit more because each one of you
have highlighted about this confiscation of land.
When they do that, when the government takes this land what
do they do with it? Are they making money on it? Do they sell
it to somebody? I mean, what happens?
Mr. Thang. I can see two major reasons for the act of
confiscating properties of Vietnamese people inside Vietnam of
the different churches or that would have an impact also on
Vietnamese-Americans.
The first one is corruption, greed. They want to take away
land from the poor farmers to sell it back to developers and
making a lot of money. They're paying dirt cheap for what they
took and they're selling the land back to developers, like, 300
to 400 times more expensive.
Mr. Meadows. Alright. So greed is----
Mr. Thang. That's one. And also they're using that as a
tool for suppression, especially against the independent
churches such as the Catholic Church, the Protestant Churches.
If you don't have land--you have property they evict you from
your own parish there's no way for that church to continue to
function.
That applies to the Khmer Krom Buddhist Church. That
applies to the Cao Dai Church and the Hoa Hao Buddhist Church.
It's across the board. So land confiscation has been used as a
tool for persecution against the churches.
Mr. Meadows. So it's basically, say, if you do it our way
then we'll let you keep your land. If you don't do it our way,
we're going to take it away and there's always that threat. So
they essentially have compliance because of the threat of
taking it away. Is that correct?
Mr. Thang. That's pretty much the case, Congressman.
Mr. Meadows. Alright.
Ms. Ngo. I think the government claimed that the government
owned the land and the owner of the land just has the right to
use it only.
Mr. Meadows. Right. So they own it and they give you a
permit to be able to farm it or whatever----
Ms. Ngo. Yes.
Mr. Meadows [continuing]. And so it's taking away that
permit so it's not actually confiscating the land but just the
right to make a living on that land?
Ms. Ngo. Yeah. You rent the land for 20 years and after 20
years the government can take it back because they are the
owner.
Mr. Meadows. Alright. So do they--do they always keep
that--if they limit it to you for 20 years will they let that
term expire or they'll break the lease?
Ms. Ngo. Well, after 20 years if the owners obey and follow
the rules----
Mr. Meadows. So if they are compliant.
Ms. Ngo. Yeah, compliant then they may extend the lease.
Mr. Meadows. I see the Doctor is shaking his head.
Mr. Thang. Well, in 2003 the same--they also issue a law,
pass a law, the Land Law of 2003 allowing the government to
recover--that's what they call it--recover the land that had
been assigned to the people to use.
Even though they might--the people have the right to use
land but through the recovery process the government can take
back, and that land law would allow the government to use
coercion and force to recover the land from the people.
Mr. Meadows. Okay.
Mr. Sifton. I just want to explain there is a--the crisis
is brewing precisely because a lot of the leases I guess you
would call them were given 20 years ago and are now coming up
all at once right now.
Mr. Meadows. So that's part of this perfect storm is is
that we're right here and they're about to be able to decide
who goes forward and who doesn't and----
Ven. Tol. I would like to inform the committee that even in
my village where I was born there's a confiscation of land of
the Khmer Krom temples. The confiscation of land is the
government used that land in order to build schools and a
public school for the students.
And then the followers of the temples was not able to
demand a return of the land back to the temple for fear of
persecution and arrest, and the use of the lands is for other
purposes.
The question is we would like to ask the committee to help
us and to demand the government to return the land back to the
temple. Thank you.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you. Let me finish with this and I'm
going to yield back to the chairman after this--after I ask for
your help on something.
We've had a number of hearings here and as we have had
these hearings one of the things that continues to come out is
that the abuses are getting worse, not better.
We are continuing to see over and over abuses that we would
not tolerate in our country and yet Vietnam has kind of for a
large part gone underneath the radar in terms of being
highlighted as a particular area of concern even though,
obviously, it is.
Because of the TPP and because of the request for the GSP
right now, we're in a unique position to start to really
highlight these human rights abuses. The perfect storm, as Mr.
Sifton had talked about on other issues, I think we have a
perfect storm right now as it relates to Vietnam.
They can make a choice to go forward and prosper
economically in ways that they have never even imagined or they
can continue the human rights abuses that we're seeing in--not
only in this hearing but also in a previous hearing that--if
they continue that.
I can tell you there are a number of members who are
willing to say no, who are willing to say that we are not going
to go with a TPP. We're getting lobbied on both sides already.
The message needs to be clear back to their government that
it is not a slam dunk. It is not something that is inevitable.
But for me and many of my colleagues human right abuses are
critical--a critical component.
There will not be a negotiation on economics only. It has
to have a human rights aspect and the more than you can send us
in terms of real stories, in terms of abuses--the pictures you
showed today are a powerful testimony of what's happening
currently. You know, this is not years ago.
It's happening today, and we have to say enough is enough
and stand by those who perhaps do not have a voice. I thank
each of you for coming today and being that voice and I look
forward to working with you to please get that to the committee
and they will forward it on to us so that we can tell your
story better.
Thank you, and with that, Chairman, I yield back to you,
Mr. Weber.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Meadows, and I will go to my
colleague on the right, Steve Stockman.
Mr. Stockman. Always on the right. I have a quick question.
When I was there in Saigon, I was--I travelled outside and
they had a very Western style suburban homes that American-
Vietnamese were purchasing and I think they were purchasing
them in cash, and they were very expensive even by American
standards--$200,000, $300,000.
I guess, Dr. Thang, how can those houses be--is that one of
the reasons driving the confiscation of the land the
development of suburban type homes there?
Mr. Thang. There are a number of reasons. That's one of the
reasons. For instance, in the case of Con Dau Parish who are
Catholic, they are a 135-year-old Catholic parish. In 2010, May
2010, the government of Da Nang City sent troops, hundreds of
troops and tried to evict an entire village.
They took over the village and the lands and turned that in
an eco-tourism development project to be sold back to others--
investors.
So that could be one of the reasons but there are many
other reasons. As mentioned before in my testimony,
confiscation of land has been used consistently, repeatedly,
routinely as a tool of persecution against the churches, the
independent churches.
So sometimes the land doesn't have much value. Still, the
government confiscates it just to push the church out and
exterminate its existence. Without property, without an
infrastructure, the church cannot exist anymore.
Mr. Stockman. I went to the Catholic Church there in Ho Chi
Minh.
Mr. Sifton, I have a question. It's a little bit of a
tangent. But how are the Vietnamese Government treating the
government and the people of Laos?
Mr. Sifton. That's a difficult question that our research
doesn't go into. But I would focus, again, on the land
confiscation and just broaden out from something you said,
which is it's something which is affecting really all parts of
society but it's also affecting all the countries in the
region, including Laos and Cambodia next door.
And it might be useful to look at this not just from a
Vietnamese perspective but look at it from the perspective of
the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank funding projects,
infrastructure projects--roads, water projects, other projects
across this whole region, all of which involve moving people
out of their homes and all of which involve the government
being responsible for doing that work.
And in all of these countries--Vietnam, Cambodia, and
Laos--there are these problems with land confiscation. It's
just that in Vietnam there is absolutely no capacity to fight
back and not be crushed by the authoritarian regime.
Mr. Stockman. How come they don't combine the two
delegations? I mean, that would make sense to me. No? Okay.
Well, my question to follow up, I guess, is you talked
about bloggers being caught. What kind of technology does
Vietnam have to catch the bloggers and is it sold by American
companies?
Mr. Sifton. Yeah, that's a very, very good question. There
are two things going on here. There's filtering, which is not
so much where the bloggers get caught but just Vietnamese Web
sites are blocked and can't be accessed from ISPs, from
Internet service providers, inside of Vietnam.
That blocking is becoming increasingly sophisticated. It's
still not very sophisticated if you compare it to China, but
it's getting better.
The software and the hardware that's required for that is
coming from a panoply of companies, some in Europe, some in
China, and there are--we don't know directly whether U.S.
companies have sold directly to the Vietnamese Government.
But we do know that there are U.S. companies which
manufacture software that the Vietnamese Government potentially
would be interested in, which is why we supported efforts in
Congress to introduce a licensing structure for software that
can be used both for filtering and for identifying bloggers and
other Internet users.
This is basically software that can be used by authorities
to either intercept communications and determine things about
the users or software that can be used for filtering, for
blocking sites.
It would be a great idea if Congress passed a law that
licensed the export of that software to make sure it doesn't
fall into the hands of governments like Vietnam's.
Mr. Stockman. Well, I have a question which you may or
may--it may not be your expertise but what's the percentage of
coffee that is bought by Starbucks from Vietnam?
Mr. Sifton. I can't answer that.
Mr. Thang. Well, we don't know. We don't have those
statistics. However, there is--it's a widespread practice in
Vietnam for the Vietnamese Government to confiscate land
especially lands of the Montagnard because they live in high
elevation areas.
Mr. Stockman. Right.
Mr. Thang. And that's very good conditions to grow coffee
and that's why many Montagnard at our village have been
displaced to be turned the land, their land, ancestral land,
that they lived on for hundreds of years. Of course, they don't
have any title to their land and they have been pushed away
from that ancestral lands across Central Highlands.
Mr. Stockman. May I make a recommendation to your
community? We have in this country just a large number of news
outlets and information, a number of cable stations and you get
information overload, and like light that's dispersed it only
works when you focus the light and it can cut metal.
And I would tell you this. I think--you can correct my
statistics on this--but I think Starbucks buys a large amount
of coffee from Vietnam, and if you want to highlight your
activity just a suggestion--I know how much trouble I'm going
to get for this--but I think you ought to focus your efforts in
communicating that and that they bring economic activity
bearing down on the company that's doing business with Vietnam.
They and the Vietnamese Government understand money and I
think that if we could somehow communicate that through that
aspect I would just make a recommendation that you can apply
pressure and the American companies will listen, and I will
check those statistics but I believe it's fairly high.
I know that the beans in Vietnam are a little bit more
bitter than some of the other beans around the world but they
still make up a blend in the Starbucks coffee.
That's just my own personal take on it and--but I
appreciate you guys coming out and I really am very grateful
that you give us suggestions.
All of you have gave us suggestions and many panels don't
do that on what we can do and I appreciate you extending to us
advice.
Mr. Sifton, also you've given us good advice on the
software and you've also given us advice and all of you. I
appreciate it, and we are very much in sympathy with you and we
appreciate you taking the risk coming out here because I know
that extended families could be persecuted for your stance and
I appreciate your bravery coming out.
And I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Stockman. Golly, let me follow up
on what he just said, then I'll yield to Mr. Rohrabacher here
in a little bit, give him a minute to catch up.
While he was talking about Starbucks I did a Google search
on their Web site and found that they have a chairman's report,
and if you want something interesting on their Web site they
have the following quote:
``If everybody says I'm going to change one person at a
time before you know it we've changed a neighborhood.
We've changed a town. We've changed a city. We've
changed the nation.''
You might think about getting a hold of Starbucks, follow
up on what Congressman Stockman said and say, you know, you
guys are buying coffee, and maybe they could bring--they could
bring some pressure to bear.
Maybe they'll wake up to that fact. I have a couple
questions for you myself that I'd like to--and I don't know who
to direct it to. Perhaps you, Mr. Sifton, or maybe Dr. Thang.
Is it--how many registered churches--you all talked about
churches being registered and then the government registers
fake churches. How many churches would you say are registered
and then write them down for me.
Mr. Thang. I don't have the statistics on hand but I know
that from the last count there were not more than scores of
churches that have been registered compared to hundreds that
have not been allowed to register.
Mr. Weber. Okay. And is there an underground church
movement?
Mr. Thang. That's what this is called for the Protestant
Church, for instance. That's called the house churches and they
are being persecuted severely because the government doesn't
want the spread of house churches that they cannot control.
Mr. Weber. Would you hazard a guess? Is it 100,000, 10,000,
1,000,000?
Mr. Thang. Followers? Yes. I would say at least a few
hundred thousand of the members of the house churches that are
underground.
Mr. Weber. Okay. And forgive me, I don't know, but how many
people--what's the population of Vietnam?
Mr. Thang. It's about 90 million.
Mr. Weber. 90 million. Okay. Victims of human trafficking--
do they have a really big problem with human trafficking?
Mr. Thang. I think that Vietnam is the only country in the
world that we know of where the government officially runs a
trafficking ring through the labor export program.
Mr. Weber. That's what I figured. What international
organizations are there that have really taken that cause up
and are trying to bring attention to it?
Mr. Thang. There is the IOM, the International Organization
of Migration, and they are funded by our own State Department
to do anti-trafficking work in Vietnam. However, they may not
have access to victims to assist, especially if those victims
become victims under the government----
Mr. Weber. The official government----
Mr. Thang [continuing]. Labor export program.
Mr. Weber. Sure.
Mr. Thang. So far, they have not been able to serve too
many if at all victims under the program. So they are not
allowed by the Government of Vietnam to access the victims to
provide the services.
Mr. Weber. How large is the Vietnamese population in the
United States?
Mr. Thang. There are about 1.6 million Vietnamese-
Americans.
Mr. Weber. 1.6 million. And where would you say the largest
concentration is?
Mr. Thang. I think that's in the district of Congressman
Rohrabacher.
Mr. Weber. Okay, which is why he's here, by the way. Let me
say it this way.
How often does that population get involved in petitioning
the State Department or demanding some action? Is this--do they
do it on a monthly basis? Is there a concerted effort?
Mr. Thang. Yes. There has been a concerted effort. For
instance, last year in March we launched a major campaign to
the White House asking the President not to neglect human
rights when his administration engages the Vietnamese
Government in trade negotiations and unexpectedly we obtained
about 150,000 signatures. We expected only 30,000 and the
response was overwhelming--150,000 signatures.
Mr. Weber. Well, that was a petition but how about a march
or an activity where they show up at the White House? Any event
being planned?
Mr. Thang. Yesterday, there was a delegation of 150 of us
at the White House.
Mr. Weber. Right.
Mr. Thang. Last year we also came to the White House, a
very big delegation of 150 or 160 Vietnamese-American advocates
from across the country that came to the White House last year
and we returned to the White House just yesterday.
Mr. Weber. I notice from just a little bit of research that
David Shear, the Ambassador to Vietnam, apparently speaks
Chinese and Japanese.
Has he been brought into the conversation? Are people going
to him and saying Mr. Ambassador, you know, you are our, I
guess, head guy from the United States, head diplomat. Has he
been made aware of this?
Has there been a conversation with him that highlights this
problem? Who does that?
Mr. Thang. Well, I personally talked to him and pointed to
him that all the convictions that the Vietnamese Government has
claimed so far--for instance, against the traffickers--only
involve the small fish sex traffickers.
No prosecutions so far against the big fish that involves
the government, the systemic problem of labor trafficking under
programs run by the government, and Ambassador Shear did
acknowledge that.
There were zero prosecutions against labor traffickers and
that was last year.
Mr. Weber. Did you raise the issue of the State
Department's report and what did he say about that?
Mr. Thang. I raised it many, many times with the State
Department, with his office, and they said that well, that's
according to their own data.
We make the request that they should intervene people like
the Venerable Danh Tol right here because we have legal team--a
legal team in Thailand working to help to protect refugees who
are fleeing out of Vietnam because the increasing persecution
against political dissidents, against religious leaders,
against bloggers.
So we have victims who have been resettled in the U.S. so
we are more than willing to provide them to the State
Department to intervene and to collect information directly
from the horse's mouth.
But so far there has been no intention or effort to talk to
the victims who know very much about what's going on on the
ground.
Mr. Weber. Zero interest on the part of the State
Department?
Mr. Thang. We have seen zero interest so far.
Mr. Weber. Who is Vietnam's largest trading partner?
Mr. Thang. I am not sure about that, but the U.S. is ranked
among the top.
Mr. Weber. Mr. Sifton, would you know?
Mr. Sifton. The United States is Vietnam's largest export
market. As for informal trade across the Chinese border, a lot
of it's not magnified so it's very difficult to know for sure
about overall trade. But the U.S. is their biggest overseas
export market.
Mr. Weber. And what's the number-one economic enterprise in
Vietnam?
Mr. Sifton. That's tough. I mean, look, I think in terms of
the exports; the ones to focus on with Vietnam are seafood and
clothing--textiles and finished clothing.
Mr. Weber. I guess my question is have you identified those
companies that do business with Vietnam and of the 1 million
plus Vietnamese that are here are we putting pressure on those
companies not to buy products from slave labor, for example?
Mr. Sifton. Here's the thing. When I think about what the
regime would be most impacted from it would certainly be the
case the Vietnamese tycoons would be upset if trade preferences
weren't extended and the export market didn't grow as fast as
they wanted it to and it might have an impact and they would
then pressure their friends in the Politburo and so on and so
forth.
But when I think about a more direct pressure I just simply
think that the Vietnamese military wants to buy lethal hardware
from the United States military and the Pentagon is in fact
holding the keys to the kingdom in terms of incentivizing them.
And so far they've resisted that and there is no such
lethal aid going to them. But they are the ones who are
standing at the gatepost and the threshold and are the ones who
can bring the message better than any U.S. corporation can
about what Vietnam needs to do in order to get what it wants.
Mr. Weber. Does the Vietnamese Government respect
intellectual property rights or are they more like the Chinese
Government in that regard?
Mr. Thang. No, sir. I went to Vietnam long ago and I came
back with bootlegged pirated products of the U.S. and we
continue to raise this issue with our own U.S. Trade
Representative multiple times.
There's no true respect of intellectual property rights in
Vietnam. There's a lot of bootlegged application software in
Vietnam.
You can buy for $5 a DVD with all sort of applications from
Microsoft, for instance, very cheaply inside Vietnam and there
are so many DVDs produced by entertainment industry basing out
of Orange County and there are bootlegged copies almost
overnight. Millions of copies sold in Vietnam----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Mr. Thang [continuing]. Illegally.
Mr. Weber. Alright. Thank you.
Mr. Rohrabacher, I'm going to yield time to you now.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much and let me just note
that I do represent a very large contingent of patriotic
Americans who happen to trace their roots back to Vietnam and
perhaps some of the most patriotic Americans because unlike
their fellow citizens they know what it's like not to have
freedom and they also know first hand what is going on and what
evil the tyrants are doing to other people in their ancestral
homeland even as they succeed and become a more important part
of the American system here in our American scene.
I'd like to ask the panel this question about the
Vietnamese community and are you recommending--just give me a
very short answer please because I want to get this from all of
you--are you recommending that we limit the amount of money
invested in the Vietnamese economy by American capitalists?
Should we--or is this something that we should be--some
people think we should encourage in that type of investment,
and just give me a very short answer for each one of you,
please.
Mr. Thang. I'll go first. It should be conditioned on
promoting human rights conditions in Vietnam.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So we should not be encouraging them
unless----
Mr. Thang. Unless.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. There are major human rights
concessions?
Mr. Thang. Exactly.
Ms. Ngo. I agree with that.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Ms. Ngo. We should put the condition of human rights before
we invest more money to Vietnam.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Alright.
Ven. Tol. I agree with the position of the other panel with
the exception that the other countries should put more
pressures on Vietnam to tie the economic tie--that economic
prosperity to the human rights.
Mr. Sifton. I don't think there are any investment
restrictions right now. But one thing that I assume U.S.
apparel and other suppliers and buyers would be interested in
is loosening the trade preference rules that would basically
allow Vietnamese goods to be even cheaper and imported into the
U.S. and they would like that, and they--and as the co-
panelists have said, it would be a good idea to put human
rights restrictions on that.
But I continue to believe that the bigger incentive to the
regime to change is on the military front. That is the one
area----
Mr. Rohrabacher. We'll talk about that in a minute. Okay.
So your answer is what?
Mr. Sifton. The GSP seems like a nonstarter right now. The
Trans Pacific Partnership is floundering. There's a bilateral
investment treaty which is----
Mr. Rohrabacher. So we should not or should we encourage
the American----
Mr. Sifton. None of those things should go forward without
stringent human rights standards.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Alright.
Mr. Sifton. None of them.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Considering the fact that those human
rights standards aren't in existence now are you telling the
American people not to buy products that say made in Vietnam?
Right down the line. No, no, let's start over here.
Mr. Thang. Well, what I'd like to point out it cannot be a
short answer about----
Mr. Rohrabacher. It's got to be because I want everyone to
comment on it. Do you want people--if the answer is yes, they
should be able to--they should go ahead and buy or no, that's--
it's one or the other. I mean, you can't have it both ways.
Mr. Thang. It depends. For instance, cashews, for instance.
Human Rights Watch came out with their good report on cashews
being produced using forced labor massively in Vietnam. So we
are against buying cashews from Vietnam.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Cashews?
Mr. Thang. Yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher. You mean as in nuts?
Mr. Thang. Nuts.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. And so you think that we should--
they should go product by product?
Mr. Thang. Yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher. How about clothing?
Ms. Ngo. Clothing--if I go to Sears or Macy and I see the
clothes made in Vietnam I won't buy them.
Mr. Rohrabacher. What about you? Clothing?
Mr. Thang. I don't buy my own clothes, actually.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Alright. You're going to dodge that
question. This guy doesn't have to worry about clothing here.
Ven. Tol. All the products I'm wearing are not made from
Vietnam so we're not buying a product from Vietnam, period.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. And what are you recommending? Don't
buy--don't buy the suit? Buy the cashews or don't buy the
cashews or----
Mr. Sifton. Cashews are a special case because forced labor
was involved.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Mr. Sifton. But no, I don't think boycotts usually are
effective and----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. The answer is just go right ahead
and buy that Vietnamese product even though there's no unions
that are permitted, even though if they tried to have a strike
they'd be beaten down and arrested.
Mr. Sifton. I'd rather have that raised by the U.S. Trade
Representative than by the American consumer because I don't
think the American consumer has the might to actually make it
impact Vietnamese----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, we can see how much that influence
with our Government wading in on the side of freedom has had
such an impact in China over the years with all of the freedom
they have there now.
But, again, but there's been some American companies that
have made a lot of good money off that lack of freedom in
China. I don't think we should continue that trend in Vietnam.
The Vietnam regime has learned that if they loosen the
chains a little bit around the necks of their slaves, of their
prisoners, that they'll get more work out of them if they
loosen the chains a little bit.
I don't think that we should be buying products from a
country that has their population in chains. We should be for
eliminating the chains that bind the people of Vietnam and
elsewhere.
So there's--and let us note there has been all this
optimism that more--as in China we all thought well, with more
prosperity there's going to be more freedom. And what have we
heard today and I've been listening in off and on all day and
there is not more freedom.
There has actually been a crackdown and a decrease in the
level of freedom in recent years. And so that theory that we're
going to have the World Trade Organization bureaucrat come over
and have a nice cup of tea with the Communist Party boss that
overseas the--you know, the conditions of labor in his country,
that's not going to work.
We've--back to the Internet freedom issue here, I think it
is despicable that we have high-tech American companies
providing technology and know-how that will permit
dictatorships like Vietnam to track down dissidents.
This is--again, but if we just have this idea well, we can
buy and sell and deal with them just like we're talking about
dealing with Belgium or someplace like that, well, that doesn't
work to further the cause of freedom or do you disagree with
that?
Mr. Sifton. No. I think Congress should definitely consider
the current pending legislation to license the software--this
type of software for the filter. These softwares have
legitimate purposes in the abstract for law enforcement, for
filtering child pornography.
The problem is if you put them in the wrong hands----
Mr. Rohrabacher. That's right, and I would suggest that
what we've seen in recent years is a crackdown on Internet
freedom. I've been to hearings.
We've heard about that today--a crackdown on the very piece
of technology that we were assured would bring a liberalization
to countries like Vietnam and China and we also have seen a
crackdown on religious freedom at a time when we were told,
well, Communism will outlive this.
They don't--you know, they will--there will be a new era
because the Communists will wake up and they will no longer be
Communists because we will have hugged them and made them
friends of ours and patted them on the back and ignored all the
fact that they're killing their neighbor's dog or they're
beating up on their neighbor's children or they're suppressing
demonstrations in the street or they're putting people in work
camps or they're taking religious believers and destroying
their churches in the Central Highlands, et cetera, et cetera.
No, we can ignore all of those things that show that you
got brutal people who hold power in Vietnam--brutal tyrannical
people who still oppress the population of Vietnam after all
these years.
I'm very grateful that the Vietnamese-American community is
educating us to this important stand that we as a nation must
make.
We need to be on the side of those who long for freedom and
oppose their tyrants who oppress them. And thank you for your
testimony today. We will continue working in this.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
That seems like a good note to end on. This subcommittee
hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:02 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing RecordNotice deg.
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Material submitted for the record by Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D.,
executive director, Boat People SOS