[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 203 (Monday, December 18, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15067-H15068]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     VOLLEYBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, tonight this Member will address two very 
different subjects in the time available under this special order.
  First, the subject of NCAA volleyball championship. Mr. Speaker, a 
year ago when the University of Nebraska Cornhusker women's volleyball 
team lost in the Regional finals, the team set a goal. The title on 
their media guide this season read ``One goal, one focus, one 
champion.''
  All season the Huskers were determined to meet that one goal, keep 
that one focus, and be that one champion. This past Saturday in 
Amherst, MA, the Nebraska Cornhusker women's volleyball team ended a 
32-1 season by capturing its first national championship.
  The Huskers' victory is only the second time in the 15-year history 
of the NCAA volleyball tournament, that a team east of California has 
won the national title.
  Since 1982 Husker volleyball teams have never lost more than six 
matches in a season, nor has any Husker team since that time fallen out 
of the American Volleyball Coaches Association top 25 poll.
  And obviously their accomplishments continued this year. In his 19th 
season, Terry Pettit coached two Academic All-Americans, three first 
team All-Americans, and the National Co-Player of the year which is the 
award that is equivalent to the Heisman Trophy.
  One goal. One focus. One champion. This Member and all Cornhusker 
fans are very proud of the accomplishments of these superior student-
athletes. Congratulations to the Nebraska Cornhuskers--the 1995 Women's 
Volleyball National Champions.


         vietnamese boat people: don't prolong their suffering

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member has spoken previously about 
the plight of the 40,000 Vietnamese boat people languishing in refugee 
camps in Southeast Asia. This Member has described the damage wrought 
by 

[[Page H15068]]
the ill-conceived Section 2104 of H.R. 1561, the American Overseas 
Interests Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives on May 
24. This legislation has given these boat people, most of whom have 
been determined to be economic migrants rather than political refugees, 
false hope of resettlement in the United States directly from the 
camps. This false hope has led to rioting in refugee camps and has 
stopped a very successful program of voluntary repatriation under which 
more than 70,000 of these boat people have returned to Vietnam. The 
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and many objective 
observers lay the blame squarely on this legislation, the House passed 
provisions in the American Overseas Interests Act for outbreaks of 
violence in the camps and for the collapse of voluntary repatriation.
  In an effort to break the current impasse the State Department is 
negotiating with Vietnam a program, called ``Track II,'' under which 
any boat people who volunteer to return to Vietnam will be entitled to 
an interview by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to determine 
once and for all if they qualify for refugee status under U.S. law. In 
this Member's opinion, the Track II proposal offers some hope of 
restarting the voluntary repatriation program, thereby decreasing the 
numbers of boat people languishing in the refugee camps and diminishing 
somewhat the pressure for massive involuntary returns which would lead 
to a humanitarian nightmare next year.
  In a recent State Department briefing, we learned that the 
negotiations with Hanoi face some serious obstacles. I would urge my 
colleagues to lower the Congressional profile on this issue and allow 
the negotiations to run their course. Further action on the harmful 
legislative provisions contained in H.R. 1561 would only exacerbate the 
problems facing this program.
  Mr. Speaker, finally this Member would insert into the Record an 
article from the November 29, 1995 edition of The Asian Wall Street 
Journal, entitled, ``Why Prolong the Boat People's Suffering?'' This 
article, written by Mr. Robert Van Leeuwen, the retired chief of the 
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Hong 
Kong, makes a most convincing case that the biggest losers from the 
ill-conceived Section 2104 of H.R. 1561 are ``precisely those 
Vietnamese whose fate is the object of the proposed legislation.'' I 
commend this article to all my colleagues on both sides of Capitol 
Hill.

          [From the Asian Wall Street Journal, Nov. 29, 1995]

                Why Prolong the Boat People's Suffering?

                        (By Robert Van Leeuwen)

       In June 1989, the United States and 50 other governments at 
     the U.N.-sponsored International Conference on Indo-Chinese 
     Refugees agreed on a Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) to 
     provide humanitarian solutions for the continuing exodus from 
     Vietnam. Six years later, CPA's achievements include tens of 
     thousands of former ``boat people'' safely back in their 
     country.
       But legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress by 
     Representatives Chris Smith and Ben Gilman pretends that 
     history simply did not happen. Proposed last May, the 
     legislation suggests that the last 40,000 Vietnamese in 
     camps, all of them already determined not to be refugees, 
     should now go through re-screening by an entirely different 
     and far broader set of criteria to see whether they could be 
     admitted to the United States as refugees.
       In other words, the congressman would have us believe that 
     hundreds of millions of dollars spent to implement the CPA, 
     the continued provision of asylum in Southeast Asia, 75,000 
     persons determined not to be refugees safely back in Vietnam, 
     89,000 others resettled in third countries and a continuing 
     flow of non-refugees back to Vietnam, was all in vain. That 
     all this, achieved in a framework of internationally accepted 
     humanitarian principles and standards, should be seen as null 
     and void, and all the result of a biased and sinister design 
     implemented by equally biased and sinister people.
       This is clearly not credible.
       But who pays the price of this ill-conceived initiative? 
     Ironically, the biggest losers are precisely those Vietnamese 
     whose fate is the object of the proposed legislation. Second 
     in line are the U.S. taxpayers asked to subscribe to 
     expenditures initially set at some $30 million, to settle in 
     the U.S.A. some 20,000 Vietnamese already determined after 
     elaborate evaluation of their stories not to be refugees. 
     Then there are the returnees to Vietnam who would see 
     thousands of those who chose to hold out in the camps 
     suddenly and inexplicably rewarded by a new chance for a free 
     ticket to the U.S.A. And after them, the still shadowy 
     figures of those around the world who would be paying for an 
     inevitable perception of lack of consistency and credibility 
     in U.S. foreign policy.
       Of course, no one ever doubted that implementation of the 
     CPA would be difficult and controversial. For 14 years, 
     following the collapse of the Republic of Vietnam in April 
     1975, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese ``boat people'' had 
     been given temporary asylum in Southeast Asian countries of 
     arrival pending their permanent resettlement elsewhere. Since 
     all were automatically considered eligible for resettlement, 
     the momentum of the exodus was huge.
       Then Hong Kong, inundated by arrivals from northern 
     Vietnam, and in cognizance of changed realities in that 
     country, imposed a cut-off date on June 15, 1988, after which 
     eligibility for resettlement was no longer a given. Countries 
     of the region followed suit. So it was that, a decade and a 
     half after the end of the war, a young fisherman in northern 
     Vietnam or those with older ambitions in the South could no 
     longer hop along China's coast to Hong Kong with the 
     assurance of finding there the gate to a permanent home in 
     the West. Instead, they had to tell their story to government 
     and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 
     officials charged with the task of determining by 
     internationally accepted criteria and through elaborate and 
     expensive procedures whether their inability or unwillingness 
     to return to Vietnam was based on a well-founded fear of 
     persecution.
       Essential to the international consensus on the CPA was a 
     clearly stated agreement on the fate of those determined not 
     to be refugees: ``Persons determined not to be refugees 
     should return to their country of origin in accordance with 
     international practices. . . . In the first instance, every 
     effort will be made to encourage the voluntary return of such 
     persons.''
       In 1988, the UNHCR signed crucial agreements with Vietnam 
     and Hong Kong that guaranteed standards of treatment for new 
     arrivals and for returnees to Vietnam, including full access 
     by UNHCR staff to both categories of persons. And by 1992, 
     difficulties notwithstanding, an honorable end to the long 
     saga of the ``boat people'' was in sight. The stream of new 
     arrivals had dried up. Voluntary returns to Vietnam from Hong 
     Kong alone, temporary home to the largest number of 
     Vietnamese in search of resettlement, averaged more than 
     1,000 a month in 1992 and 1993, and continued at almost 500 
     monthly throughout 1994.
       Last May, though, immediately following press reports of 
     the Smith-Gilman proposal, those figures for Hong Kong and 
     the region as a whole dropped to an all-time low since 1989 
     of 156 returnees in September of this year. A similar 
     precipitous drop in volunteers for repatriation was observed 
     in the spring of 1991 just after published statements by 
     Orange County Representative Bob Dornan and the then Vice 
     President of the United States Dan Quayle holding out false 
     hopes of resettlement for Vietnamese regardless of the 
     necessary distinction between refugees from persecution and 
     non-refugees in search of better economic prospects. People 
     still in Vietnam took to the boats again and looked in vain 
     for the U.S. aircraft carrier rumored to be waiting for them 
     in the Tonkin Gulf. It never came, but arrivals in Hong Kong, 
     down to 6,595 in 1990 from over 34,000 in 1989, soared to 
     20,206.
       Today the search for refugees among the Vietnamese has been 
     completed for some time. The number of new arrivals dropped 
     to virtually zero in 1993. The future for the 40,000 non-
     refugees left in Southeast Asia's camps lies in return.
       Over the six years of the CPA, those responsible worked 
     under the most intense international scrutiny imaginable. No 
     one hesitated to jump to the press with criticisms and 
     allegations of human rights infractions, nor did the press, 
     governments, private voluntary agencies and a colorful 
     variety of individuals hesitate to dump these on UNHCR's 
     doorstep. Inherently, no system of procedures for refugee 
     status determination anywhere in the world can be perfect. 
     Reasonable criticism and allegations based on fact helped to 
     improve and strengthen a humanitarian framework for action 
     designed to alleviate, not to prolong or deepen human 
     suffering. No one, least of all UNHCR officials, stood to 
     gain by ignoring them.
       Unfortunately, reason, vision and recognition of the facts 
     do not always have a louder voice than easily heard outcries 
     of wrong-doing based on ideological convictions, emotion or 
     narrow personal agendas. It is everyone's responsibility to 
     see to it that the former, not the latter, prevail.
       It is both quick and easy to make statements or propose 
     legislation from positions of public trust. It may be far 
     less so to live with the consequences. In the case of the 
     Vietnamese that means with virtual certainty yet another 
     prolongation of their dehumanizing stay in detention camps 
     surrounded by endemic crime, the torn-up papers of vain hopes 
     and children who have yet to see a world beyond barbed wire. 
     That is the price they pay.

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