[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 159 (Wednesday, October 1, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10338-S10339]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. BOXER:
  S. 3678. A bill to promote freedom, human rights, and the rule of law 
in Vietnam; to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce an important 
piece of legislation--the Vietnam Human Rights Act.
  Over the last several sessions of Congress, legislation addressing 
the human rights situation in Vietnam has been repeatedly introduced 
but has never been enacted into law.
  Like many of my Senate colleagues, I had hoped that strengthening our 
relationship with Vietnam on the trade and economic front and 
supporting Vietnam's integration into the international community would 
dramatically improve Vietnam's human rights record.
  But that has not turned out to be the case.
  The United States has removed Vietnam from its list of Countries of 
Particular Concern, granted Vietnam permanent normalized trade 
relations, and supported Vietnam's bid to join the World Trade 
Organization, yet Vietnam continues to arrest its citizens for their 
peaceful advocacy of political views.
  It also continues to strictly restrict religious freedom, to harass 
and detain labor activists, and to refuse its citizens the basic rights 
of freedom of association, assembly, and expression.
  Just last year, Vietnam carried out one of its harshest crackdowns in 
20 years against peaceful protestors calling for political change.
  The crackdown, which continued through mid-2007, led to the arrest of 
hundreds of individuals, including Father Nguyen Van Ly, who was 
sentenced to 8 years in prison.
  This crackdown happened shortly before the visit of Vietnamese 
President Nguyen Minh Triet to the United States last June.
  At the end of 2007, the United States Commission on International 
Religious Freedom summed up Vietnam's recent behavior this way:

       Vietnam's overall human rights record remains very poor and 
     deteriorated in the last year . . . Dozens of legal and 
     political reform advocates, free speech activists, labor 
     unionists, and independent religious leaders and religious 
     freedom advocates have been arrested, placed under home 
     detention or surveillance, threatened, intimidated, and 
     harassed.

  Now we are witnessing yet another crackdown--this time on Catholic 
Church members in Hanoi who have been holding prayer vigils to demand 
the return of properties confiscated after the Communist government 
took power in the 1950s.
  The Vietnamese government has responded to these protests through 
intimidation, violence, and arrest.

[[Page S10339]]

  Just last week, Ben Stocking, the Bureau Chief for the Associated 
Press in Hanoi, was beaten by Vietnamese security forces for 
photographing one such vigil. It is time for such behavior to stop.
  The Boxer bill seeks to improve human rights in Vietnam by shifting 
the focus of U.S. non-humanitarian foreign aid to a comprehensive 
approach that does more to address human rights.
  The bill specifically requires that any spending increase for U.S. 
non-humanitarian development, economic, trade, and security assistance 
to Vietnam be matched by additional funding for programs focusing on 
human rights, the rule of law, and democracy promotion.
  To date, the majority of non-humanitarian U.S. assistance programs to 
Vietnam have focused on business, trade, and security, and have not 
effectively addressed human rights abuses.
  In addition, the bill outlines objectives for U.S. diplomacy with 
Vietnam on human rights related issues and encourages Vietnam to 
release its religious and political prisoners.
  The Boxer bill also prohibits Vietnam from having access to the U.S. 
Generalized System of Preferences, GSP, program until Vietnam improves 
its labor standards. The GSP program allows developing countries to 
import certain items into the U.S. duty-free.
  While the 110th Congress will shortly come to an end, I wanted to 
introduce this legislation as a signal to the Vietnamese government 
that its record on human rights and recent behavior has not gone 
unnoticed. I intend to reintroduce this legislation very early in the 
111th Congress.
  Let me be clear. I support a strong bilateral relationship between 
Vietnam and the United States. But the Vietnamese government must 
dramatically improve its human rights record in order for our 
relationship to grow.

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