Abiding Repression in Vietnam

The Washington Post
January 14, 1998, Wednesday, Final Edition
NGUYEN DINH THANG
Executive Director
Boat People S.O.S.
Fairfax

Despite reports to the contrary, Vietnam still does not have free emigration and does not deserve a waiver to the Jackson-Vanik amendment. The Post's Dec. 19 news story "U.S. May Waive Anti-Communism Law to Lessen Trade Restrictions on Vietnam" reported that, according to the White House, Vietnam has recently shown sufficient cooperation with a U.S. program to resettle repatriated Vietnamese boat people to justify a waiver of the free emigration requirement under the Jackson-Vanik amendment. The White House must have been either seriously misinformed or seriously misquoted by The Post.

With its eyes on most-favored-nation status, Vietnam indeed no longer requires exit permits as a precondition for repatriated boat people to gain access to U.S. interviewers. However, this rather minor technical modification can hardly qualify as a major improvement. Even for this limited group of repatriated boat people, Vietnam does not really drop its requirement on exit permission; it only delays this requirement to a later stage -- successful applicants still need exit permission to emigrate.

For all other Vietnamese citizens -- including many former political prisoners, political dissidents and religious leaders -- exit permission remains a precondition for access to foreign delegations. The White House, if not misquoted by The Post, is once again sending the wrong signal to Communist Vietnam.

In establishing diplomatic relations with Vietnam in 1995, the administration argued that "constructive engagement" would help promote political liberalization in that country. Since then more dissidents and religious leaders have been imprisoned. Freedom of the press has been much more severely curtailed than before. And this trend continues.

Last month the Ministry of Interior established a new center to further tighten its grip on the press. Less than two months ago, the chief editor of a trade journal was arrested on charges of divulging state secrets when in fact he only exposed corruption. Earlier in 1997, the government promulgated Executive Decree 31/CP, authorizing the administrative detention of all political suspects for up to two years without trial.

The United States should not reward Vietnam with trade privileges until the Vietnamese government makes significant concessions on human rights by truly honoring the right of its citizens to freely emigrate and by releasing all political and religious dissidents from its system of prisons and labor camps.