US committee passes bill on Vietnam rights

AFP
Posted: March 8, 2012

Three soldiers guard at a public park next to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court (AFP/File, Ian Timberlake)

WASHINGTON — A US congressional committee on Wednesday approved a bill to restrict assistance to Vietnam unless the communist nation makes progress in improving its record on human rights.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed by voice vote without objections legislation that would prevent any increase in non-humanitarian US assistance beyond 2011 levels unless the State Department judges "substantial progress" by Vietnam.

The measure still needs approval by the full House and Senate, which are led by opposite parties. The House has previously voted for the so-called Vietnam Human Rights Act, but it has died in the Senate.

Representative Chris Smith, the author of the bill, said that "religious, political and ethnic persecution" was continuing or even worsening and charged that Vietnamese authorities have tolerated forced labor and sex trafficking.

"Despite assertions by some that increased trade with Vietnam would lead to greater freedom and democracy, the Vietnamese people instead are suffering from more repression and denial of their fundamental human rights," said Smith, a Republican from New Jersey.

Representative Ed Royce, a Republican from California whose district has a large Vietnamese American community, said the bill was "an inspiration to the brave dissidents inside Vietnam who continue to be brutally repressed by Hanoi."

The bill voiced concern about Vietnam's restrictions on people "for the peaceful expression of dissenting political and religious views" and raised alarm about the treatment of government critics such as outspoken Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly.

Vietnam and the United States have been building closer relations, putting aside bitter memories of war, amid friction between Hanoi and Beijing over territorial claims in the South China Sea.

President Barack Obama's Democratic administration has repeatedly called on Vietnam to address human rights concerns, although it has also pushed ahead with greater cooperation with Hanoi including in military exchanges.

The US Agency for International Development said that the United States provided $134 million for Vietnam in the 2010 fiscal year, more than half of it devoted to improving health and child survival. The agency requested $125 million for 2012.