Clinton presses Vietnam on human rights

Responding in part to the urging of several Orange County lawmakers, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed a senior Vietnamese leader on the country’s human rights record Thursday during a visit to Hanoi. Clinton expressed concern about “arrest and conviction of people for peaceful dissent, attacks on religious groups, and curbs on internet freedom” in a private meeting with Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem, she announced in a joint news conference with Khiem afterwards.

“The United States will continue to urge Vietnam to strengthen its commitment to human rights and give its people an even greater say over the direction of their own lives,” Clinton said. In a letter on behalf of 19 members of Congress last week, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, asked Clinton to call for the immediate release of political prisoners and repeal of Internet filters. Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton wrote his own letter to Clinton, focusing on religious freedom. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa, signed both letters.

Sanchez said she was “thrilled to see” Clinton raise the issue, calling it a “big breakthrough.” But Royce cautioned against being too comforted by the rhetoric because the rebuke appeared to be relatively minor. “I don’t think we should get carried away because the mention was brief and it was sandwiched between praise for the progress Vietnam has made and calls for economic growth,” he said. “That’s far from being the center of discussion.”

He added that Vietnam should be added to the State Department’s list of “countries of particular concern” due to its violation of religious freedoms. Earlier this year, he sponsored a resolution saying much the same thing. The resolution passed the House but has stalled in the Senate. Both members of Congress agreed that the U.S. needs to apply sanctions such as the removal of non-humanitarian aid and joint military training.

“We need more leverage to force them to move on some of these things,” said Sanchez, who had planned to travel to the forum but was denied a visa to travel to Vietnam, as has repeatedly happened in the past few years.

Asked to respond to Clinton’s comments at the news conference, Khiem said each country approaches human rights differently due to “cultural and historical backgrounds.” He cited President Barack Obama’s view that human rights “shouldn’t be imposed from the outside.”

Clinton is in Hanoi to participate in the Association of Southeast Asian Nationals regional forum and to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations. She will return home Friday after a week-long trip to Pakistan, Afghanistan, South Korea and Vietnam.


(2010-07-23/OCRegister)