[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
EXAMINING ONGOING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN VIETNAM
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
AND HUMAN RIGHTS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 24, 2012
__________
Serial No. 112-125
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California BRAD SHERMAN, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
RON PAUL, Texas GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MIKE PENCE, Indiana RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
CONNIE MACK, Florida GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas DENNIS CARDOZA, California
TED POE, Texas BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DAVID RIVERA, Florida FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
ROBERT TURNER, New York
Yleem D.S. Poblete, Staff Director
Richard J. Kessler, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
ROBERT TURNER, New York
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Anh ``Joseph'' Cao, former Member of Congress...... 8
Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D., executive director, Boat People SOS.... 16
Mr. Rong Nay, executive director, Montagnard Human Rights
Organization................................................... 30
Ms. Phuong-Anh Vu, victim of human trafficking................... 37
Mr. John Sifton, advocacy director for Asia, Human Rights Watch.. 45
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Anh ``Joseph'' Cao: Prepared statement............. 11
Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D.: Prepared statement..................... 20
Mr. Rong Nay: Prepared statement................................. 32
Ms. Phuong-Anh Vu: Prepared statement............................ 40
Mr. John Sifton: Prepared statement.............................. 49
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 70
Hearing minutes.................................................. 71
Edited oral statement of Ms. Phuong-Anh Vu....................... 72
Nguyen Dinh Thang, Ph.D.: Material submitted for the record...... 75
Mr. Rong Nay: Material submitted for the record.................. 83
Mr. John Sifton: Material submitted for the record............... 99
The Honorable Al Green, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas: Material submitted for the record.............. 114
EXAMINING ONGOING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN VIETNAM
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TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2012
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
and Human Rights
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o'clock
p.m., in room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon.
Christopher H. Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will come to order. And I want
to welcome all of you to our hearing on human rights in
Vietnam. And I want to thank you for joining us at this very
important hearing.
Before I introduce all the witnesses, I do want to say a
very special thanks to Anh Cao who is a good friend, the first
Vietnamese-American ever to be elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives and a man who spoke out bravely and repeatedly
for human rights all over the world, but with a particular
emphasis and with a great deal of knowledge in depth on
Vietnam. So welcome back to the Congress. It's great to see you
again.
The Vietnam Government continues to be an egregious
violator of a broad array of human rights. Our distinguished
witnesses who are joining us here today will provide a detailed
account, and I would like to highlight just a few areas of
grave concerns. Despite the State Department's decision in 2006
to remove Vietnam from the list of Countries of Particular
Concern as designated pursuant to the International Religious
Freedom Act, Vietnam, in fact, continues to be among the worst
violators of religious freedom in the world. According to the
United States Commission for International Religious Freedom
2011 Annual Report, ``The Government of Vietnam continues to
control religious communities, severely restricts and penalizes
independent religious practice and brutally represses
individuals and groups viewed as challenging its authority.''
I agree with the Commission's conclusion, where they have
asked that Vietnam again be designated as a Country of
Particular Concern. The State Department's designation of
Vietnam as a Tier II Watch List country with respect to the
minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking also
needs to be critically examined. The Department's 2011
Trafficking in Persons Report states not only that Vietnamese
women and children are being sexually exploited, but that there
are severe labor abuses occurring as well, with the
government's complicity. The report acknowledges that state-
affiliated labor export companies charge illegal fees for
overseas employment, and recruitment companies engage in other
trafficking-related violations.
There are also documented cases of recruitment companies
ignoring pleas for help from workers in exploitive situations.
As the sponsor of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, I am
deeply concerned that the tier rankings are not being better
utilized by our State Department to pressure Vietnam to correct
the trafficking abuses occurring within its government, not to
mention those in the private sector.
We are particularly privileged to have today Ms. Phuong-Anh
Vu and she will testify about the horrific suffering she
endured when she was trafficked from Vietnam to Jordan. It is
also troubling to hear about the abuse that she and others have
had to endure by the Vietnamese Government even after their
escape from the traffickers. Ms. Vu, I greatly admire your
courage and the subcommittee is most appreciative of your
presence as well as your testimony.
I met other courageous individuals during my last trip to
Vietnam who were struggling for fundamental human rights in
their country. Unfortunately, many of them continue to be
persecuted by the government. Father Ly is in prison and is
suffering from very poor health and attorney Nguyen Van Dai
remains under house arrest. Despite this dismal status for
human rights in Vietnam, there are new opportunities for the
United States to exert pressure on the government to cease
these abuses. HR 1410, the Vietnam Human Rights Act, which I
introduced last year, which passed the House on two occasions,
most recently in 2007, would provide significant motivation to
the Government of Vietnam to respect its international human
rights obligations. It would prohibit any annual increase in
the amount of non-humanitarian assistance that the United
States provides to Vietnam, unless there is an equal or greater
increase in the amount of assistance for human rights and
democracy promotion and programming in Vietnam.
An increase in non-humanitarian assistance would also be
prohibited unless Vietnam satisfies certain requirements
including substantial progress toward respect for the freedom
of religion and freedom of expression and assembly, respect for
ethnic and minorities rights, and allowing Vietnamese nationals
free and open access to the United States refugee programs. The
government would also have to end its complicity in severe
forms of human trafficking.
In addition, this legislation would reaffirm the United
States' commitment to overcoming the jamming of Radio Free Asia
by the Vietnamese Government, to engaging in cultural exchanges
in a manner that promotes freedom and democracy in Vietnam, and
to offering refugee resettlement of Vietnamese nationals who
have been deemed ineligible solely due to administrative errors
or for reasons beyond their control.
Again, I want to thank our distinguished witnesses for
being here and look forward to their testimony. I'd like to
yield to my friend and colleague, Ranking Member Don Payne.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. Excuse my voice. I became
hoarse. Let me start by commending my colleague, Chris Smith,
for calling this very important hearing. I would especially
like to thank our witnesses, a very distinguished group, for
agreeing to testify here today.
Following the Vietnam War, relations between Vietnam and
the United States were minimal until the mid-1990s. Since then,
economic and security interests have resulted in increased
partnership. I became very involved in the humanitarian side of
the Vietnam War and was in Vietnam during the withdrawal of
American troops and was working to try to build cities up by
the north where the desire was to strengthen the community and
to resist the north and VC from coming down. So I, up in Quang
Trung Province and cities in that area, spent time working with
various community development programs for a while. So I have a
very strong interest and concern in Vietnam as many of us have.
Since the 1990s when we started to have some attention
paid, economic security interest has increased and there have
been increased partnership. In 2001, the U.S. established
normal trade relations with Vietnam. And in 2010, bilateral
trade amounted to over $15 billion. Vietnam has joined the U.S.
as one of the nine countries negotiating the Trans-Pacific
Strategic Economic Partnership Free Trade Agreement which the
administration intends to have in place no later than November
of this year. However, as Secretary Clinton noted, last
November, the United States had made it clear to Vietnam that
if the two countries are to develop a strategic partnership,
Vietnam must do more to respect and protect the civilians'
rights.
Under the rule of the Vietnamese Communist Party, the VCP,
the Vietnamese people have faced oppression in a number of
areas including religious persecution, wrongful detainment, and
suppression of expression, assembly, and association. Political
dissidents are routinely targeted and ethnic minorities face
repression and discrimination. In the 2004 Religious Freedom
Report, the State Department designated Vietnam a Country of
Particular Concern (CPC) principally because of reports of
worsening harassment of certain ethnic minority Protestants and
Buddhists. In 2006, Hanoi promised to improve conditions and
release some of the dissidents. The Bush administration
subsequently removed Vietnam from the CPC list.
However, according to numerous accounts since at least
early 2007, the Vietnamese Governments' suppression of
dissidents has intensified and its tolerance for criticism has
even lessened markedly. Beginning in 2009, the government began
increasing the targeting of bloggers as well as lawyers who
represent human rights and religious freedom groups,
particularly those who are linked to a network of pro-democracy
activists. Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have
reported an increase in the incidents of forced labor, torture,
and prison deaths. According to numerous accounts, the
government's suppression increased in 2010 and 2011. And in
2011 alone, 21 people died in police custody. This is a very
troubling trend.
I will have to leave following the witnesses' testimony
because of some special obligations with the State of the Union
address, but I would ask unanimous consent that Congressman Al
Green from Houston, who represents a great number of
Vietnamese, be allowed to sit in. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. No objection.
Mr. Payne. Thank you, Mr. Smith. I'd like to now yield to
Mr. Royce.
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I really want to
thank all of our witnesses who have been so engaged on human
rights for being here today and especially our former
colleague, Joseph Cao. It's good to have you with us on an
issue which I think really touches all of us. Earlier this
month, the chairman and I, along with Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen,
and also the ranking member, Howard Berman, we sent a letter to
the State Department. And in that letter we detailed the on-
going human rights abuses in Vietnam and how little things have
changed.
In this hearing, we intend and I appreciate the chairman
holding this hearing, we intend to put that needed spotlight on
a situation that is very dire, especially for activists and
many young people in Vietnam. I hope the administration is
listening to this hearing.
I think one of the cases brought to our attention speaks to
all of us, the case of Viet Khang, who is a songwriter in
Vietnam, and he sits in a Vietnamese jail for simply writing
songs and posting songs on the Internet. One song he wrote was
entitled ``Who Are You?'' questioning the conscience of the
police who brutally assaulted and arrested demonstrators who
were peacefully protesting. And he, like so many political
prisoners in Vietnam, should be free today.
Recently, I think, we've seen a change in pattern. Instead
of the show trials that we're used to, they're just skipping
the show trials, the Government of Vietnam, and they're sending
dissidents straight to administrative detention. Just the other
day, The Wall Street Journal editorialized against this new
practice in Vietnam, but as one witness notes, here's how the
editorial looked to readers in Saigon. Here's The Wall Street
Journal. They obviously went through a lot of magic markers in
order to individually censor the Asia edition of The Wall
Street Journal that was distributed in Saigon. So you've got
many brave Vietnamese men and women who are standing up for
their rights, the right to free speech, for the right to some
measure of freedom, and they deserve our support.
And what we're talking about today is not some isolated
case. We're talking about the norm in that society today and
we'll hear today that the situation, especially for young
bloggers, young writers, young songwriters, for the youth, it's
deteriorating in terms of the measure of freedom in Vietnam.
I have legislation that calls for Vietnam to be placed back
on the CPC list with respect to religious freedom. I also have
legislation that Joseph Cao and I worked on that would identify
and sanction those individuals in the Vietnamese Government
committing those human rights abuses. It is the least we should
do. We must do at least this. And we should move these bills
and I thank the chairman for holding this hearing.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Green.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
allowing me as an interloper to be a part of the committee. I'd
like to thank Ranking Member Payne for making the request and
for all that he has done through the many, many years that I
have known him to curtail human rights violations around the
world as one of the preeminent spokespersons for human rights
in the Congress of the United States of America. I'm grateful
to each of these men for giving me this opportunity to be a
part of this committee, temporarily.
I want to thank the witnesses and I must especially thank
Ms. Vu. It does take great courage to come before a committee
of Congress and make your statements known to the world. We
appreciate you for what you are doing to help others. It means
a lot to have someone who has empirical evidence, firsthand
knowledge of what's going on presented. Thank you, Member Cao,
for returning and being a part of this committee. But finally,
Boat People SOS is known to us in Houston quite well, we
appreciate what you've done across the length and breadth of
our city.
I am very concerned about human trafficking and one of my
concerns, quite candidly, when properly distilled becomes
simply is human trafficking, a euphemism for involuntary
servitude, which is a euphemism for slavery, are people being
detained against their will and forced to do things that we
find unpleasant? I'm eager to hear from the witnesses. I can
tell you that I've heard enough anecdotal evidence from members
of my district. I have a very large Vietnamese population in my
district. The ballot is printed in Vietnamese. And that
population and I have a kinship and I am told quite regularly
that things are in need of some attention. So I'm honored to
have this opportunity to acquire some additional evidence of
things that hopefully I can be of assistance with.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Ranking
Member. I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Green. Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm interested in
hearing what the witnesses have to say. I'm hoping that by
shining the light on these problems, the United States will
help use its trade policies and finally its moral solution to
improve the human conditions and the rights conditions in
Vietnam and elsewhere. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Turner. Let me introduce our
distinguished panel beginning with former Congressman Anh Cao,
who was born in Vietnam, and at the age of eight was able to
escape to the United States with his siblings with the downfall
in Saigon. He left without his parents. It was an epic journey,
but one that he engaged in, and certainly he flourished. After
learning English, he did well in school, and went on to earn
his undergraduate and master's degrees before teaching
philosophy and ethics in New Orleans. Congressman Cao became an
attorney and worked for Boat People SOS and that's how I first
met him, when he was advocating on behalf of those who took to
the seas, many of whom ended up in so-called refugee camps
dotted throughout Southeast Asia and in the region. And he was
a great, great advocate for those people who had been so
disadvantaged by the invasion from the North. He has assisted
Vietnamese and other minorities ever since. He lost his home
and his office in Hurricane Katrina, but helped lead his
community as it started to rebuild. He represented Louisiana's
2nd Congressional District in the 111th Congress, and as I said
earlier, was a stalwart on behalf of human rights.
We'll then hear from Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang who came to the
United States as a refugee from Vietnam in 1979. After earning
his Ph.D. from Virginia Tech, he began volunteering with Boat
People SOS in 1988. Now serving as executive director of Boat
People SOS, Dr. Thang has worked for the past two decades to
resettle tens of thousands of Vietnamese Boat People and other
refugees to the United States and has assisted more than 4,000
victims of human trafficking, modern day slavery. He has
received numerous awards for his extensive human rights work.
Dr. Thang travels to Asia frequently where he documents ongoing
abuses and strives to rescue victims.
I would note parenthetically that it was Dr. Thang in the
1990s who came to this subcommittee, and I chaired the
subcommittee at the time, with alarming information about how
there were many refugees in places like Hai Island and all
throughout Asia, Boat People, some 40,000. And his estimation
was that at least half of those, maybe more, had been
improperly screened out from refugee status and were being
involuntarily repatriated to Vietnam where they were facing a
very, very bleak future, if not reeducation camps and
incarceration. He brought that to the subcommittee. As a direct
result of his intervention, my subcommittee held four hearings.
I offered legislation on the floor that passed by approximately
100 votes, a bipartisan amendment, that said no U.S. money will
be used to involuntarily repatriate these individuals and Dr.
Thang, at each of those four hearings, including one closed
hearing where we desperately tried to get the administration to
realize that these people were refugees and they were being
sent back improperly in contravention of international law and
U.S. law. As a direct result, a program called ROVR was
established because there were friends in the administration at
the time who saw it as we did, and that program resulted in the
rescreening of so many, and approximately 20,000 people made
their way to the United States. I say this with great
admiration; Dr. Thang was the one who brought it, kept us very
well informed, and I will be forever indebted for what he
provided this subcommittee, me and my staff, in terms of
actionable information.
Then we'll hear from Mr. Rong Nay who has worked for over
30 years to improve the lives of the Montagnard people, both in
Vietnam and in the United States. After coming to the U.S., Mr.
Nay was part of numerous groups helping the Montagnard people,
including the Montagnard Human Rights Organization, which was
founded in 1998, where he is currently serving as the executive
director. He works on issues such as family reunification,
refugee resettlement, cultural preservation, and cultural
challenges that the Montagnard refugees encounter when they
come to the U.S. Of course, we all have been deeply distressed
over recent events concerning the Montagnards and we look
forward to hearing more on that as well as the ongoing
persecution of people of faith that we know is ongoing and
totally repressive.
We'll then hear from Ms. Phuong-Anh Vu who was trafficked
by a Vietnamese labor export company to Jordan in 2008 where
she and 260 fellow Vietnamese were exploited in slave-like
conditions. They went on strike and were beaten by guards and
police. Ms. Vu quickly rose to become the de facto leader of
the victims. She sought outside help and subsequently became
the target of the Vietnamese Government. And as she was being
returned to Vietnam for punishment, she managed to escape and
took refuge in Thailand. She eventually resettled in the United
States as a refugee and Ms. Vu continues to fight to end the
trafficking of Vietnamese migrant workers, a true hero.
We'll then hear from Mr. John Sifton who is the advocacy
director for Asia at Human Rights Watch, no stranger, nor is
Human Rights Watch, to this committee, where he focuses on
South and Southeast Asia. He was previously the director of the
One World Research, the public interest research and
investigation firm, that specializes in international human
rights cases. Mr. Sifton traveled to Hanoi and Saigon late last
year and has been actively raising the Vietnamese human rights
record with various diplomats, trade representatives,
officials, international financial institutions, and
journalists in the context of emerging Trans-Pacific
Partnership. Mr. Sifton, thank you for being here as well.
Congressman Cao, please proceed. Congressman Cao, if you
could just suspend for 1 minute, I didn't see the vice chair of
the subcommittee, Mr. Fortenberry has arrived and he's
recognized for such time he may consume.
Mr. Fortenberry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I apologize for
running a little bit behind, but I'll give a brief opening
statement and turn to our former colleague, Congressman Cao.
Thank you for holding this important hearing as we work to
develop effective bilateral relationships with Vietnam. This
hearing is of special interest to the Vietnamese diaspora,
particularly in my home State of Nebraska. Many people of
Vietnamese descent have chosen to make Lincoln, Nebraska their
home and build their American dream there. They contribute
immensely to the vitality of our community and have voiced
agonized worry about the human rights situation as the
Vietnamese Government continues to repress groups viewed as
challenging political authority, especially, as was mentioned,
country dwellers and minority ethic groups in Vietnam such as
the Hmong and Montagnard who live far from the eyes of the
foreign news agencies.
The persecution also extends to religious minorities. In
May of last year, the village of Con Dau Catholic parish faced
government retribution in the form of three lost lives and
hundreds of injuries in a funeral procession of all things. The
offense, they were exercising earlier their right of protest
against when the government decided to sell their land to build
a resort is my understanding. Simply being a woman or a child
in Vietnam can be fraught with danger as well.
According to the State Department's Trafficking and Persons
Report, Vietnam is both a source and destination country for
both sex and labor trafficking of women and of children. With
China facing a shortage of women, Vietnamese women are
recruited into servitude through fraudulent marriages. The
Vietnamese Government estimates that approximately 10 percent
of women entering into arranged marriages may become
trafficking victims.
Women who are fortunate enough to enter into legitimate
marriages with few exceptions are subject to a one- or two-
child policy with tragic consequences. Vietnamese women and
their families suffer as many as 45 abortions per 100 live
births compared to 25 abortions in the United States in the
last decade. It was also reported that this abortion practice
accounted for 11.5 percent of maternal deaths in Vietnam in
2002.
I note that Vietnam was removed as a Country of Particular
Concern in 2006 by the State Department despite lingering
concerns about whether that change in status made good sense.
While economic development and market reforms have spurred a
relative improvement in the living standards of many Vietnamese
people, the welfare of the most vulnerable continues to be in
jeopardy.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing and
I welcome our witnesses and look forward to your further
comments on what I have raised and any other issues that we
feel--that you feel are necessary that we may need to know.
Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice Chairman.
The Honorable Anh Cao.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, FORMER MEMBER OF
CONGRESS
Mr. Cao. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Smith, Ranking
Member Payne, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights, I would like to thank
you for holding this important hearing on the human rights
conditions in Vietnam.
The struggle for religious freedom and the promotion of
justice and democracy in Vietnam remain in the hearts and minds
of the 1.5 million Vietnamese-Americans presently living in the
United States. Therefore, your dedication in support of these
issues will be deeply appreciated and remembered by those who
continue to struggle and fight for these righteous causes.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, all human
beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. These
rights include the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and
religion which encompasses the freedom to change a person's
religion or belief and freedom either alone or in a community
with others and in public or private to manifest his religion
or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. These
words are expressed in Articles 1 and 18 of the United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, respectively.
Vietnam, a member of the United Nations, has systematically
violated these rights and has no intention of keeping the
promise that it made to the U.S. Congress in 2006 to steadily
improve its human rights record as a condition for the
Congress' support of Vietnam's entry into the World Trade
Organization. Sadly, instead of improving its human rights
records, the Government of Vietnam has increased its repression
of dissenters and religious leaders. To continue its imposition
of an iron will on the people of Vietnam, the government
detains, imprisons, places under house arrest, and convicts
individuals for their peaceful expression of dissenting
political or religious views, including but not limited to
democracy and human rights activists, independent trade union
leaders, non-state sanctioned publishers, journalists,
bloggers, members of ethnic minorities, and unsanctioned
religious groups.
The Government of Vietnam especially continues to limit
freedom of religion, pressures all religious groups to come
under the control of government and party control management
boards and restricts the operation of independent religious
organizations. Religious leaders who do not conform to the
government's demands are often harassed, arrested, imprisoned,
or put under house arrest.
As noted in the October 2009 report of the United States
Commission on International Religious Freedom,
``There continues to be far too many serious abuses and
restrictions of religious freedom in the country.
Individuals continue to be imprisoned or detained for
reasons related to their religious activity or
religious freedom advocacy. Police and government
officials are not held fully accountable for abuses.
Independent religious activity remains illegal and
legal protection for government-approved religious
organizations are both vague and subject to arbitrary
or discriminatory interpretations based on political
factors. Moreover, property disputes between the
government and the Catholic Church in Hanoi led to
detention, threats, harassment, and violence by
contract thugs against peaceful prayer vigils and
religious leaders.''
A case that succinctly paints and substantiates the words
of the Commission on International Religious Freedom is the
case of Thai Ha Parish, a Catholic parish in Hanoi. The parish
was founded by the Redemptorist Order in 1935 with the
intention of providing educational and medical services to the
region. Soon after the Communist government took over Hanoi in
1954, it confiscated schools that the parish had established,
leaving only the facilities to house the Redemptorist Brothers,
the church building, the community center, and a few small
structures around the church. But that was not enough for the
communist government. It subsequently seized all the land
belonging to the parish around Thai Ha and underhandedly
proceeded to take control of the remaining buildings that it
did not want to confiscate in 1954. For example, in 1959, the
government forced the Redemptorists to loan one of the two
buildings housing the brothers so that the government could
turn it into a school. Because it was for a good cause, the
order complied. In 1972, the government without due process
seized the remaining buildings and converted both buildings
used to house the brothers into a hospital. Subsequently, the
government borrowed the community center and set up a wool
knitting factory, then it borrowed the building at the front of
the church and turned it into a Red Cross station. Finally, it
borrowed the last structure belonging to the church and turned
it into a machine shop to initiate the Thang Long Cooperative.
In 2008, during peaceful prayer vigils, calling for the
return of government confiscated church properties, contract
thugs harassed and dispersed the protesters and destroyed
church property. In its final act of usurpation, the government
then decided only 4 months ago to construct a waste treatment
plant on or near parish grounds to effectively seize the rights
of ownership and stewardship after they forcibly took over the
right of use. Again, the parishioners protested and again the
government sent in their thugs. Father Nguyen Van Khai
described what happened. For a number of days following October
2, 2011, high-powered loud speakers belonging to Quang Trung
administrative area beamed toward Thai Ha church the
government's plan to build a wastewater treatment plant for
Dong Da hospital on the 2000 square meter lot belonging to the
church. Later events took place over a number of days. First,
representatives of Dong Da Hospital came to the church to
deliver the message. Subsequently, the Quang Trung People's
Committee requested a representative of Thai Ha church to come
to its offices to hear the message. In response, Thai Ha parish
promptly submitted a request to the appropriate government unit
to one, stop all activities under the wastewater treatment
project and two, return to the parish the land and buildings
that the government borrowed. Furthermore, the parish used an
electronic sign to display its legitimate demand. Concurrently,
the government-owned media launched a furious campaign of
libel, slander, false accusations and threats against
parishioners, brothers, and priests in Thai Ha. Following this,
the government resorted to its familiar tactics. It's employees
and police mustered a number of strangers, i.e., outside thugs
who came to the church to threaten, harass, and terrorize
priests, monks, and parishioners. On November 8, 2011, a
government agent came to Mr. Dung's house and formed a heated
discussion. The police used this as an excuse to arrest Mr.
Dung. The underlying reality is that like so many other
Vietnamese, Thai Ha parishioners are being victimized by a
corrupt regime that only cares about its own privileges. The
regime frequently makes arbitrary decisions and backs them up
by force instead of following the law. The government-owned
media is trying to paint us as putting road blocks to stop a
humanitarian project that will yield public benefits. However,
nothing is further from the truth. We follow the law even as
the government violates the law through its total disregard of
its citizens' rights, the rights that the government is
supposed to respect and protect.
Similar incidents occurred at Bau Sen, Loan Ly, Tam Toa,
Dong Chiem, and Con Dau. But religious repression is not
limited to Catholics. The Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam
suffers persecution as the Government of Vietnam continues to
restrict contacts and movement of senior clergy for refusing to
join state-sponsored Buddhist organizations. The Bat Nha
Buddhist monastery at Lam Dong Province was attacked by the
government thugs in October 2009 and about 400 monks and nuns
were physically abused and forcibly evicted from the monastery.
Members of the Cai Dai, Hoa Hao, Mennonites, and Montagnard
Christians suffered detention and imprisonment. Faced with
these atrocities, the Obama administration's approach to the
human rights condition in Vietnam is to stand by and watch.
Although administration officials express concerns, they
continually push aside Vietnam's human rights abuses to further
the interests of the administration. This approach stands in
stark contrast to the intent of the Founding Fathers of this
great Nation who built the foundation of this country on
principles of religious freedom and tolerance.
The United States has to be more assertive in forcing
Vietnam to adhere to the promises that it made to the U.S.
Congress in 2006 and this requires the passing and enforcing of
the Vietnam Human Rights Act.
Again, I would like to thank Chairman Smith and members of
this subcommittee for your commitment and support for the
people of Vietnam. I know that if we persevere in this fight,
Vietnam will one day be a free and democratic country. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cao follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Congressman Cao, thank you so very much for that
testimony.
Dr. Thang.
STATEMENT OF NGUYEN DINH THANG, PH.D., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BOAT
PEOPLE SOS
Mr. Thang. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Payne, Congressman
Royce, Vice Chairman Fortenberry, Congressman Al Green, and
Congressman Turner, first of all, I would like to take this
opportunity to send you our best wishes for Tet, that is, our
Lunar New Year. That was yesterday. And I also would like to
point out that we truly appreciate the fact that Congressman Al
Green and Congressman Royce have been working very closely with
our offices in Houston and in Orange County on different issues
relating to the local communities and also relating to human
rights issues in Vietnam.
I'd like to point out one fact, a little known fact about
Congressman Payne. You stood tall and strong beside us in the
darkest moments when the international community and countries
of the region pushed back the Boat People. Thank you very much,
Congressman Payne.
First of all, I would like to express our strong support
for the Vietnam Human Rights Act. I also support the call for
the administration to place Vietnam on Tier III in its upcoming
TIP Report. I also strongly support the redesignation of
Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern. And I also would
like to call on our whole State Department to do a better job
at reporting the violations of human rights, the gross abuses
committed by the police, the widespread use of torture,
atrocious forms of torture by the police and the attacks on the
ethnic minorities in Vietnam. These crimes and violations have
been under reported by our own State Department.
Today, I would like to focus on three specific areas of
human rights violations that have not yet been given
appropriate recognition so far. First of all is the systematic
and widespread modern-day slavery, not just government
complicity, but the Government of Vietnam was behind it. The
Vietnamese Government operates those programs. Second, I'd like
to touch on the widespread use of torture against political
dissidents, people of faith, religious leaders, and also the
increased frequency of police brutality. And we have some
pictures that I would like to request the permission of the
chairman later on after all the testimony to show as an
illustration of the true face of brutality committed by the
police.
And finally, I'd like to talk about religious persecution
focusing on the Hmong Christians. There has been very little
news that could get out of Vietnam since last May. There was a
massacre of Hmong Christians in the northwestern region of
Vietnam, but we obtained never before seen footage and pictures
to show to the members of this subcommittee. Very important.
So first of all, let me talk about slavery-like conditions
in government-run programs. It is very critical to make the
distinction between two different categories of human
trafficking in Vietnam. One would involve national policies,
national programs, run by the government, sanctioned by the
government, operated by the government, and protected and
defended by the government such as human trafficking under the
cover of Vietnam's national policy of labor exports. Two, the
forced labor inflicted on not only the rehab centers as
reported by Human Rights Watch, but also subjected--a lot of
political dissidents have been subjected to those forms, single
forms of forced repatriation. I just returned from an extended
trip to Southeast Asia and I talked to over 100 victims and
what I found out was in prison camps in Saigon, Vietnam right
now, dissidents are being used for forced labor, to produce
goods for exports overseas. So those are the forms, the most
egregious forms of modern-day slavery that the Vietnamese
Government doesn't want anyone to talk about.
The Vietnamese Government in recent days did invite
organizations to go into Vietnam to fight the other forms of
trafficking, the privatized form of trafficking that usually
involves only small fish, small-time criminals and some low-
ranking police officers and those who are sex trafficking of
women and children to Cambodia and other countries. We don't
condone that, but that is a much smaller problem compared to
labor trafficking in Vietnam. And also there's an issue of
child labor trafficking within Vietnam as well.
So I just came back from Southeast Asia and I talked to a
lot of people there and we monitored constantly the conditions
in Vietnam. Just last year, the Vietnamese parliament, the
National Assembly, passed the first law against trafficking.
For the first time, they did mention labor trafficking,
however, it was very disappointing as a document because one,
it doesn't include the standard definition of human
trafficking. Initially in its initial draft there was a
definition, but then they pulled it out in the law that got
passed. That just became effective a few weeks ago on January
1st. So the law that got passed essentially excludes all labor
export companies in Vietnam from being incriminated as the
source of the trafficking chain from Vietnam to other
countries. And also there's no penalties prescribed against the
traffickers.
Every year, Vietnam exports about 80,000 to 100,000 migrant
workers. That is a $2.2 billion industry, very protected by the
Government of Vietnam. And time and again, we have to deal with
the Vietnamese Government sending these delegations not from
the Embassy but all the way from Hanoi to the American Samoa,
to Jordan, to Malaysia, even to Houston to silence the voice of
those few courageous victims who came forth to expose the
involvements of the Government of Vietnam in trafficking them.
And over the past 3\1/2\ years, we have rescued thousands of
victims and we did thorough research through interviews of the
victims and we identified over 35 labor export companies from
Vietnam who are involved, completely involved in human
trafficking. And we have brought this to the attention of the
Vietnamese Government for the past several years. To this day,
not a single case has been investigated. Not a single case
prosecuted. But instead, the victims themselves had been
prosecuted and threatened. So that is the state of human
trafficking and the fight against human trafficking in Vietnam.
Now I would like to mention very quickly about the
Vietnamese ploy to play up its fight against the other form of
human trafficking, the privatized form of human trafficking,
just try to cover up the bigger problem of labor trafficking.
So please do pay attention to the latter problem.
Now with torture. There has been widespread use of torture
from my direct interviews with the victims. In late 2010, Prime
Minister Nguyen Tan Dung asked Secretary Clinton, Hillary
Clinton, for assistance to help Vietnam prepare itself to
ratify the U.N. Convention Against Torture. It should be very
simple. There is no need for technical assistance. Just give--
issue a decree to stop the use of torture. We have observed a
significant increase in the use of torture. Forms of torture
would include beating of the victims in the chests and the
sides and legs; handcuffing the victims up around the window
and beating him up with batons and electric rods; stripping the
victim naked, including women, and flogging him or her with a
belt; hanging the victim to the ceiling beam and punching in
the stomach; drawing a large amount of blood every week to
debilitate the victim; standing the victim in water, electro-
shocking him or her; applying electric shocks to the victim's
private parts, genitals for men, and vagina for women.
Horrendous forms of torture.
And what we found out that was even more troubling, the
police in Vietnam maintain special torture chambers outside of
the prison. For instance, I talked with several Montagnards who
returned to Vietnam after being rejected by UNHCR. And they
were told, ``You'll be fine, just go back to Vietnam. You'll be
safe.'' So they went back to Vietnam and they got arrested in
Tay Ninh. And the police in Tay Ninh put them in prison,
tortured them every day and for those few who were considered
stubborn, in the dead of the night at 1 a.m., that person would
be pulled out, taken to the special place called BC14, just
outside the prison and that's where the police operate a
special torture chamber with special instruments and equipment.
And the guys are very big, muscular, vicious, they are well
trained, specialty trained to inflict torture on the victims.
Most people had to admit to crimes that they never committed.
And then they were brought back to the prison around 5 a.m.
And we have compiled reports of all those interviews. I'd
like to submit them to the subcommittee at another time.
We also have pictures of police brutality inflicted against
people of faith that I'd like to show afterwards.
And finally, about the Hmong Christians. January of last
year, the police came into a Hmong village of Xa Na Khua in the
Muong Nhe District and in that Hmong village there were about
100 households all converted to Protestantism and all the
government was to raze the entire--raze flat the entire
village. The explanation was this: ``Either you renounce your
faith or you have no place here. Protestantism is an American
religion. If you stick to your religion, go to America to till
America's land. Go to America to follow America's religion.''
And then on January 28th, they proceeded to demolish the homes.
So they completed the demolition of 13 homes and they stopped
because of Lunar New Year and 15th of March last year, they
came back. The government came back with the military and
workers to break down all the remaining homes and therefore in
May, on May 1st, the Hmong villagers they gathered in Muong
Nhe, a small village in Muong Nhe District. And other Hmong
across the country who suffered the same atrocities got word of
that, so they came to the same place from across the country
and there were 4,000 to 5,000 of them. And the police moved in,
mobile police and the riot police and the military moved in
with guns, batons, electric rods and assaulted these Hmong
Christians. And their only demand was one, don't destroy our
homes, don't take our land; two, allow us to be Christian. And
you know that in the three provinces of Son Lai, Lai Chau and
Dien Bien in the northern part of Vietnam, there's not a single
church. There's none, none allowed by the government. And
that's their peaceful demonstration, very simple demands and
the troops attacked them. A lot of people died and some got
buried alive. And we got a list I'm going to submit for the
record of 14 who got killed, just partial list. And these 14,
we only verified by talking to either eye witnesses or the
relatives of the deceased.
And according to a few who made it to Thailand, hundreds
are still in hiding to this day in the jungle and one by one
they are being hunted down by the police. Just last month, one
of them got shot dead when he tried to escape as the police
approached. So that is the degree of religious persecution.
We're not talking about harassment. This is egregious. And with
your permission, I'd like to show later some of those footages,
you can see with your own eyes the atrocities committed by the
Government of Vietnam against people of faith. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Thang follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Dr. Thang.
Mr. Nay. And at the end of the testimony, we will show
those pictures, your pictures.
STATEMENT OF MR. RONG NAY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MONTAGNARD HUMAN
RIGHTS ORGANIZATION
Mr. Nay. Mr. Chairman, my name is Rong Nay, and I am the
executive director of the Montagnard Human Rights Organization.
I represent the Montagnard people living both in the U.S. and
in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman and members, for
the honor and opportunity to share our feelings and experiences
about the ongoing human rights abuses in Vietnam. I had the
honor to testify at the first U.S. congressional hearing about
Montagnards sponsored by former U.S. Senator Jesse Helms in
1998. I am very sad to report that human rights conditions in
Vietnam have gotten much worse for the Montagnard people in the
past decade. My testimony is a summary from my written
statement that focuses on this area.
Religious persecution. After U.S. normalization with
Vietnam, the Government of Vietnam said there was freedom of
religion in Vietnam, but in reality, it is not true. The
freedom of religion of the Vietnamese Government is only to
allow worship in government-sponsored churches, not in house
churches. Montagnard pastors continue to be arrested, tortured,
and persecuted. Human Rights Watch has published a detailed
report in 20ll on the continuing religious persecution of
Montagnards in the Central Highlands.
We call on the U.S. Government to reinstate the Vietnam
designation as a Country of Particular Concern for extreme
violations of religious freedom are personal abuse. The
Montagnard Christians are forced to renounce their faith. They
are beaten, many put in jail, suffer long and terribly in jail
and prisons without enough food, medicine, even family visits.
Many suffer solitary confinement, torture. The Vietnamese
Government continues to arrest, torture, and jail to Montagnard
Christians. There are currently 390 Montagnard Christians in
prison for their religious or political beliefs for up to 16
years.
Mr. Chairman, we recommend that the release of all the
Montagnard prisoners is negotiated and they are released before
any more U.S. Government defense and trade treaties with
Vietnam go forward. We ask that this list be included in the
record.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, it will be made a part of the
record.
Mr. Nay. The Montagnard refugee protection. The UNHCR site
in Phnom Penh, Cambodia closed in February 2011. Montagnard
asylum seekers now have no place to feel safe and find
sanctuary. Asylum seekers have fled to Thailand, been arrested
and put into detention. We have reports of Montagnards hiding
in the jungles in Vietnam right now because they have no safe
place to hide. They are desperate. There are hundreds of
Montagnards who have attempted to flee persecution in Vietnam
and were hunted down by the police, beaten and put in jail.
We urgently recommend that the U.S. State Department, in
cooperation, with UNHCR, create a process and a place at the
U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City or another country, which
allows Montagnard asylum seekers to have a fair interview with
a UNHCR or U.S. official, taking into account the very real
conditions of ethnic discrimination and persecution that many
Montagnards face in Vietnam. We respectfully request that the
U.S. State Department re-open its Refugee Program within
Vietnam because there are many claims of well-founded
persecution within Vietnam. Why are the Montagnard persecutions
being ignored by the U.S. Government?
We also have proposed that a U.S. satellite consular office
be established in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Such an
office would be beneficial to facilitate refugee claims and
standard immigrant visa processing. This satellite office could
also be utilized for humanitarian and development assistance
programs focusing on Montagnards in the Central Highlands. The
U.S. Department of Defense has shown interest in establishing
humanitarian aid programs in the Central Highlands.
Vietnam's ethnic cleansing policy. The Montagnard
indigenous peoples are crying out to keep our ancestral land,
our language, and our culture. We ask for help from the U.S.
Government, the United Nations and the world community to help
us. Many of our ancestral lands have been seized by the
Communist government for rubber or coffee plantations. The
Government of Vietnam accuses our Montagnard people of causing
trouble, but we want only to keep our land and our farms, our
heritage, and our survival.
The need for development assistance. The United Nations,
the European Union, and the U.S. State Department have all
acknowledged that the rate of poverty for the Montagnard
indigenous peoples is much higher than the majority Kinh or
Vietnamese populations. We ask and recommend that the U.N. and
the U.S. put more emphasis on development assistance,
scholarships, boarding schools and Montagnard education in the
Central Highlands.
Montagnards do not have the same opportunities in education
and development as Vietnamese. For example, over 15,000
Vietnamese students have been sent to the United States for
education, but not a single Montagnard college graduate is
allowed to have a scholarship to the U.S.
The abuse of free emigration. The Government of Vietnam
continues to break the agreement of free emigration that was
outlined in the U.S. Jackson-Vanik Amendment that was tied to
the U.S.-Vietnam Trade Agreement in past years.
Mr. Chairman, it is our privilege to come here today to
tell you the truth about the Montagnard human rights abuse that
the Montagnard indigenous peoples are facing right now in
Vietnam's Central Highlands. We Montagnards are treated like
enemies in our own homeland. Hundreds of prisoners in Ha Nam
prison are suffering terrible abuse and isolation, and other
Montagnard men, women and children quietly suffer in their
villages under constant fear and police surveillance. We hope
that the subcommittee today, the U.S. Government and the world,
will hear our prayer and plea for help. Thank you very much for
the opportunity to share the plight of our Montagnard people in
the Central Highlands of Vietnam and our recommendations on how
to help. Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nay follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Mr. Nay, thank you so very much for your
testimony and very practical recommendations.
I'd like to now recognize Ms. Vu for such time as she would
like to use.
STATEMENT OF MS. PHUONG-ANH VU, VICTIM OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING
[Testimony delivered via translator.]
Ms. Vu. I would like to say thank you for the opportunity
to be here and wish your family a happy Lunar New Year.
I grew up in poverty in a province called Lao Cai in
Vietnam. My family is Catholic so we have difficulties living
there under the Vietnamese Government policy of persecuting
Christian people.
The government has the policy of persecuting Christian
Hmong people and anyone that believes in Christianity. My
family, we have the two of us, my sister and I. And my father
died when I was 1 year old. When I turned 16, my sister was
kidnapped and she's been missing since then. Heeding the
Vietnamese Government's call for citizens' participation in the
labor export program in 2008 I was transferred to Jordan and
working in a sewing factory for a Taiwanese contractor. I was
among 276 women and with the promise to only work 8 hours a day
and that we would earn $300 a month. That is an enormous amount
of money for myself, along with the people that came with me.
Myself, along with all my friends, each of us had to pretty
much mortgage our home and borrow money, $2,000, to participate
in this program. We were never given any contracts to sign and
it wasn't until we got on the plane where they gave us the
contract. When we got to Jordan, it turns out that nothing was
what was promised to us. When we arrived, immediately they took
all of our paperwork, all of our passports, and immediately put
us to work. Then starting the next day, we have to work and the
shift was 16 hours a day.
I worked for 10 days and I received $10. I was very upset
and surprised, so I asked the employer and the employer's
response was that I need to talk to the people who brought me
here which would be the Vietnamese Government. I went on
strike, along with some of my friends, to demand the payment
for what was promised. We stopped working for 10 days and the
owner gave me an ultimatum, gave us an ultimatum after that.
They withheld food, electricity, and water from us. A lot of
us--some of them were afraid, so they returned to work, but 176
of us remained on strike. A woman named Vu Thu Ha, she's a
representative of the labor export company, she led a group of
people who came to our rooms and started torturing us.
All the women there are like me, very small, and tiny and
weakened by not having food and so forth. So they were beaten.
I was beaten, along with--some of our friends, they hit them,
smashed their head on the floor. So it was really brutal.
I witnessed myself that some of my friends were really weak
and not able to defend themselves and their hair was pulled
like an animal and it's very heartbreaking. And they continued
to beat us and I didn't know what to do, so I took a cell phone
and tried to record what was happening, so they started beating
me and the bruise is still there on my head and it's still
there.
So I was heartbroken to see for myself all the women having
to suffer through this. What I didn't understand was that after
the owner of the company witnessed us all being beaten and he
did not do anything and then afterward they all were shaking
hands. So I didn't understand why that was happening. We were
isolated and confined in rooms. We tried to get help and scream
through the windows. Nobody came. The Jordanian police were
there, but they were there to help beat us, rather than helping
us.
A lot of my friends were vomiting blood and they were
obviously seriously injured. I tried to call for help and no
one came to help us. So I didn't know what to do so I have to
find food and medicines to help my friends. I had to gather
everything that we have and even the tampons for women to sell
to get the money to buy noodles for my friends. I'm sorry, but
it gets very emotional for me.
And then one day the Vietnamese Government delegation came.
I was happy because I thought they would be there to help us.
But it turned out they came, it was very disappointing because
not only did they not help us, but they also threatened me. The
reason they threatened because I was the one that contacted the
newspaper in Vietnam. They did an article and the article got
to Dr. Thang, that's how he knew about it and Dr. Thang sent us
money and that's why they came to threaten me.
I used the money that was given from Dr. Thang to get
medicine for my friends, but the government accused me of
collaborating with the NGOs for my own benefit. I asked Dr.
Thang to help my friends because most of them were very sick
from being beaten and Dr. Thang arranged to have some
physicians from IOM to come and help them. After the IOM
delegation came and left, we were confined and isolated again
and we were not allowed to leave. Then we were able to return
to Vietnam and I learned that it was thanks to the Congressman
and Dr. Thang.
There are two gentlemen named Truong Xuan Thanh and Tran
Viet Tu that announced I was returning home and there were
threats that I would be imprisoned when I returned home. Dr.
Thang helped me escape and when I got to Thailand I was able to
escape from the government. The journey of my escape was very
long and time is limited, so I won't be able to explain all
that right now. While I was in Thailand I was threatened by the
Vietnamese Embassy and they said they would cut me into
thousands of pieces. And I have that recorded, that
conversation. While I was living in Thailand for 3 years, there
was a lot of suffering including for my mom and it was very
emotional for me while I was staying there.
The most heartbreak for me was my 3-year-old daughter was
electrocuted and died and she was not allowed to be buried
unless I am home. They wanted me to go home before they can
allow her to be buried. I was ready to go home to at least bury
my daughter, but I learned that the police, the Vietnamese
police were surrounding my home.
One of my friends who was beaten has died because of the
injury. I don't know what else to say. I just wanted to send my
gratitude to Dr. Thang and Congressman Smith and the panel and
the U.S. Government for allowing this hearing and hope that it
will help my people. I know there's going to be a lot of
uncertainties and threats for me participating in this hearing.
However, I chose to do it because I don't want a second Phoug-
Anh like myself. I would like to be able to prevent this from
happening to other people.
I wish that everyone on the panel along with everyone here
in the room now that you have heard my testimony that you would
raise the voice and do something to help the Vietnamese women
from suffering from human trafficking.
[Note: An edited version of the previous oral testimony,
provided by Ms. Vu, appears in the appendix.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Phuong-Anh Vu follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much for that extraordinarily
moving testimony. It moves this subcommittee and moves, I'm
sure, the members of this committee to do even more to combat
human trafficking so that there are no victims, hopefully fewer
and then no victims. So your testimony will be pivotal, so
thank you so very much for sharing it. If there is retaliation
against you, your friends, your family, or anyone--please, let
us know about that. We will also alert the administration as to
that retaliation, and I know in a bipartisan way we will do
everything we can to ensure that that does not happen, because
again, coming here was an act of bravery, especially when an
Embassy person tells you they will cut you to pieces. After
hearing Dr. Thang and others explain the widespread use of
torture which includes cutting, it is a threat that cannot be
taken lightly and it brings nothing but dishonor to the
Vietnamese Government.
Mr. Sifton?
STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN SIFTON, ADVOCACY DIRECTOR FOR ASIA, HUMAN
RIGHTS WATCH
Mr. Sifton. Thank you also for the invitation to testify
today and I would echo what other witnesses said and all of us
at Human Rights Watch appreciate the subcommittee's interest in
the human rights situation in Vietnam and welcome the efforts
today to address it.
The other witnesses today and the members of the
subcommittee themselves already provided a lot of information
about many of the human rights issues in Vietnam today
including the crackdowns on religious activity, the problems
facing ethnic minorities, the increased attacks on political
dissidents, migrant and trafficking issues, and the worsening
crackdown on free expression generally.
I will add from the written version of my testimony.
There's some issues with land rights and land confiscation
which need a little bit more attention paid to them and some
continuing problems with torture and police brutality which we
highlighted, I highlighted in the written version of my
testimony. There's also these worrying new facts about forced
labor camps, administrative detention centers. And we don't
have time to run through each of these points now again, but
again, I've provided details in each of the points in my
written version of the testimony.
In terms of the overall picture, I can sum it all up in a
simple sentence. The state of human rights in Vietnam is very
poor and it's growing worse. As the other witnesses have noted
in the last year, the government has actually intensified its
repression of activists and dissidents, bloggers, writers,
human rights defenders, land rights activists, anti-corruption
campaigners, and religious and democracy advocates, advocates
for minorities, and all of these folks from all across
Vietnamese society are being subject to harassment and
intimidation and arrest and imprisonment and torture. And I'm
not even mentioning fully the issues of Internet restrictions,
a topic on which you could easily have an entire hearing unto
itself. But suffice it to say we're seeing increased evidence
on that front of government filtering of Internet content,
blogs blocked by local Internet service providers, comments
critical to the government being removed from news postings,
Facebook is blocked intermittently in many areas. And indeed,
the only reason it's not being blocked everywhere appears to be
the government hasn't completely figured out how to do that.
The government is growing increasingly sophisticated in its
filtering. It's not easy to block the Internet because of its
design and its set up, but as China has shown it's possible and
it's looking increasingly like Vietnam is following the China
model.
I'd also repeat what the other witnesses have said
including Congressman Cao which is that land rights issues,
land confiscation issues, both for ethnic minorities and
religious groups and just for Vietnamese citizens across the
country is an area of increasing concern. And again, police
brutality, torture, absolutely is another issue I flagged in my
written version of my testimony which Dr. Thang mentioned.
Another issue though just to flag right now very quickly is
administrative detention. In the report we issued last
September, ``The Rehab Archipelago,'' Human Rights Watch
documented a lot of abuses in these administrative detention
centers and that report I'd love to submit to the report of
this hearing. The details are all in there, but I just want to
note now that the administrative detention is not just for drug
users. Drug users were what we talked about in that report. But
it was also reported to us of Vietnamese citizens placed in
administrative detention for being homeless, for engaging in
prostitution. There's even a recent case of authorities using
administrative detention camps for dissidents. Last week, last
November, excuse me, a People's Committee in Hanoi ordered
police to send a prominent land rights activist to an
administrative detention center for 24 months. It's that news
article that Congressman Royce referred to that resulted in
this Wall Street Journal article being written which then was
blacked out in the editions that were delivered in Saigon at
least. And it speaks for itself.
I can also offer to the subcommittee the actual text of the
article that was blacked out in case you actually would like to
see that.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, we'll put in both the blacked
out as well as the full.
Mr. Sifton. I'd echo and repeat Dr. Thang's point about
products produced in forced labor entering the supply chain,
including possibly into the United States. A good example of a
product like that is cashews. Members of the subcommittee may
want to think about that the next time you're offered some
cashews, for instance. Cashew nuts don't have certificates of
origin like diamonds do, so you can't prove that a specific
cashew nut comes from a particular country, let alone a
particular forced labor camp. But it's a fact that Vietnam is a
leading exporter of cashews in the world and the United States
is its biggest importer of cashew nuts in the world. So if you
perhaps eat 100 cashews over the year, there's a chance that
some of them were shelled in a forced labor camp in Vietnam.
And I would note that food writers now coin the term ``blood
cashews'' to refer to Vietnamese cashews. This is perhaps the
first report where I ever engaged in advocacy, not just with
the State Department and the White House and PEPFAR, but with
food writers. I even corresponded with celebrity food writers
like Anthony Bourdain about this issue.
So I raise these issues in order to make a point. There's a
growing global awareness today that Vietnam is a country that
has a very problematic human rights record and it's getting
more attention. It's in the public consciousness and this
provides us a really great opportunity to talk about what can
be done and how U.S. power can be leveraged to affect serious
improvements on human rights in Vietnam. That's really how I'd
like to end.
There are several possible approaches I want to offer. The
State Department, as you referred to in your opening
statements, is negotiating a strategic partnership with the
Vietnamese Government. The U.S. Trade Representative is
negotiating with Vietnam in the context of the Trans-Pacific
Free Trade Agreement. So obviously, the administration has a
lot of levers to pull and push with Vietnam. Our understanding
is that the State Department and the U.S. Trade Representative
are pulling and pushing those levers. Michael Posner, the chief
of the State Department's Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Section has been a very vocal critic. During the recent U.S.-
Vietnam human rights dialogue, he didn't pull any punches. He
arranged to have the Vietnamese Government delegation sit down
directly with us at Human Rights Watch and we gave them all
kinds of criticism.
Secretary Clinton was very vocal during her trip with
President Obama through Hawaii and on to Bali during the East
Asia Summit last November. She made clear Vietnam's human
rights problems are an impediment to reaching better diplomatic
relations with Vietnam and other U.S. officials have made the
same point, including Members of Congress very recently have
said the same thing. But it's vitally important not to let up
the pressure and that's what I really want to say today. The
test will not come now, but will come at the 11th hour, some
time in the next few years when the State Department is
finalizing a strategic partnership, military to military
relationship. The Pentagon will be involved. And the U.S. Trade
Representative will be completing its agreement with the TPP
nations, including Vietnam.
Let me say as an aside, I very much doubt that the TPP
negotiations will be finalized this year, despite what the U.S.
Trade Representative says, but whenever it happens, U.S.
resolve on human rights in Vietnam has to remain steady and
strong. So this subcommittee, as well as the Vietnam Caucus and
other important players, are really important actors in
clarifying and conveying those concerns to the administration.
This is what we think and I think this is what the
administration thinks. I hope it's what you think. The U.S. has
an agenda for change here. The idea is to encourage Vietnam to
improve its human rights practices and that will enable better
international relations, increase military to military
engagement, better trade engagement, but there can't be a last
minute change in heart. You can't have the administration
suddenly leaping to a different idea, suddenly offering a new
doctrine, suddenly making some claim based on faith that
Vietnam is going to change gradually, organically, it will take
time, that the change will be more likely when the United
States engages with Vietnam, that we should engage with Vietnam
because that will bring about change. Those are the cliched
theories of change that were offered with China in 1994 when
the Most Favored Nation status was up and we can see how well
that worked out.
So our request to you is simple. Don't let up. The
administration may come later and offer the theory that I just
articulated and I imagine you'll hear it from the U.S. Trade
Representative's office first. And I'm saying please don't
accept it. Don't take that bill of goods. Vietnam needs major
reforms and if they don't make them, Congress should just tell
the administration, whatever administration it is, that it
doesn't support broader agreements. Vietnam needs the United
States more for its strategic objectives than the United States
needs Vietnam. And that's leverage that just can't be wasted.
So we greatly appreciate your consideration and our
recommendations and as the other witnesses have said, thank you
for allowing me to testify.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sifton follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Mr. Sifton, thank you very much for your
testimony. Your report, we would like to make a part of the
record, so if you could submit that, it would be very helpful.
And your final words certainly were an indictment of the
Vietnamese Government. I mean the deterioration, worsening
crackdown on free expression, worrying new facts about forced
labor camps, ongoing crackdowns of religious freedom, and
problems facing ethnic minorities, and then how you elaborated
in your testimony, it just finishes what all of our
distinguished witnesses laid out for us today, an egregiously
deteriorating situation in Vietnam. It was bad, but it is
getting worse. And I think the pivot was right after when the
Bilateral Agreement was signed and all the false hope, perhaps
well meaning, but unwittingly people said it will get better if
we only trade a little more. That has not been the case and
your point about MFN with China, I remember that day because I
had gone over to Beijing. Midway through the review period
brought a letter signed by 100 Members of the House and Senate,
from Nancy Pelosi and so many Members of the conservative side,
Henry Hyde, many others, and I gave it to the Foreign Ministry,
not the top guy, but the number two who met with me, and he
laughed. He laughed. He said we're going to get MFN and sure
enough on May 26, 1994, they did and if you go to C-SPAN you
can watch because I had a press conference. David Bonior did
and Nancy Pelosi did. President Clinton ripped up the Executive
order that linked human rights with trade and that was an
absolute pivot point for deterioration in China. Likewise in an
almost identical, parallel, way, right after the Bilateral
Trade Agreement, with no linkage to human rights, things have
deteriorated massively.
So thank you, each and every one of you for your testimony.
I would ask our panelists in the way you have touched on it in
many ways, Ambassador John Hanford, our former Ambassador-at-
Large for International Religious Freedom, when he recommended,
as did others in the administration--the Bush administration--
that CPC status, Country of Particular Concern, be rescinded
for Vietnam, it was all based on promise. John Hanford would
say there are deliverables that they are willing to engage in,
to stop the forced renunciation of the Montagnards, for
example, and all of these other repressions of Catholics, the
Unified Buddhist Church, and all the others, all these
promises, promises, promises CPC was lifted, the Bilateral
Agreement was agreed to, MFN conferred--and then a massive
retaliation against religious believers, Block 8406, all
leading to say why wasn't CPC put back last year? Well, the
administration has the opportunity right now.
I held all the hearings on the International Religious
Freedom Act, Congressman Frank Wolf's bill. I know exactly how
the bill works. They could do it today. They could say the
record warrants it. So I would ask our distinguished panelists
if they might want to talk about CPC and why it is critical
that it be reimposed right now with all 18 potential acts of
penalty that could be imposed on the Government of Vietnam.
Secondly, on the issue of trafficking, that's the bill I
wrote. And I can tell you when we did those minimum standards
and redid them in '03 and '05, because I wrote those as well,
and then the final bill was done, the Wilberforce Bill, which
further tweaked those standards, it couldn't be more clear that
both on labor and sex, but especially labor trafficking,
Vietnam absolutely warrants a Tier III ranking, which carries
with it penalties as well. And for reasons that are absolutely
beyond me, the administration has failed to impose what is
warranted by the facts on the ground. Those designations are
about those facts, with that designation. You could do nothing
with CPC or nothing with Tier III if you think you're making
progress, but it gives the opportunity to impose two sets of
sanctions on the Government of Vietnam for trafficking reasons.
Dr. Thang, if you might want to start on those two very big
issues.
Mr. Thang. Yes, Mr. Chairman. While I just asked my
colleague to try to upload the video, if it doesn't work, then
I can show it on my laptop. What about the CPC? In 2006, before
the CPC designation for Vietnam was rescinded, we provided a
list of 671 Hmong house churches in the northwestern part of
Vietnam and they all tried to register themselves according to
the new ordinance. And in 2007, the Vietnamese Government
decided to indefinitely suspend any review of those
applications in April 2007. So none of them got registered.
And during the U.S.-Vietnam human rights dialogue in 2010,
to the credit of our own State Department, they presented this
list again to the Vietnamese Government, this is 4 years later.
And I had personally--and Congressman Cao was there, too--a
meeting with Congressman Howard Berman and his staff delivered
the good news, the Vietnamese Government declared right at the
moment this will be our top priority when we go back to
Vietnam. We'll revisit, review this list to make sure they get
registered. A few months later, what happened? That massacre in
Muong Nhe, just a few months later, after the promise from the
Vietnamese delegation attending the U.S.-Vietnam human rights
dialogue.
And when I look back at this list here and I promise to
provide this for the record, the village that got razed flat by
the Vietnamese Government was also on the list. They tried for
so many years to register according to the ordinance of belief
and religion issued in 2004. And instead of reviewing, the
Government of Vietnam destroyed an entire village because they
were all Protestants. And that's what happens to the CPC. So
there's no improvement since '07. It's getting worse and worse.
Regarding trafficking, I propose that our Government do a
simple thing. Year after year after year, the Trafficking in
Persons Report, the TIP Report, listed cases of trafficking
from Vietnam to other countries, Malaysia, Jordan, Taiwan, et
cetera. All we need to do is to go back to the Vietnamese
Government and ask them what has happened to these victims and
what has happened to these export companies that were involved
in these cases? We need to follow up. And it would be very
clear that nothing had been done to investigate the corporate,
the perpetrators and a lot has been done to silence and
threaten and persecute the victims. That's a very simple task.
Just go back for the past 5 years through their own TIP Reports
and report it back to Congress. Based on that, make
recommendations on ranking Vietnam, either Tier II Watch List
or Tier III. I believe it should be Tier III squarely.
Mr. Cao. Mr. Chairman, I just want to reiterate the words
of Dr. Thang and again, I just want to look at this issue from
the standpoint of the leverage that we have to use against
Vietnam in order to promote change. We have seen in the last 2
years, at least I have seen in the last 2 years, is that our
approach, the administration's approach to Vietnam has all been
about lip service. We saw a lot of things. We might condemn
publicly the actions of Vietnam. But behind the scenes other
things occur. We increase trade relations. We increase military
operations so on and so forth, without putting very concrete
steps that we would require Vietnam to follow through with the
promises that they made to the U.S. Congress.
So my plea to the U.S. Congress is if the administration
does not act, the U.S. Congress must act. And our action will
put Vietnam on notice that we are paying attention to what
they're doing, that their actions cannot escape unnoticed.
Their actions cannot escape without ramifications. So again, my
plea to the U.S. Congress is that the Congress must act. And I
hope that the Congress will pass the Vietnam Human Rights bill,
put Vietnam back on the list of Countries of Particular
Concern, passing the Vietnam Sanctions bill being pushed
forward by Congressman Royce, and other legislation that will
force Vietnam to pay close attention to what they've been doing
to their people.
Mr. Smith. I would say to my good friend, Anh Cao, that we
are scheduling a markup for the Vietnam Human Rights Act and
whoever seeks to block it, because it twice passed the House,
and a third time we actually had it readied as an amendment to
an appropriations bill and it was blocked, all three over on
the Senate side, I will absolutely call out, as I have in the
past, but more so now given the fact that we have seen gross
deterioration of the human rights situation in Vietnam. I don't
care who is in the White House, I will say this, under George
Bush, there was a relaxation or elimination of the CPC status
which was done purely on faith and as I said on deliverables,
within months of seeing that things further deteriorated vis-a-
vis religious freedom, I and so many others were speaking out.
I don't care who is in the White House. When you're getting
abused, you don't say as a Republican or a Democrat, is
somebody trying to protect their man who happens to be at the
White House or at the State Department, not so this chairman.
So if that bill is blocked, because we will mark it up in a
week or two in subcommittee, I will call them out and call them
out every day of the week.
Yes, Mr. Sifton?
Mr. Sifton. A couple of low-hanging fruit about pushing
these issues forward. I think that trafficking of persons, Tier
III designation would be wonderful. CPC would be wonderful. We
really welcome the letter to Secretary Clinton about the human
rights report coming up. We're pushing the U.S. Committee on
International Religious Freedom to strengthen its language, but
a few words about some other players on the stage. I can't
over-emphasize how important the U.S. Trade Representative is
right now as an interlocutor on these issues. I mean they'll
say good things about how they're listening and they want to
use congressional leverage to pressure Vietnam, but I feel like
the whole situation is kind of in a state of unreality.
The U.S. Trade Representative is insisting the negotiations
are done quickly and yet it seems inconceivable that Vietnam
would make the kind of reforms that would be the precursor for
it being a party to the TPP. So either they're planning to just
throw Vietnam out of the TPP at the last minute which is one
way of getting the TPP finalized, or they're going to just give
up on getting the reforms that they say they want to get. So
they need to be brought up here to explain exactly what the
agenda is.
Of course, it's difficult to get them to talk about the
negotiating strategy, but there needs to be some accountability
on the USTR.
Another thing is it kind of galls me as the Asia director
for advocacy, that there's this big bank out of Manila, the
Asian Development Bank which gets an enormous amount of money
from the United States Government and gives an enormous amount
of that money to Vietnam. The World Bank does, too, but I mean
the Asian Development Bank is a pretty big player and they give
a lot of money to Vietnam and we're a voting member. We're the
second biggest shareholder in the bank out in Manila after
Japan and we ought to use that leverage at the bank and we
don't. If you go out to Manila and visit the ADB today, it's
like walking into the World Bank 25 years ago. I don't speak
from personal experience, but from what I've heard. Human
rights is not on the agenda. It's just give out money.
So again, if you can exercise the oversight over the Asian
Development Bank and its funding for programs in Vietnam, that
would certainly be great. World Bank, too, but of course,
they're a little bit better on this.
And then lastly, the Pentagon. What exactly is on the table
with the strategic partnership? What exactly is Ambassador
Shear negotiating? I have full faith in Ambassador Shear in
Hanoi. He's very serious about pushing these issues. They have
pushed these issues. They've been helpful in a number of
particular cases and they've raised general issues as well, but
what exactly is being negotiated with the Pentagon? And how
crucial is Vietnam to our naval posture in the Pacific? I'm not
a naval strategist, but you don't have to be Admiral Nimitz to
appreciate that there's more than one way to posture the fleet
in the Pacific. They have to be prepared that if Vietnam
doesn't reform, then the strategic partnership isn't going to
go forward.
Mr. Smith. Excellent point, Mr. Sifton. We're planning on
inviting Assistant Secretary Michael Posner to testify and
others within the State Department. But I think your point
about USTR is a great one and we will invite them to come and
testify so thank you for that recommendation. In terms of the
bank, I think it is time for some oversight and perhaps a
letter that we could do jointly to them and follow up on that
issue as well. Those are very well taken points.
My final question before going to Mr. Green, I just want to
ask in regards to your point, Dr. Thang, about the Vietnamese
law on human trafficking conveniently sidestepping the Palermo
Protocol which is the boilerplate language used all around the
world. And if you weaken that, you absolutely will get a
weakened version of any kind of trafficking law. And the issue
of torture which you laid out in frankly nauseating detail,
which it has to be, it has always been my observation that when
a dictatorship is doing something hideous like torturing and
doing it in a very pervasive way, they often talk about signing
a U.N. Convention or some other kind of convention which
distracts and gets the eye to look askance as to what's
happening on the ground.
China perfected that art form when they continually
announced upon coming here with a high-level delegation that
they were going to sign the International Covenant for Civil
and Political Rights and they milked that one for years. And
then there's no enforcement mechanism to any of these,
including torture besides reporting and it's not to be
discounted how important that is, but the torture issue, I
don't think gets enough focus from Congress or from anyone of
us. So I thank you especially for bringing it to our attention
today.
Mr. Thang. Mr. Chairman, may I also suggest very quickly
that now there are so many asylum seekers that have
successfully fled to Thailand, they are the witnesses of the
crime of modern-day slavery against them, of the crime of
torture against them, of detention, of religious persecution
against them. It's very simple for our State Department to ask
our own officer to work on human rights issues in Thailand and
Bangkok, just make a visit to them and talk to them, collect a
lot of information that could not have otherwise been collected
inside Vietnam.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I thank all of
the witnesses for testifying and I again will focus on Ms. Vu
for your testimony. As the chairman indicated, it was quite
moving, compelling, and candidly, overwhelming. I'm very
concerned about you. I'm not sure I should say where you live,
but I'm concerned about you. My hope is that you will take to
heart what the chairman said about any concerns you might have
being called to his attention, our attention through him,
because I have to be concerned given what I've heard.
I am concerned about persons who were left behind. Doctor,
you were helpful. How many people are still in that
circumstance that she was extricated from? Do you have any
guesstimate?
Mr. Thang. Her last knowledge was about 70 people remaining
in Jordan.
Mr. Green. And Doctor, from your intelligence, is this just
one of multiple venues in Jordan or is this the sole venue that
we have intelligence on that's in this country, in Jordan?
Mr. Thang. There are only two sweatshops operating with
Vietnamese in Jordan that we are aware of and the one that we
wrote on was one of the two. There might be more. Vietnam is
sending more and more workers to the Middle East these days.
There are three major markets for Vietnamese labor exports. One
is Malaysia, the second will be Taiwan, and the third one is
now the Middle East.
But let me add one thing here. You're right on the spot
when you talk about safety. Because right after this
subcommittee announced the hearing with her name, she got a
threatening call from the place that she's living and I had to
call someone in security to protect her. And I would like to--
--
Mr. Smith. Pass that on to the FBI, immediately.
Mr. Thang. I would also like to add that the spokesperson
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam who, back in 2010
held a press conference denouncing her, is now the General
Consul of Vietnam in Houston. And the one, Mr. Truong Xuan
Thanh, who came to Jordan to threaten her, and tried to report
to Vietnam for punishment, he's now the General Consul of
Vietnam in Frankfurt, Germany. They all got promoted.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank you for
pointing out that the FBI can be of assistance. Thank you for
that. Just an aside if I may, the Vietnamese community in
Houston did its part in protesting that consulate coming to
Houston and more specifically we really took a hard stand on it
coming into my district in Houston. There is concern. There is
concern. And the Vietnamese people have raised these concerns.
Let me ask Mr. Sifton, you mentioned the blood cashews and
you spoke quite well. And my suspicion is while I can't impact
the policy of the United States, I can impact the policy of my
congressional office. And I'm not as fond of cashews as I used
to be. My suspicion is we won't have a lot of cashews in my
office. But are there some other products that you can call to
our attention that you have been able to trace back to
involuntary servitude?
Mr. Sifton. Yes, let me start by saying it's very, very,
very difficult, especially with Vietnam in particular. There
are some textile products and some other camping-type mosquito
nets and some other things that we identified in our report.
And the companies that we identified took quite responsible
actions when it was brought to their attention, cut off
subcontractors. So we haven't had a problem with sort of on the
corporate side.
The real issue is in Vietnam. What we have is the Ministry
of Labor overseeing what is essentially a health issue, drug
dependency. Why is the Ministry of Labor running detention
camps for drug users? It really belongs on the Health Ministry.
I mean the real problem is there's a profit motive to the
prison wardens who control these facilities. So at the end of
the day it's a question of the United States, the European
Union, which just engaged in an EU-Vietnam human rights
dialogue, just after Michael Posner had his. Other interested
nations like Norway and Canada are all making it very clear,
these drug treatment centers have got to close. You get funding
for HIV intervention into these centers. PEPFAR knew this.
There was some HIV intervention in this. The U.N. Office of
Drugs and Crime funding goes to Vietnam for these centers. This
has got to stop. It's great to have drug treatment centers.
People who have drug problems need to get treatment. But forced
labor is not an effective form of drug treatment. Tell Vietnam
to shut these facilities down.
David Shear in Hanoi agrees. He's said it. I think he
should say it a little bit more vocally, but he said it. That's
what would end this rather than going after the companies one
by one which we've done. The most effective thing would be for
the trading partners to say enough is enough, close down the
centers.
One word about Jordan, though, you mentioned Jordan. I
would just say Human Rights Watch globally has a huge amount of
problems with forced labor, not just from Vietnam into Jordan,
but from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal. There's an active case in
Federal court right now against the company in Jordan for
trafficking of people from Nepal, for instance. There's a big
problem just with Jordan in particular, as a target country.
Mr. Smith. Let me just add, Mr. Sifton, before going--are
you done?
Mr. Green. I will yield to the chair, of course, yes, sir.
I will yield.
Mr. Smith. I didn't mean to cut you off.
Mr. Green. I'm fine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
your testimony.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Sifton, if I could ask you, Vietnam is a
focus country and they get hundreds of millions of dollars
under PEPFAR. I've raised repeatedly that faith-based
organizations are precluded participation by the Vietnamese
Government which is contrary to Bush's vision of what PEPFAR
was all about and it has worked very well in all over Africa
and everywhere else where there's a PEPFAR focus country. But
has our Embassy or anyone within the U.S. Government, have they
investigated, as you called it, labor therapy, where PEPFAR
might be commingling and money is being used in such a terrible
way?
Mr. Sifton. I would be glad to--rather than take up a lot
of time now, I'd be glad to forward you the correspondence we
had with USAID and PEPFAR on this issue. The bottom line is a
lot of money goes to Vietnam under PEPFAR and not a lot of it
goes into the drug treatment centers, but some does. The money
that goes in goes for lifesaving anti-virals for a very small
number of HIV positive people in the forced labor camps. So
it's kind of difficult morally to say pull out and these
prisoners suddenly have no HIV/AIDS anti-virals. It's a little
difficult. But with that said, there's a lot of leverage that
Ambassador Shear can exercise. And I think he has exercised,
but again, to go back to my testimony, it's a question of
keeping up the pressure and not letting it lag. That's our
biggest fear is that at the 11th hour, when the agreements are
finally ready to be signed, the administration will fall down
and agree to all kinds of concessions and not continue to make
these demands, and we will have squandered this amazing
opportunity that is only going to present itself once to offer
all these good things to Vietnam. I don't think they should be
offered, but I'm not in charge of the foreign policy of the
United States. If they are going to be offered, it's an
opportunity that can't be wasted.
Ms. Vu. Mr. Chairman, if I may? I'm very concerned about my
safety. I was recently involved in a hit-and-run car accident.
So I just wanted to raise that. It was 5 days ago.
Mr. Smith. Did you get a look at who did it?
Ms. Vu. I was exiting on a highway. And there was a white
car without any plate, license plate, just hit me and then ran
off.
Mr. Green. Mr. Chairman, if I may, one liberty, please. It
is of concern because I know that there are people who want to
see us doing business with Vietnam and so we're not necessarily
talking about somebody doing something dastardly under the
color of state protection. It could be someone totally
disconnected from a state, but there are people who are
interested in a business relationship, so I am concerned and
I'll be amenable to working with you, Mr. Chairman, to do what
we can to make sure that the proper authorities are noticed.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Green. Mr. Royce.
Mr. Royce. Just one question and I'll ask this of Mr. Cao.
The case I talked about, Viet Khang, was of a songwriter. He
wrote a song appealing to the conscience of those who were
brutalizing the protesters. The protest in question was one
protesting China's territorial ambitions. And along the same
lines he had the situation of the editorial that I showed that
had been blocked out painstakingly with a marker. They had
marked out on every page of The Wall Street Journal that was
distributed. They had marked out this comment about the case of
a woman who had organized protests of China's aggression in
maritime territorial disputes. This topic really seems to get
under the skin of the current Government of Vietnam. I would
just ask you what does that Vietnamese songwriter, Viet Khang,
what does he mean to the Vietnamese people and what do you make
of the way the government is reacting to these protests about
maritime aggression?
Mr. Cao. Thank you for your question, Congressman Royce.
With respect to the songwriter, I would like to again bring
attention to the many other activists who are involved in the
promotion of democracy in Vietnam. Obviously, any democracy
activist, any person who is involved in promoting freedom and
religious freedom in Vietnam, they are all considered at least
by us here in the United States as people of great importance.
But they are seen by the Vietnamese Government as enemies of
the state, so that--and the records show very clearly that many
of these people are routinely beaten, imprisoned, arrested,
falsely accused for actions that they deem to be illegal under
state law, but behind the scenes, obviously, their intention is
all about intimidation. Their intention is about cracking down
on democracy activism, on religious freedom activism. And this
is something that we--as a Congress, you all, as Members of
Congress, must continue to pay close attention to because
freedom and democracy are not only confined to the United
States. It should be an idea that is spread worldwide and we
saw the significance of the activists in the Middle East, the
Arab Spring, and I hope that something similar might occur in
Southeast Asia. Call it the Asian Spring or what have you, but
at least the goals and the aspirations of a people fighting for
freedom would be fulfilled.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
first of all I'd like to thank you on behalf of many of my own
constituents and Mr. Royce's constituents as well for having
this hearing today. Loretta Sanchez and Mr. Royce and myself
represent large numbers of Vietnamese-Americans and we are very
proud to do so and we are very grateful for the leadership that
you provided over the years to make sure that their loved ones
left back in Vietnam are not suffering horrible brutality from
the regime that continues to oppress them.
I can't help but notice that when I go to a clothing store,
more and more I'm finding clothing that says, ``Made in
Vietnam.'' And that's very disturbing to me because I realize
what we have here is American businessmen going into a
dictatorship in order to make a bigger profit from repressed
people who are not permitted to form unions and go on strikes
and demand better working conditions. And if American
businessmen are going to be investing someplace, it should be
in countries that are governed by democratic institutions. I
mean we have people who are struggling now in Asia to create
more democratic countries like in the Philippines, for example.
And we should not, the United States should have as our policy
that any Export-Import Bank or any of the Pacific Banks or
whatever we're talking about, the financial, the international
financial structure that we are subsidizing, that that money
should not be going to dictatorships. We should have that as
the American policy and that would and should leave out Vietnam
as it is today.
And unfortunately, even some of the businessmen that have
gone to Vietnam have realized that the dictatorship, that under
such dictatorships, they're not going to treat foreign
investors and foreign businessmen any more fairly or honestly
than they treat their own population. And there are many
businessmen that have gone there and lost their investment
through swindles by the government, by out and out theft by
government agents. And why would we as American citizens, as
free people, want to subsidize through these investment banks
that we have, these international banks, people who are taking
the risk of going into Vietnam or other dictatorships? We
should not.
And if a businessman wants to go over there, let them take
the risk, knowing that there's no free court system or judicial
system in which these type of things can be taken up. So none
of that. In fact, what we've heard today and I will be--I'm
sorry, I was at another hearing, but I will be going through
the transcripts, but I'm sure that you have underscored that
the actual lack of freedom in Vietnam has gotten worse and not
better and during the time period when people are investing
money there. And yet, we have been told over and over again the
more American interaction economically, the more investment,
the more there will be reform. That has never worked in China.
It hasn't worked elsewhere. It's not working in Vietnam. And I
appreciate you drawing attention to that through this hearing
today. So I would just stand on solidarity with you and I will
be reading your testimony. I'm sorry I had a--we have hearings
at the same time here. We have to run back and forth.
But I believe that one last note, we now have, I believe,
an opportunity that we have leverage on the communist Chinese
Government of Vietnam and that is they feel threatened by
another dictatorship. How about that? Two dictatorships, two
gangsters fighting over territory. We've had that happen in our
country and when you've got the Government of Communist China
engaged in military action against the Government of Vietnam
over certain territories, it is now the moment for the United
States to use that as leverage to make sure they concede points
on human rights and democracy before we go in and help them.
But if they're willing to do that, maybe we should help them
because I do perceive that it is the Chinese who are being the
aggressor. But let's use this as leverage to get some reform in
Vietnam before we proceed with helping that dictatorship. Thank
you very much.
Mr. Smith. I want to thank Chairman Rohrabacher for his
very eloquent summation of what this hearing has been all
about. I know Dr. Thang wants to show a video. I do hope the
members will stay a moment to watch that video. We held a
hearing and you remember it very well about Nguyen Nam when he
was murdered by the Vietnamese thugs and you did mention, of
course, Con Dau earlier. And it seems to be a pattern. You want
certain property owned by the church, regardless, or by one of
the religious denominations, you take it, you call it eminent
domain or some facsimile of that and then you beat the people
to death as they did there.
Your thoughts on that, update on Con Dau? Then we'll show
that video.
Mr. Cao. And again, the issue of land disputes is not an
issue that is under any color of law. It's an issue of pure
greed. Many of these land disputes are promoted by officials
who have some kind of business dealings that would lead them to
make a lot of money. So again, do not listen to what is coming
out of Vietnam, but pay attention to the intentions and the
stories that are being told by the citizens who are repressed
and who are being arrested and tortured by the Vietnamese
Government.
Mr. Thang. In answering your question, Mr. Chairman, first
I would like to be the bearer of good news. The widow of Nguyen
Thanh Nam, who was tortured and beaten to death, successfully
fled to Thailand. I had the pleasure of meeting her during my
latest trip to Thailand just last month. I would like to take
this opportunity to express my concern over the State
Department's inaccurate reporting regarding what happened in
Con Dau Parish. The State Department's report on international
religious freedom claimed that the Catholic Church had agreed
to surrender the parish's cemetery to the government of Da Nang
City for eco-tourism development. There is no such agreement.
There is no document to support that claim. The report also
claimed that the bare-handed mourners reportedly attacked the
anti-riot police who were armed to their teeth. How plausible
was that? Regarding the death of Mr. Nam, the reporter said
that this disagreement among the family members of Mr. Nam,
whether he died of a natural cause or because of a beating, you
can go back to the report and read that.
Clearly, the members of the family that had been approached
by the police before our team from the U.S. Embassy met in
Vietnam to investigate, and they were told, if you say anything
you will face the same fate as Mr. Nam. Of course, they would
say yes, he died of natural causes. Why didn't we, as a State
Department, just present the facts, that he got beat up, he got
tortured, he was poked through the ears with a sharp wooden
stick and he suffered injuries, internal bleeding, and he died
a few hours later. Why did we have to be speculating whether he
died of natural causes or not? Just present the facts.
So it's very troubling because after the UNHCR recognized
49 of those Hmong parishioners as refugees, the next six were
excluded or denied refugee status, after that report came out.
So we talked to Ambassador Posner and begged him to review that
and please do talk to him to revise that piece of the report.
Now regarding making the case for CPC redesignation, right
after we rescinded the CPC designation in late '06, the Central
Bureau of Religious Affairs, that is the counterpart that Mr.
John Hanford had been dealing with, issued a document that
later was leaked out in 2007 saying that we should resolutely
overcome the abnormal and spontaneous growth of Protestantism
and propagandizing and mobilizing the people to safeguard and
promote good, traditional beliefs of ethnic minorities. That is
a euphemism for forced renunciation of their Christian faith.
They are being pushed to go back with the traditional beliefs
and stay away from Protestantism. Here are a few pictures.
In 2008, this is what happened to Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh
when he tried to help the Montagnard in the Central Highlands.
Got beaten up bloodily.
And this was what happened in 2009, a prominent member of
the Unified Buddhist Church, he tried to deliver relief to the
poor people in Vietnam, low-income people in Vietnam.
And this is what happened in 2009 to Father Ngo The Binh
who just led a delegation to hold a prayer of solidarity with
the Parish of Tam Toa that was under threat of being taken away
by the Government of Vietnam.
This is what happened to a parishioner in Dong Chiem where
the Government of Vietnam blew up the cross, the crucifix with
explosives.
This is what happened to Brother Nguyen Van Tang of the
Redemptorist Order who came to Dong Chiem to express solidarity
with the parishioners in Dong Chiem. They are beaten up by the
police.
This is what happened to a member of the Redemptorist
Church in Hanoi in 2010. Because this is a college student and
he protested the instructors from defaming his faith in class.
And this--you already saw this, a picture of Mr. Nam in Con
Dau in 2010, July. And this is what happened to a member of the
Baptist Church in Quang Ngai just last year, October.
The Buddhists broke in, disrupted the prayer, and beat him
up. And this just happened in December, last month, in Thai Ha
in an incident that Congressman Cao did mention. So this a
parishioner who tried to peacefully protect church property.
So these are just a few examples of police brutality
against religious leaders and people of faith. And now your
permission very quickly just 3 minutes, I'd like to swho the
video of very rare footage of what happened in Muong Nhe
village.
[Video presentation.]
You can see here the military were moving in to demolish
the entire Hmong Christian village of Xa Na Khua and Muong Nhe.
You see here the government workers, the cadres, the military
sitting here. And you can see soon the workers breaking down
the roof here. These are homes. These are their homes here. And
these are the Hmong Christians.
This is what was left of the homes. Nothing left. You see
all these kids here. And then in mid-March the government came
back after temporary suspension due to Lunar New Year and they
demolished the rest of the village.
You see all the roofs here. And these people now have
become homeless, these Christians.
And then May 1st, these small villagers they have no other
choice but come together peacefully to request for an end to
religious persecution and an end to demolition of their homes
and the confiscation of their land, but 3,000 to 5,000
estimate. As you can see, the women, the children, they all
came, peacefully, just begging the government to let them live.
But then the government moved troops in, hundreds of them,
surrounding and circling the demonstrators with guns, live
ammunition.
Mr. Smith. How did you get this video?
Mr. Thang. Some of the Hmong themselves, very high risk to
themselves. You see batons here and electric rods and these are
the mobile anti-riot police coming in. And now they're being
beaten up here. They're running away, escaping. And there was a
total blockage of news reporters coming in or news getting out
from Muong Nhe since.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Video ends.]
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. Without objection, if
there's any final statement our distinguished panel would like
to say before we adjourn, we do have to make our way over to a
vote. We're almost out of time.
Mr. Thang. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and please do keep the
attention on this issue.
Mr. Smith. There will be a series of hearings here like I
said, Michael Posner and USTR will all be here.
Mr. Green. Mr. Chairman, I don't know whether that's in the
record, but without objection if there is none, I would ask
that a copy of that be placed in the record officially.
Mr. Smith. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Green. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. As soon as any final statement is made, the
hearing will be adjourned without objection.
[Whereupon, at 4:31 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing RecordNotice deg.
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STATEMENT OF MS. PHUONG-ANH VU, VICTIM OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING
[The following edited oral testimony was provided by Ms.
Vu.]
Ms. Vu. I would like to say thank you for the opportunity
to be here and wish your family a happy Lunar New Year.
I grew up in a poor family of ethnic Hmong in a province
called Lao Cai in North Vietnam. My family is Catholic so we
have difficulties living there under the Vietnamese Government
policy of persecuting Christian people.
The Government of Vietnam has the policy of persecuting
Christian Hmong people and anyone that believes in
Christianity. My family, we have the two of us, my older sister
and I. And my father died when I was 1 year old. When I turned
16, my sister was kidnapped and she's been missing since then.
Heeding the Vietnamese Government's call for citizens'
participation in the labor export program in 2008 I was
transferred to Jordan and working in a sewing factory for a
Taiwanese contractor. My group included 276 women and with the
promise to only work 8 hours a day and that we would earn $300
a month. That is an enormous amount of money for myself, along
with the people that came with me.
Myself, along with all my friends, each of us had to pretty
much mortgage our home and borrow money, $2,000, to pay to the
Government of Vietnam to participate in this program. We were
never given any contracts to sign and it wasn't until we got on
the plane where they gave us the contract. When we got to
Jordan, it turned out that all the promises were reversed. When
we arrived, immediately they took all of our paperwork, all of
our passports, and immediately put us to work. Then starting
the next day, we have to work and the shift was 16 hours a day.
I worked for 10 days and I received $10. I was very upset
and surprised, so I asked the employer and the employer's
response was that I would need to talk to the people who
brought us here which would be the Vietnamese Government. We
stopped working and demanded our wages be paid. The reason we
stopped working was because we demanded the owner to pay us but
he refused. After 10 days of being on strike, the owner gave us
an ultimatum. They withheld food, electricity, and water from
us. A lot of us--some of them were afraid of the employer's
threats and could not withstand the hunger so they returned to
work, but 176 of us remained on strike. A woman named Vu Thu
Ha, she's a representative of the labor export company of
Vietnam, she led a group of security officers and police who
came to our rooms and started to physically assault us.
All the women there are like me, very petite, and tiny and
weakened by not having food and so forth. So they were beaten.
The security officers and the police pulled on our hair, hit
them, they slammed their heads against the floor until blood
came out from their nose and mouth. So it was really brutal.
I witnessed myself that some of my friends had become
unconscious but they did not stop. They pulled and dragged my
friends like animals, and it's very heartbreaking. And they
continued to beat us with a batton, I thought my friend had
died and I didn't know what to do so I returned to help. I took
a cell phone and tried to record what was happening, so they
started beating me on the head and the bruise is still there on
my head and it's still there.
So I was heartbroken to see for myself all the women having
to suffer through this ordeal, being a migrant worker. What I
didn't understand was that after the owner of the company
witnessed us all being beaten and he did not do anything and
then afterward they all were shaking hands and smiling. So I
didn't understand why that was happening. We were isolated and
confined in a room. We tried to get help, I broke the glass
window and screamed through the windows. Nobody came. The
Jordanian police were there, but they were there to help beat
us and forced us to return to work, rather than helping us.
On that same day a lot of my friends were vomiting blood
and they were obviously seriously injured. I tried to call back
to the Government of Vietnam and the company that arranged our
trip for help and no one came to help us. So I didn't know what
to do so I have to find food and medicines to help my friends.
I had to gather everything that we have and even the tampons
for women to sell to get the money to buy instant noodles for
my friends. I'm sorry, but whenever I think about this I cannot
speak, it gets very emotional for me.
And then one day the Vietnamese Government delegation came.
I was happy because I thought they would be there to represent
the Government of Vietnam and to protect us. I was so happy,
but it turned out they came, it was very disappointing because
not only did they not help us, but they also threatened us. The
reason they threatened because I was the one that contacted the
newspaper in Vietnam. They did an article and the article got
to Dr. Thang, that's how he knew about it and Dr. Thang sent us
money to buy medicines for my friends and that's why they came
to threaten me.
I used the money that was given from Dr. Thang to get
medicine for my friends, but the government accused me of
collaborating with the NGOs and abetting with the anti-
government persons for my own benefit. I asked Dr. Thang to
help my friends because most of them were very sick from being
beaten and Dr. Thang arranged to have some physicians from IOM
to come and help them. After the IOM delegation came and left,
we were confined and isolated again and we were not allowed to
go outside. Then we were able to return to Vietnam and I
learned that it was thanks to the Congressman and Dr. Thang.
The day before we were supposed to return there were two
gentlemen named Truong Xuan Thanh and Tran Viet Tu who worked
at the Embassy of Vietnam in Cairo, Egypt. They told my friends
that upon returning to Vietnam I would be prosecuted according
to the law. Dr. Thang helped me escape and when I got to
Bankok, Thailand, I was able to escape from the government. The
journey of my escape was very long and time is limited, so I
won't be able to explain all that right now. While I was in
Thailand I was threatened by the Vietnamese Embassy and they
said they would chop me into hundreds of pieces. And I have
these verbal threats recorded. While I was living in Thailand
for 3 years, there was a lot of suffering including for my mom
and it was very emotional for me while I was staying there.
The most heartbroken for me was when my 3-year-old daughter
was electrocuted and died and she was not allowed to be buried
unless I returned to Vietnam. I had thought about returning to
Vietnam to see my daughter one last time but the police had
already surrounded my house.
One of my friends, Ngoc, who was beaten by the police has
died because of the injury. I don't know what else to say. For
my last words I just want to send my gratitude to Dr. Thang,
CAMSA, BPSOS, and Congressman Smith and the panel and the U.S.
Government for allowing this hearing and hope that it will help
my people. I know there's going to be a lot of uncertainties
and threats for me participating in this hearing. I will do my
best to live as a witness to let the Government of Vietnam and
for everbody to know. However, I chose to do it because I don't
want a second Phoug-Anh like myself. I would like to be able to
prevent this from happening to other people.
I also beg that everyone on the panel along with everyone
here in the room now that you have heard my testimony that you
would raise the voice and do something to help the Vietnamese
women from suffering from human trafficking.
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executive director, Boat People SOS
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Montagnard Human Rights Organization
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Material submitted for the record by Mr. John Sifton, advocacy director
for Asia, Human Rights Watch
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Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Al Green, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Texas
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