~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

Year :      [2003]      [2002]      [2001]      [2000]      [1999]      [1998]      [1997]

U.S. drafts act on rights in Vietnam

Vietnam's alleged human-rights abuses may soon come under closer scrutiny in the United States Congress. An aide to Republican Christopher Smith of New Jersey says that the congressman and 28 co-sponsors plan soon to introduce the Vietnam Human Rights Act, which bill drafters say will seek to address "egregious suppression of religious liberty" and "intense persecution of the Montagnards," Vietnam's highland-dwelling ethnic minorities. According to a draft of the bill, it would prohibit nonhumanitarian U.S. assistance to the government of Vietnam, establish a commission to monitor human-rights violations, provide $2 million a year in 2004 and 2005 to groups promoting human rights and nonviolent democratic change in Vietnam and authorize $9.1 million next year to overcome Hanoi's jamming of Radio Free Asia.

A similar bill passed the House of Representatives in September 2001 by a margin of 410-1, but it stalled in the Senate. Smith's aide says the congressman is working on finding a sponsor for the bill in the Senate. State Department officials say that the main U.S. nonhumanitarian-aid project involves $8 million a year over three years to help Hanoi implement its bilateral trade agreement with Washington.

The Far Eastern Economic Review - March 20, 2003.