US call to oppose lending no immediate threat to Vietnam economy
HANOI - Vietnamese anger over a US recommendation to withdraw support from international lending is more a symptom of a mounting
war of words between the former foes than of any immediate threat to its economy.
A no vote from Washington would not block the hundreds of millions of dollars in loans being considered by the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund to support the communist authorities' market reform programme, economists said.
But the recommendation from the US Commission of International Religious Freedom is symptomatic of mounting pressure on
Washington to resort to economic sanctions against the communist regime amid growing criticism of its human rights record.
The commission called on the US Treasury last month to withdraw support for all non-humanitarian lending to Hanoi in protest
at what it said was Vietnam's "grievous violation" of liberty of worship.
The recommendation followed a special hearing in Washington on February 13, at which religious leaders and exiled dissidents
accused Vietnam of hounding believers and choking freedom of worship.
"The commission believes that the severity of the Vietnamese government's violation of religious freedom, and its apparent
unwillingness to make sustained improvements in the protection of religious freedom, warrants the use of this sanction," its
chairman Elliott Abrams said.
Exception should only be made for loans which assisted the "basic human needs of the Vietnamese people," he wrote to
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill on March 29.
There was no still response from the US administration Wednesday to the commission's recommendation.
But Vietnam Tuesday slammed the call as an "interference in its internal affairs" which flew in the face of international support
for its plans to double Gross Domestic Product over the next decade.
It was "detrimental not only to the fine relations between Vietnam and international financial organizations ... but also to relations
between Vietnam and the United States," foreign ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said.
It ran "contrary to the international community's efforts to help Vietnam in its struggle against hunger and poverty," she said in
the first official reaction to the commission's call.
But economists said the foreign ministry's reaction was more a sign of sensitivity to growing human rights criticism from
Washington than of any real threat to Vietnam's economic reform plans.
Washington only holds around 15 percent of the voting rights in the credit pool from which loans to Vietnam are drawn.
And voting is by majority rather than consensus, meaning that Washington's opposition would be largely symbolic.
Between them the World Bank and IMF are considering providing loans worth more than 500 million dollars to support the
communist authorities' poverty reduction programme.
The executive board of the World Bank is to meet on Thursday to review the programme, country director Andrew Steer told
AFP.
A 368-million dollar loan package agreed by the IMF last week is dependent on the outcome of the meeting.
A 250 million dollar package from the World Bank itself will then be considered at a further meeting in the middle of next
month.
Rather less than half of the package would be forthcoming immediately with the balance dependent on the progress made in
banking and state enterprise reform, trade liberalisation and promotion of the private sector, Steer said.
Additional loans worth some 50 million dollars from bilateral donors are tied to the World Bank package.
Agence France Presse - April 11, 2001.
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