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Sanchez spurns Vietnam visa rules

Vietnam has finally opened its door a crack for Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), but she says it isn't wide enough. After denying four previous visa requests from Sanchez in the last two years, the Vietnamese Embassy on Thursday approved the fifth — submitted, she said, by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican from Illinois, on her behalf.

But Sanchez, who represents the largest Vietnamese community outside Vietnam, said the visa came with so many strings attached that she would forgo the trip and attend to work in Orange County instead. "I'm not going to play that game with them," said Sanchez, who would have been part of Hastert's May delegation to Vietnam, which, she said, would focus on trade. Her previous, unsuccessful request had been for a trip to be made about the same time, but independently.

"They only want me to be by the speaker's side," Sanchez said Thursday, "and they won't talk to me about other issues that are not what the speaker has on his agenda." Sanchez, who said she had hoped to meet with political prisoners and human rights dissidents, said she had been told her initial visa request was denied because the Vietnamese government would be busy receiving the Hastert delegation. She said she suspected that the real reason was her criticism of Vietnam's human rights record.

Cuong Nguyen, a spokesman for the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, said only that the National Assembly would indeed be busy with Hastert's group in May but was willing to play host to Sanchez independently later. "If she wants to come some other time, then that's no problem," Nguyen said, but "we already have [a] congressional delegation [in May], so we already have plans." Some in the county's Vietnamese community said Thursday that Sanchez's decision not to go with Hastert made sense.

"What's the point of going when they say, 'You cannot do this, you cannot do that'?" said Tony Lam, the now-retired first Vietnamese immigrant elected to Westminster's City Council. "You might as well stay at home."

But Nick Lecong, a Garden Grove planning commissioner, questioned her motives. "Anytime it's near the election year," said Lecong, a Republican, "she's using that issue to get the support from the Vietnamese community." Sanchez, who went to Vietnam with President Clinton in 2000, countered that her last requests for visas had been in 2004 and 2005, both years when she was not running for reelection. "I began trying to go to Vietnam since the end of the last election," she said, "so this is not because it's an election year."

By Juliet Chung - The Los Angeles Times - April 7, 2006.


US lawmaker free to visit Vietnam

HANOI - Vietnam's ministry of foreign affairs denied that it refused to grant a visa to a US lawmaker representing many overseas Vietnamese to visit the country next week. Loretta Sanchez, a Democratic congresswoman from California, is expected to be part of a delegation headed by the House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert. She said Thursday that Hanoi denied her a visa.

"The information is not accurate," foreign ministry spokesman Le Dung told AFP in a statement. "Upon the US request, we are ready to grant a visa for madam Loretta Sanchez to enter Vietnam as a member of the delegation." He said the Vietnamese embassy in Washington also told Sanchez's office that she is free to visit.

Sanchez is an outspoken critic of Vietnam's human rights record, and her district encompasses the cities of Anaheim, Garden Grove, Santa Ana and some of Fullerton in Orange County, which includes "Little Saigon," the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam. "I think it is a shame because in the last two years they have denied me three times entry into the country and I represent the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam," she told AFP on Thursday.

Hastert will lead an eight-member delegation to Vietnam April 14-17 as part of a trip that also includes India, Nepal and Greece. Sanchez said she wanted to meet with dissidents and political prisoners and discuss various issues with the Vietnamese government, including reunification of families, alleged human rights abuses, media restrictions and trafficking of Vietnamese women by sex syndicates.

The United States has asked Vietnam to release all key political and religious prisoners ahead of President George W. Bush's visit for a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ( APEC) in Hanoi in November. Vietnam rejected the call saying it only jails criminals. The US delegation will be received by Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, officials said earlier. Hastert is also expected to visit a church in Hanoi.

Agence France Presse - April 7, 2006.