Human Rights Developments

Defending Human Rights

The Role of the International Community

Japan
Japan continued its support of doi moi (renovation) in Vietnam, focusing on promoting economic reform, and provided technical assistance to help design a new five-year budget plan. Privately, Japanese officials were concerned about the growing social unrest but failed to raise the issue during the December 1997 donor meeting. Japan pledged U.S. $720 million to Vietnam for 1998, most of it in yen loans, plus some grant aid and technical assistance. Japan also continued to give assistance for legal reforms, including a program on civil procedure law, but undertook no initiatives in the area of criminal or penal law. In the first known intervention by Japan with Hanoi in the case of a political prisoner, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’s appeal on behalf of dissident Doan Viet Hoat helped bring about his release in September.

European Union and the United States
The European Union also took action on behalf of political prisoners, including Dr. Hoat and Dr. Que, making demarches in Hanoi on their behalf. President Jacques Chirac of France raised Dr. Hoat’s case with the Vietnamese delegation to ASEM in London in April. The European Parliament passed a resolution on human rights in Vietnam in July, in which it called for release of prisoners of conscience, an end to house arrest for other dissidents and religious leaders, repeal of administrative detention Directive 31/CP, reform of the judicial system, and guarantees for complete freedom of religion.

In the third year of normalized diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Vietnam, the U.S. took tentative steps towards establishing trade relations. In March, President Clinton issued a waiver of the Jackson-Vanik emigration requirements in order to allow U.S. companies that do business in Vietnam to obtain credits from the Export-Import Bank and loans and political risk insurance from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). On June 3, Clinton extended the waiver for one year. The Houseof Representatives voted on July 30 against a resolution to overturn the waiver. On March 19, OPIC signed an agreement with Vietnam, despite the results of OPIC’s own investigation of labor rights abuses (a precondition for receiving OPIC assistance), which pointed out the lack of freedom of association in the workplace, lack of collective bargaining, and other serious abuses.

In May, the State Department held another meeting in its bilateral human rights dialogue with Vietnam, but the dialogue produced no immediate results. For the first time, as requested by Congress, the talks took place at the level of assistant secretary of state.

In September, the United States praised the prisoner release, stating that the amnesty would improve relations between the two countries, but urged the Vietnamese government to release everyone detained in violation of international human rights standards.