Vietnam Dodges Sanctions for Religious Freedom Violations

 

Pacific Rim Bureau - 5.06.2005 (CNSNews.com) - The Vietnamese government has managed to sidestep punitive measures for abusing religious freedom, by becoming the first country to reach an agreement with Washington on the matter since the passage of religious freedom legislation more than six years ago.

After lengthy negotiations with the communist authorities in Hanoi, U.S. envoy for international religious freedom John Hanford said Thursday an agreement had been achieved that "addresses a number of important religious freedom concerns."

As a result, the U.S. government is giving Vietnam a written pledge "that at this time, we won't take any additional negative action," he said.

More talks would be held when Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick visits Hanoi on Friday.

The announcement came shortly after Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai said during a trip to Australia that he would next month become the country's first leader to visit the U.S. since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.

The State Department last September added Vietnam to a list of "countries of particular concern" (CPCs), a designation under 1998 International Religious Freedom Act. The law provides for a range of diplomatic and economic steps the administration can take against governments that engage in or tolerate violations.

March 15 was the deadline for announcing actions against newcomers to the CPC list -- Saudi Arabia and Eritrea were also added -- but the department said at the time it had asked Congress for several more weeks, indicating that talks with Hanoi looked promising.

Apart from the pledge not to act against Vietnam, Hanford said Thursday that the department also undertook "to consider removing Vietnam from the CPC list" once the government had taken certain specified further steps.

He described the achievement of an agreement as one that "advances a key component of the president's freedom agenda."

But while there have been reports of concessions and improvements in recent months, religious freedom campaigners also have continued to report on continuing abuses in Vietnam.

"There will be a lot of pressure on the State Department to ensure that real improvements are achieved before lifting CPC designation," Vietnamese-American Public Affairs Committee spokesman Dan Hoang told Cybercast News Service Thursday.

Haong predicted that Vietnamese-Americans would protest against Khai "wherever he goes in the U.S." because of ongoing social injustices, rather than because of grievances related to the war 30 years ago.

"Khai is coming to the U.S. to mark the normalization of relations between the two countries, but the Vietnamese communist government has yet to pursue normal relations with the Vietnamese people," he said.

Improvements reported

Rights campaigners have for years accused Hanoi of oppressing the followers of non-recognized religions, particularly Protestants belonging to the Hmong and Montagnard ethnic minorities, Mennonites, and independent Buddhists.

Religious figures have been jailed, hundreds of churches shut down, and many Christians allegedly forced to renounce their faith.

In his announcement, Hanford said that Vietnam had in recent weeks "banned the practice of forced or coerced renunciations of faith, released a number of prominent prisoners of concern, and has begun to register and to permit the reopening of churches that had previously been closed."

It had also enacted new laws which "provide increased latitude and protection for religious belief and practice," he added.

The government had committed itself to implement the new legislation and policies fully, and to ensure that local authorities comply.

Hanford said there had been a "disconnect between what the central government may profess and what local officials do." Training of provincial and local officials would hopefully ensure that policies were regularized.

The U.S. would look for further progress, he added, including the release of remaining prisoners jailed for practicing their faith -- he could not say how many there were -- and movement on registering churches and reopening ones previously shut down.

Continuing concerns

Many observers are not convinced about the reforms, however, and reports of abuses continue to emerge from Vietnam.

In a recent letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Human Rights Watch noted that the changes announced this year did not entail an end to Hanoi's "official stance that religious freedom is a privilege to be requested and granted by the government, rather than a fundamental human right."

Last week, as part of an amnesty marking the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, Hanoi released Pham Ngoc Lien, a 63-year-old Catholic priest jailed since 1987. His release cut short by two years a 20-year sentence for "conducting propaganda to oppose the socialist regime and undermine the policy of solidarity."

Also freed was Le Thi Hong Lien, a 21-year old Mennonite bible teacher jailed for 12 months last November for taking part in a religious freedom protest.

According to Compass Direct, a news service focusing on Christian persecution, just two days after her release Le Thi Hong Lien was attending a bible study in a home with other Christians when police raided and took participants to a local police station for interrogation. By the time she was allowed to go, she was "exhausted and terrified."

Just last week, the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House reported that Hanoi was stepping up its persecution of minority Christians.

"Sources in Vietnam have provided the center with new accounts of persecution against Hmong Christians, including recent death threats which have prompted many to leave the country in recent months," it said.

"The evidence consists of tape recorded interviews, handwritten testimony of Hmong leaders, and documentation identifying the names and positions of many of the Vietnamese officials implicated in the persecution."

The organization said more than 100 Hmong Christians were reported to have fled the country over the past two months.

"Whatever recent legislative changes Vietnam has announced, they appear to provide no improvement at all for the majority of Vietnam's Protestants who are ethnic minorities in the northwest provinces and Central Highlands," said the center's director, Nina Shea.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom -- a statutory body set up under the International Religious Freedom Act -- last month urged the administration to take action against all three newcomers to the CPC list.

On Vietnam, the commission said "the government continues to harass, detain, imprison, and discriminate against leaders and practitioners of all religious communities."

The 1998 legislation provides for a range of possible measures against governments on the CPC list, including diplomatic protests, condemnation in multilateral forums, restrictions on exchanges and visits, reduction of assistance funds, trade sanctions and withdrawal of ambassadors.

It also allows the administration to waive actions on certain conditions, or to negotiate a binding agreement with the CPC government to cease violations -- as has now happened for the first time in the case of Vietnam.