Thursday, August 09, 2007 at
15:25
Hanoi (dpa) - The outgoing US ambassador to Vietnam Thursday criticized the
communist country's crackdown on political dissidents saying it was the biggest
letdown of his tenure.
"Perhaps my biggest
disappointment here is that we've not been able to expand the space for
political dialogue in Vietnam," Ambassador Michael Marine told reporters in his
farewell press conference Thursday afternoon.
"I wish I could say it's improving, but I can't," he said. "In fact, I'm a bit
discouraged."
Since February, Vietnam has arrested nearly a dozen political activists,
convicting some of "conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic" under
Article 88 of the country's political code.
Vietnam's government has said the arrests were for criminal wrongdoing, not as
an attempt to suppress dissent against one-party rule.
In April, police surrounded a group of wives of dissidents outside Marine's
Hanoi residence and blocked them from entering the compound, where the
ambassador had invited the women to meet with visiting US Representative Loretta
Sanchez.
Marine on Thursday criticized laws that "allow the authorities to move against
people for expressing their opinions, for organizing in any way and for calling
for political change."
The ambassador said such expression is a question of "fundamental rights, human
rights that I strongly believe are universal.
However Marine, who has served a three-year term as Washington's third
ambassador to Hanoi since re-establishing diplomatic relations in the 1990s,
praised other areas of relations between the countries, including increased
trade ties.
The US has been Vietnam's largest export market since 2003 and US companies have
invested billions in manufacturing, infrastructure and other projects.