politics from vlink.com

Former enemies US, Vietnam now military mates

09 Aug 2010

ABOARD THE USS GEORGE WASHINGTON Sun Aug 8 - Cold War enemies the United States and Vietnam demonstrated their blossoming military relations Sunday as a U.S. nuclear supercarrier floated in waters off the Southeast Asian nation's coast -- sending a message that China is not the region's only big player.

In Visit, Clinton Criticizes Vietnam on Rights

24 Jul 2010

HANOI, Vietnam -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton chided Vietnam on Thursday for intolerance of dissent and infringement of Internet freedom, even as she celebrated its 15 years of normalized relations with the United States.

Mrs. Clinton said she raised the issues of jailed democracy activists, attacks on religious groups and curbs on social-networking Web sites during a meeting with Vietnam's deputy prime minister, Pham Gia Khiem.

Vietnam: Stop Cyber Attacks Against Online Critics Government Crackdown on Bloggers and Websites

28 May 2010

For Immediate Release

Vietnam: Stop Cyber Attacks Against Online Critics
Government Crackdown on Bloggers and Websites

(New York, May 27, 2010) -- Vietnam has launched a sophisticated and sustained two-pronged attack against online dissent, Human Rights Watch said today. The government is detaining and intimidating independent Vietnamese bloggers while also permitting cyber attacks from Vietnam to disable websites critical of the government.

The Downfall of Human Rights

25 Feb 2010

From the magazine issue dated Mar 1, 2010

Touring Asia in November, Barack Obama hit all the usual presidential themes, including free trade, investment, and strategic alliances, except for one: human rights. During a scripted press conference in Beijing, Obama barely mentioned it. In Shanghai he offered only mild criticism of China's Internet blocks, saying he was a "big supporter of noncensorship." Obama's nonstatements amount to a clear break from nearly three decades of U.S. policy. From its engagement with the brutal Burmese junta to its decision to avoid the Dalai Lama when he first visited Washington during Obama's tenure to its silence over the initial outbreak of protests in Iran, Obama's administration has taken a much quieter approach to rights advocacy than his predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. "Conceding to China upfront doesn't buy you better cooperation further down the track," says Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch.

A Lament for Vietnam

09 Oct 2009

By DOAN VAN TOAI
( FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE )

hen the Communists took over North Vietnam in 1954, a million refugees fled to the South. I personally heard stories of their incredible suffering. But, along with other South Vietnamese, I refused to believe them. A generation later, I could not believe Solzhenitsyn's book "The Gulag Archipelago," either. I dismissed it as anti-Communist propaganda. But by 1979, I had published my own book, "The Vietnamese Gulag." Can those who have suffered the horror of Communism ever convince those who have not experienced it? From 1945, when I was born in the village of Caivon in Vinh Long province, 100 miles south of Saigon, until I left Vietnam in May 1978, I never enjoyed peace. My family's house was burned three times in the war against the French. To escape the fighting, my parents moved from one village to another throughout my youth. Like the majority of Vietnamese patriots, they joined the resistance forces fighting the French. As I grew up, I myself saw how the peasants were oppressed by the local officials of the successive Saigon regimes, how they were victimized by the French bombardments. I learned the history of my country's thousand-year struggle against Chinese occupation and its century-long effort against Western domination. With this background, my compatriots and I grew up with a hatred of foreign intervention.

Vietnam: Government Rejects UN Proposals to Improve its Rights Record

29 Sep 2009

New Arrests of Peaceful Critics Show Vietnam Lacks Commitment to Protecting Human Rights

(New York) - The Vietnamese government has rejected and ignored recommendations to improve its deteriorating human rights record raised during the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review process that ended this week, Human Rights Watch said today.

"Shockingly, Vietnam denied to the Human Rights Council that it has arrested and imprisoned hundreds of peaceful dissidents and independent religious activists," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Yet in just the four months since Vietnam's last appearance at the council, it has arrested scores more."

Vietnam: End Crackdown on Labor Activists

29 Sep 2009

Le Thi Cong Nhan is one of at least eight independent trade union advocates who have been sentenced to prison in Vietnam since 2006 on dubious national security charges. Shown above at her trial in May 2007, she is currently serving a three-year prison sentence.
© 2007 Reuters

(New York) - The Vietnamese government should immediately free activists who have been unlawfully imprisoned for peacefully campaigning for workers' rights, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

Chinese shadow over Vietnamese repression

13 Sep 2009

Sep 12, 2009 - A crackdown on anti-China sentiment in Vietnam signals factional politicking inside the ruling Communist Party ahead of the next National Congress and has drawn critical attention to the China-aligned General Department II (GD II), a controversial and semi-autonomous intelligence unit tasked with monitoring threats to domestic security.

Vietnamese authorities have in recent weeks arrested and detained a handful of journalists and bloggers who have penned materials critical of China, including articles related to Beijing's investment in a bauxite mining venture in the geographically strategic Central Highlands region and on the long-lasting controversy over the two sides' contested claims to the Paracel and Spratly islands in the South China Sea.

Nixon was ready to 'cut off head' of S. Vietnam leader

24 Jun 2009

AFP - Wednesday, June 24

WASHINGTON (AFP) - - Despite pleges to protect South Vietnam, former US president Richard Nixon privately vowed to "cut off the head" of its leader unless he backed peace with the communist North, tapes have revealed.

The tapes appear to confirm charges by South Vietnam's late president, Nguyen Van Thieu, who tearfully accused the United States of breaking its word to protect Saigon when the southern capital fell in 1975.

Global lawyers' group brands Vietnam arrest 'arbitrary'