[NEWS] Clinton breaks two promises in allowing loans to Vietnam
Mike T. Do
Editorial
By Michael D. Benge (Falls Church, Virginia)
Clinton breaks two promises in allowing loans to Vietnam
By dropping U.S. opposition to International Monetary Fund
(IMF) loans to Vietnam (Nation, July 2), President Clinton broke
two more of his campaign promises.
First, he promised the POW/MIA families and veterans that he
would insist on the fullest accounting for the MIAs before making
any economic concessions to Vietnam. He caved in because of heavy
lobbying by 1) Japanese interest groups that want to use the
Vietnamese as a cheap labor source, and 2) U.S. companies that want
to cash in on lush contracts that will result from the loans. As
cover, he used a letter signed by Sens. Charles Robb, John McCain
and John Kerry purporting that "significant progress" is being made
with Hanoi in accounting for MIAs. However, accounting for only 12
out of 1251 MIAs in the past two years is hardly "significant
progress."
Hanoi continues to stonewall on providing information on
POW/MIAs, especially in Laos. In 1973, Acting Secretary of Defense
Lawrence Eagleburger told President Nixon, "Hanoi should by advised
unequivocally that we still hold them responsible for the ...
accounting for and or release of U.S. prisoners being held in
Laos." Over 90 percent of the estimated 600 POW/MIAs in Laos
vanished in territory under the total control of Hanoi. On orders
from Hanoi, "In Laos, the American Teams [Department of Defense
investigators] are actually barred ... from going into key areas
where Americans and distress signals have been sighted over the
years," according to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sidney
Schanberg. When asked, Laotian government officials have repeatedly
told Mr. Kerry, don't ask us, ask Hanoi, for they were responsible
for the POWs. In the past two years, only one set of remains has
been unilaterally repatriated out of Laos.
Mr. Clinton's second broken promise is that he would put
democracy and human rights before economic issues when dealing with
countries such as Vietnam. According to Assistant Secretary of
State Winston Lord, "Vietnam continues under a repressive communist
political system. There are traces of freedom."
Among the most repressed in Vietnam are the ethnic minorities,
known as Montagnards, who were our staunchest allies. As a result,
they suffered the loss of a third of their population during the
war, fighting for the United States. Now, because of the cruel
programs of the Vietnamese government, the surviving Montagnards
must struggle daily to preserve what remains of their shattered
world. In a scorched-earth policy, entire Montagnards villages of
longhouses are torched in an attempt to eradicate their culture,
and the survivors are forced to resettle among the Vietnamese. Many
Montagnards are Christians, but the Catholic and Protestant clergy
are jailed for preaching that God, rather than the state, is their
savior. In 1985, a few Montagnards made it to the United States;
however, the Vietnamese won't permit their families to join them,
for they escaped from communist re-education camps, and attendance
is considered a blood debt still owed.
Economics is the only weapon that the United States has to
force Hanoi to 1) account for the POW/MIAs, 2) change its
repressive policies and 3) move toward democratic reform. By
lifting opposition to IMF loans, Mr. Clinton is not only selling
out the POW/MIAs and Vietnam veterans, but he is condemning a brave
group of people who fought by their side for freedom to cultural
annihilation.
So far, only approval for Japan and France to pay off
Vietnam's debt to the IMF has been given. It is not too late for
the president and Congress to correct a terrible mistake if they
disapprove all future loans. Not a dime of U.S. taxpayers' money
should go to the communist Vietnamese until they have made the
fullest possible accounting for the POW/MIAs, and until they have
stopped their repressive policies toward their people.
MICHAEL D. BENGE
Falls Church