Viet Trade Show in SF
Larry Engelmann
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Jeered by crowds
of Vietnamese immigrants, merchants
and promoters turned out for the United
States' first Vietnamese trade show
since the lifting of a 19-year trade
embargo.
''Down with communism!'' picketers
chanted Thursday, standing by mock
coffins covered with American flags and
sometime moving forward to challenge the
trade show's leaders and exhibitors.
''This doesn't help the Vietnamese
people at all,'' Tuan Pham of Monterey
said. ''With the communists there is
corruption and human rights abuses.''
Despite the protests, dozens of people
were waiting to go in when the doors
of the Herbst Pavilion opened. Traffic
was steady past about 50 booths
hawking everything from black dragon
sweaty pills to offshore drilling.
''Oh, solid,'' San Francisco Mayor Frank
Jordan said, rubbing a chair at a
lacquer furniture booth during an
hourlong tour of the show, which ends
Saturday.
Jordan joined the Vietnam Chamber of
Commerce and Industry to sponsor the
trade show. President Clinton's lifting
of the trade embargo Feb. 3 made the
exposition possible.
AMerican firms held two trade shows in
Hanoi in April, although
administration refusal to grant
most-favored-nation trade status is
keeping duties on Vietnamese exports to
the United States high.
Jordan has been courting Vietnam as a
market for San Francisco architects,
builders and others.
''The earlier we step into the picture,
the better off we'll be,'' he said.
The mayor brushed aside the protests,
arguing trade will only improve
conditions in Vietnam.
''The best way to make progress is to
communicate, so this is a very positive
step in the right direction,'' Jordan
said.
Vietnamese who had fought against the
communists made up many in the crowd of
picketers. But one U.S. veteran of the
Vietnam war welcomed the resumed
trade, saying it was part of the freedom
for the Vietnamese that he had
fought for.
An exhibitor said the demonstrators'
time had passed.
''It is very hard for us when Vietnamese
are protesting against their own
people,'' Shannon Nguyen of the Hue
Import-Export Co. said.
''I'm surprised, but I shouldn't be,''
Nguyen said. ''The old-line people are
that way.''
MERCURY CENTER CODE: N111 ID: me11737v
Transmitted: 94-09-30 08:33:15 EDT
Nhan Tran
The mayor of San Francisco said: "The best way to make progress is to
communicate, so this is a very positive step in the right direction"
It's ironic that the Hanoi regime doesn't want to communicate with anyone
that has different opinions from theirs. Hanoi regime doesn't want to
communicate with intellectual such as Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, Prof. Doan Viet Hoat,
religious leaders such as Thich Huyen Quang, ...., doesn't care to heed
words of their own party people such as Nguyen Ho, Duong Thu Huong, ignore
what Prof. Phan Dinh Dieu, Ha Si Phu and others have to say.
Staging VietExpo here is not about communication, it's simply about making
some bucks.
> ''It is very hard for us when Vietnamese are protesting against their own
> people,'' Shannon Nguyen of the Hue Import-Export Co. said.
>
> ''I'm surprised, but I shouldn't be,'' Nguyen said. ''The old-line people are
> that way.''
Shannon Nguyen must be a comedian when she said the above with a straight face.
The Hanoi regime cracks down harshly on any opposition, peaceful or not and
here she feigned surprise at a peaceful demonstration, something that could not
happen in Vietnam.
Let me re-phrase it, "It's very difficult for us when Vietnam government
repress againts their own people. But I'm not surprised, the Vietnamese
communists are that way."
N.Tran
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vietnam-Human Rights
Copyright, 1994. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
By BRUCE STANLEY
Associated Press Writer
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Political prisoners at a Vietnamese detention camp are
beaten by guards, denied medical care and forced to survive on a diet of rice
and salt, a human rights group reported.
The Vietnam Committee on Human Rights, based in Gennevilliers, France, quoted
a document reportedly written on July 25 by Pham Van Thanh, who the committee
said is serving a 12-year prison term at a camp in southern Vietnam.
Based on the document Thanh smuggled out of Vietnam, the committee's report
Tuesday gave a rare glimpse of what it says are conditions inside the country's
camps for political prisoners.
"Security police beat up political prisoners with unbelievable violence,"
Thanh said. The prisoners are "beaten like animals," he added.
Vietnam's Foreign Affairs Ministry had no comment on the report.
The report said police arrested Thanh and Pham Anh Dung, both French
citizens, in March 1993 during a visit to protest peacefully for democratic
freedoms and reforms in Vietnam. It was unclear what led to the arrests.
A tribunal found Thanh, Dung and 12 other overseas Vietnamese companions
guilty last August of trying to overthrow the government and imprisoned them for
terms ranging from three years to life. Some of the group were American and
Canadian residents, the report said.
Thanh is serving his sentence at the A20 Reeducation Camp in Phu Yen
province, 238 miles northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, the report said.
Inmates at the camp must perform excessively hard labor and suffer from a
deliberate lack of food and access to doctors or medicine, he said. At least one
detainee, Tran Cong, died because he had no money to pay for medical help, Thanh
said.
"I saw a whole group of security guards surrounding a prisoner at the camp
entrance, beating him repeatedly over the head with their rifle butts," he said.
Thanh said he knew of 1,000 other political prisoners who are detained under
"identically inhuman conditions" in six different Vietnamese camps and prisons.
Human rights are a possible hurdle in efforts to normalize relations between
the United States and Vietnam, which have speeded up since President Clinton's
removal on Feb. 3 of the 19-year economic embargo against Vietnam.
Vietnamese and American officials met in February in New York to discuss
human rights violations listed in a U.S. State Department report, including
detention of political prisoners and harsh restrictions on freedom of speech and
political opposition.