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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: 202-638-0066
November 7, 2007
LCHR President testifies on human rights in Vietnam before House Foreign Affairs subcommittee
Washington, D.C. – Leadership Council for Human Rights President Kathryn Cameron Porter delivered testimony Tuesday at a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on human rights in Vietnam. The hearing was held by the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight.
Porter, focusing on the plight of indigenous ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands, presented grim photographs taken during a recent LCHR fact-finding mission that captured the extreme poverty there. “When we examine human rights, we must first consider the quality of life issues upon which all fundamental freedoms depend,” Porter said in testimony submitted for the record. “The first right is basic survival; the ability to provide for one’s own elemental needs and those of one’s family.”
She also emphasized the need for expanded dialogue between American and Vietnamese leaders. Mentioning a recent LCHR-hosted NGO roundtable with a delegation from Vietnam’s newly-elected National Assembly, Porter urged Members of Congress to hold similar exchanges to help promote reform. “I believe you all hold a key to this,” Porter told Subcommittee Chairman William Delahunt and his colleagues, adding, “out of dialogue comes discourse.”
Porter spoke on a diverse panel of experts that included Cong Thanh Do, the spokesman for the People’s Democratic Party; Sophie Richardson, the advocacy director for Human Rights Watch’s Asia Program; Duy (Dan) Hoang of the Vietnam Reform Party; and Nguyen Dinh Thang, the executive director of Boat People SOS. In the preceding panel, Scot Marciel, the deputy assistant secretary for Southeast Asia, addressed Congressional concern regarding the recent removal of Vietnam’s designation as a country of particular concern (CPC) for violations of religious freedom.
Delahunt was joined on the dais by subcommittee members Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Rep. Ed Royce. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Rep. Loretta Sanchez and Rep. Christopher Smith, meanwhile, served as witnesses, sharing their expertise on the issue in the hearing’s first panel.
The full text of Ms. Porter’s testimony is presented in its entirety below.
Subcommittee Chairman Delahunt, thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing. The Leadership Council for Human Rights (LCHR) is committed to human rights promotion through on-the-ground projects and global advocacy. Our work is built on four essential principles: the search for truth, empowerment of local peoples, promotion of public awareness, and innovative solutions to crises. We focus on the unique needs of indigenous peoples, ethno-religious minorities, women, and other populations under threat.
The discussion of human rights in Vietnam remains particularly relevant within the broader context of newly expanded U.S.-Vietnam relations. When we examine human rights, we must first consider the quality of life issues upon which all fundamental freedoms depend. The first right is basic survival; the ability to provide for one’s own elemental needs and those of one’s family. In the words of Muhammed Yunus, “Poverty is the absence of all human rights.”
While Vietnam’s economy has undergone spectacular growth in recent years, the aphorism “a rising tide lifts all boats” is in this case a generalization which does not adequately reflect the broader reality. Many of the rural poor who make up the majority of the population, especially in northern and central Vietnam, and the indigenous peoples of Vietnam’s Central Highlands in specific continue to struggle for survival, untouched by the astounding economic gains in the urban and southern regions of the country. Historically-ingrained prejudices, racism, and discriminatory policies persist as major barriers to the human development of Vietnam’s Highland peoples. Unless these facts are recognized and action is taken on these urgent needs, some of these peoples, particularly whose livelihoods are precarious, will slip closer to the brink.
Identifying extreme poverty as the first and most formidable obstacle to human rights among Vietnam’s ethnic minorities, LCHR has worked since 2005 to develop an initiative that would address the needs of especially vulnerable minority groups in remote areas of the Central Highlands, relying neither on funding and support from the U.S. Administration nor direct facilitation from the Vietnamese government. We identified a functional counterpart entity in Vietnam, an informal but well-organized and active affiliation of ethnic Vietnamese Christians who had been living and working on the ground in the Central Highlands for many years, having excellent access to otherwise inaccessible Highland populations and well-known to local government officials but also unassisted by any outside organization and absent any meaningful resources to benefit populations who were virtually dying off in front of their eyes.
During a 2007 fact-finding mission conducted by LCHR following on my initial visit to Vietnam in late 2005, we were able to get a close-up view of the immediate needs of such populations and to understand more about the unique cultures of ancient and indigenous Highland tribes. Our project consultants visited some desperately poor Sedang communities in Kon Tum province, hearing their stories first-hand and documenting the hardships of their daily existence through photographs, video footage, and interviews. Selected photographs are attached to my written testimony.
The areas visited are sustained by subsistence agriculture at best and forest foraging at worst, and villagers report that food insecurity and overall deprivation, especially the threat of starvation, is their greatest fear. Heads of families said that they had to give birth to as many as ten children just to ensure the survival of three. Women and children, of course, experience the greatest vulnerabilities, and such families direly need urgent humanitarian assistance in the form of food, medicine, and other critical consumables. (One of our consultants in preparing their mission report commented that the insects seemed to be much better fed than the people!) Technical and material support is needed to learn improved cultivation techniques to maximize the use of the limited natural resources available, and community outreach on health and sanitation are also critical to ensure a basic and sustainable standard of living.
In the pilot phase of its project, based on dialogue and confidence-building with Vietnamese counterparts over the past two years, LCHR has been able to provide emergency food supplies (rice) to very poor ethnic Montagnard families living near the border between Quang Ngai and Kon Tum provinces. Now LCHR is developing additional resources to expand its material assistance program, particularly food and medicine, to very poor ethnic Sedang and Hre Montagnards living near this interprovince border, families who typically have to survive mainly on only cassava and wild plants and greens which they scavenge from the jungle. This food assistance is aimed first and foremost at decreasing mortality rates and specifically increasing child survival.
In future project phases, we hope to expand our activities to include topical information and awareness on basic skills and techniques to ensure that such native families and communities can not just survive but perhaps even thrive. In addition, LCHR in conjunction with its local project partners intends to implement a small-scale, easily-replicable basic microenterprise initiative. While seeking to promote quality of life and rights through its on-the-ground project activities, LCHR is also working to facilitate and expand a larger collaborative working partnership between international NGOs and Vietnamese government counterparts which is focused on enhancing the overall well-being and future prospects of minority Highland populations, ensuring that they survive being the shared goal and the bottom line.
If clear and long-expressed Congressional intent for Economic Support Funds (ESF) designated for humanitarian assistance in the Central Highlands of Vietnam were met, there would be a number of projects in the Central Highlands working to alleviate severe poverty and benefiting vulnerable populations and the larger community. This would allow international NGOs access to travel and work more freely in remote areas of the Highlands in which the worst poverty exists, some of these being also where human rights abuses have been reported. Such a partnership would also create a two-way flow of information and a fuller understanding of the ground truths in the region, for the mutual benefit of all parties concerned, both Vietnamese and international. On-the-ground projects with conspicuous objective achievement can lead to greater transparency, and transparency in turn can increase understanding and trust.
Unfortunately, Congressional intent has seemingly not been met. The State Department’s non-performance with ESF allocated by Congress since FY2006 is troubling, and raises questions about the U.S.’s commitment to Vietnam, specifically the Central Highlands. In FY2006, for example, requests for applications for $1.8 Million ESF were not made available until close to the end of that fiscal year. Chronic delays in awarding ESF, which were made available by Congress to be put to immediate use benefiting vulnerable ethnic minorities, undermine the U.S. Government’s stated interest and overall credibility in increasing human rights in Vietnam.
In addition to establishing substantive projects in the Highlands that help the poorest of the poor, whose survival hangs in the balance, maintaining channels of dialogue between the U.S. and Vietnam remain vital to creating the conditions necessary for human rights promotion and civil society development. I have testified on previous occasions that progress depends on a candid and continuing dialogue between U.S. and Vietnamese officials at every level.
Recently, the Leadership Council for Human Rights facilitated an NGO roundtable with senior leaders of the Vietnamese National Assembly. In this forum, these leaders – on their first visit to the U.S. since Vietnam held elections in July – acknowledged the need for human rights improvements and social and economic reforms, and expressed their commitment to working toward rule of law through a transparent legal system. They requested support and assistance from U.S. counterparts in their efforts to extend the rule of law. The delegation was clearly anxious to hear from the human rights community, and another similar NGO roundtable will occur soon, this time with leaders of Vietnam’s Religious Affairs Commission, building on topics previously discussed and work done together to date.
Ongoing U.S.-Vietnam dialogue can expand understanding between our two countries and peoples while consolidating human rights gains that have been made. However, actions and hard evidence will always speak louder than words. The apparent crackdown that immediately followed Vietnam’s WTO ascension unfortunately invalidated much of the good will accumulated between our countries through some very hard work in the preceding years, and the concerns raised by unfavorable developments must be forcefully addressed. While we condemn such abuses wholeheartedly, the U.S.’s actions, like those of the Vietnamese, speak much louder than words. We in the human rights community are left to ask: Is the U.S. truly committed to ensure that economic growth is matched by equal progress in establishing the rule of law and overall human development in all aspects of the country’s life, particularly in the Central Highlands?
The United States’ record on this question to date is far from clear.
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