From: becherer@suna0.cs.uiuc.edu (Max Becherer)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Subject: [POL] Re: Normalize w/ Vietnam
Date: 17 Nov 92 13:30:00 GMT
Organization: Saigon.COM Public Access BBS, Sillicon Valley CA  (408)739-1520


      Another response to Thinh Nguyen by Max Becherer:

>>> 1. Does the trade embargo punish Hanoi or the already over-suffering Vietnamese?
>> 
>>     Yes, it does punish Hanoi.  The Hanoi regime has far more to gain from 
>> normalized relations than do the Vietnamese people.  What little aid might 
>> trickle down to the people is not worth the price of a stronger Hanoi regime.

> I would like to ask who are you to tell the Vietnamese what is worth
> the price and what is not? You, sir, is not the one that are suffering
> and I doubt that you were ever experienced anything near what the people of
> Vietnam have been struggle with for every days of their lives.

      Actually, it was Vietnamese who told ME what is worth it and what is
not.  Most of my closest friends are Vietnamese refugees, and I know many 
other Vietnamese people as well; very few of them think normalization is
a good idea.  Furthermore, their reasoning makes sense to my: one does not 
trade with the enemy.

>>> I believe that abolishing the trade embargo would improve the human right situation 
>>> in Vietnam. Once the trade embargo is lifted, many American businessmen and 
>>> volunteers workers (especialy Vietnamese American) will flood the country with 
>>> ideas and thoughts of freedom and democracy. There will be more eyes and ears 
>>> to watch Hanoi's behaviors. 
>>
>>      Since when have American businessmen cared about freedom and human 
>> rights ?  Last I checked, they have one, and only one concern: $$$$$$$.  As
>> for volunteer workers, what makes you think that Hanoi will give them free
>> reign to go wherever they want and do whatever they want ?  In case you've
>> forgotton, Vietnam is not a free country.
>
> I strongly resent this remark. Don't you patronize me about what I 
> remember and have forgotton! How could I have forgotton that Vietnam 
> is not a free country anymore when I experienced the whole painful
> transition myself while most Americans were watching it on TV. How could I
> not knowing what the condition in Vietnam is like when my relatives
> keep decribing it to me in very miserable details?

     Sure, you experienced it, and I don't doubt for a second that you know
far more about just how oppressive Communism is. Consequently, I am all the 
more perplexed by your enthusiastic support of normalization. 

> Everybody knows that the objective of most businessmen are making money
> it's the same every where and it's simple to understand. But in general, 
> American are more likely to care about things that bothers his/her conciences
> than most European and Asian businessmen who tend not to get involved
> with other people's business. May be you have been checking the wrong 
> group of American businessmen or surrounded by less than typical American. 

    Yes, you are right, Americans in general tend to be more compasionate than
most.  American businessmen, however, are just as greedy and amoral as anyone
else's.  Look, for instance, at how Coca-Cola and Pepsi jumped at the 
opportunity to do business with the military junta in Burma.  This sort of
behavior is not at all atypical.

> About the volunteers, I don't know how much you do know about volunteer
> workers such as those in the Peace Corps but if you ask, they will tell
> you that when you are volunteers, you ask for nothing, you demand nothing.
> You just do your best with whatever you can whereever you are and hope that
> you can help as many people as posible. This apply to volunteers from
> war torn and dangerous places all over the world such as Ethiopia,
> New York ghettos or East L.A. and it has never stopped them before. 
> There are already many American volunteers in Vietnam working right now 
> including ex-GIs who are building hospitals all over Vietnam. You don't 
> need the freedom to go everywhere and say anything to preach the words of 
> freedom and democracy. Just believe it, live it, and it will 
> spread everywhere.

    In truth, I have nothing against volonteers going to help Vietnamese
people directly. What I DO object to is trade, and economic aid because these
will be subverted by the Hanoi regime.  A point concerning those hospitals,
though: how sure are we that ordinary Vietnamese will have access to them
after the GIs leave ?  What if they are wasted on soldiers or Party members ?

> By the way, just to prove that you have no idea what you were talking
> about, I cite a paragraph in the orginal article by Carlyle Thayer
> to prove that American can actually go to lots of places in Vietnam.

>> This dramatic breakthrough was made possible through the efforts of
>> American Ted Schweitzer, a former medical relief worker in Vietnam. While
>> working in Hanoi Schweitzer discovered a treasure trove of material which
>> had been kept stored in an army musuem. On a later trip he was able to
>> bring in high-tech scanning equipment to copy thousands of pages of
>> material, including photographs taken of American pilots, alive and dead,
>> immediately after crash landing in Vietnam during the war.
>
>I rest my case.

    This is irrelevant.  Hanoi is desperate to get the embargo lifted.  More
than anything, they needed a breakthrough on MIA's to clear the last obstacles
to normalized relations.  If you think Mr. Schweitzer just stumbled on this
treasure trove of information, you are kidding yourself.


>    This is not to say that Hanoi is anywhere near being a decent government 
> but this is the best sign we have seen from the communists in a long time.

    In my eyes, the release of these documents is meaningless.  All it tells
me is that Hanoi is desperate.  What bearing does this have on the conditions
of the Vietnamese people ?  Nil.


> I also brought up another point to show you why I think normalize the
> relations would help the cause of the freedom fighters in Vietnam.
>>>                         An US embassy in Saigon (HCMCT) would serve as an 
>>> excelent place for political disidents to seek refuge. How do we observe the 
>>> human right condition in a place when we are not present? How can we force 
>>> someone to change when we don't give them anything at all?  

    But won't the French or Australian embassies suit this purpose just fine ?
If the U.S. normalizes relations, it will also stop vetoing IMF loans to 
Vietnam.  Of all the aspects of the embargo, the loan veto is BY FAR the most
important, and the most vital.  Loans go directly to the Hanoi government;
you of all people should know that they will not spend this money properly.
Instead of spending it to help the Vietnemses, they will use it to try to 
prop up their power, while spending the country further into debt.  This must
be prevented.  I would gladly part with everything else in the embargo in
order to preserve the veto, because everything else is insignificant compared
to it.


> May I remind you, Mr. Becherer, that around 37 years ago, people like
> you have told the Cuban the same thing about Fidel Castro's regime. Today,
> the Cuban still waiting in Miami for a miracle while Cuba is still 
> suffering under communist. I am sorry Max, I don't have that kind of 
> patience and even if I do, I wouldn't bet the future of Vietnamese on 
> a prediction even if it came from some one with infinite wisdom like you.

     May I remind YOU, Mr. Nguyen,that for most of those 37 years, the Soviet
Union and the East Bloc poured billions of dollars of economic aid into Cuba.
Now that aid is gone, and Castro is facing mounting problems at home. 

> Oppressive regimes don't just die by natural causes but there are peaceful
> way to change them. Didn't you see what happen to the Soviet Union? 

     Yes, I did.  It died of natural causes.  Look at the other East European
countries; the people finally had had enough of it, and the governments fell.
A similar fate awaits the Hanoi regime.  How peaceful it will be remains to
be seen; personally I am hoping for something like the "Velvet Revolution" in
Chezchoslovakia.


> Let me ask you this. If your have punished some one by not talking to him
> for more than 17 years and things still haven't changed, shouldn't you
> try something else, like start talking to him.

     Not necessarily.  There are more factors involved than simply whether
or not we have relations with the Hanoi regime.  A large part of the reason
that Hanoi has been around as long as it has is the fact that, like Cuba, 
Hanoi was receiving vast amounts of aid from the Soviet Bloc.  This has 
changed, and they are desperate for Western aid.  Why so ?  Because they
see what a threat the loss of Soviet aid poses to their power.

>!>                                                          There are many 
>!> issues such as environmental protection, working conditions, education etc... 
>!> that require the expertise and dedication of the Vietnamese American before 
>!> it's too late. 
>
>      Most overseas Vietnamese will refuse to work in Vietnam as long as
>the communists are in power.  

> Oh, you can do better than this.

> I can tell you this much though, many overseas Vietnamese don't mind 
> traveling to Vietnam and spend they money there to help the economy. Just 
> look at the number of overseas Vietnamese who went back to their homeland in 
> the last three years and you will know what I am talking about. And please 
> remember that the number will make a big jump once the US normalizes the 
> relations.

    I have not met many Vietnamese who would go back to work in Vietnam.  I
realize that quite a few go to visit friends and relatives, but that is a far 
cry from going back to work.  Recently, by best friend went back home to 
visit his mother for the first time in 10 years. He was appalled by the state
of the country; he places 100% of the blame for it's condition on the Hanoi
regime.  He hates them just as much, if not more, than he did before he went
home, and he is just as opposed to normalized relations with the Hanoi regime.

> I wrote and you replied:

>!> Human rights including the right to be fed, the right to have jobs and the 
>!> right to earn the wealth that you deserve.   
>
>     First of all, U.S. aid and trade relations will do little to remedy 
>these problems; it would be as stupid for us to send aid to Vietnam now 

> Let me remind you that we are talking about lifting the trade embargo
> only. According to the original article by Mr. Thayer, the US drew up
> a four-phase road map for the normalization which span over a period
> of time and include many check points and only in phase three that the
> trade embargo would be lifted. Nobody is talking about sending money
> to Vietnam yet. Please explain to me specifically why US trade
> relations will not help the poor Vietnamese who has no job.

     I am not denying that some individuals will benefit from normalized
relations; surely if you have no job and an American company hires you,
you have benefitted.  My concern is for the well-being of Vietnam as a 
whole.  Trade will prolong the rule of the Hanoi regime; as long as the
Communists are in power, the Vietnamese people will not be able to truly
develope their country.  Vietnam will remain in a twilight zone of sorts,
somewhat better off than it is now, but unable to advance much further.
We need only look at the Phillipines as an example.  For decades, Filipinos
lived under the an oppressive and corrupt regime which really didn't care 
that much about them.  There was ample foreign investment and aid, but the 
nation never really developed.  Nothing was done about education and social
services, and much of the funds the Government took in were abused.  No one
should want Vietnam to become another Phillipines: a source of cheap labor 
and cheap whores for the more advanced nations.


> I think that a chance to export goods to the US would create jobs
> in Vietnam. Further more, being the most competive market in the world,
> the US market will force Vietnam to abolish the archaic state run economy 
> system for a more enterprise system just like the former Soviet Union did.



>>        I agree, but you must remember that any debts are owed to the 
>> Vietnamese people, not the Hanoi regime.  If the United States were to
>> hand over 4 or 5 billion dollars (or more) to Hanoi, it would benefit the
>> Communists, not the people.  We owe the Communists NOTHING, not one cent;

> Once again, we are not talking about giving money to the communists.
> Why would anybody in their right mind give money to Hanoi anyway ? 

         Unfortunately, a major part of lifting the embargo is an end to
the ban on loans to Vietnam.  Loans ARE money given to the Hanoi regime;
this fact is inescapable.

> If you agree that you owe these people but you won't give it to them
> until you see fit then I say you are making things a little bit too
> convenient for yourself. What do you suggest we should wait for? 
> Until Vietnam have new leaders with autodeposit feature on their Swiss 
> bank accounts or until the condition in Vietnam get to a point that 
> recovery is impossible. 
>                        Let put your money where your mouth is Max. If 
> your can come up with, say, only about 1 million dollars. I will find 
> someone respectable to personally guarantee you that all of them will 
> go into the needed Vietnamese and not a red cent would go to the communist 
> leaders. If ex-GIs could build hospitals in Vietnam, I think there are 
> many way to help the people directly over there.

     I want to give aid when it will do some good.  What is the point of aid
and trade if they prolong Communist rule.  As I said earlier, I have no real
objections to private aid PROVIDED that it too is not abused.  Governments  
prefer to deal with other governments.  If Washington decides that it should
do something to help Vietnam, it will write a check payable to Hanoi.  This
will only compound the misery of the Vietnamese people.  If you doubt this  
will happen, you need only look at the previous small aid consignments sent 
to Vietnam: all of it went through the Hanoi regime.  A good example is a 
shipment of artificial limbs the United States sent several years ago.  The
limbs were intended for Vietnamese civilians injured by American bombs and 
artilery shells.  Instead, they went to Communist soldiers wounded in 
Cambodia.  Both the spirit and the letter of the aid had been corrupted.
      If I had a million dollars, I would use it to help Vietnamese refugees,
at least there, I have a better chance of monitoring how it will be spent.  I
could also give it to Vietnamese resistance movements working to overthrow  
the Hanoi regime.


>      I, unlike you, can not punish the Vietnamese for their oppressive 
> government nor use it as an excuse not to help them. 

       I AGREE, my point is that 95% of the ideas to help them which I have 
heard from you or anyone else who wants relations normalized are doomed to 
backfire.

>                                                        There were many 
> soldiers and leaders in the S. Vietnam army who fought and died 
> bravely to defend South Vietnam even though they all knew that the
> government was badly corrupted. Vietnamese all over the world are still
> have high respect for these heroes because they did not let the corruption
> stopped them from protect the Vietnamese to the best of their capabilities. 
> That is the Vietnamese way. That was how we can put our differences aside 
> to fight against enemies that much more real than a stupid concept from 
> Karl Marx and mightier than poverty itself. I'll let Vietnamese history 
> judges the communist leaders. I'll do whatever I can to help the Vietnamese 
> because they really need help now.

       I do not for a second doubt your desire to help the Vietnamese people,
I, however, do not think your solutions to the problem will have the desired
effect.  Independent aid directly administered by independant organizations
can continue without lifting the current embargo.  At most, the rules of the
embargo may need to be amended slightly, and monitoring mechanisms put in
place to make sure that aid is not abused, and that Hanoi doesn't try to
create front organizations to funnel money into its bankrupt regime.

>      On a more personal basis, I have reasons to think about the
> issue a lot more than you did. I left Vietnam when I was too young to
> do anything for her. I have been waiting patiencely for over 17 
> years. I must do something while I still have the time and the courage 
> to do it. I must do something before the 15 year old Vietnamese girl 
> is too poor to save her dignity. I must do something before the 13 
> year old boy is too hungry to maintain his pride. 

      The Phillipines benefitted for years from massive foreign investment; 
what did the Filipinos get out of it under Marcos ?  How many young Filipino
women and men still sell their bodies just to feed themselves and their 
families ?  How much could the Phillipines have benefitted had they had a
decent government insted of the rotton, corrupt Marcos regime ?  It will take
them years to pick up the pieces.  This is the road Vietnam risks travelling 
down if there is trade before political reform.
     Fortunately, it may not turn out that badly, but not because of anything
trade accomplishes.  Hanoi is in dire straites now, and the "too little, too
late" effect may yet save the day.  Any benefits from trade and aid may well 
come too late to save Hanoi from its date with oblivion.  

> Few years from now, Mr. Becherer, you may find some other fashionable 
> causes to give advises to but I still am Vietnamese. 

      Untrue.  My dream is to dedicate my life to the Vietnamese people.
When Vietnam is free, I plan to go there with my friends and spend the rest
of my life helping the Vietnamese people rebuild their country.  I don't 
know how much I can contribute, but that is unimportant.  What matters is 
that I do it.

>                                                    If I listen to 
> you now and wait for 20 more years just like the Cuban and do 
> nothing, how can I face my ancestors who fought to save my culture 
> from the Chinese or my fore-fathers who died defending the land 
> from the French. Whatever I have to do to get the US to lift the 
> trade embargo, your misguided words cannot stop me nor could it 
> stop the US government from doing the right thing. 

       Unfortunately, you are right; there is little I can do to stop 
Washington from getting in bed with the Hanoi regime.  What you don't
understand is that human rights in Vietnam are of little importance to
Washington.  It is you, not I who is misguided with your unrealistic
impressions of Washington's intentions and priorities.  Perhaps I'm
just cynical; I hope I am.

>                                                     The reason 
> I wrote this article and hoping for a rapid removal of the
> trade embargo are because as a younger Vietnamese I need the blessing 
> from the Vietnamese communities, and as an American I need approval 
> from the US government before I go back to Vietnam.

        That's strange, my friend didn't have much trouble with American
autoruties when he wanted to go to Vietnam.

        As far as the blessings of the Vietnamese community are concerned,
postings on this medium by Vietnamese supporting your views have been 
conspicuously scarce.  I have an idea:

     Let's hold a little referendum here.  People who would like to vote on
the matter should send private e-mail to me.  If you support normalization, 
write "SUPPORT NORMALIZATION" on your subject line, if you oppose it, then
write "OPPOSE NORMALIZATION" on the subject line.  Include any comments or
remarks you see fit.  I will count the votes in about a week.  Only one vote
per person, and please, Vietnamese only.  Duplicate votes, and votes by non-
Vietnamese will not be counted.  

             My E-Mail address is:  becherer@cs.uiuc.edu

> If I have a chance to help Vietnam today, then at least, when I lie 
> down with my ancestors, I can look them in the eyes and tell them: 
> "I had tried my best." If someday, Vietnamese history will judge me 
> as someone who did the wrong thing for the right reason then SO BE IT!

     The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

> I had put all my arguements as clear as I can to you. I also realize
> that we both have very much the same desires. Our differences are mostly
> on the implementation. Since we both know that lifting the trade embargo
> is inevitable, for the sake of the Vietnamese, I hope you are wrong. 


     For Vietnam's sake, I hope I'm wrong too.  Unfortunately, I have 
absolutely no reason to believe that this is the case.  We can only 
hope that the bebefits Hanoi will accrue from normalized relations
will come to late to significantly prolong it's reign of terror.

                             Max Becherer
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese