I
107TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 2832
To promote freedom and democracy in Viet Nam.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SEPTEMBER 5, 2001
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey introduced the following bill; which was referred
to the Committee on International Relations, and in addition to the Com-
mittee on Financial Services, for a period to be subsequently determined
by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall
within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To promote freedom and democracy in Viet Nam.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the
‘‘Viet Nam Human Rights Act’’.
(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents for
this Act is as follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
TITLE I—GENERAL PROVISIONS
Sec. 101. Findings.
Sec. 102. Purpose.
peacefully express dissent from government or party
policy.
(B) Recent victims of such mistreatment, which
violates the rights to freedom of expression and as-
sociation recognized in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, include Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, Dr.
Nguyen Thanh Giang, General Tran Do, Most Ven-
erable Thich Huyen Quang, Most Venerable Thich
Quang Do, Father Nguyen Van Ly, numerous lead-
ers of the Hoa Hao Buddhist Church and of inde-
pendent Protestant churches, and an undetermined
number of members of the Montagnard ethnic mi-
nority groups who participated in peaceful dem-
onstrations in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam
during February 2001.
(4) The Government of Viet Nam systematically
deprives its citizens of the fundamental right to free-
dom of religion. Although some freedom of worship
is permitted, believers are forbidden to participate in
religious activities except under circumstances rig-
idly defined and controlled by the government:
(A) In 1999 the Government issued a De-
cree Concerning Religious Activities, which de-
clared in pertinent part that ‘‘[a]ll activities
using religious belief in order to oppose the
State of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, to
prevent the believers from carrying out civic re-
sponsibilities, to sabotage the union of all the
people, to against the healthy culture of our na-
tion, as well as superstitious activities, will be
punished in conformity with the law’’.
(B) The Unified Buddhist Church of Viet
Nam (UCBV), the largest religious denomina-
tion in the country, has been declared illegal by
the Government, and over the last twenty-five
years its clergy have often been imprisoned and
subjected to other forms of persecution. The
Patriarch of the Unified Buddhist Church, 83-
year-old Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang,
has been detained for 21 years in a ruined tem-
ple in an isolated area of central Viet Nam.
Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, the Executive
President of the Unified Buddhist Church, has
also been in various forms of detention for
many years, and was recently rearrested and
placed under house arrest after he had pro-
posed to bring Most Venerable Thich Huyen
Quang to Saigon for medical treatment.
(C) The Hoa Hao Buddhist Church was
also declared to be illegal until 1999, when the
Government established an organization which
purports to govern the Hoa Hao. According to
the United States Commission on International
Religious Freedom, ‘‘[t]his organization is made
up almost entirely of Communist Party mem-
bers and apparently is not recognized as legiti-
mate by the vast majority of Hoa Haos . . .
[n]evertheless, [this government-sponsored or-
ganization] has sought to control all Hoa Hao
religious activity, particularly at the Hoa Hao
village, which is the center of Hoa Hao religious
life’’. Hoa Hao believers who do not recognize
the legitimacy of the government organization
are denied the right to visit the Hoa Hao vil-
lage, to conduct traditional religious celebra-
tions, or to display Hoa Hao symbols. Many
have been arrested and subjected to administra-
tive detention, and several Hoa Hao have been
sentenced to prison terms for protesting these
denials of religious freedom.
(D) Independent Protestants, most of
whom are members of ethnic minority groups,
are subjected to particularly harsh treatment by
the Government of Viet Nam. According to the
United States Commission on International Re-
ligious Freedom, such treatment includes ‘‘po-
lice raids on homes and house churches, deten-
tion, imprisonment, confiscation of religious and
personal property, physical and psychological
abuse, and fines for engaging in unapproved re-
ligious activities (such as collective worship,
public religious expression and distribution of
religious literature, and performing baptisms,
marriages, or funeral services) . . . [i]n addi-
tion, it is reported that ethnic Hmong Protes-
tants have been forced by local officials to agree
to abandon their faith’’.
(E) Other religious organizations, such as
the Catholic Church, are formally recognized by
the Government but are subjected to pervasive
regulation which violates the right to freedom of
religion. For instance, the Catholic Church is
forbidden to appoint its own bishops without
Government consent, which is frequently de-
nied, to accept seminarians without specific offi-
cial permission, and to profess Catholic doc-
trines which are inconsistent with Government
policy. A Catholic priest, Father Nguyen Van
Ly, was arrested in March 2001 and remains in
detention after submitting written testimony to
the United States Commission on International
Religious Freedom.
(F) The Government has also confiscated
numerous churches, temples, and other prop-
erties belonging to religious organizations. The
vast majority of these properties—even those
belonging to religious organizations formally
recognized by the Government—have never
been returned.
(5) Since 1975 the Government of Viet Nam
has persecuted veterans of the Army of the Republic
of Viet Nam and other Vietnamese who had opposed
the Viet Cong insurgency and the North Vietnamese
invasion of South Viet Nam. Such persecution typi-
cally included substantial terms in ‘‘re-education
camps’’, where detainees were often subjected to tor-
ture and other forms of physical abuse, and in which
many died. Re-education camp survivors and their
families were often forced into internal exile in ‘‘New
Economic Zones’’. Many of these former allies of the
United States, as well as members of their families,
continue until the present day to suffer various
forms of harassment and discrimination, including
denial of basic social benefits and exclusion from
higher education and employment.
(6)(A) The Government of Viet Nam has been
particularly harsh in its treatment of members of
the Montagnard ethnic minority groups of the Cen-
tral Highlands of Viet Nam, who were the first line
in the defense of South Viet Nam against invasion
from the North and who fought courageously beside
members of the Special Forces of the United States
Army, suffering disproportionately heavy casualties,
and saving the lives of many of their American and
Vietnamese comrades-in-arms.
(B) Since 1975 the Montagnard peoples have
been singled out for severe repression, in part be-
cause of their past association with the United
States and in part because their strong commitment
to their traditional way of life and to their Christian
religion is regarded as inconsistent with the absolute
loyalty and control demanded by the Communist sys-
tem.
(C) In February 2001 several thousand
Montagnards participated in a series of peaceful
demonstrations throughout the Central Highlands,
demanding religious freedom and restoration of their
confiscated lands, and the Government responded by
closing off the Central Highlands and sending in
military forces, tanks, and helicopter gunships.
(D) Credible reports by refugees who have es-
caped to Cambodia indicate that the Government
has executed some participants in the demonstra-
tions and has subjected others to imprisonment, tor-
ture, and other forms of physical abuse.
(E) The Government of Viet Nam has also
taken steps to prevent further Montagnards from es-
caping, and there are credible reports that Viet-
namese security forces in Cambodia are offering
bounties for the surrender of Montagnard asylum
seekers.
(7) The Government of Viet Nam has also per-
secuted members of other ethnic minority groups, in-
cluding the Khmer Krom from the Mekong Delta,
many of whom fought alongside United States mili-
tary personnel during the Viet Nam war and whose
Hinayana Buddhist religion is not among those rec-
ognized by the Government.
(8) The Government of Viet Nam also engages
in or condones serious violations of the rights of
workers. In August 1997, the United Nations Chil-
dren’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that child labor ex-
ploitation is on the rise in Viet Nam with tens of
thousands of children under 15 years of age being
subjected to such exploitation. The government’s of-
ficial labor export program also has subjected work-
ers, many of whom are women, to involuntary ser-
vitude, debt bondage, and other forms of abuse, and
the reaction of government officials to worker com-
plaints of such abuse has been to threaten the work-
ers with punishment if they do not desist in their
complaints.
(9)(A) United States refugee resettlement pro-
grams for Vietnamese nationals, including the Or-
derly Departure Program (ODP), the Resettlement
Opportunities for Returning Vietnamese (ROVR)
program, and resettlement of boat people from ref-
ugee camps throughout Southeast Asia, were author-
ized by law in order to rescue Vietnamese nationals
who have suffered persecution on account of their
wartime associations with the United States, as well
as those who currently have a well-founded fear of
persecution on account of race, religion, nationality,
political opinion, or membership in a particular so-
cial group.
(B) In general, these programs have served
their purpose well. However, many refugees who
were eligible for these programs were unfairly denied
or excluded, in some cases by vindictive or corrupt
Communist officials who controlled access to the
programs, and in others by United States personnel
who imposed unduly restrictive interpretations of
program criteria. These unfairly excluded refugees
include some of those with the most compelling
cases, including many Montagnard combat veterans
and their families.
(10) The Government of Viet Nam systemati-
cally jams broadcasts by Radio Free Asia, an inde-
pendent broadcast service funded by the United
States in order to provide news and entertainment
to the people of countries in Asia whose governments
deny the right to freedom of expression and of the
press.
(11) In 1995 the Governments of the United
States and Viet Nam announced the ‘‘normaliza-
tion’’ of diplomatic relations. In 1998 then-President
Clinton waived the application of section 402 of the
Trade Act of 1974 (commonly known as the ‘‘Jack-
son-Vanik Amendment’’), which restricts economic
assistance to countries with non-market economies
whose governments also restrict freedom of emigra-
tion. In 1999 the Governments of the United States
and Viet Nam announced ‘‘agreement in principle’’
on a bilateral trade agreement. This agreement was
signed in 2000 and has been presented to Congress
for approval or disapproval.
(12) The Congress and the American people are
united in their determination that the extension or
expansion of trade relations with a country whose
government engages in serious and systematic viola-
tions of fundamental human rights must not be con-
strued as a statement of approval or complacency
about such practices. The promotion of freedom and
democracy around the world—and particularly for
people who have suffered in large part because of
their past associations with the United States and
because they share our values—is and must continue
to be a central objective of United States foreign
policy.
SEC. 102. PURPOSE.
The purpose of this Act is to promote the develop-
ment of freedom and democracy in Viet Nam.
TITLE II—PROMOTION OF FREE-
DOM 
AND 
DEMOCRACY 
IN
VIET NAM
Subtitle A—Prohibition on Non-
humanitarian Assistance to the
Government of Viet Nam
SEC. 201. BILATERAL NONHUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE.
(a) ASSISTANCE.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in sub-
section (b), United States nonhumanitarian assist-
ance may not be provided to the Government of Viet
Nam—
(A) for fiscal year 2002 unless not later
than 30 days after the date of the enactment of
this Act the President determines and certifies
to Congress that the requirements of subpara-
graphs (A) through (D) of paragraph (2) have
been met during the 12-month period ending on
the date of the certification; and
(B) for each subsequent fiscal year unless
the President determines and certifies to Con-
gress in the most recent annual report sub-
mitted pursuant to section 241 that the re-
quirements of subparagraphs (A) through (D)