Date: 2003-11-19
Speaker: LORETTA SANCHEZ (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I thank the gentleman from Iowa for bringing this to the floor. and I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman HYDE). Mr. Speaker. I represent the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam in the world. In Orange County. California. so I have been following the relationship of the United States and Vietnam for the last 7 years that I have been in the Congress. I rise today to speak on behalf of House Resolution 427. a bipartisan resolution which highlights the courageous leadership of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. which is currently undergoing one of the harshest crackdowns in history. and the urgent need for religious freedom. and for basic human rights in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. This resolution. which I introduced with my colleagues. the gentleman from New Jersey . the gentleman from Virginia . the gentlewoman from California . and the gentleman from California is timely. important. and .1 do a great deal to advance the cause of religious freedom in Vietnam. Now. many of my colleagues will say. well. LORPTTA has opposed trade relations with Vietnam. or there has always been a difficult relationship with Vietnam. and the answer Is yes. but that is in the past. This is about the current situation. and the current situation is about religious freedom. or the ability for the Vietnamese people to express their religious beliefs in the way that they want. Let us remember that the United States was based in part on those people who came to this land to seek their way of respecting and praising their Lord. And. in the same way. that is a basic human right for all people of the world. Despite the growing bilateral and economic relations that the United States has with Vietnam. the Vietnamese government has continued to blatantly disregard religious freedom in Vietnam. It is a basic right guaranteed by the Vietnamese constitution and enshrined in the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. which Vietnam has both ratified and has pledged to uphold. According to the 2003 report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. the Vietnamese government does not. does not fully support religious freedom. I would like to quote some of the statements from that report. It says. "The current approach of the U.S. Government to advance religious freedom in Vietnam has failed to yield concrete results. Key religious dissidents have been imprisoned. Others remain under house arrest. In addition. the government has intensified its crackdown on religious minorities in the western provinces and in the Central Highlands." The report goes on to state that "Therefore. the Commission recommends that the United States Government intensify its leverage to hold the government of Vietnam to its international obligation to protect human rights. including that of religious freedom." This resolution does just that. The latest incident. which occurred just this year. the one with the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. the largest religious denomination in that country. was because they held a meeting to elect new leadership. discuss their future. and to verify that the Prime Minister of Vietnam had promised a new era of understanding and respect. In stark contrast to that promise of respect and understanding. the Vietnamese authorities disrupted that meeting. intimidated the people at that meeting. and ultimately arrested most of the leadership. The Venerables Thich Huyen Quang and Thich Quang Do were taken into custody and remain in detainment. Now. one of them is 75 years old. I have met with him In Vietnam. He is not a menace to society. In fact. he was nominated by over 60 Members of Congress in the year 2000 for the Noble Peace Prize. He has about 2 decades worth of arrests from this current government. These actions are unconscionable but. unfortunately. they are nothing new. The Vietnamese government has routinely used intimidation. harassment. and imprisonment to punish individuals who choose to practice their own faith. I recently spoke with a highranking Vietnamese official regarding the crackdown on the church. and about religious freedom in Vietnam in general. and he said. of course Vietnam supports religious freedom. but he failed to deny that. in fact. they have imprisoned the leadership of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. I was informed that If these leaders want to practice their faith. they are more than welcome to do so as members of the Stateauthorized Buddhist Church. Having the option of joining only one Statesponsored Buddhist Church is a far cry. in my opinion. of religious freedom. And enduring decades of imprisonment for peacefully practicing ones faith is not religious freedom. Vietnam has a long way to go. So. in closing. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. Doing so will not only send a strong message to the Vietnamese government that its actions are not going unnoticed. but it will reinforce the human rights standards that we expect of Vietnam as we move forward in strengthening our bilateral relationship with them.