Big Mac Won't
Satisfy Vietnamese Desire for Human Rights
Andrew Lam*
July 24, 2013
SAN FRANCISCO
-- Vietnam specializes in irony. Its president, Truong Tan Sang, is due to visit
the White House this Thursday, where he’s expected to request a lifting of the
U.S. ban on lethal weapons sales to his country while also seeking support for a
bid to join the UN Human Rights Council.
The irony?
Besides trying to buy weapons from the United States, a country it defeated four
decades ago, Hanoi also continues to trample on human rights, and in the last
few years has stepped up arrests of dissidents with no fear of international
criticism or, for that matter, U.S. rebuke.
Oh, and it’s also preparing to open its first ever McDonalds store, which,
glancing at media headlines here, seems to be the real story. Never mind the
persecution.
Vietnam today has more money than ever, and is seeking an international status
equal to its newfound wealth. It also needs advanced weapons to counter the
looming threat from China, which has laid claim to more or less the entire South
China Sea.
“If Vietnam wants to stand on the world stage, its government should repudiate
its crackdown on dissidents and embrace reform,” John Sifton, Asia Advocacy
Director with Human Rights Watch, said in a statement released this week. “The
arc of history may be long, but it certainly bends away from authoritarian
retrenchment.”
Mr. Sifton added, “President Sang cannot publicly justify his government’s
crackdown and should use [his meeting with Obama] to repudiate it.”
U.S. Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
echoed HRW’s concern in an open letter this week to President Obama, urging him
to make human rights a top priority during the Vietnamese President’s visit.
“Vietnam has long been one of the most oppressive societies in Southeast Asia,”
Royce wrote. “Democratic aspirations, human rights advocacy, and grassroots
mobilization are met with police brutality and result in show trials where
defendants are denied their rights to open and fair proceedings as guaranteed by
the Vietnamese Constitution.”
Indeed, dissident bloggers have been arrested routinely, with 50 democracy
advocates having been rounded up this year alone. Languishing in its gulags,
too, are dozens of prominent clergymen, some of whom, like father Nguyen Van Ly,
67, are in failing health. Father Ly, a Catholic priest sentenced to 15 years in
prison for demanding religious freedom in the country (and whose causes are
being championed by Amnesty International), suffered a stroke in 2009 and is in
dire need of medical care.
Another prominent dissident, Nguyen Van Hai, popularly known as Dieu Cay, is
currently staging a hunger strike after he was sentenced to 12 years in solitary
confinement for his “propaganda against the state.” His crime: blogging about
government corruption and demands for democracy. As of this writing, Nguyen has
been on hunger strike for 32 days.
But unlike in Myanmar, the United States has been hush on the issue of human
rights abuse in Vietnam, where for the past decade it has stepped up
investments. Hanoi claims that in two years, the United States will become the
biggest investor in Vietnam, overtaking Japan and South Korea.
Military ties, too, are deepening. Since 2010 the two nations have engaged in
joint military exercises. Last year, Hanoi went as far as dropping a hint to
visiting Secretary of Defense, Leon Penetta, that it would like to resume
talks about renting out Cam Ranh Bay, America’s old naval station during the
war.
So why, in this era of seeming openness and economic progress, has Hanoi stepped
up its oppression? The short answer is because it can, for now.
Despite its dismal human rights records, Vietnam has been awarded for opening up
economically. It was granted membership in the World Trade Organization and made
its entrance to the world’s economic stage in 2006 when it hosted its first Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference. Its Gross National Product has
been growing at a steady and impressive seven percent for almost the last
decade.
And while political dissent is not allowed, its population is experiencing far
greater personal freedoms. Many are allowed to travel overseas, while movement
within Vietnam is permitted freely. There’s a burgeoning middle class with
disposable income and access to the Internet. And therein lies the problem.
As we’ve seen most recently in Brazil, increased wealth brings with it
expectations of increased political freedom. Indeed, despite the arrests more
Vietnamese are blogging online, demanding greater respect for human rights and
condemning Hanoi for, as they see it, kowtowing to China.
Hanoi’s efforts to control this rising tide of discontent, moreover, are being
stymied by the boom in communications technology. Vietnam has 132 million active
cellphones in a country of 93 million, or about 2 phones per adult. Facebook
entered Vietnam last October and by March had over 12 million users.
Concerned over a potential Arab-spring style revolt, Hanoi’s response to date
has been arrests and more arrests.
That it can do this without fear of international condemnation is due in large
part to American indifference. President Bush visited Vietnam in 2006 for the
APEC summit, and promptly dropped it from the list of nations that severely
curtail religious freedom. Under Obama, the United States is licking its chops
as it perceives an opening for a grand reentry into the Pacific Rim theatre.
“It’s hard to be seen as deeply concerned about human rights when you are in bed
with the politburos selling Big Macs and Starbucks,” noted one Vietnamese
American living in Hanoi.
No wonder, then, that those fighting for democracy in Vietnam no longer look to
the United States as their major supporter. In online chatrooms, dissidents are
increasingly finding inspiration in protest movements in Tunisia, Egypt, and
Burma.
It would be a tragedy, however, if Uncle Sam, while publically voicing concern
about human rights, lifts the ban on lethal weapons sales and supports Vietnam’s
bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. That tragedy would turn to irony
should a Vietnamese Spring erupt, only to be put down with American bullets and
guns.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Lam is an editor at
New America Media and the author of "Perfume
Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora," "East
Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres," and his latest, "Birds
of Paradise Lost," a collection of stories about Vietnamese refugees
struggling to rebuild their lives in the West Coast.