On February 6 the UN tribunal for the Khmer Rouge was officially established, after five years of negotiation and a decade prior to that of advocacy by both government and private actors. Although a $10 million shortfall on the Cambodian side still hampers funding, reallocations are under discussion. A short list of candidates for judges and prosecutors has been compiled, and the international slate is expected to be announced this spring; a list of thirty potential jurists from the Cambodian judiciary is circulating. Some key tribunal personnel have been hired, including directors for security and public relations. A “group of interested states” is shepherding the process. US leadership on the tribunal has been distinctly lacking in recent years, but a policy review is reportedly underway.

In February the United States and Vietnam resumed the governmental dialogue on human rights with a meeting in Hanoi. This marked the resumption of the dialogue after a three-year hiatus that had been initiated by the US. Barry Lowenkron, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, praised a constructive approach on the Vietnamese side and noted, “These were not discussions of throwing accusations at each other.” Lowenkron also pointed to improvements in religious freedom in Vietnam in recent months.

These views were echoed and extended on March 16 when US Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Marine indicated that the US is “exploring conditions under which CPC (the ’Country of Particular Concern’ designation for religious freedom) could be lifted.” Marine recently visited the Central Highlands, where the Christian ethnic minority tends to attract particular US attention. He noted that some previously banned churches had been allowed to open and that the number of allegations of forced renunciations had “dropped precipitously.”

The State Department’s 2005 Human Rights Reports, released in March, contributed little new perspective one way or another. The reports marked no dramatic changes positively or negatively for Vietnam or Laos. It reported a worsening of rights in Cambodia, but that situation has changed with the release of human rights activists in January and the growing reconciliation between opposition leader Sam Rainsy and the government coalition.

In late March the 11th multilateral round of negotiations on Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organization will convene in Geneva. The substantive focus of the meeting will be on international treaties and state subsidies. On the margins, Vietnam expects to conclude bilateral negotiations with Mexico, Honduras and Dominica, with only a bilateral agreement with the United States outstanding. Vietnamese and US officials are planning a subsequent negotiation later in the spring, either in Geneva or Washington. Although the ultimate timing of the conclusion of US talks is still to be determined, American policymakers and legislators are looking ahead to the Congressional process of granting Permanent Normal Trade Relations status to Vietnam. If Hanoi is to enter the WTO this year, PNTR must be granted this summer or in the early fall.

FRD is encouraging non-governmental organizations and educational institutions that have programs with Vietnam to support passage of PNTR in messages to Congress. For further information, contact Deputy Director Susan Hammond at shammond@ffrd.org

In February Vietnam approved a license to Intel Corp, the world’s largest microchip manufacturer, to build a $605 million plant in Ho Chi Minh City’s Saigon Hi- Tech Park. With the approval, Intel became Vietnam’s first foreign investor in the field of high technology, and its entry is expected to draw other foreign companies in the field. Vietnam projects $2 billion worth of electronic product exports for 2006, up 40% from 2005 levels.

According to the State Bank of Vietnam, remittances from overseas Vietnamese have surged in the past year, growing by 20-25%, and now total an estimated US $4 billion annually. This quantum leap is attributed to the collective impact of legal and structural reforms in recent years, such as the abolition of limits on overseas remittances; lifting taxes on these funds; and permits that enable overseas Vietnamese to purchase property in Vietnam. Accompanying the increase in funds is a dramatic jump in the number of foreign and domestic companies involved in processing remittances, from 40 last year to 100 this year..

In an attempt to increase its involvement and profile with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the United States has proposed a US- ASEAN Summit in Hanoi in November, on the margins of the APEC Summit. Washington’s exclusion from the inaugural meeting of the East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur in December raised warning flags with US policymakers, as did the China-ASEAN framework agreement for a free trade area.

However, the US proposal presents problems, since only seven ASEAN members are also APEC members – a ten-year moratorium on new members was imposed in 1997, excluding Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The ASEAN-7 framework would enable the US to avoid including Myanmar, which is under heavy US sanctions, but Washington has no desire to exclude Cambodia or Laos. Under discussion are several formulations: for an APEC-only meeting; for a summit with the ASEAN-9 (including Cambodia and Laos); and for a meeting with the full ASEAN membership. Observers rate the possibility of an ASEAN-7 or ASEAN-9 meeting equally, but hold out little chance for a summit with the ASEAN-10.

In late January the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and the Quang Tri Province People’s Committee inaugurated a “Bringing Baseball of Vietnam” program in the province, with a demonstration and baseball clinic led by Major League Baseball pitcher Danny Graves. Graves was born in Vietnam to a Vietnamese mother and American serviceman, and was returning to the country for the first time in 30 years. The two organizations’ “baseball diplomacy” initiative complements a mine action program, Project Renew, managed jointly by the Fund and the Quang Tri Province People’s Committee. Prior to the clinic, Project Renew staff removed 13 different kinds of unexploded ordnance in clearing a baseball field.

In February the Lao government declared the country to be free of opium produced for commercial purposes, confirming what the United Nations has termed “momentous” progress in opium eradication. In 1998 the UN listed Laos as the world’s third- largest producer of heroin, which is derived from poppy production, with an estimated 27,000 hectares under cultivation. Since then, however, cultivation has been slashed by 93%, with the remaining 1800 hectares primarily in areas where opium is used in traditional medicines. This dramatic drop is attributed to multiple policies: destruction of poppy fields; pursuit of traffickers; education and treatment programs; and donor-supported crop substitution projects.

On January 26 a South Korean court ordered two American manufacturers of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War – Dow Chemical and Monsanto – to pay $62 million in compensation to 6,800 South Korean veterans of the war and their families. South Koreans contributed the largest number of allied troops to the war, sending 320,000. The court noted a “causal connection” between exposure to dioxin and eleven diseases, but did not recognize a connection to peripheral neuropathy, which medical scientists consider to be the most wide-spread disease of Agent Orange sufferers. Both sides are considering appeals: the chemical companies to overturn the compensation ruling, and the plaintiffs, to include peripheral neuropathy.

The South Korean case has no formal connection to the ongoing class action suit against 30 American chemical manufacturers, brought by the Vietnamese Association of Victims of Agent Orange, but it will clearly place more public pressure on the companies. The US case is in the appeals process, and oral arguments are scheduled for April.

Photo of Agent Orange exposed father with his son taken by Don Edwards in A Luoi Valley.

In March, a two-day conference on “Vietnam and the Presidency” was organized in Boston at the John F. Kennedy Library, so-sponsored by all of the Presidential libraries – from Hoover to Clinton – and the Foundation for the National Archives. Panelists and speakers included former President Jimmy Carter; cabinet-level officials from the Vietnam era; as well as prominent journalists and scholars.

In the lead-up to the conference, however, some Vietnam scholars and Vietnamese-Americans protested the omission on the podium of Vietnamese and others affected by the war in letters to the Kennedy Library, op eds and editorials on NPR. To fill this gap, the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at the University of Massachusetts/Boston organized an alternative conference entitled “Vietnam: Looking Forward, Looking Back” for the same timeframe. Billed as a forum where “those who have experienced the consequences of Presidential decision-making may be heard,” the conference included Vietnamese, veterans and anti-war activities. Session topics included the legacy of Agent Orange; Indochinese refugees; veterans’ experiences; the draft; and the Vietnam War and minorities.

The Kennedy Library conference was taped and subsequently broadcast by C-Span. Sessions can be viewed in streaming video from the C-SPAN on-line archives or by purchase from C-SPAN. The Joiner Center conference was not televised, but videotapes were made which can be obtained from the Center .

At the JFK Library conference, with respect to the specific legacy of Agent Orange, former Secretary of State Al Haig responded to a question with a strong statement of US moral responsibility to assist victims in Vietnam of unintended consequences of the use of Agent Orange. Former Ambassador Pete Peterson, replying to another question, told the audience that Agent Orange was a strongly-felt grass roots concern among Vietnamese that needed to be addressed by the US, initially by cleaning up hot spots.

[Friday, March 23 broadcast 8 p.m. EST with Wesley Clark, Chuck Hagel, Bob Herbert, Pete Peterson. Repeats sevceral hours later.]