US Trade Representative meets with ASEAN ministers. In April 4-5 Bangkok consultations between the US and Southeast Asian economics ministers, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick expressed support for increased trade ties with the region. Both US and ASEAN representatives emphasized their desire to bring Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam into the World Trade Organization (WTO), noting that all other ASEAN states are already WTO members. WTO accession negotiations are typically a long and complex process, however, and Cambodia and Laos in particular are perceived to be far from meeting the organization’s requirements. However, Zoellick’s statement implies support for normalizing trade with Laos and further developing economic relations with Cambodia and Vietnam as well.

Zoellick co-chaired the meeting with Vietnam’s trade minister, Vu Khoan, who told a press conference that "the talks ended in great success…we agreed that ASEAN and the US are very important to each other economically." ASEAN, viewed as a whole, is the fourth-largest US trading partner, with a volume of $120 billion in 2001, triple that of a decade ago. The US is ASEAN’s largest export market.

US business group proposes free trade area with ASEAN. The US-ASEAN Business Council called on USTR in a February press release to "take initial steps toward the creation of a US-ASEAN Free Trade Area (FTA)." Underlying the council’s call is a sense that US business interests are losing ground to international competitors in the region, particularly China. Plans for a China-ASEAN FTA, expected to take up to ten years to complete, were first developed in a Brunei summit meeting last November.

Speaking after the Bangkok consultations, Zoellick responded that plans for a US-ASEAN FTA are "premature," since "Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are in a very early stage of development" and not yet ready for full integration. Instead, Zoellick said, the US favors a "step-by-step approach," using bilateral agreements to "customize its relations with each country."

ASEAN is in the process of forming its own free trade zone, called AFTA, but many of the association’s more developed members are pursuing bilateral trade agreements with developed countries rather than integrate more closely with poorer neighbors such as Laos and Cambodia.

US offers asylum to Vietnamese highlanders. After negotiations broke down between the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Cambodia and Vietnam over repatriation of 900 ethnic minority asylum seekers from Vietnam’s Central Highlands, the US stepped in on March 26 with an offer of resettlement. The Cambodian government accepted the plan on March 31 on the conditions that it be allowed to close camps in Mondulkiri and Rattanakiri provinces and seal its border with Vietnam.

The 905 Ede, Jarai and Mnong tribespeople remaining in the camps will be given the choice to return to Vietnam or apply for asylum in the United States. 170 of the original group have already returned to their original homes, including 15 repatriated under the short-lived UNHCR program. Refugee advocates in North Carolina expect nearly all of the highlanders to settle there with established "Montagnard" communities, remnants of the CIA-backed FULRO guerrillas from the Vietnam War. Most of the asylum seekers are men, and if they apply to bring their families as well, the influx could as much as double the current 3,000 or so highlanders in North Carolina.

Vietnam had protested US involvement in the controversy but backed off quietly once the deal was announced. An April 1 Foreign Ministry statement said simply that the issue should be decided on a humanitarian, not a political basis, but blamed "some ill-intentioned people" for the breakdown of the UNHCR-brokered agreement.

The UN and mainstream human rights organizations responded to the US asylum offer by criticizing Cambodia for threatening to close its border to future migrants. A Human Rights Watch statement stated that Vietnam needed to solve underlying issues in the highlands in order for the crisis to subside, and until that point Cambodia was obligated to keep its borders open. Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong replied that Cambodia (like Vietnam) considers the highlanders to be illegal immigrants, not refugees.

Vietnam gives self-evaluation to UN Human Rights Commission. In a speech to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in Geneva, Vietnam’s Assistant Foreign Minister and European Union ambassador, Ton Nu Thi Ninh, presented what she termed "a broad brush picture of Viet Nam’s efforts and achievements with respect to democracy and human rights." Mme. Ninh noted Vietnam’s ratification of international conventions on labor rights, children’s rights and terrorism, "coupled with a commitment to ‘internalize’ the essence of those international legal instruments into our domestic laws." She admitted, however, that "law enforcement remains a crucial area."

Mme. Ninh summarized Vietnam’s philosophy of human rights "to at the same time fight abuses and violations and [to] build the enabling conditions for the effective exercise of human rights. In this perspective, Viet Nam scores well on ‘building’—especially in the sphere of economic, social and cultural rights—and less well on ‘fighting.’" Among the positive accomplishments she mentioned were poverty reduction, literacy and health indicators, as well as the inclusion of women (26%) and ethnic minorities (10%) in the National Assembly. Vietnam has been a member of the UNCHR since 2001.

Pressure builds on Vietnam human rights bill. On hold since September 2001, the "Viet Nam Human Rights Act" (H.R. 2833) continues to sit in the Senate awaiting legislative action. Vietnamese-American supporters of the bill, seeking to bring the bill to the floor, are targeting Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) for blocking a vote. (Ironically, the bill’s Senate sponsors, Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Robert Smith (R-NH), are well known for placing holds on Indochina-related legislation themselves.) It was Helms and Smith who sought to bypass the Foreign Relations Committee, where the bill might otherwise have been marked up or voted down by a Democratic majority.

Americans working in or with Vietnam continue to oppose the bill, viewing it as counterproductive. The Vietnam News Agency quoted Ambassador Raymond Burghardt as expressing opposition to the bill in a March 15 meeting, a point the US Embassy later denied; however, Burghardt made similar statements in a November meeting with NGOs in New York.

US, UN offer conflicting views on Khmer Rouge tribunal. In ongoing efforts to revive the process to establish a tribunal for former Khmer Rouge leaders, US Ambassador to Cambodia Kent Wiedemann and other ambassadors met in Phnom Penh on March 11. "The common position is that the UN tribunal is the best possible alternative for bringing about justice for the Khmer Rouge and the only truly credible way of doing that," Wiedemann told the Phnom Penh Post. However, he criticized UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for being "inflexible" on negotiations.

Annan said in a March 13 press conference that "about a dozen" ambassadors had come to see him, urging the UN to reconsider its position on the tribunal. The Secretary General told them that they first needed to convince Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to "change his position and attitude…send a clear message that he is interested in a credible court, a credible tribunal which [will meet] international standards." The Cambodian government responded that the UN had "misunderstood" the relationship between its Khmer Rouge trial law and the memorandum of understanding drafted by the UN.

International Criminal Court established. With the ratifications of more than 60 countries, including Cambodia, the July 1998 Rome Statute establishing an International Criminal Court entered into force on April 11. The United Nations describes the court as "the first permanent international criminal tribunal ever established to bring to justice individuals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity."

The court is expected to be formally opened on July 1. Vietnam and Laos have not signed the Rome treaty; the US signed in December 2000, but President Bush is threatening to "unsign" out of fear that American citizens could be prosecuted by the court.

US funding for World Food Program in Cambodia. Ambassador Kent Wiedemann
presented more than 26,000 tons of rice and vegetable oil, worth over $17 million, to Foreign Minister Hor Namhong on April 1. The donation constitutes approximately two-thirds of the food aid to be provided to Cambodia this year through the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). In spite of its low contributions to foreign assistance on GDP terms, the US remains the largest single donor to the WFP, accounting for approximately 64 percent of global contributions to the program in 2001.

New Laotian Ambassador arrives in Washington. Phanthong Phommahaxay began service as the Lao PDR’s ambassador in Washington on April 9, just prior to the Lao New Year celebrations.

Amb. Phanthong replaces Vang Ratthanavong, who had served in Washington for three years and will return to a high-level posting in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vientiane.

Amb. Burghardt meets with Vietnamese leader. Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung received US Ambassador Raymond Burghardt in Hanoi on March 15 to discuss the state of US-Vietnam relations. While differing on plans to repatriate asylum seekers to the Central Highlands, Dung and Burghardt expressed common cause on implementation of the US-Vietnam bilateral trade agreement and increased cooperation in other areas. International media coverage of the meeting focused on disagreements between the US Embassy and Vietnam News Agency over what Burghardt actually said, possibly under the impression that his comments to Dung were off the record.

Cambodian opposition leader in US. Following a surprisingly good showing in February commune elections, opposition parliamentarian Sam Rainsy is visiting Washington and other cities in April as part of what his supporters term an "annual tour of the US." In an April 10 press conference, Rainsy asked the US government to "hold Cambodia to international standards" in the areas of genocide justice, elections, and corruption. He praised the UN pullout from Khmer Rouge tribunal negotiations and attacked the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) for "carefully engineering" their election victory. Although Rainsy publicly accepted the election results in Cambodia, his Washington speech expressed support for the criticisms of the election voiced by his main US backers, the International Republican Institute.

Rainsy opposes foreign assistance to Cambodia unless it is conditioned to political change. For instance, he skewered the WFP food aid reported above since it was presented to the "CPP foreign minister" Hor Namhong. "No doubt this food will be selectively distributed as gifts from the CPP—perhaps days before parliamentary elections next July," Rainsy added. These caustic comments may play well among some circles in Washington, but are unlikely to gain much domestic support for the party Rainsy named after himself. (Many of Rainsy’s biggest fans in Washington would be among the most outraged if Democratic Senators traveled to foreign capitals to denounce the Bush Administration and urged those countries to try to impose their policies on Washington.)

Sen. McConnell denounces "lack of justice" in Cambodia. In language remarkably similar to Sam Rainsy’s, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) lambasted Cambodia’s "corrupt and ineffective" leadership in a March 20 speech. McConnell’s speech (and Rainsy’s visit to the US) was timed to mark the fifth anniversary of a deadly grenade attack on a Rainsy-led rally in Phnom Penh in 1997. Without explicitly blaming then-"Second Prime Minister" Hun Sen for the attack, McConnell condemned the Cambodian government for "failing to protect its citizens and to investigate and bring to justice the perpetrators of this terrorist crime." The Senator has expressed similarly direct views on Cambodia in several Boston Globe opinion pieces printed over the last year.

Vietnam criticizes US "unilateralism". Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry, after initial support for the post-September 11 counter-terrorist coalition, has increasingly voiced discomfort with US policies in the Middle East. Spokesperson Phan Thuy Thanh said on April 4 that Vietnam "deplores" plans for "an unwarranted US attack on Iraq…in violation of the UN charter." Assistant Foreign Minister Ton Nu Thi Ninh, in her speech to the UN Human Rights Commission, said that the counter-terrorist campaign resembled "a posse-like coalition, wherein one leads and the others are supposed to follow out of blanket solidarity, not quite certain where the sheriff is taking them and what actions he is going to ask from them." In the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Bush administration’s "manicheistic vision of the world and certain tendencies towards reductive thought…open the gate to worse misunderstandings," Ninh said. While opposing terrorism and suicide bombings, Vietnam has been a long-time supporter of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation and the Iraqi campaign to lift UN sanctions.

Cam Ranh base to be redeveloped for civilian use. Vietnamese defense minister Pham Van Tra confirmed in a March 21 interview that the Cam Ranh naval base will never again be leased to a foreign country following the Russian withdrawal later this year. US Admiral Dennis Blair had inquired over possible US use of the base when he visited Hanoi in February. Gen. Tra told the weekly Thoi Bao Kinh Te (Economic Times) that Vietnam would retain control of the facility but that military use would be "combined to a certain extent with economic development for commercial purposes."

Bush certifies Vietnamese compliance on MIA recovery. On March 30, the White House issued Presidential Determination No. 2002-11, affirming that "Vietnam is fully cooperating in good faith with the United States in the following four areas related to achieving the fullest possible accounting for Americans unaccounted for as a result of the Vietnam War: 1) resolving discrepancy cases, live sightings, and field activities; 2) recovering and repatriating American remains; 3) accelerating efforts to provide documents that will help lead to the
fullest possible accounting of prisoners of war and missing in action (POW/MIAs); and 4)
providing further assistance in implementing trilateral investigations with Laos." In making this now-routine confirmation, President Bush also called on the Vietnamese to increase their cooperation with the US on "discrepancy cases." According to the Pentagon, 1,932 Americans are still missing in action from Indochina. On the Vietnamese side, sources estimate that 300,000 remains have never been recovered.

The Washington Indochina Update is written on a monthly basis by Andrew Wells-Dang, Washington Representative of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development. Andrew can be reached at washington@ffrd.org.