WASHINGTON INDOCHINA UPDATE #16
May-June 2003
Progress toward
granting Normal Trade Relations with Laos moves incrementally ahead, while the
US and Vietnam sign a key textile agreement.
New studies indicate that both US trade and aid tilt away from the
poorer nations of Southeast Asia. The
UN approves the agreement on a tribunal for Khmer Rouge, but two US Senate
leaders express concern over the July elections in Cambodia. The World Health Organization praises
Vietnam for its containment of SARS, while new US research doubles the
conventional estimate of the dioxin concentrate in Agent Orange sprayed during
the Vietnam War.
In early May the United Nations General Assembly approved the agreement negotiated with the government of Cambodia to set up special tribunals for former Khmer Rouge leaders accused of genocide. The tribunal would pioneer a new model of accountability, teaming international and national prosecutors and judges, with a “super-majority” formula that would give a slight edge to national jurists. Some international human rights organizations, notably Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, oppose the agreement, arguing that it would not meet international standards of transitional justice. However, many previous tribunals have been organized in countries under international custodianship, or in countries in the immediate aftermath of a major conflict. The Cambodian tribunal reflects a different circumstance, of international cooperation with a sovereign state. Before it can be finalized, the tribunal must be ratified by the Cambodian National Assembly. The government estimates that a vote will take place in the fall, when a new Assembly will have convened after the July elections.
Lugar/Biden Letter to
Powell Cites Concern over Cambodian
Elections
On May 20 Senators Richard Lugar and Joseph Biden, Foreign
Relations Committee chairman and ranking member respectively, sent a letter to
Secretary of State Joseph Biden Colin Powell
expressing concern about the general situation in Cambodia as the country
prepares for July parliamentary elections.
They cited media access for political parties, and allegations of voter
intimidation as specific areas of focus.
The letter requests that the Secretary outline steps being taken to
guarantee a free and fair election.
The Lugar/Biden letter echoes criticisms expressed in
pre-election assessments of the two main US political party institutes, the
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and the
International Republican Institute (IRI).
(NDI’s February pre-election assessment is available at http://www.ndi.org/, and IRI’s
January and April assessments can be
accessed at http://www.iri.org./) The Cambodian National Election Commission
has issued a response to the April IRI report, stating that the NEC has already
implemented many of IRI’s recommendations on media access and arguing that the
assessment did not report other positive steps the NEC was taking to promote a
peaceful election environment. (The NEC
document is available on the Fund’sFund’sFRD’s
website, http://www.ffrd.org./) Moreover, some Cambodian police officials
believe that many incidents of violence at the local level – including banditry
and the violent settlement of disputes – are mistakenly assumed to be voter
intimidation by international observers.
Further nuance is offered in an NDI report on 12 focus groups conducted in Cambodia in January 2003. These groups indicated that public confidence in the electoral process was high. Participants expressed the view that voter intimidation was widespread in rural areas, but observed that threats were declining. They reported that freedoms had increased in Cambodia over the past 10 years; in general, however, they placed greater emphasis on economic development and continued peace than on an ideological commitment to democracy. Indeed, the report writers remarked that “Even in an era when ideology is increasingly less pertinent, the non-ideological nature of Cambodian politics, at least as perceived by the focus group participants, is striking.” With increasing polarization on this issue in the international community, the Cambodian government has asked ASEAN to provide election observers in July, to increase the number of international monitors.
House sponsors of the draft Vietnam Human Rights Act are
seeking an appropriate legislative path for the bill. To date, House managers do not expect to hold hearings on the
bill, given the large margin by which a predecessor bill passed in that
a chamber. However,
initial readings indicate that the Act will not garner the near-landslide
majority it enjoyed the first time around.
Ranking member of the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee of the House
International Relations Committee, Eni Faleomavaega (D-American
Samoa), is reported to oppose the bill.
In late April, Congressman Robert R. Simmons (R-CT) publicly reversed
his position on the bill, which he had supported, after visiting Vietnam.
But if the Act faces a tougher battle in the House, it is not likely to be as easily quashed in the Senate as it was the first time around. The tentative plan in some Senate quarters is to deflect the bill by offering a resolution critical of human rights in Vietnam, which will express concern but carry no legislative conditions or sanctions.
Preliminary vote counts in both chambers are likely to
reflect a number of external factors.
One is the latest report on Vietnam from the US Commission on
International Religious Freedom, released this month (available on the
Commission’s website at http://www.uscirf.gov)/. The report urges passage of the Vietnam Human Rights Act and reiterates the Commission’s annual
request for the US government to declare Vietnam a “country of particular
concern” for religious freedom violations, a view not shared by faith based US NGOs active in
Vietnam.
and urges passage of the Vietnam Human Rights Act. However, the outcome may also be influenced
by a broader view of human rights in Vietnam, which stresses improvements in
personal freedoms over the past decade.
One of the proponents of this view in Washington this month was a
visiting delegation of members and staff of the Foreign Affairs Committee of
the Vietnamese National Assembly, led by the Committee’s articulate
Vice-Chairwoman, Mme. Ton Nu Thi Ninh.
As an example of public opposition to the Act, the Fund FRD has
circulated a letter to Congress from NGO’s working in Vietnam, which can be
accessed on the Fund’sFund’sFRD’s website.
The Ministry of Trade of Vietnam has announced that the
United States has become Vietnam’s biggest market, the result of a dramatic
leap – 238 percent – in Vietnamese exports to the US in the first quarter of
2003. Exports in both the seafood and
the garment sectors rose, with the latter increasing ten-fold since last
year. Indonesia has the second highest
export growth from Vietnam, at 236%.Vietnam’s
second-largest trading partner this year is Indonesia, with a 236% growth in
exports to that country. At some
distance behind, Australia came in third, with a 87%% growth in export from
Vietnam . trade.
US and Vietnam Sign Textile Agreement
Such
dramatic growth in exports to the US is not likely to be repeated in the
remaining quarters of 2003, because of new quotas on textiles which came into
effect on May 1, the result of a textile and apparel trade agreement signed by
the US and Vietnam in late April. The
agreement establishes quotas for 38 categories of garments and textiles, with
increases built in for 2004. Although
the agreement allows for a modest increase in the present levels of trade in
this sector, opponents argue that it will in reality curb a greater expansion
that would have occurred without the quotas.
Combined with ongoing suits against Vietnam for catfish and shrimp, the
textile quotas are predicted to bring disillusionment among Vietnamese who had
anticipated that the 2001 Bilateral Trade Agreement would bring unfettered
access to US markets. US importers have
also expressed disapproval of the apparel agreement, since it will hamper
expansion of their trade with Vietnam.
The textile quotas are likely to be a regular feature of US-Vietnam
trade, unless until Vietnam
joins the World Trade Organization.
Quotas on textiles and garments are scheduled to be abolished for WTO
members in 2005.
The period for public comment on extending Normal Trade
Relations to Laos, set by the Trade Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means
Committee, concluded in late April.
Although a formal tally has not been released, an informal count has
reportedly revealed that letters of support for NTR outnumbered those opposing
by a ratio of three-to-one.
The Subcommittee is still debating the next steps, one of
which is selecting a legislative vehicle by which NTR might be granted. The comment period has stimulated activity
on both sides of the issue. A small
group of lawmakers has circulated a letter recommending against NTR. In late April Laotian Minister of Commerce
and Tourism Soulivong Daravong, accompanied by Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Director General Vang Rattanavong and US Ambassador to Laos Douglas Hartwick,
visited the United States for discussions on NTR with the executive branch,
Congress and Laotian-American communities.
Arguments in support of NTR were cited in an April 24 op ed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer written by
Edward Gresser, director of the Project and Trade and Global Markets at the
Progressive Policy Institute, and the Fund’sFund’sFRD’s
Washington consultant, Catharin Dalpino.
“Remove a Vestige of the Vietnam War” can be found at http://www.seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/118902_laos.html.
The 2002-2003 Georgetown Southeast Asia Survey, released in late May, offers evidence that the poorer countries of Southeast Asia -- including Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia – are subject to some of the highest tariffs in US trade. For example, although the Bush administration’s 2002 decision to impose tariffs on imported steel from Europe and Northeast Asia was highly controversial, in that year the US collected more tariff revenues from Cambodian sweaters than from Japanese steel. The reasons for this ironic imbalance are two-fold. First, the kinds of goods that poor Southeast Asian countries typically export to the US – garments, shoes and other light manufactures—garner the highest tariffs. Second, in contrast to other regions in the developing world (Central America, the Andes, Africa), Southeast Asia enjoys no special trade programs as yet. The administration’s Enterprise for ASEAN Initiative could remedy that, but that is expected to take several years to come into effect. Copies of the Survey will be available through the Georgetown University Bookstore.
In a similar dynamic, the poorer countries of Southeast Asia could well be excluded from the Bush administration’s Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), which is designed to provide multi-year assistance to combat poverty in developing countries over a three-year period. In a study of the MCA entitled The Other War, the Brookings Institution speculates on which countries are likely to fulfill the administration’s requirements, which range across a graded basket of sixteen criteria, for “ruling justly, investing in people, and economic freedom.” Based on the Brookings model, no Southeast Asian country would be eligible for MCA funds in the first year, although Vietnam and the Philippines could become eligible in the second year. Cambodia would not qualify for funds, missing by one criterion in the second year, and Thailand would in theory become eligible in the third year but would also be disqualified by a single criterion. Laos, Indonesia and Burma would not be eligible in any year. Although qualification is supposed to depend upon a complicated mathematical formula, political considerations – from Congress or the administration – are likely to intervene in some cases. For a more detailed examination of the criteria for MCA funds, see the “Who Should Qualify?” chapter of The Other War, available at: www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/gs/research/projects/mca/otherwar_03.pdf.
In response to a requirement in the 2003 Appropriations Act,
on May 14 the State Department submitted a report to Congress on the anti-Thai
violence in Cambodia in early 2003. The
report is highly critical of the Cambodian
government for its response to the riots, but it notes that the government has
“admitted to the satisfaction of the Royal Thai Government that the events of
January 29 had spun out of control because Cambodian authorities had
‘misjudged’ the situation and had not provided proper security.” A s a
result,The report the two governments agreed on April 11 to renew full
diplomatic relations. The report isis
available at www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rpt/20565.htm. Although it was not
mentioned in the reportit,
immediately after the riots administration officials had expressed reservations
about the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting to the held in Phnom Penh in June,
because of security concerns. However,
those concerns have evidently dissipated, to the extent that Secretary Powell
is expected to attend the ARF meeting.
WHO Lauds Vietnam’s
Handling of SARS
On April 28 the World Health Organized Organization declared
Vietnam to be the first nation to
contain and eliminate the Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS),
which continues to affect a number of Asian countries. WHO official Aileen Plant cited quick
response from the Vietnamese government to the crisis as one of the key
factors: “…the speed, the leadership, the transparency, the flexibility, and
the intensity with which they educated people what to do.” In addition to its concerted outreach
campaign, the government quickly organized itself to fight the epidemic,
forming a steering committee led by the health ministry, and including the departments
Ministries
of transportation, customs, finance, education, and interior.
The April 17 issue of the journal Nature offers a potentially ground-breaking reassessment of
military documents and other data on herbicides sprayed by the United States
during the Vietnam War, which could encourage the first large-scale
epidemiological study of the health of both American veterans of the war as
well as the Vietnamese population.
Authored by Columbia University researcher Jeanne Mager Stellman, and
several co-authors, “The Extent and Patterns of Usage of Agent Orange and Other
Herbicides in Vietnam” suggests that the chemical dioxin contained in
defoliants that were sprayed may have been double the estimate previously
accepted. In addition, the reports indicates
that a significantly higher number of Vietnamese civilians were directly
exposed to the spraying than had earlier been found. The article can be viewed online at www.nature.com/nature.
The
Washington Indochina Update is published by the Fund for Reconciliation and
Development (FRD), 355 West 39th Street, New York, NY 10018.
It is compiled and written monthly by
Catharin Dalpino who is representing FRD in Washington on a consultant basis.
She can be reached at <washington@ffrd.org>
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