VN news (June 16)

[Dam Son <son@fermi.phys.washington.edu>]

Vietnam may seek US compensation for Agent Orange victims
Vietnam to return Agent Orange papers to US expert
Bankers arrested in connection with Vietnam's latest scandal
Vietnam rejects labour rights condemnation
U.S. embargo slammed at pro-Cuba talks in Vietnam
Vietnam axes foreign firm sponsorship in sports
More Vietnamese boat people are coming to Hong Kong this year
UN official sees headway in clearing Viet boat people
Hong Kong closes down largest Vietnamese detention camp
Eisenhower Resisted Vietnam Buildup, Tape Reveals
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Vietnam may seek US compensation for Agent Orange victims 

HANOI, June 16 (AFP) - Vietnam may be considering seeking compensation
from the United States for victims of Agent Orange used in the Vietnam
War, diplomats said on Monday. 

"It's a theme that is certainly gaining in resonance," said one western
diplomat who asked not to be identified. 

The Vietnamese have never officially sought any compensation for the
approximately two million soldiers and civilians exposed to the chemical
defoliant sprayed by the United States to destroy jungle hideouts of
northern Vietnamese forces in the South. 

But three separate articles have appeared in the Vietnamese press recently
chronicling the devastation wrought by US chemical warfare and this may
indicate a change in the Vietnamese position, another diplomats said. 

"There is certainly a change in attitudes," he said. 

The official Vietnam News Agency said Sunday some 50,000 deformed children
were born to parents who had been exposed to the chemical, and the Vietnam
Investment Review carried a two-page article on Monday. 

There is a strong body of evidence collected by Vietnamese, Russian and
some American researchers that suggests a link between Agent Orange and
birth defects. 

Professor Hoang Dinh Cau, chairman of a Vietnamese committee to
investigate the effects of Agent Orange, told Interpress News Agency that
Vietnam will need 100 years to overcome the effects of the chemical. 

Although the Vietnamese have never raised the question of compensation
directly, they have raised the matter of "consequences of the war" in
official discussions with the US, which is generally accepted to mean
Agent Orange victims, the diplomat said. 

>From 1961 to 1971, the US forces sprayed 72 million litres of chemicals
covering nearly 10 percent of South Vietnam. About 42 million litres of
Agent Orange, which contains a debilitating chemical called dioxin, were
used. 

Communist Party Secretary Do Muoi briefly touched on the issue of Agent
Orange during the visit to Ho Chi Minh City by US Treasury Robert Rubin in
April. 

The issue is also likely to come up during a meeting of key players
responsible for the Vietnam War, including former US defence secretary
Robert McNamara, which begins in Hanoi on Thursday. 

It is not yet known if Agent Orange will be on the official agenda during
the two-day visit to Vietnam by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
on June 26-28. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Vietnam to return Agent Orange papers to US expert 

By John Chalmers

Hanoi, June 16 (Reuter) - Vietnam's committee for research into the effect
of Agent Orange, the defoliant sprayed by U.S. forces during the Vietnam
War, has agreed to return documents seized from an American scientist at
Hanoi airport in 1995. 

Hoang Dinh Cau, chairman of the 10-80 Committee, told Reuters he had
written to Dr Arnold Schecter of the State University of New York to ask
him which of the papers seized by customs he would like sent back. 

"The collaboration between our American colleagues and ourselves started
nearly 20 years ago," Cau said. "The incident of Noi Bai (airport) is a
minor one of very little importance." 

The offer to return the documents and resume collaboration on research
into the effects of dioxin, a harmful chemical in Agent Orange, came just
days before a conference in Hanoi to examine possible lessons from the
conflict, which ended in 1975. 

Washington's Vietnam War Defence Secretary, Robert Macnamara, and about 50
U.S. researchers and historians will attend the June 20-23 meeting with
government ministers and academics. 

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is due to visit Hanoi three
days later to discuss issues including efforts to account for U.S.
personnel missing from the war and human rights. 

Cau said blood and food specimens which were also taken away from Schecter
after his 10-day government-sponsored scientific mission were of no
importance. 

Asked why it had taken two years for the offer of returning the documents
to be made, Cau said bureaucracy had been to blame. 

Agent Orange was widely used in the Vietnam War to defoliate jungle areas
used by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops. 

U.S. and South Vietnamese aircraft sprayed about 12 million gallons (45.6
million litres) of Agent Orange over about 10 percent of what was then
South Vietnam. 

Schecter published research in 1995 which showed that people in what used
to be South Vietnam had levels of dioxin that were up to 50 times higher
than people in the north. 

Many U.S. veterans exposed to the chemical blamed it for health problems
and for birth defects suffered by their children. 

Controversy over the effect of the herbicide raged in the United States
for more than a decade and finally ended in 1993 when Congress authorised
benefits for those with seven specific ailments linked to Agent Orange
exposure. 

In March last year, a panel of scientists reported to Congress that new
studies had confirmed links between Agent Orange exposure during the war
and cancers and other health problems. 

The government-run Vietnam Investment Review on Monday ran a front-page
article quoting the United States' new ambassador to Vietnam, Pete
Peterson, as saying it would take a long time to clarify the exact
consequences of the defoliant. 

Peterson, a fighter pilot and prisoner of war during the conflict, was
quoted as saying that global scientific research was needed for a
conclusion. 

The journal described his comments as "discouraging" and ran a long
article highlighting the ailments of Vietnamese war veterans exposed to
Agent Orange and the deformities of their children. 

The official Vietnam News Agency on Sunday catalogued the cost of the war,
saying three million Vietnamese had been killed, 4.4 million wounded and
two million affected by toxic chemicals. VNA gave no explanation for the
timing of its report. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Bankers arrested in connection with Vietnam's latest scandal

HANOI, Jun 16 (AFP) - Seven people, including two senior officials at
Vietnam's largest commercial bank, have been arrested for their alleged
roles what is potentially the country's biggest bank scandal, police said
Monday. 

The seven arrested are the latest to get caught in the widening net of
people being linked to a case in which Minh Phung Garment Co and its
affiliates are suspected of defrauding banks in Ho Chi Minh City of up to
350 million dollars. 

The deputy director and director of the credit department at Vietcombank
were arrested on Saturday and have been charged with "intentionally
violating state regulations on economic management causing serious
consequences." 

Nguyen Ngoc Bich, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City branch of
Vietcombank and Pham Thanh Tung, assistant director of the credit
department allegedly overvalued property belonging to Minh Phung enabling
the company to secure large credits. 

Police said it is not yet known how much money the bankers were personally
responsible for approving to Minh Phung and more than 30 of its
affiliates. 

Neither have they yet released results from an autopsy performed more than
two weeks ago on the body of a former Vietcombank officer who worked as
vice finance director of Minh Phung. 

Earlier this month the body of Minh Phung vice finance director Nguyen Van
Ha was found on the rooftop of the Ho Chi Minh City branch of Incombank.
Police are still investigating the cause of his death and have not ruled
out murder. 

The bulk of the group's debt was reportedly owed to another state-owned
bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of Vietnam (Incombank), which is
believed to have lent Minh Phung more than 320 million dollars. 

Five people from Incombank, including deputy director Pham Nhat Hong were
also arrested, police said. 

Before joining Minh Phung, Ha had worked in the credit department of
Vietcombank and was in charge of overseeing all loans to Minh Phung. 

Minh Phung is one of Vietnam's largest garment manufacturers with more
than 9,000 employees. Like many high-flying private joint stock companies
it diversified into import-export to generate quick cash to prop up
several property deals which went sour. 

The fraud was first exposed in March when directors of Minh Phung and its
affiliate Epco Co were arrested over a roughly 18 million dollars loan to
Vietcombank after it was discovered that the loan collateral had
disappeared. 

A total of 30 people have now been charged with fraud, while investigators
have been trying to unravel a web of financial deceit involving more than
30 affiliate companies of Minh Phung. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Vietnam rejects labour rights condemnation 

Hanoi, June 16 (Reuter) - Vietnam on Monday rebuffed a world labour
group's condemnation of its trade union practices, dubbing it as offensive
to workers and the unions which represent them. 

"The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions' (ICFTU) evaluation
of trade union organisations...shows that they lack understanding of the
real situation in Vietnam and offends both Vietnamese labourers and the
trade unions that represent their interests," the Foreign Ministry said in
a statement. 

Last week's report by the Brussels-based ICFTU said workers' rights were
under fierce assault around the world as employers drive to exploit free
markets and economic globalisation to increase profits. 

It said many governments in Asia still viewed trade unions as "an alien
institution bent on frustrating economic progress" and alleged that Burma,
Vietnam and North Korea simply placed officials in charge of "fake
unions." 

Vietnam's Foreign Ministry said it saw no reason why the ICFTU's
"erroneous evaluation" should affect Hanoi's efforts to join the World
Trade Organisation and reach a comprehensive trade agreement with the
United States. 
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U.S. embargo slammed at pro-Cuba talks in Vietnam

HANOI, June 16 (Reuter) - The United States' embargo on trade with Cuba
under the Helms-Burton law was slammed by activists from 14 Asia-Pacific
countries at a meeting in Hanoi last week, official Vietnamese media
reports said on Monday.

The daily Vietnam News said a statement branding the Helms-Burton law as a
"wicked act against the Cuban people" was issued on Friday after the
two-day meeting of the Asia-Pacific Conference for Solidarity with Cuba.
   
"The statement...says the act is a brazen violation of international law
and the basic principles of international relations and free trade," the
state-controlled daily said. "As such, it is opposed by the people of the
world." The conference was hosted by the Vietnam Union of Peace,
Solidarity and Friendship Organisations. Communist Vietnam, one of Cuba's
closest allies, has added its voice to international criticism of the
sanctions, arguing that the Helms-Burton law runs contrary to
international law.

Delegates to the conference agreed to ask people of the Asia-Pacific
region to provide material and moral support for the Cuban people "and
denounce U.S. policy against Cuba by the many means possible".

Cuban President Fidel Castro sent a message to the meeting, affirming that
"Cuba and the Cuban revolution would never disappear because the Cuban
people understood that only socialism could preserve independence and
develop revolutionary gains".
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Vietnam axes foreign firm sponsorship in sports

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, June 16 (Reuter) - Vietnam has banned
sponsorship of sport and cultural events by foreign tobacco and alcohol
firms, an official media report said on Monday. 

The daily Vietnam News said Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet had announced the
measure amid concern that Vietnamese manufacturers were losing out to
competition from foreign products. 

It said the government had also decided to halt all further foreign
investment in cigarette production and step up efforts to stop the inflow
of smuggled goods from China, Laos and Cambodia. 

The move brought swift condemnation from industry executives in Ho Chi
Minh City, who said the measure was a blow to foreign advertisers already
facing significant difficulties. 

"We haven't been told anything so we don't know the details," said an
official who declined to be identified. "But we would regard that as
actively making it more difficult for us to do business in Vietnam." 

Foreign companies in Vietnam face a range of restrictions on their
advertising and promotional activities. 

A recent campaign by U.S. giant Coca-Cola to give mountain bikes to people
who collect a prize-winning combination of bottle tops and ring pulls was
heavily criticised by state media and banned in southern parts of the
country. 

Vietnam News said that as well as halting foreign sponsorship, the
government would seek to help domestic industry by offering "material and
spiritual incentives" to the anti-smuggling task force and the public to
promote the battle against smugglers. 

It said government bodies, including the powerful Interior Ministry, had
been ordered to work together to detect and stamp out the flow of
unofficial trade into Vietnam from abroad, which is estimated at well over
$1 billion a year. 

Vietnam's lengthy land and sea borders are difficult to police. Smuggled
goods are brazenly carted across the frontiers in many places and openly
sold throughout the country. 

But the issue of protection for domestic firms, many of whom suffer from
outdated equipment and poor know-how, is also related to government
concerns about a trade deficit that in 1996 reached $4 billion, equivalent
to around 17 percent of gross domestic product. 

Vietnam, which is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) is committed under the terms of the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement to
lowering its tariff barriers by 2006. 

However, concern about the large scale of the existing deficit has
prompted debate about the merits of trade liberalisation and exposing
domestic firms to unfettered competition. 
  _________________________________________________________________

More Vietnamese boat people are coming to Hong Kong this year

Hong Kong (dpa) - Hong Kong's refugees coordinator disclosed Monday that
more Vietnamese boat people had come to Hong Kong this year and said she
would go to Hanoi to discuss the problem. 

The Commissioner for Refugees Affairs, Sally Wong Bik-yee, said she was
trying to arrange a meeting with Vietnamese officials before July 1 over
the problem of a continuing flow of Vietnamese illegal immigrants into
Hong Kong. 

She disclosed that so far this year, 1,040 Vietnamese illegal immigrants
had been detained and that the number had already exceeded that of last
year. 

She said there were more than 3,500 Vietnamese remaining in Hong Kong,
including 1,600 who were classified as refugees and would not be
repatriated to Vietnam, while the rest should all return. 

She complained that the speed of repatriation was not fast enough and on
the other hand some boat people were still coming. 

"The main object of the meeting will be to ask the Vietnamese government
to speed the clearance process so that we can repatriate them as soon as
possible. At the moment, it takes a few months for the Vietnamese
government to clear the Vietnamese illegal immigrants for return," said
Wong. 

She added that the Hong Kong government had asked the assistance from the
Vietnamese government and also the Chinese authorities to intercept those
boat people when they tried to come to Hong Kong. 

The problem of Vietnamese boat people has been a burden for Hong Kong over
the past 20 years. Hong Kong once sheltered as many as 60,000 Vietnamese.
Bejing has urged London to solve the problem before the July 1 handover of
Hong Kong and with the cooperation of Hanoi, the repatriation speeded up. 

Last year, 15,101 boat people returned to Vietnam. However, it seems quite
certain that some Vietnamese would remain in Hong Kong after July 1 with
some new ones were expected to come. 

Sally Wong said she would discuss the possibility of immediate
repatriation with the Vietnamese officials, but she did not expect Hanoi
would agree. She stressed those new arrivials were not refugees but had
come simply for economic reasons. 

Meanwhile, the Pak Shek Boat People Centre, the biggest detention camp in
Hong Kong, was formally closed Monday. The camp had once accommodated more
than 20,000 Vietnamese. When it was about to close, only 1,000 remained
and all of them had been transferred to a smaller camp. 

Although the problem still remains, the closure of the Pak Shek camp
signals that the boat people issue is no longer a major burden to Hong
Kong, analysts said. 
  _________________________________________________________________

UN official sees headway in clearing Viet boat people

HONG KONG, June 16 (Reuter) - A United Nations official on Monday reported
progress in efforts to clear Vietnamese refugees out of Hong Kong before
China takes over. 

Fewer-than-expected Vietnamese would be stranded in Hong Kong before the
territory returns to Chinese rule on June 30, Jean-Noel Wetterwald, head
of the Hong Kong office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told a
local radio station. 

Wetterwald said there would probably be 1,100 to 1,200 Vietnamese refugees
left by the end of June. Earlier government estimates had said 1,400 would
be left. 

"We are very close to ending the saga of the boat people in Hong Kong," he
said. "More than 99 percent of the cases have been solved." 

Hong Kong has been struggling to bring an end to the 20-year-old "boat
people" epic. The refugees are among the last of a tide of people who fled
Vietnam on flimsy boats to Southeast Asian territories after the
Communists won the Vietnam War in 1975. 

Beijing has demanded that the British colonial government in Hong Kong
clear the remaining boat people and shut the detention camps before China
resumes sovereignty. 

On Monday, the authorities planned to shut down one of the remaining
holding camps, the Whitehead detention centre, where inmates rioted and
attempted a mass escape last year. 

Apart from genuine refugees, many Vietnamese are detained in Hong Kong as
illegal migrants. 

Hong Kong's secretary for security, Peter Lai, said last week that there
would be at least 3,400 Vietnamese left in Hong Kong after the handover,
comprising 1,400 recognised as refugees awaiting settlement, 900 failed
asylum seekers and 1,100 recent arrivals. 

"Our optimism derives from some positive answers we got from resettlement
countries...," Wetterwald said. "For the time being, Sweden has announced
it will take 20 persons," he said. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Hong Kong closes down largest Vietnamese detention camp 

By Peter Lim

HONG KONG, June 16 (AFP) - Hong Kong closed its largest boat people
detention camp Monday and urged Vietnam to speed up procedures to allow
remaining asylum seekers to return before the end of the month. 

The Whitehead Detention Centre for Vietnamese asylum-seekers was closed
after eight-and-a-half years in operation. 

Hong Kong government refugee coordinator Sally Wong said: "The closing of
the whole Whitehead Detention Centre is a landmark achievement in the
final chapter of the whole Vietnamese migrants saga." 

But it is looking increasingly likely the remaining boat people will be
stuck in the territory once it is handed back to China on July 1 -- even
though Beijing has made it clear it does not want to inherit the problem. 

Whitehead, notorious in the past for frequent protests by inmates, was
first opened in January 1989 when the Vietnamese population in Hong Kong
stood at about 11,000. 

Governor Chris Patten defended Hong Kong's role in dealing with the
Vietnamese. 

"In the last few years about 200,000 Vietnamese have been through Hong
Kong and all but the few remaining have been resettled elsewhere or have
returned to Vietnam. It is a spectacular record," he told reporters. 

He said there were about 1,300 bona fide refugees left in Hong Kong, and
around 1,000 economic migrants, not eligible for resettlement. Some of the
latter category are regarded by the Vietnamese authorities as ethnic
Chinese, and not allowed to return. 

"Others are involved in court cases or are at present ill and can't
travel, but I very much hope that we will be able to deal with that
number. And, of course, there are some recent illegal immigrants who are
being returned home as rapidly as possible. 

"I doubt, really, you know, whether any community of this size anywhere in
the world could have handled matters so competently and humanely." 

Wong urged the Vietnamese government to speed up extradition clearances
for the remaining Vietnamese. 

She said it took Vietnamese government at least three months to process
extradition clearance. 

Vietnam and China had been urged to intercept illegal Vietnamese
immigrants trying to sneak into the territory before the handover. 

She said the number of illegal Vietnamese arrested so far this year had
exceeded the 1,000 Vietnamese held last year. 

But with demands by Beijing that the camps be cleared before the July 1
handover of sovereignty, and recent voluntary and forced repatriations,
"there is no need to maintain a camp at Whitehead," said Wong. 

On Sunday, members of a Hong Kong pressure group, "Civil Force", marched
to Government House to demand Britain take all boat people remaining after
next month's change of sovereignty. 

The group argued Britain had declared Hong Kong a port of first asylum for
Vietnamese and therefore should accept responsibility for the remaining
boat people. 

Those still in other camps here represent the tail end of a mass exodus
from Vietnam following the communist victory in the Vietnam War in 1975
and the Sino-Vietnamese war which followed four years later. 

Wong said since 1989 about 67,000 Vietnamese boat people, who were mostly
deemed economic migrants, ineligible for resettlement abroad, and over
1,000 Vietnamese illegal immigrants had been repatriated to Vietnam. 

Another 143,000 Vietnamese refugees have been resettled elsewhere since
the arrival of the first group of boat people in 1975, she said. 

When the Vietnamese population reached its peak of nearly 60,000 in
October 1991, the centre provided accommodation for about 25,000. 
  _________________________________________________________________

Eisenhower Resisted Vietnam Buildup, Tape Reveals 

The Washington Post 06/15/97

Dwight D. Eisenhower was one American president who resisted pressure from
top advisers to send U.S. forces into Vietnam, according to a newly
released recording of his Oval Office conversations. 

"I tell you, the boys were putting the heat on me" over Vietnam,
Eisenhower said during a Feb. 24, 1955, meeting with newspaper publisher
Roy Howard. "I was not willing to put the American prestige on one
gol-durned thing in there," Eisenhower continued in emphatic tones. 

Eisenhower's successors, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, carried
out a military buildup that committed more than half a million American
troops in what ultimately proved to be a losing effort to keep South
Vietnam from falling to the Communist North. 

Howard had stopped at the White House to make a courtesy call before the
publisher took a trip to Asia and the Middle East. 

Much of the conversation dealt with tensions between Mainland China and
Taiwan (then Formosa) over the Formosa Strait and particularly over the
tiny, Nationalist Chinese-held islands of Quemoy and Matsu near the China
coast. Eisenhower was saying that "the Chinese Comms are riding high" but
that Chiang Kai-shek on Formosa was "sitting in the ideal place to defend"
and under the right circumstances, with U.S. support, might have an
opportunity to return to the mainland and "conquer all of China." 

Howard was upset at the thought Eisenhower might send American forces to
help Chiang defend Quemoy and Matsu. "If that idea . . . gets around the
country, and the American public gets the idea that you would jeopardize
this country for the sake of getting back to the mainland, you're a dead
duck," Howard warned the president. "I don't believe any president of any
country would defend Quemoy and Matsu if it would lead to even a chance of
getting involved in a third World War." 

The discussion, much of it unintelligible at this point, then turned to
Dien Bien Phu, the French outpost in Vietnam that had fallen to the
communists a few months earlier, in May 1954. Eisenhower seemed to be
citing it in an effort to calm Howard. "When we talk about Dien Bien Phu,
maybe I need to tell you this," the president said, "but I was the only
one around here who was against American forces going in. . . . I tell
you, the boys were putting the heat on me." 

The conversation was the second in a series on Dictabelts that Eisenhower
made on a machine he secretly had installed in the Oval Office and that
archivists had presumed for years simply to be dictations to his
secretary. 

A modern-day cassette version was released last Thursday by the Eisenhower
Library in Abilene, Kan., and at the National Archives in Washington. 
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