Re: VN news (June 16)

[dao <dao@dtc.net>]

Dam Son wrote:
> 
> 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
>   _________________________________________________________________
> 
> 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.
>   _________________________________________________________________
> 
> 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".
>   _________________________________________________________________
> 
> 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.
>   _________________________________________________________________