As U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell travels to Southeast Asia this week to promote trade with communist Vietnam and Laos, he may speak of the time he stepped on a sharp bamboo stick covered with buffalo dung. This form of asymmetrical warfare made Powell and many other American soldiers quite ill. According to Americans who oppose trade with Stalinist Laos and communist Vietnam, the fact that Congress is considering the ratification of the bilateral trade agreements with those two nations makes them feel perhaps equally ill.
“The crimes committed against the people of Laos by their government are horrible. We should be trying to oppose their wicked leadership. The Bush administration is pressing ahead with their trade agenda anyway,” says Georgie Szendrey, a television producer at a Fox affiliate in California. Szendrey is currently producing a video on the Hmong hilltribes of Laos, which she hopes will educate congressional leaders about the human-rights situation inside Laos.
“America’s foreign policy elite should be speaking out against the horrible crimes being committed against the Hmong hilltribes in Laos, and the Montagnards in the highlands of Vietnam. Both of these hilltribes were some of the finest allies America ever had,” Szendrey said.
Persecution of Christians inside Laos, including forcing them to drink blood, imprisonment and even murder, has been well-documented by WorldNetDaily.
Last year, former President Clinton traveled to Vietnam, where he promoted the idea of trade between the two nations. America and Vietnam established diplomatic relations in 1995 and signed a formal trade agreement in July of 2000. The Lao agreement was signed in December of 1998. This marked a watershed moment in U.S. relations in the region. The European Union is heavily involved in Indochina, a former French colony, but America lacks influence because of the fallout from the Vietnam War. However, the U.S. dollar holds sway as the unofficial currency of choice in Laos and neighboring Cambodia.
Approval of the bill in Congress will be the result of years of political infighting and negotiations between the free-trade wing of the Republican Party, old-line Cold War believers who view sanctions as continuing the war through economic means, and human-rights advocates.
The approval of the bilateral trade agreements, or BTA, with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic will establish normal trade relations – in effect “most-favored-nation” status – lowering tariffs from around 40 percent to about 3 percent. Intellectual property rights are also addressed in the new accords.
Currently, Afghanistan, North Korea, Libya, Iraq and Cuba are the only nations that don’t have normalized trade relations with the United States.
Mechanics of normalization
As reported by the Vientiane Times, the official communist media organ of the Pathet Lao government, the Vietnamese and Lao BTAs are subject to different congressional procedures for ratification. Vietnam must follow the provisions of the 1975 Jackson-Vanik amendment, requiring annual congressional approval of a presidential waiver allowing trade. (President Bush recently extended the waiver for another year.) Since Laos’ government did not become communist until December 1975, however, it falls outside the Jackson-Vanik provisions. Thus, Vietnam’s normal-trade-relation status, if approved, will be renewable on an annual basis. But Laos’ new trade status will be permanent from the outset. Another impact of Vietnam’s Jackson-Vanik status is that Congress cannot amend its trade agreement, whereas it can make changes to the Lao BTA.
Both the Vietnamese and Lao agreements are part of President Bush’s trade agenda, introduced by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick in May. Zoellick originally hoped to package the entire agenda together, including fast-track, or “trade promotion authority,” in an omnibus bill. Following the defection of Sen. James Jeffords, however, Senate Democrats clarified that they prefer to act on each item of the trade agenda separately. Bush formally submitted the Vietnamese BTA on June 8, giving both houses of Congress 75 working days to respond. The Lao agreement has not yet been submitted, but may well be added as an amendment to other legislation. For instance, the proposals for NTR for Kyrgyzstan and Georgia were attached to the 2000 Miscellaneous Trade and Tariffs Bill once a consensus was reached to go ahead with these agreements.
Approval of the Vietnamese BTA should have a smoother ride through Congress than the Lao agreement. NTR with Vietnam enjoys clear bipartisan support from war veterans such as Sens. John Kerry, D-Ma., Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and John McCain, R-Ariz. President Clinton’s landmark visit to Vietnam last year further raised the profile of emerging relations between the former enemies. And there is considerable interest among American businesses in investment in Vietnam’s 80 million-person consumer market.
Laos attracts much less attention from either the political or business standpoint, owing both to its small size and the still-unacknowledged realities of the U.S. betrayal of the Hmong. Nevertheless, according to Ted Posner, counsel to Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., there is “no visible opposition” to the Lao agreement in the Senate Finance Committee; its passage appears to be merely a matter of time and consensus building.
Some members of the House and Senate may still be tempted to attach a non-binding “Sense of Congress” resolution to either agreement or to add explicit conditions in the case of Laos.
The Vientiane Times stated, “Changes in the Senate make passage of hostile amendments less likely, but the danger still exists of old-line conservatives once again blocking a change in U.S. policy. As normal relations between the U.S. and Southeast Asia continue to develop, however, Cold War thinking resonates less and less, even among veterans and Asian-Americans.”
The communist newspaper also criticized “supporters of Hmong-American groups [who] formed the U.S. Congressional Forum on Laos, which has held a series of closed-door, secretive meetings on Capitol Hill beginning in 1999. This group has no formal link to the U.S. government but has gained support from members of Congress, including Reps. George Radanovich, R-Calif., Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., and Mark Green, R-Wis. In the Senate, Bob Smith, R-N.H., and Jesse Helms, R-N.C., placed a hold on the appointment of a new ambassador to Laos and signaled their opposition to the trade agreement. As a result of this pressure, the State Department backed away from submitting the Lao BTA to Congress in 1999 and 2000.”
Opponents of relations with Vietnam and Laos have also sought to use the issue of religious freedom as a means to defeat or postpone NTR. Both countries restrict operations of unofficial religious groups, just as they do independent labor unions or other local associations. In the absence of credible information, however, it is sometimes difficult to separate actual discrimination from politically motivated exaggerations. At hearings conducted by the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom in February, the majority of Vietnamese-American and academic witnesses spoke in favor of the BTA, yet the commission (headed by former Reagan administration official Elliott Abrams) went on record against the agreement in its May report. The report threatened the imposition of sanctions if Vietnam and Laos did not improve their religious freedom records, and it suggested that ratifying the BTAs might send a signal to continue religious discrimination. This opposition has not been echoed by mainstream human-rights organizations, which have not taken a position on the agreements.
The communist government of Laos is also calling for increased aid from America for de-mining efforts and treatment for Agent Orange. And, incredibly, the Pathet Lao want America to help clean up the fallout from the biological warfare it waged on the Hmong hilltribes. An agreement was signed July 3 providing for collaborative research between U.S. and Vietnamese scientists in the field of studying the effects of chemical warfare. The Pathet Lao want to establish a similar agreement.
Both Laos and Vietnam now participate in the humanitarian de-mining program run by the U.S. Defense and State Departments. The programs cost the American taxpayer about $1.5 million for Laos and $1 million for Vietnam. The Mine Action group and the European Union are also involved in de-mining efforts. Laos holds the dubious distinction of being the most heavily bombed nation per capita in the history of humanity.
Problems with trade
On the surface, trading with a communist nation like Laos and Vietnam may be seen as a tool to open up the government and society to ideals of democracy. However, that notion is readily challenged.
The Stalinist Pathet Lao have imprisoned Kerry Danes, the head trainer of the Australian SAS Special Forces, who was handling security for a Western mining group operating in Laos. Danes and his wife, Kay, remain locked up in Laos while the Australian government seems powerless to help free them.
Vietnam’s robust military controls trade within the nation. It is waging a brutal repressive campaign against the pro-West Christian Montagnard hilltribes of the Highlands in the interior of the nation.
Assisting the entrenchment of a mutated brand of communism that is so prevalent in the post-Cold War era, the armed forces of Vietnam have tapped into the ideals of primitive global capitalism.
“In Vietnam, it’s impossible to tell where the government ends and the military begins. They are really the same entity,” a Western Bangkok-based military attache told WorldNetDaily.
The Vietnamese military has successfully integrated top generals into the government, including the diplomatic corps and economic development cabinet posts. The ambitious plans of the Vietnamese Armed Forces include the setting up of 13 special economic free-trade zones near Vietnam’s borders with the communist countries of China, Laos and Cambodia. By the year 2013, the Army will have transferred over 85,000 specially trained troops to these three regions. This colonization is only the first step in establishing the framework for hundreds of thousands of private citizens who will follow in their footsteps.
By controlling the free-trade zones, the military will free itself from dependence on government largess. Much in the same manner as the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia remain in the bush, getting rich off of gems, timber, mining, gun running, organ tissue smuggling and drug dealings, the Vietnamese army seeks to set up its own set of military fiefdoms.
Speaking in the Vietnam Economic Times, Maj. Gen. Nguyen Van China stated, “We’re not getting involved in the economy just to make money.”
Free to act independently from the state treasury, the Vietnamese army can then use its newfound economic independence to acquire weapons and consolidate national control over the citizenry.
However, America’s trading plans in Southeast Asia are linked to a larger plan known as the “Greater Mekong Subregion Development Scheme.”
At 4,800 kilometers, the Mekong ranks as the longest waterway in all of Southeast Asia, flowing from China’s Qinghai province, which borders Tibet, through no less than six countries. The Mekong sub-regional scheme will boost trade and tourism and dramatically raise the level and quality of transportation throughout Southeast Asia. The Greater Mekong Subregion Scheme will link all of Southeast Asia from Vietnam to Burma through increased land, sea and rail links.
Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines have also signed on to the scheme, as the increased trade will benefit their nations as well. While Singapore and Brunei are extremely wealthy nations, even by Western standards, other Southeast Asian states are not so well off. Burma for example, has a per-capita gross domestic product of $172. Yunnan province in southern China has a per-capita GDP of $479, while Vietnam’s is $330, Laos’ $357 and Cambodia’s a mere $282.
As the region’s major source of development financing, and the richest nation in all of Asia, Japan has stepped into the fray with the promise of injecting funds to develop the Mekong Basin as a whole. Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi called for “the need for human resource development in the Mekong sub-region.”
“The Mekong Basin is the last development frontier in the region,” added Obuchi.
U.S. support for the Hmong
“I lived in Laos; my dad worked for USAID in Vientiane and up country and had the honor of meeting Vang Pao, Edgar “Pop” Buell and many of the courageous and fine Hmong families. It hurts me to see us turn our backs on them after the selfless and focussed efforts they undertook and many sacrifices they made to help the U.S.,” Randall Becker told WorldNetDaily.
Susan Mathewson in Missoula, Mont., told WND, “About 20 Hmong families garden each year on my property. I have known some families for 20 years. Most of the Hmong here are still hard-working, and there is little evidence of the gang-related problems that have occurred in other areas. In fact, some of their kids are the top students in English. Amazing, given that the parents have such a hard time learning our language. I would love it if our local paper would pick up on [the positive] Hmong stories, but the liberals here, who cry out for ‘diversity,’ in fact, hate the Hmong. This hypocrasy [sic] is sickening.”
Russell J. Hesch, a retired U.S. Army solider who now lives in Michigan, has vivid memories of his time in Southeast Asia 40 years ago.
“In 1961, one-fifth of the 25th Infantry Division was in Thailand waiting for Washington to allow us to fulfill our national honor in the SEATO Treaty,” said Hesch. “But instead, ‘the care and feeding of the arms merchants’ became paramount. The war would last longer and more profits would be made both during and after if the communist forces were allowed to infiltrate through Laos. Indeed, today we are still paying profits to Friends of McNamara and other members of the military industrial complex. Today, I can find no honor in any senior civil or military officer of the U.S. Government. … The abandonment of the SEATO Treaty with the accompanying genocide of the Hmong and other Asia minority groups was but a another stepping stone into the swamp of death which is World Government. The Hmong story is a good starting point for telling the fuller story of ‘profits over honor,’ which was the hallmark of our Southeast Asia Policy from 1960 to present.”
Related stories:
Hmong Part I: The great betrayal
Hmong Part II: ‘Killing fields,’ mines, martyrs
Hmong Part III: Fear and loathing for the Hmong in Vietnam
Congress acknowledges debt to Hmong
WATCH: Mark Levin: Kamala Harris surrounds herself with ‘anti-Semites and worse’
WND Staff