The Prime Minister of Canada, Stephan Harper, is visiting Viet Nam as part of the APEC conference.  On October 20, the Vietnamese community in Canada presented an open letter to Mr. Harper expressing concern over the Communist government's sincerity in improving their abuse of human rights of Vietnamese people and particularly lack of religious freedom and political imprisonment.  (see the letter on VietAm Review blog, dated  October 19)

Prime Minister Harper reflected these views from Vietnamese Canadians in a private portion of the meeting between himself and Nguyen Tan Dung on November 17.  According to Jennifer Ditchburn of the Canadian Press (reporting from Hanoi) "Harper tied in human rights with Vietnam's expanding trade file.  He told Nguyen that economic opennes went hand in hand with social and political freedom."

The Vietnamese Canadian community has expressed appreciation to Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his presentation to the government of Viet Nam.

Liên H¶i NgÜ©i ViŒt Canada		Vietnamese Canadian Federation Fédération vietnamienne du Canada
249 Rochester Street Ottawa, ON; K1R 7M9 CANADA Tel.: (613) 230-8282; Fax: (613) 230-8281; Email: vietfederation@bellnet.ca Website: www.vietfederation.ca

 Press Release

Vietnamese Canadian community applauds

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s stand on human rights:

I don’t think Canadians want us to sell out our values – our beliefs in democracy, freedom, and human rights.

 
Ut Ngo, President of the Vietnamese Canadian Federation, today wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to thank him for raising the human rights issue in his meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in Hanoi yesterday, November 17.  According to news reports from Vietnam, the Prime Minister tied in human rights concerns with Vietnam's expanding trade file, telling his counterpart that economic openness went hand in hand with social and political freedoms. The Prime Minister also raised several individual cases of political dissidents persecuted by the Vietnamese government, including one man who was imprisoned after providing testimony to the U.S. Congress on human rights in his country.  He further told the Vietnamese Prime Minister that not only is this important for all Canadians, but it resonates particularly for Canadians of Vietnamese origin (Allan Woods, the Ottawa Citizen, November 18, 2006).

 

We are very encouraged by the firm stand that the Prime Minister took on this issue.  It re-emphasized the point that he made while on his way to Vietnam for the APEC Summit, I don’t think Canadians want us to sell out our values – our beliefs in democracy, freedom, and human rights.  “We applaud your conviction that moral principles ought not to be sacrificed for the sake of political expediency”, said Ngo’s letter.

 
In an open letter addressed to the Prime Minister and published October 20, 2006 in the Ottawa Citizen, the Vietnamese Canadian Federation and other Vietnamese organizations in Canada asked him to persuade Vietnamese leaders to adopt genuine democratization of the political system as a top-priority national policy.  We are thankful that he did.

 

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For immediate delivery

November 18, 2006

Tel. (613) 230-8282

 

(Vietnamese and French versions to follow)

Followed by comments from Jean Libby, VietAm Review:

The conduct of Mr. Harper is in remarkable contrast to the kowtowing of US President George W. Bush to the Hanoi government in his press conferences to the US people and the removal of the negative rating of Viet Nam as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC)  by the US State Department on  November  15, 2006.

The Christian Science Monitor, in an editorial dated November 17, continues the charade of the Communist government and Ho Chi Minh as an independence movement by posthumously congratulating Ho and stating the US House of Representatives "missed the memo" by refusing to lift trade restrictions.  Mr. Bush has promised Hanoi to remove these "Cold War restrictions" with the help of the new Democrats in Congress in December. 

The Monitor also reported that on Sunday, November 19, US President Bush will be wearing an "ao dai silk tunic."  Stay tuned. 

Jean Libby, editor
VietAm Review
http://vietamreview.blogharbor.com


Thanks to Can D. Le of the Vietnamese Canadian Federation for the Canadian letter for publication.