Vietnam, State Department Houston discuss consulate by PHAN, your online buddy Link: http://phanthanh.multiply.com/links/184 Vietnam, State Department Houston discuss consulate.... June 26, 2008, 2:25PM Vietnam, State Department discuss Houston consulate Prime minister meets with business leaders... Mayra Beltran: Houston Chronicle June 26, 2008, 2:25PM Vietnam, State Department discuss Houston consulate Prime minister meets with business leaders By JENALIA MORENO Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Vietnam's ambassador to the U.S. said in Houston today that his nation would like to open a consul general's office here. "We have agreed in principle," said Ambassador Le Cong Phung, during a break in today's meeting between Vietnam's prime minister and Texas business leaders at a Galleria-area hotel. "We have got one office in the East, the embassy, and one in the West in San Francisco. The United States is a huge country. We cannot cover it all." Nguyen Tan Dung and his delegation of more than 100 Vietnamese officials are meeting with Texas cotton producers, energy company officials and airline executives to discuss ways to expand trade between the two nations. His meeting comes amid protests from members of the local Vietnamese community who claim Dung's government has one of the world's worst records on human rights. ********************** Pictures follow of demonstration by the Vietnamese community in Houston. If you haven’t seen Phan Thanh’s excellent site before – be prepared to spend a couple of hours looking at historic photos and current events. His own essay “I will return to Vietnam when …” is heartbreaking. All the better for bilingual readers, some are in Vietnamese and some in English. Jean Libby, editor VietAm Review http://vietamreview.blogharbor.com   more »

White House statement covers topics of agreement on trade, energy, human rights, Vietnamese Americans' "contribution to the promotion of the relationship between the two countries." "President Bush welcomed these contributions and reiterated the U.S. government's support for Vietnam's national sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity." The United Nations and ASEAN were discussed. United States Education Cooperation with Vietnam In a Memorandum of Understanding signed by United States Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James Glassman and Vietnam Vice Minister of Education and Training Pham Vu Luan, the two countries: • Expressed their wish to enhance friendship between peoples and cooperation in the field of higher education; • Recognized the importance of higher education in economic development; and • Recognized the importance of public-private sector partnerships between American and Vietnamese universities, colleges, and other organizations that support training and education projects. To develop strategies to deepen cooperation further in higher education, including contacts between educational institutions, they agreed to establish an Education Task Force, which will: • Encourage more and deeper linkages and joint programs between American and Vietnamese universities (including discussions about the best path to create a U.S. model higher education institution in Vietnam with the support of American universities and colleges, and simplifying procedures to establish new education and exchange programs in Vietnam); • Increase the number of Vietnamese studying at American universities and colleges, especially PhD students (including the United States’ initiative to facilitate an increase in the number of Vietnamese students studying in universities in the United States at all levels, and the Vietnamese interest in seeing more Vietnamese receiving United States graduate degrees); and • Promote educational programs designed to help Vietnamese students acquire the skills needed in Vietnam’s modernizing economy.    more »

The Vietnamese Canadian Federation in Ottawa has published Gift of Freedom; How Ottawa welcomed the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian Refugees by Brian Buckley (General Store Publishing House, 2008). $20 The book sales benefit the Boat People Museum in Ottawa. Review by Jean Libby, VietAm Review: Gift of Freedom is an English-language history of the Southeast Asian refugees in Canada. It is professionally written and historically helpful for anyone who wants information about the issues and experiences of Boat People refugees to Canada from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos between 1979 and 2008. That’s right, 2008 – when the last refugee camp of Vietnamese Boat People in the Philippines, Palawan, was closed. The people who had not been accepted by other countries were in danger of deportation back to Vietnam. The Vietnamese Canadian Federation persuaded the Canadian government to take them as Permanent Residents immediately. The unique Canadian history alone would be worthy of a book, but Gift of Freedom also develops the original exodus beginning in 1977 and its roots in the Vietnam War of 1954-1975, continuing with the wars between the victorious Communist countries and that important relationship to the desperation so great that people knowingly risked their lives and those of their children to cast themselves into the China Sea on rickety boats to seek refuge and asylum. It is the best history for general readers of English that I have seen of the Vietnam War – in which Canadian troops also fought in alliance with South Vietnam (1)–and the aftermath as it affected people in the defeated country. Buckley describes it as a “proxy war between East and West, a struggle between contending ideologies, an interstate conflict among local powers, and a guerilla war.” Paths of migration of all ethnic groups are mapped. The graphic appeal of Gift of Freedom; How Ottawa welcomed the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees is a meeting of professionalism and passion for the subject matter demonstrated by the Book Committee of the Vietnamese Canadian Federation, particularly former president Can D. Le. The Canadian government did not send official troops as they did in World War II, the Korean Conflict, Desert Storm, and presently in Afghanistan. Over 30,000 Canadians volunteered to fight with American units during the Vietnam War. Native Canadian people (Mohawk Indians) were especially represented as troops fighting alongside the U.S. in alliance with South Vietnam.    more »

June 24, 2008 Contact: SEARAC: Helly Lee (202) 667-4690 helly@searac.org Contact: HND: Nou Vang (202) 797-9105 nvang@hndinc.org *837 Lao Hmong Sent Back to Laos from Thailand* *Washington**, DC* – On Saturday, June 21st, 837 Lao Hmong were deported from the Huay Nam Khao camp in Phetchabun Province, Thailand. Prior to the date of deportation, thousands of Hmong residents of the camp attempted a march to Bangkok in order to protest the impending deportations. However, the protesters were stopped by members of the Thai police and military, with an estimated 500 arrested and placed in provincial jails. The Thai government states that those who returned to Laos did so voluntarily. The population of almost 8,000 Lao Hmong in Phetchabun Province started to arrive in the region in 2004, many of whom arrived in Thailand seeking refuge as a result of the persecution they faced in Laos. While the Thai government claims that it has already completed its own screening process of the camp residents, because no international entities, including UNHCR, were allowed to be involved with the screening process, it is unclear whether the screening process used by the Thai government met international standards. The Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC) and Hmong National Development (HND) are concerned that many of the Lao Hmong deported to Laos did not do so voluntarily. In addition, we remain concerned that /bona fide/ refugees will be returned to Laos without an opportunity to be identified as refugees and eligible for third country resettlement. Doua Thor, Executive Director of SEARAC states, “We are troubled by the news of the mass deportations of Lao Hmong back to Laos from Phetchabun Province. No refugees should be forcibly returned to the country from which they fled, and we simply cannot be sure that there were no individuals and families in this group of recent returnees who would otherwise be recognized as refugees through an international refugee screening process. In addition, because there has been no participation of an international monitoring entity, we are concerned about the safety and well being of the population during the deportation process and once they arrive back in Laos.” “HND works to protect the welfare of the national Hmong community in the U.S. as well as the welfare of our neighboring Hmong communities overseas. We remain deeply concerned about the latest deportation and the way in which it was enacted upon by Thai officials. The sudden deportation of these refugees will have an immediate impact on inadequate access to services and nutrition during this period” states Nou Vang, Executive Director of HND. “We request that both the Thai and Lao governments allow the involvement of international agencies in order to ensure the well-being of these Lao Hmong refugees.” SEARAC and HND will continue to monitor this situation and advocate for the implementation of an internationally recognized refugee screening process for the Lao Hmong who remain in Thailand and the assured protection, including the use of international monitors, for those who are returned to Laos. We will also continue to provide updates as this situation progresses. ### **************************************************************************** SEARAC (http://www.searac.org) is a national nonprofit organization working to advance the interests of Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese Americans through capacity building, advocacy, and education. SEARAC is proud to work with a national network of over 180 Southeast Asian American grant-eligible organizations accessible at http://www.searac.org/maa/.   more »

The statement is in Vietnamese and English. It concerns the need for free elections, Vietnamese corruption, the lack of protection of the Spratly Islands from takeover, inflation and other economic difficulties. signed by eleven Vietnamese political parties   more »

The Senate Education Committee has sent AB2064 to the Appropriations Committee on a 5 - 0 vote. I had a very nice experience last weekend to become reacquainted with my State Senator (District 11) Joe Simitian. He held sidewalk office hours at the Farmers Markets in Palo Alto and Menlo Park to hear from constituents about things that interested them. I didn't learn much about the Vietnam War at UC Berkeley, even though I attended in middle age during the1980s and students who were refugees from South Vietnam were already attending--and succeeding. With the help of Amnesty International they gave a poetry reading and the first English translation of the dissident poet Nguyen Chi Thien, imprisoned in his native North Vietnam. Therefore I was teaching what I didn't know from the textbooks as a guide. Then I began to learn from community college students. The first lesson occurred at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill. A student told the story of his father, who was celebrated in the local papers when he volunteered to serve in Vietnam on the same day that he achieved U.S. citizenship, having immigrated from Portugal. When his father returned he wore his uniform and medals proudly around town until the family went to the corner market, where he was spit on by the owner. This man was not an antiwar activist. In fact he was quite disreputable, having a shop that sold things to young people out the back door that could not be properly purchased in the front. He was loud and belligerant. He spit on my student's father in American uniform because "you lost." We talked in class about this quite a bit. I was shocked because I thought only antiwar activists spit on U.S. soldiers, calling them "babykillers." The next lesson occurred at De Anza College. De Anza College is in Joe Simitian's Senate District 11. A student in my U.S. History class stood up in tears and told me and her classmates (only about 10% of whom were of Vietnamese ancestry) that the textbook was wrong, and that Ho Chi Minh was a war criminal. Shocked again, I asked her why and she talked about the imprisonment of the entire South Vietnamese officer corps and civilian government after the Communist victory of April 1975. Over a million people were imprisoned in "reeducation camps" which had been named by Ho Chi Minh when establishing them in North Vietnam in June 1961. This was 2003, and I had never heard of reeducation camps. Political imprisonment by the Socialist Republic is the primary reason for the largest immigration of Vietnamese to the U.S., through the H.O. program of the early 1990. The children were my students, and that is why they were here. I have since learned that Marianne Brems, at Mission College, began assigning experience stories from students in 1993. The essays are online. I learned upon talking with people who immigrated to the United States and with further study of established historical sources that when Ho Chi Minh's government, when handed the country of North Vietnam by the Geneva Accords of 1954, had systematically killed nearly 200,000 people who were landowners. It was only necessary to own a small bit of land, less than 1 acre, to be denounced and executed. This was all in North Vietnam. The South Vietnam middle class was protected by the Diem government and gradually by the U.S. forces whose presence was initiated by President Eisenhower. The purpose of U.S. forces was containing Communist aggression. The issues and materials about the Secret War in Laos and the Hmong who fought on the side of the United States that is the subject of AB2064 are growing as the people immigrate to the U.S. after being in refugee camps in Thailand for many years, only to face deportation to Laos --and sure death-- in 2004. Not a typo, 2004. This is the infusion of new immigration that has resulted in the demand for historical recognition in textbooks. Duc Nguyen, a filmmaker, has been coming to meetings and encouraging the application of Vietnamese American education professionals to the California Dept. of Education. He testified to the Curriculum Framework Committee public session in San Jose on May 30 that the current textbook on the Vietnam War for middle school students in Oakland contained 31 first-person essays. None of them were by a Vietnamese American. The significance of AB2064 is that it is inclusive of all immigrant groups and their experiences as they related to the Vietnam War. This is not only who came, and what they left, but why and how and what happened after they came to America. The Digital Clubhouse at the San Jose History Park has been doing an excellent job with this by having students interview immigrants. Sometimes it is their own family, sometimes others. I have learned so much but the most valuable lesson is cooperation among the new and the old. Senator Simitian responded immediately to the idea that AB064 is based on the success of the pioneer Black Studies movement in the 1960s and 1970s, which we both remember well. All the groups -- Latinos, the Women's Movement, Asian Americans from 19th and early 20th century immmigration, credit the Black Studies movement for curriculum inclusion as paving the way for citizen participation in education. Thank you, California Senate Education Committee for quickly sending AB064 to the Appropriations Committee. Jean Libby, editor VietAm Review http://vietamreview.blogharbor.com   more »

English translation by Nguyen Chi Thien, the author of Hoa Lo, Hanoi Hilton Stores (Yale University Council on Southeast Asia Studies, 2007) "The Vietnamese refugees who have their relatives who died in reeducation camps located in the jungles of North Vietnam (after the fall of Saigon) demanded that the remains of their relatives should be brought home. These graves have been neglected so long. The Vietnamese government has accepted this non-political humanitarian demand. HO/POW Association P. O. Box 8496 Pear Land TX 77584 Tel. 832-725-3231. USA, March 23, 2008 Translation on June 5, 2008. Thank you Mike Benge for alerting us about this new policy of the VN government.   more »