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American Legion National Commander
calls for Senate vote on
Vietnam Human Rights Act of 2004
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INDIANAPOLIS, September 28,
2004 - The top official of the world’s largest veterans service organization
is calling on members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee to bring to
a vote a bill that aims to improve Vietnam’s worsening record on human rights
and religious freedom.
“Severe religious persecution is standard practice in Vietnam, and it is
worsening,” said Thomas P. Cadmus of Michigan, national commander of the
2.7-million member American Legion. “Hundreds of Christians, Buddhists and
followers of other faiths are in jail today, or under house arrest without
charges, for peacefully following beliefs that are not authorized by the
government.”
The Vietnam Human Rights Act of 2004, sponsored by Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J.,
passed by a 323-45 vote in the House on July 19. The Senate version was
introduced by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., on Sept. 9. It was referred to the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee where it has yet to be considered.
A similar measure passed by a 410-1 landslide in the House in 2001 but stalled
in committee after it was referred to the Senate. “The number of killings,
beatings and arrests of innocent worshipers in Vietnam since the death of that
bill is anyone’s guess,” Cadmus writes in an editorial released nationwide
today. “It is unconscionable to fail these prayerful people - so many of whom
are allies we left behind in Vietnam - because some members of the Senate won’t
so much as give this bill its day in court. By failing to act, the committee
also sends a message to Hanoi, which covets U.S. aid and trade but, as yet, has
been given no good reason to change its draconian human-rights policies.”
On Sept. 15, Vietnam was designated by the U.S. State Department as a “country
of particular concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act. The
designation is shared with North Korea, Iran, Burma, China, Eritrea, Saudi
Arabia and Sudan.
Among the primary targets of Vietnam’s religious persecution and human-rights
abuses are the Montagnard people of the central highlands who fought alongside
U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War. Christian Montagnards were reportedly attacked
and beaten by Vietnam government authorities during a prayer vigil last Easter
weekend. Numerous other abuses, including violence and church destruction, have
been widely reported since 2000. New laws in Vietnam are set to take effect Nov.
15 that would give the government greater freedom to restrict worship.
In the editorial, the commander calls upon all veterans and all Americans who
value freedom and human rights to demand immediate Senate action on the bill,
which will die at the end of the 108th Congress if not acted on. “To neglect our
former allies again is, at best, to subject them to Communist thought control,”
Cadmus states. “At worst, our lack of action delivers their death sentence …
America must do better.”
Thomas P. Cadmus, a U.S. Army veteran from Ypsilanti, Mich., is national
commander of the 2.7 million-member American Legion, the nation's largest
veterans organization.
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