News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci
(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Smith Remarks - Jackson-Vanik

Date: June 23, 1998

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
(Senate - June 04, 1998)

JOINT RESOLUTION DISAPPROVING WAIVER AUTHORITY FOR VIETNAM

[Begin insert]

Mr. SMITH of New Hampshire. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to require Vietnam to provide freedom of emigration for the Vietnamese people before tax dollars from our constituents across America are used to further expand our government's trade relations with this communist regime. As provided for in the Trade Act of 1974, my resolution prohibits implementation of the President's decision yesterday to waive the freedom of emigration requirements with Vietnam.

I am pleased that Senator Helms, the distinguished Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has joined me as a sponsor of this joint resolution, and I commend my colleague, Congressman Rohrabacher, for introducing a companion measure in the House. I also note that our efforts are strongly supported by the Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Congressman Gilman, the Chairman of that Committee's panel on International Operations and Human Rights, Congressman Christopher Smith, and several other Members on both sides of the aisle in that chamber. Frankly, Mr. President, given the support for this resolution by the relevant Committee chairmen, one has to question why the Administration moved forward on this in March of this year and again yesterday. This is particularly troublesome given the fact that the President's own National Security Advisor stated this past December that the President would not move forward unless consultations with Congress went well. Clearly, the consultations did not go well.

When Congress considered and passed the amendment by Senator Jackson and Representative Vanik in the Trade Act of 1974, everyone at the time understood Congressional intent--free emigration was to be a condition for expanding U.S. trade relations with non-market communist nations.

Today, nearly two and a half decades later, we do not have free emigration provided to the people of Vietnam by the communist regime that took over that entire country by force in 1975. Moreover, the Administration has failed to make a convincing case to the Congress to justify President Clinton's decision to waive freedom of emigration requirements. Hanoi's record does not support this decision. Yes, Hanoi has taken some steps to permit more orderly departures in recent years, but there are still unwarranted delays, and I am very concerned that recent promises and pledges of cooperation have yet to be satisfactorily fulfilled.

Congressional intent was clear in 1974, and it has not changed since that time. U.S. policy is supposed to put freedom of emigration ahead of the trade interests some might have with this one-party communist state. We are supposed to be putting principle over profit, not the other way around.

I believe America should not abandon the Vietnamese people who long for respect for human rights and democratic freedoms. They were abandoned over two decades ago, and we simply cannot let it happen again. Jackson -Vanik requirements should not be waived for Vietnam if it is not absolutely clear that such a waiver would `substantially promote' freedom of emigration requirements as the law requires. This past March, State Department witnesses testified there had been `measurable' progress. The term measurable does not imply to me that we are seeing dramatic positive changes by Vietnam. I do not believe we have seen `significantly more rapid progress' which was the standard set by Secretary of State Albright herself last year during her visit to Vietnam. And I fail to see how the President's first waiver for Vietnam on March 9, 1998 has substantially promoted progress these past three months. If more people had been permitted to leave Vietnam in the last three months than we had seen over the last three years, then maybe the waiver would have, indeed, substantially promoted progress, but that has not happened, Mr. President, from what I have been told.