July 2000

Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork

00 JUL 00: 2,014 Americans remain unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: ARMY: 638 (VN-10, VS-487; LA-106; CB-35; CH-0); NAVY: 409 (VN-280, VS-92; LA-28; CB-1; CH/OW-8); USMC: 255 (VN-24, VS-202; LA-21; CB-8; CH-0); USAF: 672 (VN-231; VS-165; LA-260; CB-16; CH-0); and CG: 1 (VN-0; VS-1; LA-0; CB-0; CH-0). 39 civilians remain unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: VS-22, LA-12, and CB-5. 569 Americans have been accounted-for post 1973: VN-409, LA-142, CB-16, and CH-2. 200 Americans have been accounted-for during the present administrations. PURSUIT STATUS: Further Pursuit: 1,170 (VN-245; VS-500; LA-373; CB-48; CH-4). Deferred: 202 (VN-60; VS-111; LA-28; CB-2; CH-1). No Further Pursuit: 642 (VN-240; VS-358; LA-26; CB-15; CH-3) Persian Gulf War - unsatisfactory accounting. Korean War - 8,139 remain unaccounted-for, 42 possible remains returned, 4 identifications. World War II - Over 78,000 remain unaccounted-for.

02 JUL 00: Military units and ships at seas around the world are receiving copies of the POW/MIA Recognition Day 2000 poster, according to Larry Greer of DoD's POW-Missing Personnel Office. Greer said the poster's somber black tones symbolize the darkness in the lives of those who suffer through the agony of having a loved one missing in action. Family members of missing personnel and veterans served as a "focus group" that helped decide design ideas appropriate for all conflicts and all the services, he said. This is the POW-Missing Personnel Office's second annual poster. The poster is available at Greer's office at (703) 602-2102 or download it from his office's Internet Web site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo.

03 JUL 00: Defense Secretary William Cohen urged China to aid the Pentagon's search for information on the fate of American servicemen missing from the Korean War by opening its military archives. Cohen raised the matter in a meeting with Qian Qichen, the vice prime minister, Cohen spokesman Kenneth Bacon said. The Pentagon has tried, unsuccessfully so far, to convince the Chinese government that its archives could provide important clues to the fate of some of the 8,100 US servicemen who remain unaccounted for from the Korean War. The Chinese military ran prisoner-of-war camps in North Korea after it intervened in the war in October 1950 to push US-led United Nations forces back from the Yalu River separating China and North Korea. The Pentagon also has information that China took some US POWs into China during the war. China repeatedly has denied it has any information about the fate of American GIs from Korea.

04 JUL 00: Blinded and burned, Navy pilot Thomas Biesterveld made a daring escape attempt after being shot down and captured during the Korean War nearly 50 years ago. He was never seen again. On the Fourth of July, Biesterveld's sister accepted on his behalf three of the military's highest honors -- the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War Medal. "He went through what must have been hell on Earth," said Bernice Schlosser, who received the medals on her 74th birthday. "It is truly an amazing story about an individual gone for 50 years," said Navy spokesman Chief Petty Officer Mike Morley. "He is a genuine hero in every sense of the word." Growing up in Eau Claire, Biesterveld always wanted to be a flier and joined the Navy in high school, Schlosser said. Assigned to fight in North Korea, the 22-year-old ensign was flying a combat mission in a F4U-4 Corsair against North Korean ground forces in spring 1951 when he was shot down. Severely burned while bailing out of his aircraft, he was captured and placed with a group of POWs. Biesterveld and a Marine aviator tended to each other's injuries. Biesterveld could not see, but could walk; the Marine could see but needed help to walk. Together the two escaped, helping each other west. Biesterveld regained partial vision, but as they neared Chorwon, they were recaptured. Biesterveld was last seen alive in June 1951 with an injured Army officer as oxen were taking the two away. It is believed he was taken to Wonsan or Pyongyang and died in a primitive military hospital. Biesterveld was one of 286 Navy personnel unaccounted for in the Korean War. He was officially presumed dead on Feb. 24, 1955. His family always believed Biesterveld died and was buried in Korea, she said. "We have a marker next to my parents in St. Patrick's Cemetery in Eau Claire," Schlosser said. "I put flowers on it every year for him."

5 JUL 00: POW-MIA Poster Availabl
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, July 18, 2000 -- Military units and ships at seas around the world are receiving copies of the POW/MIA Recognition Day 2000 poster, according to Larry Greer of DoD's POW-Missing Personnel Office.

Greer said the poster's somber black tones symbolize the darkness in the lives of those who suffer through the agony of having a loved one missing in action. Family members of missing personnel and veterans served as a "focus group" that helped decide design ideas appropriate for all conflicts and all the services, he said. This is the POW-Missing Personnel Office's second annual poster. The POW/MIA Recognition Day poster is en route to troops and veterans and family organizations worldwide. The poster is available on the Internet at www.dtic.mil/dpmo. (Click photo for screen-resolution image; high-resolution image available.)

The office polled the services and veterans and family organizations and printed 116,000 copies of the poster for their use, Greer said. Family members of missing personnel who would like to have a poster may contact their respective family organizations, or Greer's office at (703) 602-2102 or download it from his office's Internet Web site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo.

He said his office will periodically post information on the Web site about POW/MIA Recognition Day -- the third Friday of September -- to help installations plan local observances.," Greer noted. The day falls on Sept. 15 this year.

People visiting the Web site also will find a lot of information about what the government is doing concerning servicemen missing in action, Greer said.

"Two years ago, we were only getting about 2,000 weekly requests for information on our Internet Web site. Now we're getting as many as 62,000 weekly requests for files of different documents -- posters, newsletters and other information."

11 JUL 00: Iraq released the names of 1,143 Iraqis it said went missing during the 1991 Gulf War, which ended its seven-month occupation of Kuwait. "Up until today the number of Iraqis who went missing since the war totaled 1,143,'' Hisham Hassan Tawfeeq, head of a newly established committee for the missing in action, told reporters. Tawfeeq said the number of missing was growing daily as new names were registered. "The committee, for example, today received names of 12 people whose families say they went missing during the war,'' he said. He accused Kuwait of being unwilling to provide information on the fate of the missing Iraqis and appealed to world leaders to put pressure on the country to cooperate. For its part, Kuwait says about 605 people - including 550 Kuwaitis and the rest of various nationalities - have been reported missing since the 1990 Iraqi occupation of the emirate. Baghdad denies it is still holding Kuwaitis or any other prisoners of war and claims that Kuwait is using the issue as an excuse to prolong UN sanctions against Iraq. Revealing the fate of the missing Kuwaitis is a key condition for lifting the decade-long UN embargo. Iraq has always maintained its forces took no prisoners from Kuwait when U.S.-led multinational forces in early 1991 forced them out.

The death certificate has been typed onto thin brown paper, with thick carbon-paper keystrokes. The document is creased and smudged from three decades of folding and weeping, but this much remains clear: Le Duy Hien, age 26, was killed on May 5, 1968. Hien is one of some 300,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers still missing in action from what is known here as the American War. The Vietnamese government, strapped for money then and now, has never been able to mount much of a search-and-recovery effort for its MIAs, and the official program has been so limited and patchwork that the Ministry of Defense doesn't even have reliable figures on the number of remains that have been recovered. Hanoi does not search for missing soldiers from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the former South Vietnam, nor does it include ARVN soldiers in its estimates of the missing. Indeed, cemeteries of southern war dead are often neglected and untended by the government. Meanwhile, the United States continues its painstaking search for the 2,017 Americans still listed as MIA in Southeast Asia -- 1,514 of whom are missing in Vietnam. The cost is about $1 million per excavation, and the US government wants to track down and repatriate every missing soldier. Since January 1992, when MIA-recovery efforts first resumed in Vietnam, 251 American soldiers have been recovered.

13 JUL 00: Despite years of assistance in helping the United States find American soldiers missing in action from the Vietnam War, a senior military official in Hanoi says the US government has provided almost no reciprocal help in Vietnam's own attempts to locate some 300,000 of its missing soldiers. "The United States administration has not given us any help yet," said Col. Do Quang Binh, deputy director of policy for the Ministry of Defense. "We'd like more cooperation, but I'd like to say that so far we have only received cooperation from non-governmental (veterans) organizations." US Ambassador Pete Peterson was clearly taken aback by Binh's remarks, especially because they come just as the two countries are about to celebrate five years of full diplomatic relations. President Clinton normalized relations with communist Vietnam exactly five years ago, on July 11, 1995, a year after the US trade embargo was lifted. Peterson took pointed exception to the colonel's remarks on the MIA issue, saying the United States has given Hanoi "reams of archival material" while opening US military archives to Vietnamese researchers. Peterson said US assistance has helped the Vietnamese locate "well over 800 bodies," and he said there is an agreement pending for US experts to train Vietnamese forensic specialists. "We've actually done a lot," Peterson said. "It's a commitment we're trying to increase." Washington places a high priority on the search for the remaining 2,017 American MIAs in Southeast Asia, and Peterson has been publicly appreciative of Vietnam's assistance, saying the two countries have built "a real partnership" on the MIA issue. "It's one of our big success stories here," said Peterson, himself a Vietnam veteran and a former prisoner of war in Hanoi. "This is a very, very serious issue with us.

It's the No. 1 issue in our relationship to Vietnam, and it's not taking a back seat to anything we do here." However, Binh and other military officers suggest that a so-called partnership on the MIA issue has been anything but. One US officer acknowledged, for example, that American personnel do not officially participate in Vietnamese searches or excavations. "We don't get involved in that, not at all," said the officer, attached to the US MIA office in Hanoi, which is known as the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA). "That's not part of our mission." Binh became angry and shaken when he was asked if US soldiers had provided decent battlefield burials during the Vietnam War. "No, no, no, the Americans didn't bury our Vietnamese properly at all," Binh said as his coterie of military aides nodded in agreement. "They used earth-moving machines to push large numbers of bodies into mass graves. They also used fuel oil to burn up dead bodies. We have evidence of this from (US) veterans associations. American soldiers themselves are the living testimony to this." Peterson acknowledged that the battlefield burials of more than 100 soldiers "probably would involve machinery." "That should not be a surprise," he said. Binh was complimentary of the efforts of individual US veterans who have sent documents, map coordinates and soldiers' personal artifacts to Hanoi. "That information has been very welcome," he said, "and we'd like even more cooperation."

One US expert based in Hanoi said information provided by members of two veterans groups -- the Vietnam Veterans of America and the Veterans of Foreign Wars - have helped Vietnam locate thousands of its missing soldiers. "The (US) veterans have been extremely effective," said a JTF-FA supervisor who asked not to be identified. Eddie Pine of Fort Worth is one of those individual veterans who has provided information to the Vietnamese about mass burials of communist soldiers. In November 1968, Pine was attached to an armored cavalry regiment that saw action near the town of Loc Ninh, in southern Vietnam, near the Cambodian border. After one battle, Pine says, the bodies of about 150 North Vietnamese soldiers were gathered up. "We buried them in a mass grave with a bulldozer," Pine said. Pine returned to Vietnam earlier this year and met with a group of Vietnamese veterans. They had lunch and traded war stories, and Pine gave them map coordinates of the big gravesite. It was not immediately known if the site has been excavated.

17 JUN 00: The last thing fellow prisoners heard from "Rocky" Versace was the battered Army captain defiantly singing "God Bless America" in his cell the night before his execution. The communist Viet Cong executed Capt. Humbert Roque "Rocky" Versace in September 1965 following two years of captivity marked by the captain's stubborn refusal to compromise the US military Code of Conduct for prisoners of war and his repeated attempts to escape his captors. Thirty-five years later, in an unprecedented development, the commandant of the US Marine Corps, Gen. James L. Jones, is adding the prestige of his office to an effort to bestow the Medal of Honor on the deceased hero. Colleagues nominated him for the Medal of Honor in late 1969, but the Army downgraded it to a posthumous Silver Star. The Friends of Rocky Versace, an informal group that has lobbied in support of the medal application, has provided The Stars and Stripes a letter dated April 28 and addressed to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki that came to their attention only two weeks ago. The letter says, in part: "[Capt. Versace] was captured by the Viet Cong and held as a prisoner for nearly two years. Throughout his captivity, he vehemently rejected his captors' indoctrination efforts and attempted to escape four times. Despite the brutal physical and mental abuse to which he was subjected, he never lost his will to resist. His focused determination so confounded his captors that they executed him in September 1965. "His absolute adherence to the West Point Creed Of 'Duty, Honor, Country' provided an inspirational example to his fellow prisoners. Furthermore, his heroic determination to resist reflected an extraordinary amount of valor and conspicuous personal sacrifice. It would be fitting for our nation to recognize this by awarding Captain Humbert Versace the Medal of Honor," Jones wrote. Word of Versace's heroism first emerged from the jungle when a fellow prisoner, Army Col. Nick Rowe, escaped on Dec. 31, 1968 and began telling the world about him. "They couldn't even bend him, they couldn't break him," said Rowe, who went on to write a memoir on his captivity, "Five Years to Freedom," and to lobby to have his friend awarded the nation's highest decoration for valor. "He set an example for me in particular and the other POWs in the camp," Rowe said in a 1969 speech at West Point. "He died for what he believed in. He died for his actions, but he is a man who I believe will be remembered, and I am going to see that he is remembered." Communist rebels in the Philippines killed Rowe in 1988. The quest for a Medal of Honor for Versace languished until the Friends of Rocky Versace re-ignited the crusade in early 1999. The medal application so far has been screened by the Awards Branch of the Army's Personnel Command and evaluated by the standing committee of four Army lieutenant generals. The arduous process also involves scrutiny by the Army Chief of Staff, the Secretary of the Army, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, the Senate Armed Forces Committee and, finally, the president. Further developments on this story will appear on www.stripes.com.

18 JUN 00: Germany signed a historic deal on Monday to pay 10 billion marks ($4.8 billion) to nearly a million Nazi slaves and forced laborers in what is likely to be the last great payout for the crimes of the Third Reich. Representatives from Germany, the United States, Eastern Europe and Israel signed the agreement along with a battery of high-powered US attorneys, whose lawsuits against German companies prompted the deal. "With this agreement we can close a last open chapter of the past," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told reporters. "More than 50 years after the end of World War Two and the Nazi dictatorship we are making a long-awaited humanitarian gesture to all former Nazi forced laborers. "It underlines that we are conscious of the German past and will remain so," said Schroeder, whose own father died in World War Two fighting when he was a baby. "It is a long-term sign of our historical and moral responsibility." In 1944 Germany used 10 million foreign civilians and prisoners of war as laborers in some of the country's largest companies, in small firms and even within church organizations. "This agreement does not end moral responsibility for the Holocaust," chief US negotiator Stuart Eizenstat said at the signing ceremony. "Nothing can erase the memory of those who died or the culture and potential achievements lost or the suffering of those who survived." "At the same time, this historic agreement does help to close a chapter for those who have waited so long for some measure of justice," he said.

19 JUN 00: As the first follow-up action to last month's historic inter-Korean summit, the Red Cross societies of the two Koreas have agreed to allow members of the first group of separated families to meet on the occasion of this year's National Day. Under the agreement, reached between the two sides last week at North Korea's Kumgangsan Hotel, 100 members of dispersed families from each side will visit Seoul and Pyongyang on Aug. 15-18 to meet long-lost family members and relatives. Millions of South Koreans hope that the upcoming exchange visits will open ways for them to locate their long-missing family members and relatives across the border and to meet with them on a regular basis without fear of political consequences. They further hope that the landmark visits will promote exchanges and cooperation between the two Koreas in various areas. They eventually hope to see their divided land peacefully reunited, putting an end to an era of tragic division and armed confrontation that has lasted for half a century.

20 JUN 00: The fires burning in Manchuria the night of Nov. 29, 1952, signaled to Louisville native Norman Schwartz and his fellow pilot that Li Chun-ying had completed his work in Communist China. Li, a Western spy, awaited removal from his desolate hiding place. This kind of Cold War mission was not new to the Civil Air Transport crew. Schwartz's plane was shot out of the sky in an ambush that the U.S. government waited almost 20 years to admit had occurred. Schwartz and cockpit mate Robert Snoddy were killed. The CIA agents were captured. Louisville will honor Schwartz, who was 30 when he died, and others who perished in the East-West conflict by dedicating a Cold War meditation area at Taylor Memorial Park on Poplar Level Road. The American Legion estimates the West's Cold War toll at more than 350 dead. A simple limestone bench and plaque surrounded by a garden, the monument is likely the first in the nation to focus on the Cold War.

No. 421-00
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 20, 2000
REMAINS OF U.S. SERVICEMEN RECOVERED IN NORTH KOREA
Remains believed to be those of 12 American soldiers, missing in action from the Korean War, will be repatriated Saturday, July 22, Korea time.
The remains will be flown on a U.S. Air Force aircraft from Pyongyang, North Korea, to Yokota Air Base, Japan, under escort of a uniformed U.S. honor guard.
A joint U.S.-North Korean team operating in Unsan and Kujang counties, about 60 miles north of Pyongyang, recovered the remains during an operation that began June 25. The area was the site of battles between Communist Chinese forces and the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, and 2nd and 25th Infantry Divisions in November 1950.
The 20-person U.S. team is composed primarily of specialists from the Army's Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii. This recovery operation is the 13th in North Korea since 1996. Four more are scheduled for this year, with the fifth operation scheduled to conclude on Veterans Day, November 11, 2000. As a result of negotiated agreements with the North Koreans, led by the Defense Department's POW/Missing Personnel Office, 54 sets of remains have been recovered and five have been positively identified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors. Another 10 are nearing the final stages of the forensic identification process
Of the 88,000 U.S. servicemembers missing in action from all conflicts, more than 8,100 are from the Korean War.

21 JUN 00: For dozens of former South Vietnamese "lost commandos" now living in Southern California, a US government compensation program has been successfully concluded, thanks to years of effort by an ex-Senate lawyer named John Mattes. However, for their former colleagues still living in Vietnam, unexpected problems have arisen that may thwart the will of Congress. The Vietnamese government has threatened to block US payments until an agreement can be reached, a condition the Pentagon says could take months or even years to resolve. Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), whose district is home to most of the ex-commandos, has pledged to look into the impasse at the request of Mattes, a former aide to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA) who has fought legal battles on behalf of the men. Mattes worked four years to get recognition and back pay for about 200 surviving "lost commandos" who had volunteered to help US forces in Vietnam. Dropped behind enemy lines by the CIA in the 1960s, most were killed or captured by North Vietnamese units with inside information on their plans. Those commandos who were not killed were brutally interrogated, starved to death or kept in shackles for years.

22 JUN 00: The remains believed to be those of 12 American soldiers missing since 1950 were returned to the United States July 22. A joint U.S.-North Korean team found the remains about 60 miles north of the capital of Pyongyang. The area was the scene of fierce fighting between US and Chinese forces in November 1950. Bob Jones, deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW/MIA Affairs, said he was extremely pleased with the results of the joint effort. "These are very emotional affairs," Jones said during an interview. "We are welcoming back to American soil individuals who have been standing in the defense of their country for over 50 years. They have been lost and we are beginning the process to return them to their loved ones." The remains are believed to be those of men who fought with the 1st Cavalry Division, the 2nd Infantry Division and the 25th Infantry Division. This brings the total to 54 sets of remains repatriated from North Korea since the effort started in 1996, said Larry Greer, a spokesman for the POW/MIA office. Five sets of remains have been identified and 10 others are in the final stages of identification, DoD officials said.

23 JUN 00: Iraq's parliament rejected a US claim that Baghdad was still holding Kuwaitis missing since the 1991 Gulf War. The speaker of parliament, Saadoun Hammadi, said in a letter to the US Congress that Iraq is no longer holding Kuwaitis or anyone else as prisoners of war. "Iraq had released all Kuwaitis and other prisoners of war under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) after the (Gulf War) ceasefire in 1991,'' Hammadi said in the letter carried by the Iraqi News Agency. He denied claims that Iraq was impeding the work of a committee formed soon after the Gulf War to discuss the fate of the missing in action. Kuwait says that about 605 people -- including 550 Kuwaitis -- have been reported missing since the 1990 Iraqi occupation of the emirate. Baghdad says that Kuwait has withheld information on the fate of 1,150 missing Iraqis. Iraq has been boycotting a committee determining the fate of the missing, objecting to the participation of the United States, Britain and France. "Iraq has announced time and again readiness to resume participation in the meetings of the tripartite committee to clarify the fate of missing Kuwaitis, Iraqis and other nationalities on condition the meetings are not attended by countries that have no missing persons,'' Hammadi said. The UN Security Council says that accounting for the missing is one of the conditions Iraq must meet before it will lift sanctions imposed after its invasion of Kuwait. Iraq has always maintained its forces took no prisoners from Kuwait when U.S.-led multinational forces forced them out.

24 JUN 00: For your archives -
June 2000 issue of SOLDIER Magazine (US ARMY Publication) features a story on the liberation of Stalag Luft VII and the raising of the American flag over the camp at the time of leberation... the flag, itself a POW, was hidden between 2 woolen blankets and carried on a forced march from Stalag III to Poland to finally be flown as tanks and troops broke down the gates of the camp. June 2000 VIETNAM Magazine features a story on the capture and escape of Isaac Camacho from Cambodia. Camacho, known as Ike, was a member of the elite 77th Special Forces and then, during his second tour, the 5th Special Forces and served with Nick Rowe. Captured by the VC he was transferred to Cambodia, from which he escaped 20 months later.

25 JUN 00: Kuwait's defense minister said he was ready for talks with Iraq, the Gulf emirate's former occupier, in return for the release of Kuwaitis and others whom Kuwait says are still held by Iraq. "I have no objections to sitting with the Iraqis on condition they release 10 percent of prisoners of war and Kuwaiti hostages and others who number more than 600...to end this humanitarian issue,'' Sheikh Salem Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah said. The official Kuwait News Agency carried his speech. The surprise announcement came almost 10 years after Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and occupied it for seven months until a U.S.-led multinational force drove out its forces. Sheikh Salem heads a state body in charge of seeking the release of 600 people missing since the conflict that Kuwait calls prisoners of war. Iraq has repeatedly denied holding the 600 people missing since the 1990-91 Gulf crisis. Sheikh Salem qualified his offer of talks by saying ``Kuwait would not accept bilateral talks with Iraq except under the umbrella of allied states'' which fought in the 1991 Gulf War to drive the Iraqis from Kuwait. Iraq "must release several of our prisoners of war as a goodwill gesture,'' he added. Iraq has been boycotting a humanitarian committee trying to determine the fate of the missing, objecting to the participation of the United States, Britain, and France, leading members of the coalition, which drove it from Kuwait. Sheikh Salem called on Iraq to attend the meetings sponsored by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to end the "humanitarian tragedy.'' The United Nations has also called on Baghdad to cooperate with it in trying to determine the fate of the missing. The UN Security Council says that accounting for the missing is one of the conditions Iraq must meet before it will lift sanctions imposed after its invasion of Kuwait. Baghdad says that Kuwait has withheld information on 1,150 missing Iraqis.

26 JUN 00: H.J. Res. 99-Disapproving the Extension of Emigration Waiver Authority to Vietnam. Floor Situation: On Monday, July 24, 2000, the House approved a unanimous consent agreement that waives all points of order against the joint resolution, allows one hour of debate equally divided between the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means (in opposition) and a Member in support. Summary: H.J. Res. 99 disapproves President Clinton's decision to waive certain emigration requirements on behalf of Vietnamese citizens entering the U.S. As proposed, the president's waiver makes Vietnam eligible for certain U.S. government financial incentives, such as loan credits and guarantees. The Jackson-Vanik provisions of the 1974 Trade Act (P.L. 93-618) prohibit countries with nonmarket economies from engaging in trade operations with the U.S. if those countries (1) deny citizens the right or opportunity to emigrate to other countries, including the U.S.; (2) impose more than a nominal tax on emigration, documents used for emigration, or for other purposes; or (3) impose more than a nominal tax or other charge on any citizen if they express a desire to emigrate to another country. Countries who violate any of these provisions cannot enjoy normal trade relations with the U.S. unless (1) the president waives the emigration prohibition because he determines the waiver will "substantially promote" the Jackson-Vanik objectives in that country; and (2) the president receives assurances that the country's emigration practices will, in the near future, lead substantially to achievement of Jackson-Vanik objectives for that country. Generally, allowing citizens of other nations to freely emigrate to the U.S. allows the native country to enjoy certain financial benefits, such as access to U.S. government credits and investment guarantees (similar to those administered by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank), and the Department of Agriculture). H. J. Res. 99 arises from a presidential executive order issued June 2, 2000. Currently, Vietnam does not enjoy normal trade relations (NTR) with the U.S.; if it did, it would not need to have emigration practice restrictions waived by the president. Negotiations between the U.S. and Vietnam on granting NTR began in 1997 and remain in progress. Until the negotiations are completed, and without the use of other economic incentives to encourage governments to ensure greater freedoms to their citizens, the U.S. relies on trade sanctions to continue as an option to encourage emigration for citizens of foreign countries. H. J. Res. 99 was introduced by Mr. Rohrabacher on June 6, 2000, and was adversely reported by the Committee on Ways & Means by voice vote on June 28, 2000. A CBO cost estimate was unavailable at press time.

28 JUN 00: Anticipated Floor Action: H.J. Res. 99-Disapproving the extension of the waiver of authority in section 402(c) of the Trade Act of 1974 with respect to Vietnam H.R. 4942-FY 2001 District of Columbia Appropriations Act. (Possible votes on bills considered Tuesday, July 25)* * * Bills Considered under Unanimous Consent. H.J. Res. 99--Disapproving the Extension of Emigration Waiver Authority to Vietnam. Floor Situation: On Monday, July 24, 2000, the House approved a unanimous consent agreement that waives all points of order against the joint resolution, allows one hour of debate equally divided between the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means (in opposition) and a Member in support. Summary: H.J. Res. 99 disapproves President Clinton's decision to waive certain emigration requirements on behalf of Vietnamese citizens entering the U.S. As proposed, the president's waiver makes Vietnam eligible for certain U.S. government financial incentives, such as loan credits and guarantees. The Jackson-Vanik provisions of the 1974 Trade Act (P.L. 93-618) prohibit countries with nonmarket economies from engaging in trade operations with the U.S. if those countries (1) deny citizens the right or opportunity to emigrate to other countries, including the U.S.; (2) impose more than a nominal tax on emigration, documents used for emigration, or for other purposes; or (3) impose more than a nominal tax or other charge on any citizen if they express a desire to emigrate to another country. Countries who violate any of these provisions cannot enjoy normal trade relations with the U.S. unless (1) the president waives the emigration prohibition because he determines the waiver will "substantially promote" the Jackson-Vanik objectives in that country; and (2) the president receives assurances that the country's emigration practices will, in the near future, lead substantially to achievement of Jackson-Vanik objectives for that country. Generally, allowing citizens of other nations to freely emigrate to the U.S. allows the native country to enjoy certain financial benefits, such as access to U.S. government credits and investment guarantees (similar to those administered by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank), and the Department of Agriculture). H.J. Res. 99 arises from a presidential executive order issued June 2, 2000. Currently, Vietnam does not enjoy normal trade relations (NTR) with the U.S.; if it did, it would not need to have emigration practice restrictions waived by the president. Negotiations between the U.S. and Vietnam on granting NTR began in 1997 and remain in progress. Until the negotiations are completed, and without the use of other economic incentives to encourage governments to ensure greater freedoms to their citizens, the U.S. relies on trade sanctions to continue as an option to encourage emigration for citizens of foreign countries. H. J. Res. 99 was introduced by Mr. Rohrabacher on June 6, 2000, and was adversely reported by the Committee on Ways & Means by voice vote on June 28, 2000. A CBO cost estimate was unavailable at press time.

30 JUL 00: PROPOSED FAMILY UPDATE SCHEDULE - 2000 - 2001
2000
29 July - Milwaukee, WI
26 August - Knoxville, TN
23 September - Seattle, WA
21 October - Pittsburgh, PA
18 November - Miami, FL

2001
20 January - Las Vegas, NV
24 February - San Francisco, CA
17 March - San Antonio, TX
21 April - Cheyenne, WY
19 May - Atlanta, GA
June/July 2001 - Annual Family Conferences - Briefing TBA
18 August - St. Paul, MN
15 September - Providence, RI
20 October - Orlando, FL
17 November - Little Rock, AR

31 AUG 00: REMINDER -
DOD/DPMO Family Updates - 22/23 SEP Seattle, WA

POW-MIA Issue Update August 2000