Can VietnamCan Vietnam Communists Do the Right Thing?

The Vietnam Communist Government is tripping over its heel again. It has been accusing the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation of telling lies in regards to the human rights violation committed against the Khmer-Krom people living in Kampuchea-Krom. Over and over again, it has proved to the world that what Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation has spoken is the truth about the human rights violations in Vietnam.

RFA in Vietnamese had interviewed Marco Cappato, a MEP from Italy, on December 20, 2008 about the Vietnam delegation’s visit to the European Parliament. Marco Cappato had mentioned that the Vietnam delegation had told the European Parliament that its government do not violate any human rights and refused to answer the questions in regards to religious freedom in relation to one of the Vietnamese Buddhist organisations and about the Khmer-Krom human rights issue. The best they can do is deny everything or refuse to give answer to the questions that they cannot answer without putting their reputation at risk.

The Vietnam Communist (VC) government of all levels not only abuse the rights of the Khmer-Krom living in Kampuchea-Krom but also to other members of the international community such as the current refusal of entry of Marco Giacinto Pannella who is a member of the European Parliament and President of the Transnationals Radical Party and Marco Perduca who is a member of the Italian Senate. Their visas were granted by the Vietnamese Embassy in Rome but got denied in Cambodia before they could board the airplane from Cambodia to Vietnam in the morning of December 23, 2008[1]. The purpose of their journey to Vietnam is to conduct the fieldwork and investigate the situations in regards to the human rights violation.

This abrupt change of plan on the Hanoi regime by denying MEPs’ entry obviously demonstrates Vietnam has many things to hide on human rights. The whole world now knows it first hand; it is only Vietnam continues to deny. Maybe Vietnam has its own definition to what human rights is and that definition is different to the rest of the world. However, this argument does not fly with the educated community and the free world any longer. The Hanoi regime is clearly embarrassing themselves in front of the whole world from this incidence.

If the Vietnam Communist Government has nothing to hide, why are they refusing to let Marco Giancinto Panella and Marco Perduca to enter Vietnam to see things on the ground themselves? After all, it has always said that Vietnam has no human rights issues. So what is it scared of? The Vietnam communists are very good when it comes to mischievous behaviour, but when it comes to law and orders, it does not seem to know how to do the right thing and often end up biting its own tail.

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez representing the largest Vietnam community outside of Vietnam in the world spoke in support of the Vietnam Human Rights Act 2007 had also said that over the past two and a half years she had been denied for visa to visit Vietnam three times. The government of Vietnam has been denying visa to visit Vietnam to anybody who works for a human rights organisation or supporting the human rights movement. Loretta Sanchez had also said that before being accepted in the WTO in January, the government of Vietnam assured the world that they would make significant progress in the area of human rights. But Vietnam continues to ignore its human rights issues. I wonder how long the Vietnam government can stay ignoring the human rights issues and start facing the truth. How can the international community trust them when many promises have been made but none were realised. This is the video clip to Loretta Sanchez’s speech in support of the Vietnam Human Rights Act 2007[2].

As time goes by the whole world continues to uncover how bad the citizens of Vietnam are being treated by the Vietnam Communist government, especially against the Khmer Krom people, while the advancement of technology today, has helped bringing out the truth and bleak situation from Khmer Krom homeland on the contrary to the rosy picture being painted by the Hanoi regime’s propaganda machine. The communist government of Vietnam has to stop hiding things and manipulating the free world; but start fixing the past wrongs with its own citizens. If the government of Vietnam is genuine about its national unity, then concretely offer Khmer Krom people a meaning freedom. One choice is to grant Khmer Krom the rights to self-determination. These Rights are intrinsically enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of Article 3 and Article 4, whereby Vietnam has proudly ratified it. Khmer Krom around the world has witnessed Vietnam’s ratification of the Declaration and do expect Vietnam to deliver and live by its words. Based on this Declaration, the Hanoi regime should change its disastrous and trickery course and mend major gaps with its indigenous peoples such as the Khmer Krom people. Khmer Krom people in homeland (the Mekong delta) have lost everything and have been turned into slaves on their own land by the Vietnamese occupiers is fundamentally genocidal to the Khmer Krom race. For Vietnam to build few houses (on foreign aid) for a few local Khmer Krom families designed to mend fences is not genuine and not viable for Khmer Krom’s long-term survival at all.