Tuesday
Mar232010
New Legislation Could Change U.S.-Vietnamese Relations
By Benny Martinez - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service
Rep. Ahn “Joseph” Cao (R-La) announced today at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom that he will introduce legislation that would reinstate Vietnam into the Countries of Particular Concern list.
A Country of Particular Concern is a designation from the State Department indicating that a nation is guilty of particularly severe violations of religious freedom under the International Religious Freedom Act.
The roots for the new legislation stem from religious freedom violations by the Vietnamese government. According to a statement released by the commission, Vietnam continues to backslide on human rights by discriminating against certain religious practices in the country, detaining some and forcing others to renounce their respective faiths.
Cao said that Vietnam is seeking to create a stronger relationship with the United States. Despite provisions in the Vietnamese Constitution that protect human rights, Cao said that discriminatory actions imposed against certain religions makes creating this relationship a futile effort.
“We have very real concerns about backsliding on issues of human rights and religious freedom issues,” Cao said. “It’s going to be very hard to have that kind of relationship, [and] it cannot happen without the improvements of human rights and religious freedom in Vietnam.”
Cao believes that designating Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern would shed light on the situation and help convince the Vietnamese government to sway from discriminating its own people.
Rep. Ahn “Joseph” Cao (R-La) announced today at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom that he will introduce legislation that would reinstate Vietnam into the Countries of Particular Concern list.
A Country of Particular Concern is a designation from the State Department indicating that a nation is guilty of particularly severe violations of religious freedom under the International Religious Freedom Act.
The roots for the new legislation stem from religious freedom violations by the Vietnamese government. According to a statement released by the commission, Vietnam continues to backslide on human rights by discriminating against certain religious practices in the country, detaining some and forcing others to renounce their respective faiths.
Cao said that Vietnam is seeking to create a stronger relationship with the United States. Despite provisions in the Vietnamese Constitution that protect human rights, Cao said that discriminatory actions imposed against certain religions makes creating this relationship a futile effort.
“We have very real concerns about backsliding on issues of human rights and religious freedom issues,” Cao said. “It’s going to be very hard to have that kind of relationship, [and] it cannot happen without the improvements of human rights and religious freedom in Vietnam.”
Cao believes that designating Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern would shed light on the situation and help convince the Vietnamese government to sway from discriminating its own people.
tagged 
Ahn Cao, Benny Martinez, Human Rights, Vietnam in Congress, News/Commentary
Ahn Cao, Benny Martinez, Human Rights, Vietnam in Congress, News/Commentary
Reader Comments (112)
Mr. Cao’s father was supporting a religious genocides before 1975 and the US government has done little to bring people like this to justice. What made Mr. Cao has the right to call Vietnam violates human right and religious freedom! His father was also guilty of wiping out Vietnam humanitarian existence from the face of the earth and creating the million of OA victims in years to come. Can we have justice for the Vietnamese victims?!?!!?
Edwin, you definitely sound like an idiot to me because what Mr. Cao's father did or supported, as you accused, did not remotely related to Mr. Cao's at all. In another argument, let's say, if your mom is a prostitute, does it mean your sister is a prostitute or guilty of being prostitution? Think about it. I am sorry for using the harsh language, but you sound like an educated man but your logic is poorly illustrated. The past Vietnam government (the Republic of Vietnam) was not a perfect one, and they paid that price already. So if the current communist government abuses its own people, Mr. Cao and other can rightly said so. Don't defend the wrong guys unless you are a beneficial blood sucker.
Prostitute has a uncharted history to whether or not to be considered a real professional career or not. In earlier day of the East cultures has been considered as taxable profession and today we may find such pleasures everywhere in the Western world. The former South Vietnamese government has considered as part of the army services can not be without. Hill no doubt has a history related to such back ground. That is OK. Mr. Cao should not used his political background to do god works
Hi Edwin Tran,
This country's law was based on the bible, that is why communist people does not understand. Do you know why in the currency we have "In God We Trust" or when you go to the courthouse you must hold the bible and say the truth? perhaps, the communist did not have any religious/ faith that why they imprisoned most of the high rank officers of South Vietnam to "Re-education Camp", push the women and children to wild land "Kinh Te Moi" and left them die with harsh environment? VC force two millions boat people to left their mother land with estimate about one million die in East Sea or rape by Malai, Thai pirates. Perhaps, a dish cleaner can becomes a communist leader so latter on his subordinates think they are God?
Learn American History Civil war and see how the Union treated the Dixie South goverment. They have kept the educated PEOPLE (the South goverment officers), no harsh treatment, no mistreat the women- children, leave the South's officers property and let them live free in their country.
If anyone love communist then they can go back to rat Cu Chi tunnel now or else.
In God We Trust meant American history wiped out the American Indian, your Presidential Palace turned into a White House and your Human Rights Headquarter based at Guantano. I felt sorry for you Hoooooo…Hooooo.
Yeah, Edwin, at least here you can disagree with Mr. Cao's work/decision publicly, it is your right. Try to do the same with the commies. It's alright if you are a commie lover, but please don't be a barbaric and inhumane.
You guys have no clues to what I have talked about ‘A commie talking to a bunch of idiots in the US!’
Ông Cao của cha đã được hỗ trợ một genocides tôn giáo, trước năm 1975 và chính phủ Hoa Kỳ đã làm ít để mang lại cho người dân như thế này để công lý. Điều gì làm ông Cao có quyền gọi Việt Nam, vi phạm quyền con người và tự do tôn giáo! Cha ông cũng đã được xoá sạch tội lỗi của Việt Nam ra khỏi sự tồn tại của nhân đạo từ mặt đất và tạo ra các triệu nạn nhân bị viêm khớp trong năm tới. Chúng tôi có thể có công lý cho nạn nhân Việt Nam ?!?!!?
Mại dâm có một lịch sử để thám hiểm hay không được coi là một nghề nghiệp thực sự chuyên nghiệp hay không. Trong ngày đầu của nền văn hóa Đông đã được coi là chuyên nghiệp chịu thuế và ngày hôm nay chúng tôi có thể tìm thấy niềm vui đó ở khắp mọi nơi trong thế giới của phương Tây. Chính phủ Nam Việt Nam trước đây đã được coi như là một phần của các dịch vụ quân đội không thể được mà không có. Hill nghi ngờ không có một lịch sử liên quan đến mặt đất trở lại như vậy. Đó là OK. Ông Cao nên không được sử dụng nền tảng chính trị của ông để làm công trình thần
Trong God We Trust có nghĩa là lịch sử nước Mỹ xóa sổ các người Mỹ Da do?, Dinh Tổng thống của bạn biến thành một Nhà Trắng và trụ sở Nhân quyền của bạn dựa vào Guantano. Tôi cảm thấy tiếc cho bạn Hoooooo ... Hooooo.
Bạn Những gã không có những đầu mối tới cái gì Tôi được nói về' Một cộng sản nói chuyện với Một bó (đàn) (của) những thằng ngốc trong Mỹ!'
hi Edwin Tran,
That Hoooo...Hoooo is a leading country in the world. Because we have freedom of speech and freely express opinions Which guaranty by law, You can not do that in Communist states because they will put you in jail, example look in google Father Ly, Lawyer Le Thi Cong Nhan and many other cases.
Tell me why PM Nguyen Tan Dung sent his kid to study in this country? Do you think you are contradicted yourself?perhaps, at some time the leader of Jungle people"barbaric, inhumane" realize they have done wrong and need to learn from better country? PM Nguyen Tan Dung know his time is coming, when the leader of Commies concerned the future, the children then the subordiates should prepares for themself, is that the reason why you come to this country hah Edwin?
Your time will come,
Hi Edwin,
Why not write in English? I respect your opinions, do not affraid, let people know where you from Edwin. How great the uncle Ho and his subordinates treated people? You said " A commie talking to bunch of idiots in US" huh? Let see whom is an idiot? Perhaps, VN Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung? Because he sent his kid to US to study? Or the dish cleaner commies leader Ho? I guess you educated better than previous leader commies because you proved that you know US history, let me guess, you are college graduate? If that the case you must do better than dish cleaner leader Ho?
Edwin, if you want to write in Vietnamese, write with your own words. Don't use the software translator to translate the language with your own writing. I am not sure you understand anything what you have just translated or not. Read it in Vietnamese again and see if it makes any sense to you. I am about to realize that I am wasting my time to argue with an idiot who don't even know what he is thinking or writing or translating.
The world most respected leaders would be Mr. Ly, Hill and Hoooo to the middle would be Ngo Dinh Diem and finally, but not least Nguyen Van Thieu. What do you want me to say top your comments, the language used on this site as if you were one of those from a new species.
What were the matter with you Hooo and Hilll. There are Russian, Polish, Chinese, Malaysian, Cambodian, American, Canadian and European studying in Vietnam. PM Nguyen Tan Dung has his children studying in the US is the freedom of choices we have in Vietnam. We do not humiliate to any children studying anywhere in te world. Obviously, Vietnam has more respects than you guys have in the US. No Communist leaders against whatever education? Yopu guys seen to be very narrow mineded. I have a Nails Diploma and doing nails is my Profession.You guys in the US must be very intelligent and all must have a degree and what you posted up here sounded more like a bunch of idiots! What shame if ones is carrying out studying abroad. I am saying you Nguy Kieu are a bunch of idiots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I guess the commie has gone because he got the tough resistance. I am sure he will come up other websites to spreads the communist propaganda. Like a coward and repeated like his leader he has hidden like Cu Chi rats, I seen he poping up few times and talks bad the oversea Viet. Keep an eye out there the pround oversea Viet.
Cu Chi showed the world the simple of power come from the Vietnamese fighting for independent and self-control!
Yes, rats we were because we love our own independent, rules and respects. You bunch of Nguy Kieu are and were ass kissers! I have no sympathy for you guys!
You Nguy Kieu must not forget those words from the heart and soul of President Bill Clinton “Nguy were a bunch of cowboys!”
Hi Edwin Tran,
it is a surprise that you are here and try to make a living like a girl...you are accepted now that America is where you and PM Nguyen Tan Dung kid to learn then I am respect that. History will judge the Viet Communist. If that the case then you should be quiet and listen so we can teach you something to improve your miserable life. For example, teach your comrades to respect America culture and Viet culture. Let Viet people talk freely with freedom of express oneself. Find a church to save your soul when time is come.
The religious could be your last resort to save your soul because of million of inocent people have died in the prison re-education camp and the East Sea. Because of people whom has lost their lives due to the harsh treatment that your leaders has imposed in the children and wives of the South Viet Nam officers.
Edwin is the prime example why Vietnam it is where it is today. From now on, I have to refer the commie pig Edwin is an 'it' so people can see how stupid it is. It wants to live and reminiscent about 40 years ago and it is very proud. It sings that song all year round to this day and to 50 years from now. It is the quintessential of a commie pig who just so proud of the fighting and remind everyone that it beat the American, it beat everybody. But it does not realize that it is ass kissing the chinese for its survival and take everything it can have an eye on.
PM dung makes about $1000/month or the average commie makes about $200 or less a month, but it can send their children to study abroad and buy many fancy cars, houses, prostitutes, mistresses. Where is the money come from it? Its father may have been a commie pig too, so the father steal and rob the ordinary money for its own family. But here is the catch, it is very proud of its father's action and it just enjoys the blood money that its father steals. It is the scum bag of its society and its father is the scum pig of the lowest piece of trash of the Vietnamese society.
For your information it, your PM dung (dung in English is a piece of sheesh). Please worship him and smell that dung as much as you can so you can be promoted one day to be a commie blood sucker.
And second reality, your dear uncle ho (ho is a prostitute or a whore in English).
You may become a dung ho one of these days.
Say my name properly mr. Edwin Tran because I am respect your opinions if you can not understand then I am explain to you, the basic right of human race is respect others. You have no basic human right just like your leader Ho whom has sucess profession as a dish cleaner to lead a educated communist people which you as another example profession Nails Diploma. No wonder with those knowlege and profession the Communist Viet Nam has earned one of the poorest country in the world.
You can bring that to your comrades and start to beg the world for aid and help. I guess you can face up to the world and proud yourself.
THIS CHURCH? THINK AGAIN!
To Sinead O'Connor, Pope Benedict's apology for church sex abuse rings hollow
Who's Blogging» Links to this article
By Sinead O'Connor
Sunday, March 28, 2010
When I was a child, Ireland was a Catholic theocracy. If a bishop came walking down the street, people would move to make a path for him. If a bishop attended a national sporting event, the team would kneel to kiss his ring. If someone made a mistake, instead of saying, "Nobody's perfect," we said, "Ah sure, it could happen to a bishop."
This Story
The pope's 'apology'? Not good enough.
How the pope can end the scandal
Beleaguered Vatican under pressure to be more open
Vatican had halted trial for accused priest
View All Items in This Story
View Only Top Items in This Story
The expression was more accurate than we knew. This month, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a pastoral letter of apology -- of sorts -- to Ireland to atone for decades of sexual abuse of minors by priests whom those children were supposed to trust. To many people in my homeland, the pope's letter is an insult not only to our intelligence, but to our faith and to our country. To understand why, one must realize that we Irish endured a brutal brand of Catholicism that revolved around the humiliation of children.
I experienced this personally. When I was a young girl, my mother -- an abusive, less-than-perfect parent -- encouraged me to shoplift. After being caught once too often, I spent 18 months in An Grianán Training Centre, an institution in Dublin for girls with behavioral problems, at the recommendation of a social worker. An Grianán was one of the now-infamous church-sponsored "Magdalene laundries," which housed pregnant teenagers and uncooperative young women. We worked in the basement, washing priests' clothes in sinks with cold water and bars of soap. We studied math and typing. We had limited contact with our families. We earned no wages. One of the nuns, at least, was kind to me and gave me my first guitar.
An Grianán was a product of the Irish government's relationship with the Vatican -- the church had a "special position" codified in our constitution until 1972. As recently as 2007, 98 percent of Irish schools were run by the Catholic Church. But schools for troubled youth have been rife with barbaric corporal punishments, psychological abuse and sexual abuse. In October 2005, a report sponsored by the Irish government identified more than 100 allegations of sexual abuse by priests in Ferns, a small town 70 miles south of Dublin, between 1962 and 2002. Accused priests weren't investigated by police; they were deemed to be suffering a "moral" problem. In 2009, a similar report implicated Dublin archbishops in hiding sexual abuse scandals between 1975 and 2004.
Why was such criminal behavior tolerated? The "very prominent role which the Church has played in Irish life is the very reason why abuses by a minority of its members were allowed to go unchecked," the 2009 report said.
Despite the church's long entanglement with the Irish government, Pope Benedict's so-called apology takes no responsibility for the transgressions of Irish priests. His letter states that "the Church in Ireland must first acknowledge before the Lord and before others the serious sins committed against defenceless children." What about the Vatican's complicity in those sins?
Benedict's apology gives the impression that he heard about abuse only recently, and it presents him as a fellow victim: "I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have experienced on learning of these sinful and criminal acts and the way Church authorities in Ireland dealt with them." But Benedict's infamous 2001 letter to bishops around the world ordered them to keep sexual abuse allegations secret under threat of excommunication -- updating a noxious church policy, expressed in a 1962 document, that both priests accused of sex crimes and their victims "observe the strictest secret" and be "restrained by a perpetual silence."
Benedict, then known as Joseph Ratzinger, was a mere cardinal when he wrote that letter. Now that he sits in Saint Peter's chair, are we to believe that his position has changed? And are we to take comfort in last week's revelations that, in 1996, he declined to defrock a priest who may have molested as many as 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin?
Benedict's apology states that his concern is "above all, to bring healing to the victims." Yet he denies them the one thing that might bring them healing -- a full confession from the Vatican that it has covered up abuse and is now trying to cover up the cover up. Astonishingly, he invites Catholics "to offer up your fasting, your prayer, your reading of Scripture and your works of mercy in order to obtain the grace of healing and renewal for the Church in Ireland." Even more astonishing, he suggests that Ireland's victims can find healing by getting closer to the church -- the same church that has demanded oaths of silence from molested children, as occurred in 1975 in the case of Father Brendan Smyth, an Irish priest later jailed for repeated sexual offenses. After we stopped laughing, many of us in Ireland recognized the idea that we needed the church to get closer to Jesus as blasphemy.
To Irish Catholics, Benedict's implication -- Irish sexual abuse is an Irish problem -- is both arrogant and blasphemous. The Vatican is acting as though it doesn't believe in a God who watches. The very people who say they are the keepers of the Holy Spirit are stamping all over everything the Holy Spirit truly is. Benedict criminally misrepresents the God we adore. We all know in our bones that the Holy Spirit is truth. That's how we can tell that Christ is not with these people who so frequently invoke Him.
Irish Catholics are in a dysfunctional relationship with an abusive organization. The pope must take responsibility for the actions of his subordinates. If Catholic priests are abusing children, it is Rome, not Dublin, that must answer for it with a full confession and a criminal investigation. Until it does, all good Catholics -- even little old ladies who go to church every Sunday, not just protest singers like me whom the Vatican can easily ignore -- should avoid Mass. In Ireland, it is time we separated our God from our religion, and our faith from its alleged leaders.
Almost 18 years ago, I tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on an episode of "Saturday Night Live." Many people did not understand the protest -- the next week, the show's guest host, actor Joe Pesci, commented that, had he been there, "I would have gave her such a smack." I knew my action would cause trouble, but I wanted to force a conversation where there was a need for one; that is part of being an artist. All I regretted was that people assumed I didn't believe in God. That's not the case at all. I'm Catholic by birth and culture and would be the first at the church door if the Vatican offered sincere reconciliation.
As Ireland withstands Rome's offensive apology while an Irish bishop resigns, I ask Americans to understand why an Irish Catholic woman who survived child abuse would want to rip up the pope's picture. And whether Irish Catholics, because we daren't say "we deserve better," should be treated as though we deserve less.
lucille6@mac.com