Speech #930095876

Since the mid1960s. we have contributed at least $6.5 million to keep political prisoners incarcerated in the now notorious South Vietnam prisons. Through the commodity import program we have underwritten the Thieu regimes budget. Although Robert Nooter of AID in his testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Refugees claimed that about onefourth of all the goods and services which the South Vietnamese population consumes comes through existing U.S. economic programs. he neglected to mention that much of this economic aid consists in part of TVs. "Hondas." and other "necessities" used to garner political support for the Thieu government. In comparison to the generous concern for economic and military stabilization in Indochina. the administrations lack of response and attention to humanitarian needs is appalling. Unless Congress insists that these funds go for humanitarian purposes. they will continue to be siphoned off to higher priority areas. I was especially pleased. therefore. that the committee has earmarked $5 million for the benefit of South Vietnamese children. who comprise half the population. The insufferable conditions in which the children of Indochina. most especially South Vietnam. are forced to live. have been graphically brought to the attention of the public by a series of newspaper and magazine articles as well as by the NBC television program. "The Sins of the Fathers." There have been at least two recent special missions to Indochina to review the conditions of refugees and other disadvantaged persons. Both returned with painful insight and understanding of the potential complexities inherent in our efforts to help. both also offered invaluable recommendations for action. Reports by the International Rescue Committee and the Senate Subcommittee on Refugees Special Mission to Vietnam describe the squalid and dangerously crowded conditions in which children try to survive as normally as possible. Half of the more than 750.000 persons crowded into approximately 128 refugee camps are children. some suffering from malnutrition. some with scrawny. diseased bodies. some with only mangled remnants of a body. There are some 700.000 to 800.000 known. and possibly as many as 1.5 million children who have lost one or both of their parents to the war. Some 23.000 of these orphans are known to be in approved orphanages in which the mortality rate is said to range between 50 to 70 percent due to pitifully inadequate conditions. .