Madam Speaker. I rise to express my strong support for Senate Concurrent Resolution 16. calling on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to expedite the release and emigration of reeducation camp detainees. and I thank the gentleman from Virginia for his work on this legislation. Fourteen years have passed since the end of the Vietnam conflict. During the course of that conflict. thousands of opponents of the Socialist Government of Vietnam. including officials of the former Republic of Vietnam were detained without trial in reeducation camps. or prisons. since 1975. The 1980s saw a wave of amnesties granted which resulted in the release of many of these detainees. Nonetheless. despite these welcome releases. many thousands of Vietnamese citizens remain in longterm detention because of their suspected opposition to the current Vietnamese regime. This is in direct opposition to the publicly proclaimed position of the Vietnamese Government. which states that all detainees would be released and former detainees would be allowed to emigrate. By way of this resolution. the United States Congress will send a clear message to the Government of Vietnam that the release of the reeducation camp detainees is one of the highest priority items in our bilateral relations with that nation. At the July 1988 Hanoi negotiations. the United States and Vietnam agreed. in principle. on the resettlement of those released from the camps.
Keywords matched
emigrate emigration