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Kerry: Pointman For The Enemy In A New Vietnam War
By Thomas D. Segel
August 22, 2002

He comes from the place which gave us Plymouth Rock, The Pilgrims, The Boston Massacre, The Boston Tea Party and the first deaths of the American Revolution. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts may come from a land that epitomizes freedom and human rights, but according to many, he is doing everything possible to deny them for one small group of people.

Human rights advocates, Vietnamese immigrants, and veterans who fought the long, hard war in Vietnam all charge political gamesmanship at their expense. Kerry, who chairs the Senate Sub Committee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs has kept the Vietnam Human Rights Act bottled up and will not let it move on to the full Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This is the same human rights legislation that passed in the House of Representatives last September by a vote of 410 to 1.

Kerry, according to human rights advocate Greg Stock is an individual who refuses to be truthful about the bill and his involvement. "According to our sources in the Senate", he says, "Kerry is best described as a self centered, arrogant, elitist who will never budge". Additionally, Stock claims the Senator continues to tell the nation he is speaking for all veterans, when the people he is really speaking for are those with trade interests in both Vietnam and the United States.

In his defense, Kerry is a highly decorated combat veteran who commanded a river-patrol boat in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War. He has been held in high esteem throughout his state, repeatedly winning the votes of veteran and non-veteran alike. Now trying to establish a position for a run at the presidential nomination, he remains very popular in Massachusetts.

That popularity ends at the doorstep of organizations such as the humanitarian group, Save the Montagnard People. This band of activists claim the Vietnam Montagnard tribes are being subjected to "slow genocide" because of Kerry's stonewall tactics.

Their argument is the Communist leadership of Vietnam does not want the human rights legislation to see the light of day and Kerry is doing everything he can to assure it doesn't happen. He wants to develop strong trade with that country and feels anything which stands in the way of trade negotiations should be stopped. The Senator has publicly stated that ongoing relations with Vietnam will promote greater political freedom.

While making such statements and withholding legislation from public debate, he continues to push for increased aid and trade with that country. He defends his position of blocking the legislation saying, "I fear it may hinder rather than advance the cause of human rights in Vietnam." He further defends his position by claiming that denial of aid would actually slow down human rights improvements."

With all this dialog and positioning, he still refuses to allow full and meaningful debate on the Vietnam Human Rights Bill, which has the overwhelming support of Congress.

While legislation remains DOA in his sub committee, the 2002 State Department report on human rights has nothing positive to say about actions taking place in Vietnam. The report claims human rights conditions have even worsened as the government continues to inflict serious abuses on its population.

The most serious of charges have been reported from the Central Highlands, which are the traditional homeland of the fiercely independent hill tribes. During the Vietnam War, these Montagnard people allied themselves with the United States and fought beside Special Forces teams throughout the conflict. With the fall of that country, the people paid a huge price for their opposition and they are still paying today.

Government forces have had villages burned. Tribes people have been forced off their lands. They have been limited as to the amount of food they are allowed to raise, which is only at sustenance levels.

The Communists destroyed Montagnard Christian churches. The people have been placed in re-education camps. Women have been forced to accept sterilization. Mixed marriages between Montagnards and Vietnamese have been forced upon the population. There has even been a campaign to seduce or rape Montagnard women by the Vietnamese. All of this has been done to slowly eliminate the tribes as an ethnic population group.

In some cases the human rights abuses were even more aggressive. In 2001 the Montagnard's discontent erupted into a massive protest against government actions. This was answered with tanks, troops, guns and bullets. More than 1,000 Montagnards were forced to flee into neighboring Cambodia.

All of this has been documented in a 194 page Human Rights Watch report on the unbelievable conditions the Vietnamese have forced upon the tribes people.

The estimated 40,000 refugees living in Massachusetts are enraged that John Kerry would find the continued oppression of Montagnards and other Vietnamese an acceptable trade-off for his desire to advance aid and trade. More than 200 of these refugees have even taken to picketing outside his offices. Mike Benge, a former POW and advisor to the Montagnard Human Rights Group, is urging fellow Vietnam veterans to stand beside their friends in this important protest.

At the same time, supporters for Save the Montagnard People and Special Forces organizations are writing and calling their congressional represtatives across the country, in an attempt to get the Vietnam Human Rights Bill released from the Kerry Sub Committee vise-grip.

Will they be successful? Tune in this September.