BANGKOK,
Thailand (AP) _ U.S. and Vietnamese officials today opened talks on the United
States’ offer to resettle thousands of
people detained in ″reeducation″ camps after the Vietnam War, a Western
diplomat said.
The
Bangkok-based diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had no
details on the talks being held in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi. They were expected
to last two days.
Robert
L. Funseth, senior deputy assistant secretary of state for refugee programs,
leads the American negotiators.
Funseth will
seek emigration permission for some of the 900,000 former U.S. government
employees or officials of the South Vietnam government who Washington says have
spent time in reeducation. Only a handful have gone to the United States, the
world’s largest resettler of Vietnamese refugees.
The North
Vietnamese communists established the reeducation camps, which usually combined
manual labor with ideological study, after defeating U.S.-backed South Vietnam
in April 1975.
This week’s
talks were agreed upon during a meeting at the United Nations in June between Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach of Vietnam
and retired Gen. John W.
Vessey, a special U.S. presidential envoy.
In
announcing the talks, State Department spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley said most of
the inmates were detained because of their U.S. connections.
″For this
compelling humanitarian reason, we have repeatedly affirmed our strong
humanitarian desire to resettle those who wish in the United States as soon as
possible,″ she said.
The United States in 1984 said it was
ready to resettle all those detained for their U.S. ties, but progress was
stalled by the lack of diplomatic ties with Vietnam. Washington has tried to
isolate Vietnam because of its 9-year- old military occupation of Cambodia.
Vietnamese
leaders, calling for national reconciliation, freed hundreds of former South
Vietnamese officials in September 1987 and February this year.
Vice Minister of Information Phan Quang said on
Feb. 11 that only 150 former officials were still held.
After
meeting with Vessey, Thach said the former prisoners could leave but that the
United States must guarantee they won’t be allowed to engage in activities
hostile to Vietnam. U.S. officials have said this was not possible because of
the constitutional right to free speech.
Funseth’s
team also includes Jeffrey Millington, director of the State Department’s
office of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and Bruce Beardsley, director of refugee
affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok.
The talks
came a day after Vietnam repatriated what may be the remains of 25 American
servicemen missing in action from the war. It was one of the largest turnovers
ever. The remains were flown from Hanoi to an army laboratory in Honolulu for
analysis.
An official
Vietnam News Agency report seen today said Vietnam has returned the remains of
241 missing Americans and information on 45 others whose remains ″are
determined to be no longer in existence.″ A total of 1,761 Americans are still
missing in Vietnam.
SOURCE:
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