Sunday, August 2, 2020

Talks Begin On Resettling Political Prisoners (Peter Eng)


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.

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