Republican Congressman Ed Royce must be getting tired of U.S. officials ignoring what he sees as Vietnam's “ugly human rights record.”
The latest offender to Royce's sensibilities on the subject is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
According to the veteran Fullerton congressman, Clinton celebrated Vietnam's
“breathtaking” progress at last week's “Historical Conference on the
American Experience in Southeast Asia” and ignored another chance to
pressure Vietnam's U.S. ambassador, who was in attendance, on
pro-Democracy reforms.
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In a guest editorial for The Hill,
Royce also slammed Clinton for pretending that Vietnam and the U.S. are
morally equivalent especially because Ho Chi Minh's followers massacred pro-American South Vietnamese after the war. He wrote, “Couldn't she muster just a 'Americans
regret that Vietnamese don't enjoy internationally recognized human
rights'?”
Royce went on to say that he's tired of hearing U.S.
State Department officials claim they are lobbying Vietnam's officials
for reforms when Clinton has “set the tone” for non-confrontational
relations.
“Many, many brave Vietnamese fighting for freedom
deserve better,” wrote Royce, whose Orange County congressional district
includes adamantly anti-communist, post-war refugees from Vietnam.
Royce also criticized Clinton for not seriously raising human rights concerns during her trip to Vietnam earlier this year.
Vietnam's leaders have said the U.S. should worry about its own internal messes.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.