HANOI, Vietnam — The biggest obstacle to President Barack Obama’s hope to improve relations with Vietnam on his visit, which began Sunday, will be the communist nation’s dismal record on human rights.
Some residents can’t practice their religion. Other activists aren’t allowed to run for political office. And an increasing number of bloggers face retribution for calling for more freedom and transparency. Human-rights groups say nearly 100 dissidents are imprisoned in Vietnam.
The country has what a group of U.S. senators calls one of the most repressive regimes in the world, after other nearby communist countries like China and North Korea.
Vietnam remains very much a closed country. All political power lies firmly with the ruling Communist Party, which carefully monitors public and private lives. There is no independent media, and civil society groups cannot legally register unless they submit to the Communist Party’s control, said Rafendi Djamin, director of Amnesty International’s South East Asia and Pacific Regional office.
That will force Obama into a delicate balancing act as he tries to boost economic and military ties to the former enemy while not appearing to accept Vietnam’s actions on human rights.
“Obama should stand next to Vietnam’s leaders in public and call on them to respect the right to freely choose government representatives, stand for office, and peacefully advocate for democracy,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “If this trip is partially about legacy-building, as some suggest, there can be no more meaningful legacy than helping the people of Vietnam achieve fundamental reforms.”
The president will get his first chance Monday when he meets with Vietnam’s president, Tran Dai Quang. Obama’s visit, the third by a sitting U.S. president since U.S. troops left the country in the 1970s, also will include a speech to the nation.
Tuesday, Obama will meet with members of Vietnamese civil society, when he is sure to speak about human rights, said Ben Rhodes, president’s deputy national security adviser.
Before Obama left Washington, Vietnam released the prominent Catholic dissident Nguyen Van Ly, three months before an eight-year prison sentence was to end, a symbolic move on the eve of the presidential trip.
Still, Obama faces pressure from human-rights groups and lawmakers of both parties on Capitol Hill to push Vietnam to release all 100 prisoners, including Montagnard Christians ��a persecuted ethnic minority �� bloggers and dissidents.
That includes prominent Vietnamese human-rights lawyer, Nguyen Van Dai, who has been detained for five months without being able to see his lawyers and family. His wife, Vu Minh Khanh, told Congress last week that Dai was beaten and faces years in prison for allegedly violating a law that makes conducting propaganda against the state a crime. She called on Obama to push for his freedom.