Dana Rohrabacher: “this past Tuesday, on our Veterans Day, Vietnamese Communist Party officials in Hanoi confirmed that in the southern…”

“this past Tuesday, on our Veterans Day, Vietnamese Communist Party officials in Hanoi confirmed that in the southern province of Dong Nai, 40 miles from Saigon, several thousand people have been involved with clashes, in clashes, with police. Hundreds of women and children have been demonstrating for freedom and human rights outside of government offices, despite a heavily armed police presence in the area. By all accounts, including a report by the Human Rights Watch organization, the clashes started when the Communist Government intensified repression against the Catholic Church and the popular bishop of the Xuan Loc Diocese. In addition, land owned by the church has been confiscated and sold by corrupt Communist Party officials. Demonstrations against the corrupt Communist regime have also been occurring in other areas of the country. In north Vietnam, beginning in May of this year, ongoing demonstrations in the Thai Binh Province and a number of other historic Communist Party strongholds show growing public dissatisfaction with the rampant corruption of that country and the lack of freedom of the Vietnamese people. Recently, new directives and proclamations by the Communist Politburo have tightened State control of all other forms of media and have restricted access to foreign journalists and their translators.”