Joseph Cao: “The state of human rights in Vietnam is very poor and it's growing worse.”

And therefore I would ask the Congress to take actions now to back up our dialogue with action to show Vietnam that these are no longer empty words.

Do not listen to what they say but watch what they do.

When you deprive people their rights to live in dignity, to hope for a better future, to have control over their lives--when you deprive them of that choice, then you expect them to fight for these rights.

What transpired in Vietnam after the Communist takeover could only be described by analogously linking the tragedy of Vietnam to such unconscionable events in human history as the Holocaust, the Killing Fields and the Great Purge.