Obama presses Vietnam on human rights

HANOI, Vietnam, May 24 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama urged Vietnam to improve its record on human rights Tuesday on the second day of his historic three-day visit to the Southeast Asian country.

"Upholding these rights is not a threat to stability but actually reinforces stability and is the foundation of progress," Obama said in a speech to about 2,300 government officials and students from five universities.

He was warmly greeted during his talk at Hanoi's National Convention Center but drew silence when he spoke about human rights.

"Vietnam will do it differently than the United States does ... But there are these basic principles that I think we all have to try to work on and improve," he said. "That's how a Facebook starts. That's how some of our greatest companies began."

Earlier in the day, he met with six activists, including a pastor and advocates for disabled and sexual minorities. None were not allowed to attend the speech.

Some prominent activists, including a well-known blogger and journalist, Pham Doan Trang, failed to show for the meeting. Trang arrived in the Vietnamese capital from Ho Chi Minh City on Monday, but no one has seen him since, said Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch.

"Vietnam has demonstrated itself that it doesn't deserve the closer ties the U.S. is offering," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. "Detaining or preventing civil society from meeting President Obama is not just an insult to the president, it's also a human rights abuse in itself, a deprivation of the right to freedom of expression and freedom of movement."

Human Rights Watch estimates about 110 political dissidents are in prison in Vietnam.

On Monday, Obama lifted the remaining portions of a five-decades-old arms sale embargo on Vietnam.

He drew a warm response from the audience when he discussed Vietnam's disputes with China, saying, "big nations should not bully smaller ones."

China has claimed most of the South China Sea, including a large area off Vietnam's coast that Vietnam has claimed as part of its exclusive economic zone.

"Vietnam is an independent and sovereign nation, and no other nation can impose its will on you," Obama said.

Obama also noted the costs of the Vietnam War.

"At your war memorial not far from here, and with family altars across this country, you remember some 3 million Vietnamese, soldiers and civilians, on both sides, who lost their lives," he said. "At our memorial wall in Washington, we can touch the names of 58,315 Americans who gave their lives in the conflict. In both our countries, our veterans and families of the fallen still ache for the friends and loved ones that they lost. Just as we learned in America that, even if we disagree about a war, we must always honor those who serve and welcome them home with the respect they deserve, we can join together today, Vietnamese and Americans, and acknowledge the pain and the sacrifices on both sides."

Obama drew from his personal recollections of the era.

"I am not the first American president to come to Vietnam in recent times but I am the first, like so many of you, who came of age after the war between our countries," he said. "When the last U.S. forces left Vietnam, I was just 13 years old. So my first exposure to Vietnam and the Vietnamese people came when I was growing up in Hawaii, with its proud Vietnamese American community there."

Obama noted Vietnam's progress in recent years.

"We see Vietnam's progress in the skyscrapers and high-rises of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and new shopping malls and urban centers," he said. "We see it in the satellites Vietnam puts into space and a new generation that is online, launching startups and running new ventures."

After his speech, Obama met for the second time in two days with celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. They had eaten together at a Hanoi restaurant on Monday and the next day appeared at a streetside cafe in the Me Tri neighborhood of the capital. Obama shook hands with several onlookers.

Obama then traveled to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam during the war. He planned to meet with young entrepreneurs.

Obama ends his trip Wednesday.