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June 23, 2005
A Tale of Two Cities
photo: AFP (Agence Française de Presse)
TWO CITIES, TWO MEDIA, ONE LOVE
To begin, the BBC's report, Khai US visit stirs Vietnam media, is an interesting read. It surveys the coverage of the PM's visit to the United States through an assortment of Vietnamese press including Nhan Dan, Tuoi Tre, Voice of Vietnam, and Le Courriere de Vietnam. The article ends: "However, there is no mention in the press or media of the various protests by Vietnamese-Americans against the visit."
Thanh Nien News reports today, 'Overseas Vietnamese support PM’s US visit', quoting one Ms. Chau, a former South Vietnamese lawyer and current editor of the Vietnamese-language Tieng Que Huong radio in the US , as saying in an interview with BBC that "The Prime Minister of Vietnam received support from American Vietnamese on his trip to the US, which they said delivers a message of global unity among Vietnamese concerning the development of their country." There may be isolated cases where this statement may be true, but largely the statement is false. When I say false, I mean it is a denial of factual evidence to the contrary. This is not a an op-ed or review piece. It does not need or require a subjective interpretatiion. A BBC search yields nothing of the BBC alleged interview that Thanh Nien reports to have quoted from.
Across the board, as far as the Vietnamese-Americans were concerned, there were organized protests visible throughout the PM's visit to the United States. A simple google query, yahoo search or visit to any international news portal will confirm this.
To be fair, from my own experience, the US-based Vietnamese language press historically has been equally as uncritical and unbalanced. As I've written before, certain Vietnamese-American media personalities have been as so brazen to admit they've invented stories to support their cause. However, there are some balanced pieces acknowledging the ambiguity of Vietnamese American situation, particularly among and between the generations.
C'EST LA VIE
In the same Thanh Nien article: “American veterans who fought in the Vietnam War have turned to support Vietnam, so why do Vietnamese people of the same origin remain hostile to one another?” To a degree, again, this is false. On this same day, headlines from a wide cross sections of non-Vietnamese press report: War Veteran Protests Vietnam Premier (Las Vegas Sun), or as the Associated Press reports of the dinner interruption by a US Veteran:
"That's life," visiting Prime Minister Phan Van Khai muttered after security officers hustled a balding, shouting protester believed to be a Vietnam veteran away from the head table.
The veteran, Jerry Kiley of Garnerville, New York, faces charges of intimidating, coercing, threatening and harassing Mr. Khai. Prosecutors accused Mr. Kiley of throwing a clear liquid at the prime minister during a dinner hosted by the U.S.-Vietnam Trade Council and the U.S.-Association of Southeast Asian Nations Business Council.
AO AWOL
Conspicuously absent from both US and Vietnamese press is the issue of Agent Orange, currently in the appeals process in the US courts. Only a few short months ago, the Agent Orange litigation dominated the Vietnamese press, with campaigns by Tuoi Tre and others demanding justice for the victims of the toxic poisoning. Singers and entertainers rallied support with full page photographic spreads. Vietnam appealed to the international community for support. And What happened? If there were anytime to better bring this issue into the international media consciousness, it is now.
Yet it is clear that the issue of the Agent Orange has the potential to jam gears. Unlike the one-way human rights issue that the US (despite its own internationally condemned violations in the gulags of Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib) is keen on attaching to non-humanitarian aid to Vietnam, the Agent Orange case redirects the inhumanity back toward the US. While Vietnam inks deals with Microsoft and Boeing, the real winners are Monosanto and Dow Chemicals and other former dioxin manufacturers.
HIT OR MISS
Furthermore, while issues of human rights and trafficking orbited around the huge economic agenda, Mr. Khai earlier this week signed an agreement with the United States that will allow Americans to adopt children from Vietnam. A marriage of sorts between the two seemingly disparate issues.
Need I say anything about this case in China? Meanwhile Thanh Nien receives official accolades for its outstanding press coverage.
Posted by rst at June 23, 2005 04:01 PM
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Tracked on June 25, 2005 02:07 PM