© Copyright 1996         

OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON

Vancouver, January 3, 1997

Mr President :

You are about to begin your second mandate. Inside G-7 countries what is on every lips are budget cuts and economic growth. But I am certain that you are looking, by replacing your Secretary of State and your Defense Secretary, for another direction to give to America in order to lead it to the third millennium.

A quarter of century ago, 58000 American soldiers left their lives in South Vietnam for the sake of Liberty and for the freedom of South Vietnamese people. Did they die in vain? No, if you make good use of your last presidential term. As a matter of fact, the world has seen incredible events from 1989 to 1991 : millions of Europeans got rid of communist yoke and chose liberty. It was a great victory for the free world particularly for the United States. But it was not a total victory because millions of other human beings, especially the peoples of Vietnam, are still under the tyranny of communism.

In January 1977, exactly twenty years ago, as chairman of Canada's Khmer Community, I wrote an open letter to President James Carter which has been published in French by Montreal's Le Devoir and in English by a newspaper of San Diego. I asked President Carter to do something for my fellow-Cambodians then martyred by the Khmers Rouges. Alas, America at that time was just out of the Vietnam trap and thought only of healing its wounds. Today I am appealing to you Mr President Clinton, you another Democrat, to draw world recognition of the 58000 American deaths as Liberty's heroes : by helping the peoples of Vietnam to regain pacifically this liberty. How?

The events in Bosnia and Chechnya have unveiled another evil hidden behind communism, the domination of a majority people over other minority peoples. The Bosnians and the Chechens demonstrated that there are values more precious than physical peace : these are freedom and preservation of one's cultural identity. I do not ask you, Mr President, to ship guns to the Thos, the Thais, the Meos, the Jarais, the Rhades, neither to the Chams nor to my very brothers the Khmers, those minority peoples of Vietnam. I only ask you to curb the totalitarian government of Hanoi which attempts to assimilate its ethnic minorities by imposing one sole language, one sole culture and one sole line of conduct, with those diplomatic and economic weapons which peacefully and successfully helped ending apartheid in South Africa.

After the fall of communism in Europe, American investors who now dispute over a spot in Vietnam not only insult the memories of 58000 of theirs but are also trampling on the remains of the MIAs.

You have proposed to America to build a bridge to the 21st century. This bridge, Mr President, should span from San Diego, California to Kampong Som, Khmerland.


Nearovi Pen

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