Marco Pannella and Marco Cappato, two Members of European Parliament (MEP) from the Radical Party, have questioned the European Commission’s aid package to Vietnam, a country with a dubious human rights record.

Below is a press release issued by the Transnational Radical Party on 06 September 2007:

Radical Party MEPs Marco Pannella and Marco Cappato tabled a parliamentary question to the Commission denouncing again threats and violence carried out by Vietnamese security forces on ethnic Montagnards living in Vietnam's highlands.

According to NGOs Human Rights Watch and Montagnard Foundation during a human rights monitoring mission carried out by the UNHCR in the region, a young ethnic Montagnard approached UNCHR representatives in order to report the violence perpetrated by Vietnamese security forces on the people living in his village.

After the event the young man, who in the end fled to Cambodia, was arrested and tortured by Vietnamese security forces, while his village was threatened, should somebody else "talk" with UNCHR representatives.

Despite a situation of widespread human rights violation by the Hanoi regime, according to EU Commission's data, in 2007 the EU pledged 700 million euro in aid to the Government of Vietnam.

Radical Party MEPs requested the EU Commission to fully comply with its agreements with Vietnam and to implement the "democratic clause". Under this provision development aid is conditional to the respect of human rights and democracy.