The Concept of Reeducation
The concept of reeducation was originally borrowed from the Maoist ideology of thought reform. The practices of it were adopted in preparation for the agrarian reforms in the North at the time the nomadic Viet Minh government was still moving about in the jungle. It was systematically implemented after the Nhan Van Revolt (1957-1958) in Hanoi when the Communist State was unable to maintain orthodox prisons. Thought reform continued to be an instrument for repression against all elements the State regarded as counterrevolutionaries throughout the 1960’s.
Thought reform for prisoners was first administered in the North after the CIA-sponsored South Vietnamese commando teams were captured in North Vietnam beginning in 1961. The Government Democratic Republic of Vietnam introduced into its systems of prisons and concentration camps the giao duc cai tao (reeducation reform). The measure was considered as a means of dealing with suspected counterrevolutionary elements within the territory under its control. The security services did not need sufficient evidence to bring the individual to trial or to keep an individual under detention for as many years as necessary. Until many years following the Communist takeover of South Vietnam commandos parachuted into and captured in the North were still seen serving thought reform. The process became fully instrumental in performing reeducation reform after the Communist take over of South Vietnam in April 1975.
A Policy
From a measure, reeducation was incorporated in a policy of national security. By the Resolution 49-NQTVQH of June 20, 1961 and the Circular No.121CP of September 1961, the administration carried out the programs of reeducation of officers, officials, and members of political organizations and parties and other social, economic, and cultural institutions under the French regime. The Resolution 49/NQ/QH, which was signed by Truong Chinh. was judicially a law order. The administration is allowed to arrest and detain a suspect without law process. A term of reeducation is three years. At the end of each term, the reeducated could receive three additional years depending on his devotion under reeducation. Still, the Circular No. 121 CP of September 1961 of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam allowed the authorities to forgather obstinate counterrevolutionary elements. Elements in this category were defined as follows:
"1. All old dangerous spies, guides or agents of the old puppet army or administration; former rangers with many heinous crimes, who received clemency from the Government and much education but still obstinately refuse to reform and who still commit acts threatening to public security. 2. All hard-core members of the former opposing organizations and parties, who previously committed many heinous crimes, received clemency from the Government and much education but still obstinately refuse to reform and who still perform acts threatening to public security, and 3. Obstinate elements in the former exploiting class and all other counterrevolutionaries with deep feelings of vengeance towards our system who always act in opposition. 4. All dangerous counterrevolutionaries who have completed a prison sentence but refuse to reform. (Aurora Foundation, 1988: 39)
In 1967, the National Assembly passed a new legislation defining counterrevolutionary crimes, The law specified crime for "any opposition to the government policy. Those who committed such an act was arrested without trial, incarcerated, and reeducated. From a political measure, reeducation became a law then a policy to deal with political dissidents and reactionaries, and all possible sources of opposition Practically these two legal documents vested the authorities with the authority to handle prisoners under a more elaborate and sophisticated system of control.
The forgathering specifically put into effect the arrest or re-arrest and detention of a limitless number of hostile elements without legal procedures. It effortlessly put them under control in times of political instability. At the same time, it created favorable conditions for the authorities to gather a large number of potential dissidents for thought correction or reform. As a rule, reeducation reform is always coupled with limitless detention, it creates an atmosphere of terror in the population. For easy access to carrying out a certain security policy, reeducation is instrumental to the service of the Party.
Reeducation in the South
The Violations of International Agreements
On January 27, 1973, representatives of the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam signed the Agreements on Ending the War and Restoring the Peace in Vietnam. Article 96 of the Agreements specified that "the South Vietnamese people shall decide themselves the political future of South Vietnam through genuinely free and democratic elections under international supervision." More significantly, Article 11 of the Agreements honors the civil and political rights of the Vietnamese people, with all citizens being equal and free to enjoy authentic democratic freedom. Nevertheless, immediately after they concluded of the Agreements, the Communists, launched all-out offensive military campaigns throughout the South. Tens of army divisions from the North invaded and ravaged the country and took it over by force in April 1975.
Before the takeover of Saigon the Provisional Revolutionary Government promised, in its 10-point declaration, to carry out the national concord and reconciliation policy. On the victory celebration in Saigon, Party Secretary-general Le Duan gave assurances that the Party would turn the prisons into schools. However, the Military Administration Committee of Saigon-Gia Dinh Area, in June 1975, issued orders according to which all senior officers from the rank of captain and above, all officials from the grade of assistant director or above from the former administration, to turn themselves in at Gia Long High School and Taberd High School for "reeducation reform." Senior officials, high-ranking officers, members of the Senate and House of Representatives, politicians, and priests and monks of all Churches were to register with the Communist military authorities at various both public and private departments, agencies, and services for "reeducation." Reeducation began in the awe of the South Vietnamese people.
The Characteristics
The policy for education with all its sophisticated measures and methods of reeducation previously executed in the North against the dangerous agents of the puppet government, henchmen of imperialism,, opposing organizations, and counterrevolutionaries were, again, systematically put into practice. Nguyen Ngoc Giao wrote in the Quan Doi Nhan Dan (The People’s Army) that "reeducation is a meticulous and long-range process; management. It must be tight, continuous, comprehensive, and specific. We must manage each person. We manage their thoughts and actions, words and deeds, philosophy of life and ways of livelihood, social relationship and travel... We must closely combined management and education with interrogation (Aurora Foundation, 1966:40)
This policy was intensively and variously put into effect after the Communist takeover of South Vietnam. The objectives and methods of application were modeled on the old laws and practices, but the measures of handling the reeducated were much more severe and brutal. The modes of maltreatment of hundreds of thousands of people in reeducation camps, which were in fact all prisons. They were executed with tricks and restrictions that were unpopular and inhumane. Prisoners were crammed into their minds with political lessons, which is an act of revenge that only causes suffering, illness, and even death, to the reeducated and grief and distress to their family members and relatives (Bui Tin, 1993: 231).
Even authorities in the Party realized that reeducation reform proved to be a failure, culturally and politically. The National Assembly, in 1984, passed a penal code that eliminated reeducation camps as a form of punishment. Under the new law, persons guilty of serious violations should be subjected to house surveillance, in which condition the convict would have to remain to stay within a given locality and to live, work, and "reform himself" under the control of the local authorities.
Authorities in the Party showed embarrassment as to whether or not giving up education camps as a tool for managing political security. On the other hand, the People’s Control Organ, which is supposed to ensure the law, was incapable of preventing or stopping abuses. Camp reeducation remained mandatory. It was not until February 1985 that the Party showed some leniency. More prisoners that were not professionals were released from the camps. An internal struggle was under way between those party-members who concerned with establishing a rule of law and those who hesitated, pondering over whether or not to abolish reeducation camps as an instrument in securing political stability. In 1987, as the economy of the country deteriorated and the Party was in difficulty to deal with all sources of opposition, the People’s Council of Ho Chi Minh City adopted its own regulations that specifically called for "concentrated education for past or present counterrevolutionary elements who refuse to be reeducated."
Processes of Reeducation
People in the South, even people from the North who had experienced hardship under communism, were duped. They were all credulous, subjective, and easily persuaded, although critical to some degree. They believed the new political system .would soon putt everything in order. They did not believe and did not want to believe that it would deal their compatriots with such an evil intention, to eliminate their compatriots who are, in reality, their relatives or friends. Realists and pessimists in this situation were only a few. People thought that only thugs that served the puppet government would be executed and that such an accident would only occur in some remote districts in the rural or mountainous areas.
What had happened, in reality? There had been no real blood bath. The new political regime had acted in such a clever manner that it successfully assured everyone of its indulgence and leniency towards the military and the civil personnel of the collapsed puppet administration. Worries about a blood bath dissipated; enthusiasm of joining an organization to rebel against the new regime evaporated; and expectations for evasion to a foreign country melted away. To everyone’s dismay, at this time of self-assured radiance, reeducation began. It took place about a month after the takeover of Saigon. The incident befell calmly, in a quite ordinary manner and without a surprise.
The Registration and Promises
People accepted reeducation. Throughout the country, the authorities issued lists of officers detached for temporary service at schools and officers working at local and central military headquarters. All were invited for reeducation in a polite manner. The cadres in charge at the committees of military administration made people believe that reeducation was something of little importance. Once we have lived in a new regime, we have to change our ideology. So, we need to study the new ideology and politics. As far as the duration for reeducation was concerned, the authorities gave everyone a hint that it would only take a short period of time. Being pressed for a definitive answer, they vaguely speculated that it would only take several weeks to a month. Under these circumstances, one thought to oneself: Why not then to report oneself to the committee? A flash of hope gleamed out in everyone’s head: At the end of the reeducation course, a certificate would be accorded, and everyone would be able to live, and there would be no devil to pay.
Believing in what the regime had promised, the high-ranking military officers and members of the political parties of the old regime presented themselves in person with a light heart before the authorities in their districts. A subdued behavior as such also constituted a positive attitude of cooperation. That was the reason for which few people sought to escape from the tricky plan of reeducation. And, that was the first success the regime had achieved. The greater success of the new regime was the hidden scheme that was only noticeable when those first and second lieutenants who had been discharged from military duties before 1975 had to report themselves with the authorities for concentration reeducation. These servicemen believed that they were not required to do so. These former junior officers felt assured they felt assured that everything was being done all right. The regime would do well by them.
The prospective reeducated then left for reeducation, each supplied himself with a light sac. Had the authorities not said that reeducation would only last 10 days for a junior officer and 30 days for a senior officer and a general? In addition, the authorities had showed a scheme in their vague turn of phrase in an earlier notice by calling noncommissioned officers and privates for an on-the-spot reeducation for three days. The courses usually concluded at a fixed date. Senior officers and generals were convoked for reeducation a month later. Everyone believed that the new regime would keep its promises. To assure of assiduity, the Communist State rectified its order by affirming that the reeducated needed to bring food for 10 days. One could only explain to oneself that the text was ambivalent and the intentions was doubtful. The ambiguity of the text serves as a mask over the real intentions (Buu Lich, 1984: 1-2).
The Prisoner Population -- The Statistics
Until this day, there has been no official statistics issued by the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on the number of reeducated prisoners. Reeducation remained the predominant device of social control until the present day. It was used to incarcerate members of certain social classes in order to coerce them to accept and conform to the socialist norms. This type of control is one feature of a broader effort to control the social deviant and destroy at the roots all possible forces of opposition, counterrevolution and the resistance.
The daily Saigon Giai Phong (Saigon Liberated) reported, in June 1975, that approximately 400,000 officers, officials, and members of various political parties turned themselves in to undergo reeducation. In this category, about a half (200,000) were ex-Communists who changed sides during the Open Arms campaign, and the remaining included former members of the Secret Police, the Special Forces, the South Vietnamese Marines, Parachutists, and Flying Tigers officers that were involved in operation Phoenix. Various sources reported that after the liberation of Saigon, waves of massive arrests and incarcerations for reeducation. Measures were carried out to deal with dangerous elements. In many areas, people who were associated with the defeated Saigon government were executed. As many as 300,000 military officers, civilian officials, and political party members were kept in twenty-one reeducation camps for periods varying from a few months to many years. Hundreds of writers, artists, journalists, and publishers were arrested and sent to the camps in 1975-76 because of their political viewpoints evidenced by past works and affiliations.
The camp personnel attempted to change the political viewpoints of the camp inmates through confessions and collective discussion of their crimes. Nevertheless, after 1978, with security threats perceived as increasingly alarming because of economic crisis and overt hostility of China, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam appeared to have viewed the camps and prisons a convenient way to keep the individuals from making contacts with other potential opposition elements that operated clandestinely in the country. The French journal L'humanite, in its issue of publication on January 10, 1977, reported that about 60,000 prisoners were incarcerated in various camps and prisons. Vo Van Sung, Hanoi's former ambassador to Paris, put forward the figure of 50,000 prisoners. The official journal of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Nhan Dan, only reported the releases of prisoners. Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, in his interview with journalist Jean-Claude Labbe (Paris Match, No 1530, September 22, 1978), simply declared that "during these three years [1975-1977] we have sent back more than a million (1,000,000) people, who collaborated in one way or another with the enemy, to the civil life and their families."
The Washington Area League for Human Rights reported that during the months that followed April 1975, the Communist administration in the South arrested and detained 400,000 patriots who had no connection with the former South Vietnamese administration, including intellectuals, clergymen, artists, writers, and even newborn babies and invalids. Arrests were also made upon 200,000 officers, officials, political party members, and 200,000 ex-Communists who converted and joined the South Vietnamese force during the Chieu Hoi (Open Arms) campaign from (Ngo Dinh) Diem's to (Nguyen Van) Thieu' s time.
Thousands of innocent Vietnamese, many whose only crimes were those of conscience. They were arrested and detained. Many of them were tortured to death in prisons and reeducation camps. Instead of bringing hope and reconciliation to war-torn Vietnam, the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam created a painful nightmare that overshadowed significant progress achieved in many areas of the Vietnamese society. It stated in February 1979 that some 50,000 people were incarcerated. Journalists, independent observers, and refugees, however. estimated the current number of political prisoners between 150,000 and 200,000. Whatever the exact number, the facts form a grim mosaic.
The Testament of Patriotic Prisoners in Vietnam, issued on April 18, 1979, maintained that "apart from 400,000 soldiers, officers, and civil servants of the former Government now serving life sentences in concentration camps, the present Communist Government has detained close to 400,000 people from other walks of life: laborers, peasants, workers, patriotic intellectuals, those whose past was in no way connected with the former puppet Government in Saigon, and those who, on the contrary, have achieved a certain notoriety among the people for their past struggle for peace (Washington Area League for Human Rights, 1978: 14). Verified reports appeared in the press around the globe, from the journal Le Monde in Paris and The Observer in London to the Washington Post and Newsweek in New York. People heard the horror stories from the people of Vietnam-- from the workers and the peasants, Catholic nuns and Buddhist priests, from the boat people, the artists and professionals, and those who fought alongside the National Liberation Front.
In 1981, Amnesty International established the information given by Hanoi that there were only 40,000 people being reeducated throughout the country. Members of the humanitarian organization were invited to visit the typical camp at Ha Son Binh. There, several hundred inmates pretended to enjoy their reeducation as if they were in a kindergarten. Hoang Tung, the then spokesman of the Central Committee of the Vietnamese Communist Party, portrayed them as people on vacation. The members of Amnesty International might not have noticed. The plain truth is that before their visit, more than 4,000 prisoners at Ha Son Binh Camp had been transferred to other camps and that policemen mingled with the group of inmates to welcome the delegate.
The report by Ginetta Sagan and Stephen Denney, which is based on the results of investigations and interviews, revealed that very few of the reeducated, if any, were freed after the period of 10 days or a month. Among the million who went to reeducation camps (more than 150 camps throughout Vietnam), approximately 500,000 people were released within three months, 200,000 detained for two to four years, and 240,000 persons detained in camps for at least 5 years. Until now (April 1983), at least 60,000 people are still under detention. In mid-1985 the Communist rule conceded that it still held about 100,000 inmates in the reeducation camps, but the actual number was to be believed to be at least 40,000. In 1982, there were about 120,000 Vietnamese in these camps.
At the end of 1990, the Ministry for the Interior Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam announced the arrest of 30,000 reactionaries. In November 1991, it declared that there were no more political prisoners in Vietnam after it released more than 100 prisoners detained at Camp 230D at Ham Tan. In June 1991, Amnesty International expressed concerns over the fate of prisoners of war in Vietnam as follows:
"1. The detention without charge or trial of people associated with the former Government of the Republic of Vietnam. Many ere released under government amnesties in 1987 and 1988 but over 100 have remained untried detention. 2. The detention without charge of alleged opponents of the present government in reeducation camps for alleged antigovernment activities. They include members of the clergy, writers, and intellectuals, people of Chinese ethnic origin, and professionals. Some who remain in detention are prisoners of conscience and it is believed that others, about whom little is known, may also be prisoners of conscience detained for the peaceful expression of their political, religious, or other beliefs, and 3. Some prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience were held for years in untried detention before being brought to court and convicted of participating in activities with intent to "overthrow the people's government. Others were arrested and brought to trial in more recent years. In these cases, it is believed that court procedures did not conform to international standards for fair trial. 4. The use of the death penalty in Vietnam The Vietnamese media reported that in the first nine months of 1990, 56 persons were sentenced to death. Amnesty International has no specific information about these cases."
The humanitarian agency also reported that the figures issued by the Communist authorities in the two amnesties in 1988 suggested the release of 11,500 prisoners of whom nearly 5,800 had been held in administrative detention without charge or trial in reeducation camps. Among those who were released from reeducation, over 1,000 people were held since 1975. In its report issued in June 1991, The December 1992 report to the Australia Congress pointed out that approximately 65,000 people had been executed in rural areas throughout the country and that 500,000 people, who were considered as sympathizers with the old political regime, were arrested and detained for four (4) to fourteen (14) years. This also means that to eradicate the political influence of the old regime, the Communists activated campaigns of propaganda to sustain the spur to arrests and detention of political dissidents, writers and artists, and religious leaders.
On January 25, 1993, Nguyen Thi Hong, the press attache at the Vietnam Mission to the United Nations, said to the San Jose Mercury News that Vietnam had released all former South Vietnamese military prisoners from reeducation camps. Although they thought that almost all the ex-military officers had been freed, many overseas Vietnamese groups believed that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam still held thousands of the reeducated in an intricate network of prisons and reeducation camps throughout the country. Human rights groups such as Asia Watch and Amnesty International were reluctant to estimate the number of camp populations, saying that they had been refused access to the camps. Canada's representative to the Third Committee of the 49th UNGA, on November 29, 1994, called on the Communist government to release political dissidents and expressed grave concerns over the treatment of religious leaders in Vietnam.
Vietnam became a true inferno on earth. The jails were overflowing with thousands upon thousands of prisoners. People disappeared and never returned. People were shipped to reeducation centers, died a starvation diet of stain rice, forced to squat bound wrist to ankle, suffocated in connex-- iron containers . People were used as human mine detectors, cleaning live mine fields with their hands and feet. For many, life is hell and death is prayed for .Many victims were men, woman, and children who had supported and fought for the causes of reunification and self-determination; those who, as pacifists, members of religious groups, or on moral and philosophic grounds had opposed the authoritarian policies of Thieu and Ky, artists and intellectuals whose commitment to creative expression was anathema to the totalitarian policies of the government (Joan Baez. Open Letter of May 1, 1978).
