Wednesday, July 23, 2014

THE RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION AFTER THE FALL OF SOUTH VIETNAM (1975-1986)








 
 
THE RELIGIOUS POLICY







Overview

 

All through the Vietnam War (1960-1975), the Communists manipulated the religion instrumentally in the war against the "My-Nguy" (Americans and their lackeys). Such organizations as the Cao Dai Tien Thien (Worship of Supreme Cao Dai), Hoi Hoa Hao Yeu Nuoc (Association of Patriotic Hoa Hao), Uy Ban Lien Lac Phat Giao Yeu Nuoc (Liaison Committees of Patriotic Buddhists), Uy Ban Lien Lac Nhung Nguoi Kinh Chua Yeu Nuoc (Liaison Committees of People who Adore God and Love the Country), and so on were created to serve this purpose. The Communist Party planted its members in these organizations to hold key positions. Religious nonparty members were used instrumentally to serve as clothes to attire the sympathy of the faithful of diverse religions and get support from them.


Upon seizing power in the South, to destroy the infrastructure of the old society, the Communist administration called for the appropriation of properties of the bourgeoisie, landlords, and religions which it considered the allies to feudalism and imperialism and then, transferred their legal ownership to the working class and peasantry. They called this process the "Revolution of the People's Democracy." All religions resisted with firm determination the arbitrary dispossession of properties of the Party and State yielded signs of impotence. The religions, on the other side, resolutely maintained independence from the State, resisting devious manipulation of its policy. They became the primary target of punishment of the regime. It executed even with violence harsh measure, prohibitions and restrictions against all religious practices and activities. It then conditioned them to submission under State control and dissolved several of them It carried out plans to eliminate the two legitimate Cao Dai Church and Hoa Hao Buddhist Church. During the period of 1954-1975, under the mask of liberation of South Vietnam, the Communists appealed to the people of the South for support. They believed that it was then an ill time to eliminate  these indigenous faiths. After the takeover of the administration of the South, they found no need for their support, they dissolved these two hostile Churches outright. Other Churches and religious organizations suffered division, disintegration, or gradual dissolution. Religious, social, educational, charitable, and cultural establishments of all Churches were dispossessed, religious orders and associations were outlawed, and religious and practices and activities were subject to restrictions and prohibitions.









The Measures

 

Tran Van Tri, the former secretary-general of the Vietnam Interfaith Council, presented from his experience how the Communist regime executed its hostile religious policy towards the Churches in the South following April 30, 1975:







"After the takeover of Saigon, the Communist administration executed strict discipline security measures to manage the religions in the newly- liberated South Vietnam. First, it organized indoctrination courses for the security police and cadres in the administration, preparing ground for the operations of dislodging reactionary elements. The General Directorate for Religions had full authority in the instruction and direction of the administration personnel for this purpose including the Saigon Directorate of Public Security, coded A16, and the province security directorates, coded Bureaus B16 or Sections 16.


To conclude his lecture on the political situation in the South, The Vice General-Director of A16, instructed his cadres and agents how to execute plans and stratagems. Repress any opposition from the Churches and be ready to destroy reactionary elements quickly and cleanly. "We punish them mercilessly at their very base and sent them to reeducation. Their political organizations are virtually disbanded in their entirety. Therefore, our crucial task in the days ahead is to concentrate our efforts on attacking the religions. They are the backbone on which reactionary elements --the supporters of the old regime --will lean to actuate opposition since they still have popular support, inside the country and abroad as well. The methods need to be persistent and systematic. They include such major measures as: 1. Close all abbeys, seminaries, and institutes for religions; 2. Nationalize all cultural, educational, social establishments, health centers, and, especially, the financial agencies belonging to all Churches; 3. Confiscate all printed materials of religious and cultural matters. Prohibit the printing of materials of religious matter and the propagation of religion and dissemination of materials of religious matter; 4. Control, with strict measures, all religious activities of the spiritual leaders, officials, and the masses at all levels; 5. Stop all religious activities, dissolve all religious associations and incorporate them into other popular Communist organizations; 6. Punish, without mercy, all reactionary elements who disguised themselves as priests whose intent is to subvert the Revolution (Vietnamese Communists); 7. Support all organizations operating within the religions whose activities are beneficial to the Revolution; and , 8. Develop internal conflicts within a religion and among the religions and manage them to destroy themselves."

Tran Quyet, the General Director of the A16, who later became the Vice-Minister of the Ministry for the Interior (1976), further explained the administration’s hidden scheme more explicitly. "Those directives are only guidelines as regards the policy of religions of our [Vietnamese Communists] Party. Our comrades must be aware of the fact that religions are like the opium that decoys and poisons the people. They are the enemies to the proletariat. We have to eradicate them with persistence, restricting their activities, stopping heir expansion, and immersing them into self-destruction according to the law of selection of socialism"


The cadres and security agents were instructed to execute plans and methods of application with such stratagems as:


I. Close down the abbeys, seminaries, and institutes of the religion. All members of the leadership of the religion will pass away, one after another, within 30 or 50 years or so. This situation will eventually lead to a shortage of priests, then a crisis of leadership, and eventually the extinction of the religion;



2. This measure is executed in accordance with the three following measures: a) All schools, hospitals, dispensaries, orphanages, printing houses, and business enterprise that lend support to the operation of the Churches are to be automatically confiscated. The axiom is: ‘Only the State is empowered with the rights to administer the religion’s institutions of education, health, social welfare, and financial establishments. The religions are all private organizations; therefore, they are not entitled to these rights.’ b) The second measure is to create pressure on the Churches. Since the State has not yet the current laws to confiscate religious establishments, pressure must be applied on the leaders of the Churches, coercing them to offer their properties to the State. The Institute for the Propagation of the Buddhist Faith on Tran Quoc Toan Street in Tenth Precinct, in Saigon; the offices of the Lasalle Taberd Order; the St. Joseph Seminary; and the White House, which was not a school, for example, were to be offered to the State under pressure.; and. The third measure is to execute the laws of the jungle. The Communists secretly planted firearms in a cache inside a religious establishment and charged the religious leader in residence with crimes of subversion to the State confiscate it. The confiscation of the Roman Catholic Alfonso Institute of the Redemptorists Order is an example. They created a quarrel at the church, stirring disorder, and accusing the religious leader in residence of creating subversive activities to dispossess it. Those religious establishments of the Cao Dai Church in Tay Ninh Province and of the Hoa Hao Buddhist Temple in Chau Doc Province, and the properties of the Evangelical Church in Saigon were confiscated with similar vile tricks;









3. To dispossess all religious materials and literature. The Communists closed all Churches' libraries after they had appropriated all printed materials --newspapers and magazines, documents, and religious teaching materials. Small quantities of books, magazines, and documents that religious leaders had secured for personal use were also dispossessed. State-affiliated religious organizations later used them at wiil at their State-owned libraries. In this way, when the Church’s clergy wish to decry a certain State-affiliated religious organization, they will no longer have access to necessary documents with which they reverse the evil contentions of lackey churchmen. For instance, the Communists resorted to trickery to calumniate the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam, assailing it with misleading arguments to distort the cause for the Canonization for Martyrs (1987-1988). They nevertheless failed to achieve their purpose. Much to their surprise, the Communists and the State-affiliated priests did not know how the Church's priests and faithful could have saved the necessary documents with which they countered the Communists' calumny and aborted their lackeys' deranging activities;









4. Execute strict measures of management on the religions. In particular, during the 1975-85 decade, religious leaders were subject to rigorous control. Movement outside the church, pagoda, or temple of priests, monks, and dignitaries was required by permission from the authorities. They were often called to work with the police at their headquarters. Catholic dignitaries and priests in the dioceses of Hue, Da Nang, Ban Me Thuot, Vinh Long, Xuan Loc, Phan Thiet, and Kontum. Buddhist monks and nuns, Cao Dai and Hoa Hao dignitaries, pastors of Evangelical Churches, and religious leaders of the B'ahai throughout the South were alt their targets. Many were placed under strict administrative management. From 1986 on, the Communists appeared less conspicuous in their conduct of public service. They nevertheless planted their secret agents within the leadership of each religion in the local area to follow the religious leader more closely, spying on his religious daily services and activities;









5. To disintegrate religious organizations and associations. Throughout the country, religious associations were all forbidden to operate. In the beginning years of the 1990’s, upon the State abrogation of the legitimate status of religious organizations and associations, local authorities loosened grip in some respects on religious activities of State-affiliated religious associations. Many of them attempted to rekindle their activities. However, religious association that operated without State permission were still regarded as illegal, and local authorities sought to stifle their activities were stifled in the bud. Moreover, these Communists can easily reverse their decisions any time. They may arrest and detain the associates with these organizations depending on their whims and wishes. As regards the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam, the Salvation Army, the Legio Mary, and the Pax Romana are among those associations the Communists have itemized on the black list. They are attributed to as the armies that recruit volunteered soldiers to counter the Revolution (!). As for the Catholic intellectuals, they distrust them as they are regarded the intelligence agents for the foreigners (!)







6. To destroy the clergy of all religions. During the first years of the takeover of South Vietnam, if the Communists wanted to expropriate a church, a preaching hall, or a temple, they only needed to execute an administrative order to appropriate the establishment and expel the priest, monk, or dignitary in residence. The victim was charged with an ungrounded political crime --a reactionary who is intent on overthrowing the "Revolution" --the Communist regime. They then confiscated the establishment and sent the religious to reeducation. Unlawful incidents of expropriation of religious establishments expanded and electrified shocks in the population. In 1978, being apprehensive that the Catholic Alexandre de Rhodes Center (at 161 Yen Do Street, Saigon) would attract a large number of Catholic youths and organize religious activities and events, the Communists frightened and closed it down. They charged the Catholic priests of the Dong Dong Cong (Order of Mary Co-redemptrix) residing at the Center with being the accomplices to a fictitious anti-revolutionary plot the instigators of which were Nguyen Van Hien and his group. They then arrested the priests in residence and confiscated the center, which is now the headquarters of the daily Tuoi Tre (The Youth). As regards Buddhism, being hostile to the straightforward statements on the Communist despotic regime by the Monks Thich Tue Sy (Pham Van Thuong) and Thich Tri Sieu (Le Manh That), the Communists framed up the so-called the "Gia Lam Plot." They arrested the two monks on April 1, 1984. Worse still, they harassed the Most Venerable Thich Tri Thu into depression, intermittently convoking him to their headquarters to "work with" the cadres and tormenting him into a gradual death. The Order of Mary Co-Redemptrix incident during May 19-20, 1986 is another example. On the pretext of inspecting the Order’s facilities for suspected anti-revolutionary activities, the Communists confiscated the Order's main monastery in Thu Duc District. The monastery with large premises, which possession they had long craved for but failed to take by force due to resilient resistance of the Most Reverend Tran Dinh Thu, the Superior priest of the Order. The confiscation of the chapels and houses of worship of the Evangelical Churches began with the expropriation of the chapel on Tran Cao Van Street in First Precinct, Saigon. The incident took place on the Christmas Eve of 1986. It was instigated with the similar pretext;







7. To create State-affiliated religious organization to replace the traditional legitimate ones. Only state-run organizations such as the Association of Patriotic Buddhists and the Association of Solidarity for Catholics are accorded the privilege to disseminate newspapers and magazines, publish printing materials, and establish contacts with the foreigners or foreign humanitarian organizations coming to Vietnam to assess information on religion. In the years following the takeover of South Vietnam, other state-sponsored agencies operated in this category were the monthly magazines Cong Giao va Dan Toc (Catholicism and the Nation and The People. They were directed by the state-affiliated Catholic priests. Among them were Phan Khac Tu and Truong Ba Can, a Communist whose real name is Tran Ba Cuong. The weekly magazine Giac Ngo (Coming to Reason) and the magazine Nguoi Yeu Nuoc (The Patriot) stationed on Phan Dinh Phung Street were also run by a group of state-affiliated Buddhists;







8. To act out the division within a religion and among the religions. Their stratagem was "to use religion to destroy religion.' This is the most malicious trick the Communists have executed to eradicate the religions. The legitimate Hoa Hao Buddhism was outlawed and a State-affiliated Hoa Hao Church was created to vie for the leadership. Similarly, the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam was outlawed, and the State-affiliated Buddhist Church of Vietnam came into being. At the Tay Ninh Holy See, a Supreme Council of Administration was created in replacement of the Church’s legitimate leadership. Concerning the Roman Catholic Church of Vietnam, the Communists commanded the state-affiliated Catholic "Gang of Four" (Phan Khac) Tu, (Truong Ba) Can, (Thien) Cam, and (Vuong Dinh) Bich for this purpose. These "gangsters" used the magazine "Catholicism and "The Nation" for the service of the Communist Party. They themselves aggressively attacking the Church’s dignitaries during the year 1987-1988 when the preparations for the Canonization for the Vietnamese Martyrs were under way in Rome. Above all, with vile trick and dupe, the Communists sowed division between and among the faithful of the Churches. After the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang' s letter of protest against the Communist authorities had circulated in the population, the Communist administration and their secret agencies operating abroad sought to complicate the relationship between the Buddhist Church and the Roman Catholic Church, outlawing the former while granting the former favors, sowing doubts, creating quarrels among the faithful of these two faiths; and



9. Tighten control on the religious of prestige. The Communists undeniably use any means possible to annihilate the religions. The Gia Lam incident of April 1984 reveals this artful scheme. They arbitrarily arrested the venerable monks residing in Gia Lam Pagoda’ among whom were the two editors of the weekly magazine Giac Ngo (Coming to Reason), on charges of "doing silly things." They even mounted repression on resilient monks of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam in Hue. Facing strong protests with self-immolation by fire of the Buddhists in Central Vietnam, the Communists tightened control on the Unified Buddhist Church pagodas in many cities and provinces. They arrested Monk Thich Tri Tuu, the guardian monk at Linh Mu Pagoda, after the May 1993 incident in Hue. At the same time, they tried to please the Catholics by freeing the Most Reverend Tran Dinh Thu of the Order of Mary Co-redemptrix from prison and free the Catholic priest Chan Tin and the Catholic writer Nguyen Ngoc Lan from house detention." (Tran Van Tri. Sach Luoc Tieu Diet Ton Giao. Hiep Nhat 7 (July 1993:40-43).


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