The Struggle for Faith of the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang

  

  

On April 6, 1977, the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quangwas arrested in a police raid at the An Quang Pagoda in Sai.  The Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang was detained without trial for a year and a half. He was then brought to stand trial in December 1978 for “working against the “Revolution,” actuating counterrevolutionary propaganda, and exploiting religion to undermine security and order. Given a suspended sentence, he was placed under house arrest in February 1982 for “reactions” to the suppression against Buddhism of the State and the creation of a State-sponsored Buddhist Church. He was exiled to his native village in Quang Ngai Province although had been nominated the Patriarch of the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church in April 1992 following the funeral for the late Patriarch Thich Don Hau.

On June 25, 1992, the Patriarch sent an 8-page petition to the leadership of the Vietnamese Communist Party and government demanding the rights to religious freedom. The petition specified, among other things, the repressive measures the Communist rule had exercised against the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church in the past 41 years. It brought forward as proofs the dissolution of the Buddhist Churches for National Salvation in the Binh-Tri-Thien Inter-provincial Zone V in 1951, the annexation of Buddhist associations into the Lien Viet (Viet Alliance Front), which is now the Fatherland Front, during the War of Resistance (1945-54), the arrests of Buddhist monks in South Vietnam following the Communist takeover of Republic of South Vietnam in April 1975, and the dissolution of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam.

In July of the same year, the Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang held a meeting at Hoi Nghia Pagoda and laid out plans to cope with the situations, thus waiting for favorable times to regularize the An Quang Buddhist Church. Following up the developments, the authorities of Quang Ngai, under the direction of the local party leadership, put strict  control on him. On one occasion, they allowed a number of “Buddhists” to come to Hoi Nghia pagoda to complicate the situation, accusing the dignitary of having committed acts of opposition to the State. He had come to Hue to attend the funeral for the Most Venerable Thich Don Hau and  actuated deranging activities.

The Patriarch was given order not to use Hoi Nghia Pagoda as the headquarters of the Institute for the Propagation of the Buddhist Faith He was forbidden to use  the seal of the An Quang Church for services on no occasion whatsoever. He was to give this official mark to the State-sponsored Vietnam Buddhist Church or the authorities of Quang Ngai province. He was also subject to strict administrative measures such as he had to  ask for permission whenever or wherever he might wish to go.

    

On November 11, 1992, the Paris-based Committee on Human Rights charged Hanoi with serious violations of the religious freedom as regards the State repression against the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang.  The committee brought forward as proof a secret memo dated August 17, 1992, and signed by Phan Minh Tanh, the, Chairman of the Central Section for Civic Actions of Quang Ngai Province. The document, in particular, leveled charges against the long-standing Buddhist organizations and Buddhist dignitaries in the South, in general, and the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, in particular. It charged these organizations and prominent Buddhist figures with crimes of vile schemes of sabotage such as the following:,

“After the liberation of the South, a number of An Quang Buddhist monks on the side of Thich Tam Chau had actuated hostile activities against the State, against the unification of Buddhism, which was established on  request by the great majority of Buddhist followers and dignitaries. Because of illegal activities, the revolutionary government punished them.  Still, a number of belligerents have furtively maintained their opposition. Taking advantage of the funeral for Thich Don Hau, they sought to restore their legal entity, striving to attract and get support of Buddhist dignitaries monks, and nuns. After the funeral of the Most Venerable Thich Don Hau, Huyen Quang openly used the seal (of the An Quang faction) and self-proclaimed the legal representative of the Institute for the Propagation of the Buddhist Faith. He sent letters to honorable attendants at the funeral and petitions to the Central Party leadership. At the same time, they spread propaganda throughout the country and abroad. On the mid-autumn ceremony of this year [1992], Huyen Quang sent notices to the Buddhists of the An Quang faction inside and outside the country inciting them to demand for the legal recognition of the old Buddhist organization that had existed before the liberation. They openly recognized the monks in asylum camps and encouraged opposition from exiled monks of the An Quang faction living in the United States.”

     Police Raid

    

On March 9, 1993, thirty state servicemen broke into Hoi Nghia Pagoda, where the Unified Buddhist Church stationed the Institute for the Propagation of the Buddhist Faith. They searched through the pagoda for three hours while the Buddhist delegates from the provinces of Quang Tri, Thua Thien, Quang Nam, and Da Nang were paying respect to Buddha  and discussing religious services. Buddhist monk Hai Tang was arrested because of he was in possession of a copy of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Administration of Quang Nai Province tightened control on the Most Venerable Huyen Quang who was under house surveillance thereafter.

   

The Vietnam Unified Church of Vietnam considered the administrative decision against the Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang  a mild measure. His use of the seal of the Institute for the Propagation of the Buddhist Faith could only be served as an excuse. However, it could also be a vile trick aimed at soothing the Buddhist population's anger that had ever risen since the Hue incident ib May 1993.

     Campaign of Distortions

   

In June 1993, the Office for the Propagation of the Buddhist Faith in Exile issued its statements of protest, denouncing the Vietnamese Communist administration’s intention to debase the Buddhist Churches. Proofs of vile schemes were self-evident. A secretary at the Office of Liaison of the State-sponsored Vietnam Buddhist Church  had reportedly received from the Communist authorities 3,000,000 dong and a monthly allowance of 150,000 “dong” to initiate and carry out campaigns to distort the long-standing Buddhist organizations' noble cause of struggle for religious freedom. Hundreds of articles were published in the official newspapers during May and June 1993 to attack and denigrate the Sangha.

   

   The Situation of the Church Reported by Venerable Thich Hanh Dao

  

Speaking to an audience of about 200 Vietnamese in a news conference in Westminster California, July 24, 1993, the Venerable Thich Hanh Dao reported with his words stuck in his throat that the Vietnamese Communist authorities increasingly tightened its control on the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church. They consistently harassed prestigious monks by convoking them to "work at" --the term meaning “to be interrogated at”-- police headquarters. The Most Venerable Thich Long Tri in Hoi An Township, the Venerable Thich Long The in Da Nang Township, and the Venerable Thich Long Tri in Ba Ria Province, for instance, were among the prime targets. In addition to this, the Communist State sought all vile tricks to denigrate the Church’s leadership. In July 1994, a 15-year-old Buddhist youngster who served as a mail deliverer for the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, the Chairman of the Institute for the Propagation of Buddhist Faith, was arrested and forced to bear false witness at the police headquarters. The Most Venerable Huyen Quang was then subject to restriction of movement. The activities at the Institute of Propagation for Buddhist Faith were thus entirely paralyzed. 

      

     Denunciation by The Venerable Thich Nguyrn Lac

    

Facing the challenge, the Venerable Thich Nguyen Lac signed a circular among the Buddhist circles denouncing the Communist administration's vile intention of eradicating the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church. It specified that the Vietnamese Communist Party Politburo decided, in July 1993, to set up a Special Political Office for Internal Affairs. This State agency was particularly responsible for studying and carrying out plans to battle out the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang's prestige and the Buddhists’ movement for religious freedom. Nguyen Dinh Huong was assigned the head of the new organ. A special detachment of the security police and units of troops of the People’s Army in North Vietnam were sent to the South to reinforce the local authorities to suppress the movement. The situation was described as "serious and dark."

    Interdiction on the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang

In August 1993, the Vietnamese Communist government issued a formal interdiction on the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang's activities. Despite this, the 77-year-old Chairman of the Institute for the Propagation of Buddhist Faith firmly advocated the legitimacy of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and made public his appeal for religious freedom and respect for human rights. To apply pressure on the monk, the Vice-chairman of the People's Council of Quang Ngai Province, Hoang Ngoc Tran sought to meet with the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang at Hoi Nghia Pagoda. On August 4, 1993. during the meeting, Hoang gave him the Religions Central Section's ultimate administrative decision which itemized, among other things, the indictions on the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang'’s activities, which were to him acts of violations of the law: The monk must observe the State's regulations on religion. The State cadre also commanded him to stop assuming the title “Pro-tempore” Rector of the Institute for the Propagation of Buddhist Faith, to stop using the seal of the Institute, to stop using Hoi Nghia Pagoda or any other pagodas in the province for the use for the office for the Institute, and, most importantly, to stop forthwith deranging the official Buddhist Church of Vietnam.

   

    The Charges 

The following day, on August 5, 1993, the official daily Nhan Dan (The People), published in Hanoi, ran a circular of the State-sponsored Vietnam Buddhist Church. It condemned the Most Venerable Huyen Quang' s activities as “wrong and illegal.” The circular also asked the State authorities to stop him from using his false title and position To mete out the civil authorities’ artifices, the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang. In a communiqué to the Sangha and Buddhists on August 6, 1993, explained why he had refused to give the local authorities the Institute's seal. The Decision of the State Section for Religions and the administration of Quang Ngai Province were to the Unified Buddhist Church a death certificate. Once the seal has been given to the State authorities, the Institute's role is terminated, and the Church is killed. The notice also affirmed that the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church was instituted by a general congress of the Buddhist faithful. It could only be killed by a general congress. The administration's decisions were unacceptable since they violated human rights and the rights to religious freedom. It also said that the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang anticipated every difficulty facing the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church. Together with the Church associations around the world, he would accept all disastrous consequences to protect the Church.

    Support from the Church Overseas

    

The Overseas Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam in Canada declared, in a circular on August 10, 1993, that the Communist administration step-by-step carried out systematically its plan to eradicate the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and its leadership, the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang.  In December 1993, the State-affiliated Buddhist Magazine Giac Ngo, published in Saigon, circulated fiery articles attacking the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, his associates, and sympathizers in Hue. It charged them with crimes such as violations of the law, destruction of solidarity, and taking advantage of religion for personal interests. In a concerted effort, the administration of Quang Ngai continually convoked the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang to its headquarters for interrogation, terrorizing him into silence. In January 1994, a pro-government delegate of Buddhists came to Hoi Nghia Pagoda to question the old monk with an attempt to obstruct his activities and defame his cause for the struggle for religious freedom. The magazine Giac Ngo, again, elaborated unfounded charges against him such as violations of the law, destruction of solidarity, and abuses of religion for personal interests.

   

      Reactions

In his letter to the Sangha and Buddhist believers on Buddha's Birthday in September 1994, the Most Venerable Huyen Quang, in his address to the Buddhist faithful, renewed his concerns over the disastrous consequences the Vietnamese people suffered under the Communist regime. The Vietnamese people, it said, “have endured sufferings as a result of poverty, backwardness, social segregation, hatred, moral demotion, cultural degradation, repression, and terrorism.” It particularly reminded the Communist leadership of their malicious behavior as regards “the severe measures they have executed against Buddhism.” The Vietnamese people are lenient and peace-loving by nature. They are ready to forgive those who show repentance and mend their ways. The address specified that “the current favorable situation gives the Communists genuine opportunity to return to the people their rights and serve the country.” Their concrete tasks then “consist in respecting human rights, allowing the people to exercise these basic rights as stipulated in the International Bill of Human Rights.”

Uptight Conflict

         

The division between the Buddhist Churches was widely cracked. The ditch that separated the State-sponsored Vietnam Buddhist Church and the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam became increasingly large. In its issue of October 1994, the bulletin of information of the Vietnamese Communist Party, the press organ reserved only for the members of the Party, published a report on the political situation of the country for the year 1994. In many passages were devoted to the description of the actual state of beliefs and religious institutions in the country. The author of the report particularly showed  attentive to the expansion of activities and actual growth of religious movement in Vietnam. He signaled the multiplication of activities of the religious type as well as the reinforcement of ecclesiastic structures. The bulletin also reported that concrete evolution marked that the religions in Vietnam. The development of movement and restitution and construction of churches and pagodas, or, still the growing number of claims from the religious authorities and the conflict on land and establishments confiscated by the State and used for non-religious purposes.

     

The bulletin drew up in broad traits a list of the situation of particular religions. In the Buddhist circles. specially among the young adepts. it  specified the rebirth of movement of the youth inspired more or less by Boy-scout movement called Gia Dinh Phat Tu  (Buddhist Family). This movement “has continued to develop in the coastal provinces of Central Vietnam and those in the highlands. It attracts to it many youths and students . In some places, this organization manifests itself henceforward in a public manner, as, for example, at the pagoda of Bao Lam in Ban Me Thuot. The bulletin even added that a certain number of cadres, members of the Party’ abd teachers became the leaders of the movement of the Buddhist Family.  

   Other Measures

 

The conflict between the Communist authorities and the Unified Buddhist Church became increasingly uptight. The Quang Ngai Buddhist Sangha, in a letter to the Paris-based Commission of Human Rights in Paris in November 1994,  reported that  Hoi Nghia  Pagoda was under strict police contro. The Most Venerable Huyen Quang was very ill; his blood pressure was alarmingly high. Yet, the security police refused to let the medical doctor enter the pagoda to give him treatment. Buddhist monks from the neighboring Tu Quang Pagoda were prevented from paying visit to the Patriach. Buddhist believers in Quang Ngai were menaced with threat and frightened away." The letter also wrote: "Two Buddhist monks and two lay Buddhists, Thich Nguyen Man, Thich Dong Hoa, Ly Nam, and Nguyen Dinh Truc came to ask about the Most Venerable Huyen Quang's health. They were instantly arrested at the pagoda's gate and subjected to three days of nonstop interrogation. The security police force them to sign a statement declaring that they would seek no further contact with the Most Venerable Huyen Quang."

   

   Abuse of Power

The Commission of Human Rights declared that the government must bear full responsibility for the life of the Most Venerable' life if it refused to let him see a doctor. The second letter, dated November 15, 1994, was issued by the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang himself. It was sent to the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, who was living in Saigon. The letter stated that for two weeks, the security had kept tight control on the Church's office. All helpers including were expelled. Monks, nuns, and Buddhist followers were forbidden to come. “I don't know who I would ask for medical treatment,” the ailing patriarch said. Expressing his views on the police restrictions  and his state of health, the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang issued in his decision to assign the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do to the position of secretary-general in the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church, he emphasized that “the aim of the struggle for religious freedom and human rights to bring this second wave of repression against Buddhism to an end."

    

On December 29, 1994, the police arrested the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang after his hunger strike to demand the government's respect for religious freedom. The security police took over Hoi Nghia Pagoda. They confiscated the Church's official seal and seized all its documents.  By doing this, the civil authorities would think that they had successfully stripped off the Patriarch’s legitimacy as the supreme leader of the Vietnam Unified Church. The late Patriarch Thich Don Hau had bequeathed to the Most Venerable Huyen Quang the official seal, which is the symbol of leadership of the Church. By virtue of this transference of legitimacy he assigned the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang to the highest position of the Church’s hierarchy in 1992. The seal was only officially conferred to him at the late Patriarch's funeral at Linh Mu Pagoda, Hue, on May 3, 1992.

  

      The Most Venerable Thich Huyen Qung in Self-exile 

  

The Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang had established the headquarters of the Unified Buddhist Church in Exile in Hoi Nghia Pagoda, where he had been detained under house arrest without charges since 1982. The old Headquarters of the Unified Buddhist Church, which was located in An Quang Pagoda, Saigon.  in Ho Chi and which  had been confiscated long before that, in 1981. The Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang's arrest was followed by a clamp-down police operation on a Unified Buddhist Church group of monks, nuns, and believers on a their journey to collect and distribute relief aid  to the victims of flood in the Mekong Delta where 500,000 people became homeless and over 300 people died. During the operation (November 1994) the security police arrested the leaders of the Unified Buddhist Church in Saigon. It placed the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang under tight security detention in his pagoda thereafter.

     Under Solitary Confinement

 

During December 1994 the patriarch of the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church had become the target of condemnation with regard to his negative attitude towards the Communist administration. The religious, in effect, refused to come to a meeting with the civil authorities. On December 28, three days after he affected a hunger strike to protest against the blockade of Hoi Phuoc Pagoda where he had been in residence, the police made incursion into the pagoda. The following day, at midday, they arrested the religious and brought him to a car. Those who were present in the pagoda  at this moment were conducted to the police headquarters for interrogation. The documents found   at the place were confiscated. At about 7 o’clock in the evening of the same day, the Venerable Thich Huyen Quang had already been laced under house arrest at Quang Phuoc Pagoda in the district of Nghia Hanh, 15 kilometers from Hoi Phuoc Pagoda. Since then, the religious had sent emissaries to inform the public of his situation under detention. However, there was no possibility to penetrate the pagoda or even to go nearer the pagoda. The place of detention, in reality, is a place of detention which is like a concentration camp, is located in an isolated region. 

   

After the arrest of the Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, the spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Ministry affirmed that “ the Venerable Thich Huyen Quang had never been arrested. He simply left Hoi Phuoc Pagoda for Phuoc Quang Pagoda at his request and the adepts of Quang Ngai,”

    The Struggle for Faith of  the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do

The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, whose secular name is Dang Phuc Tue, is one of the first Unified Buddhist Church leaders who confront the government gradual attrition of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. He is also one of the most ardent advocates of religious freedom, democracy and human rights for Vietnam.  Together with the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, he was first arrested on April 6, 1977. He was then imprisoned, tortured, and detained for 20 months. He was acquitted on December 9, 1978, following an international support campaign during which Irish Nobel winners Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire nominated both the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang and him for the Peace Nobel Peace Prize. On March 2, 1982, he was again nevertheless arrested, this time for protesting against the government's establishment of the Vietnam Buddhist Church. On March 2, 1982, he  was banished to Vu Thu Commune in Thai Binh Province, North Vietnam. He was detained under house arrest without charge. In the same year, the then Interior Minister Mai Chi Tho [Phan Dinh Dong] visited him and offered him a position in the State-sponsored Church's hierarchy at Quan Su Pagoda in Hanoi. He refuted the proposal, however.

  

In early March 1992, Hanoi released the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do from house arrest. He returned to the South and resided at Thanh Minh Zen Monastery at 90 Tran Huy Lieu Street, Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. He resisted the order to expel him from the city by Major Le Van Lam, Head of the Administration and Social Order Office at the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department. He sent a letter to the chairman of the People's Council of 14th Ward, informing this local authority that he was in residence at Thanh Minh Zen Monastery, where he had been living before he was arrested (February 25, 1982). In a letter to Major Le Van Lam, the Most Venerable asserted that his residence at Thanh Minh Zen Monastery was legal, that he would continue living there, and that he would accept whatever consequences that might occur to him.

 

As Secretary-general of the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church, he strongly opposed the intervention of the State in the Church's internal affairs when it unilaterally instituted an organizing committee for the funeral ceremony in Hue for the late Eminency Thich Don Hau. In August 1994. He sent a letter and a 44-page memoirs entitled “Analyses of the Errors of the Vietnamese Communist Party toward the Nation and Buddhism” to the Vietnamese Communist Party Secretary-general Do Muoi.   A copy of this document was handed to representatives of the UN Action Team on Arbitrary Detention during their visit to Saigon on October 30, 1994. His letter, in part, specified:

“If we believe in the law of natural selection, all that constitutes an answer to a natural need survives, and that must be restored even if we have already concealed it. On the contrary, all that does not respond to any of the needs of mankind will eventually destroy itself. After having actually lived in a Communist regime, I can affirm that this regime does not respond to the needs of mankind. Morally, it oppresses and paralyzes mankind. Materially, it impoverishes and starves mankind. That situation is so true nowadays. This regime will be resigned to learn and accept capitalism, to follow the path to market economy.

  

Nowadays, Communism no longer has a context; it is only an empty word. Communism in Eastern Europe and in the old Soviet Union scuttled, simply because it did not respond to any human need. Nothing other than the regime makes war against itself, and, and certainly, not Buddhism, which, on the contrary, is never freed from being the target for its attack, persecution, and to destruction. According to the same law of natural selection, in my point of view, Buddhism responds to the need of humankind. That is why it is very difficult to have it disappeared. The fact can be explained  from what had happened to the pagodas in North Vietnam. In the old days [during he Indochina War], the Communists ruthlessly destroyed pagodas and even transformed them into rice fields. Nowadays,, wherever a pagoda whose foundation still stands, people build a thatch-covered house on it, and, in better-off communities, they even build a brick edifice so that they could have a place to worship Buddha. In the old days, the Communists ordered people to burn prayer books in Vietnamese. They classified them into the category of "decadent literature".  Nowadays, many adepts of the Buddhist faith in the North go to the South to buy them, copy them by hand, and then passed them around for everyone to say prayers. That is another proof showing that the population still needs Buddhism. Nevertheless, this is not the case for some other forms of worship: If I remember well, at one time, every family in the North was forced to hang the portraits of grandiose Communist leaders such as Karl Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Malenkov, Mao Tse-Tung, Kim Il Sung,... in the home. But by the time I was exiled to the North in 1982, I could not find these portraits at anyone's house, even at a party member's domicile.