THE PERSECUTION

Fallacy and Reality    

Concerning ideology, quite a few people maintain that the Socialist State is atheist, and, as a consequence, it opposes the religion. Socialism is synonymous with atheism. Hence, the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, led by the  Communist Party, is necessarily atheist; it opposes the religion. and it is the destroyer of religious faiths. The Chief of the State Bureau of Religious Affairs Le Quang Vinh conceded that the Communist State is atheist but  contended that such a remark is only an ill-intended exaggeration founded on deduction without either exactness nor sound base. To say that the religion and socialism don’t meet is baseless. That is not the case: Both socialism and the religion aspire to build  a happy and just society and wish that the good will ultimately vanquish the evil  Socialism struggles to build up the society right on the earth, and the religion, the afterlife in the world beyond.  In the Scriptures, the Lord Jesus affirmed: ”My kingdom is not this world.” (June 18, 36). Thus, between socialism and the religion, there is certainly no common identity, and, neither is there incompatibility. Ho Chi Minh declared: “The Communist Party does not get rid of the religion; it  protects it, instead.” (Nhan Dan, January 27, 1955).

   

The history of contemporary and modern Vietnam proves the reverse. Bloody religious persecutions of the Communist against the religions faiths of Vietnam, Caodaism, Hoa Hao Buddhism, all denominations of the Buddhist Faith, Evangelical Christianity, and the Roman Catholic Church rolled on throughout nearly 30 years under the Democratic Republic of Vietnam during the anti-French Resistance (1945-54), in the liberated North Vietnam (1954-75), and throughout the Socialist Republic of Vietnam ever since 1976.

THE CAO DAI CHURCH

Instances of Persecution

  

For more than three decades after the Communist takeover of South Vietnam, the Cao Dai Church has still lagged far behind other religions in the propagation of the faith. The Church is at an impasse due to somber internal division on one hand, and he State intervention in and control over the internal affairs of the Church on the other. Pressure and violence against the sects that refuse to take side with the State have persisted to the hopelessness of many Cao Dal followers. Efforts on the part of the State were made to incorporate various sects into the State-affiliated Cao Dai Tay Ninh but were in most instances proven futile. In many places, Cao Dai followers identify themselves with the legitimate Cao Dai Church.  Several groups claim themselves independent and practice their religious faith on their own creeds. rites, and rituals. They voluntarily organize sessions of prayers or for union at residential or congressional worship places. The State-affiliated Supreme Administrative Council has failed to unite under its leadership this range of heterogeneous factions.

Control and Harassment

Cao Dai factions that loyally observe the traditional legitimate worship practices suffer strict control of the civil authorities. The Cao Dai sect at Dinh Quan, which was founded in 1969,  as a case in point, has been under constant harassment. Loyally observing the tenets of legitimate Caodaism, it categorically negates the role played by the Tay Ninh Supreme Administrative Council which it considers as illegitimate and undeserving. It has become therefore the target for elimination of the those authorities who side with the council. On November 19, 2008, for instance, these people repeatedly attempted to cause physical damage to their temple at Dinh Quan. To preserve their faith and observe the commandments of  Caodaism, the adepts could only resign themselves to resist with nonviolence. They presented their case to the local authorities who nevertheless turn their blind eye to the matter. With no other means to voice their aspirations, they called  on  fellow followers  in and outside the country for moral and material  to preserve their worship place.

Artful treks are often manipulated to divide various Caudal sects. An incident that widened division between the  various  sects within the Cao Dai Church when news about whether or not the alter of Pope Pham Cong Tac should be moved from Cambodia to the Tay Ninh Holy See reached Cao Dai communities inside the country and abroad. Pope Pham Cong Tac, whose image still lives in the memory of most Cao Dai followers  He was one of the highest dignitary who had made great contributions to the  foundation of the Tay Ninh Holy See, which was inaugurated in 1955. He died while in exile in Cambodia in 1959.  Most Cao Dai communities overseas expressed  their wish and support over  the move of the Pope’s altar to the Holy See approvingly whereas many  others, who mostly live in Tay Ninh and members of the State-affiliated Cao Dai Tay Ninh Sect showed discontent, saying that the Pope was a criminal and not a supreme leader. Still, others thought that the move of the Pope’s altar could only complicate the existing internal division. Furthermore, there has been no religious freedom and independence in Vietnam, the establishment of the altar at the Holy See only proved an awkward accommodation .

On the anniversary of the death of Pope Pham Cong Tac at Tay Ninh Holy See organized by the State-affiliated Cao Dai Supreme Council, May 20, 2011, delegations of various sects of the legitimate Cao Dai Church were prevented from attending the ceremony. Hua Phi, Chairman of the Executive Board of Administration in Lam Dong Province, lamented that his delegation from the Central Highlands and others from the provinces in the South were hindered from joining fellow Cao Dai to pray Cao Dai Supreme for favors due to rude intervention by  the State-affiliated Tay Ninh Supreme Council. Nguyen Bach Phuong, Chairman of the Executive Board of Vinh Long Province, added that about a hundred delegates from the provinces in the Center and the South, Phu Yen, Binh Dinh , Quang Ngai, Vinh Long, Can Gio, and Ho Chi Minh City, Go Cong, Vung Tau, and Phan Thiet were all treated with rudeness at the ceremony. Chaos created a scene of disorder at the negligence of the leaders in the Tay Ninh Supreme Council.  The local authorities denied all charges according to which they themselves were the true instigators that pulled the string behind the scene. 

The conflict between leaders in the Tay Ninh Supreme Council and members in the executive boards of various independent sects of legitimate Cao Dai Church ever deepened.  In most cases, the administration lent support to the Supreme Council. On July 19, 2011, the local authorities decided to take down to the ground the Cao Dai Temple at My Phuong Ward, Phan Rang City. The temple was built in 1951 and has been the worship place of Cao Dai followers ever since. The sect has been  targeted with discrimination after the Communist takeover of South Vietnam, however. In 1987,  for example, while religious rites were being performed the security police came in, arrested three followers, and compelled the faithful  to cede the right to ownership  of the  temple to the civil authorities.  A number of Cao Dai followers were attributed to as hooligans and seized hold of the temple. Cao Dai followers at My Phuong  sent petitions to the city authorities. They received no answer, nevertheless. The  administration seemed to evade the matter in question. A cadre at My Dong People’s Council explained that this was not a land eviction, there had already been agreement between the administration and Administrative Council at Tay Ninh.

     

On May 5, 2012, a large group of local and province security police of Long An Province launched a raid, intimidating the believers at the Cao Dai Temple, in An Hoa Hamlet, An Ninh Tay Commune, Duc Hoa District They warned against them with threats.  This show of power of the police was such that the female follower Nguyen Thi Nu, aged over 60, who got scared, urinating herself involuntarily.

The police burst into the temple but met with strong opposition. The temple guardian Nguyen Thuy Lieu resolutely resisted the admittance. Only until the Cao Dai faithful, at the news of the rude intrusion of police force into the holy place, rushed to the temple did Nguyen Thuy Lieu open the entrance. The police made a search-through inspection without a warrant all through the worship place and found no evidence whatsoever of a fault or crime. They nevertheless ordered Nguyen Thuy Lieu and other members of the sect to leave the worship place on ground that the Caodai faction at An Hoa operated its activities illegally, without authorization from the Head of the Administrative Council Thuong Nhuong Thanh at Tay Ninh.    

   

The Reverend Le Minh Chau, the Head of the Administrative Board of Cao Dai Temple at An Hoa, who was absent from religious services at the time the police operated the search-through inspection  declared  that the Cao Dai faithful at An Hoa dutifully observe the rules and regulations of the Cao Dai Church. He does not know who Thuong Nhuong Thanh is. The  faithful do not trust the man, neither do they  repose their reliance in the head of the administrative council in Tay Ninh. They vow to resist until death to protect their worship place and the Church’s laws , rules, and regulations.  

 

On May 12, 2012, Cao Dai believers in the country and overseas celebrated the anniversary of death of the late Pope Pham Cong Tac. Delegations of Cao Dai dignitaries from  distant regions as far as Lam Dong in the Central Highlands, Binh Dinh, Central Vietnam, and Vinh Long in the plains of Mekong River came in pilgrimage to Tay Ninh Holy Site where the celebration was to be held by members of the Supreme Administrative Council. Hundreds of delegates, however, were targeted with harassment and hindrance from payting respects at the Holy Site and attending the ceremony, especially by guards and members of the State-affiliated administrative council. Petitions by the followers and dignitaries of various factions the Cao Dai Church were sent to the State Office of Reception at 35 Ho Ngoc Lam, Ho Chi Minh City for intervention.

Asked about the incident, Vo Thanh Cong, the vice-chief of the Department of Religions of Tay Ninh Province, declared that there was no such thing as hindrance. Religious activities are now favorable to the followers and performed under guidance of and  in accordance with the regulations of the State.  The authorities of the State Office proclaimed that there undeniably is religious freedom in Vietnam, in spite of a multitude of nefarious incidents of religious persecution as revealed in the reportage of international news agencies, protests of world humanitarian organizations, and acts intervention of personalities and governments worldwide that may take place under any circumstance, at any moment and anywhere in the country.