The Communist authorities have always maintained that there are no political prisoners in Vietnam. Officials and officers of the Republic of Vietnam were all the debtors of blood to the people and thus subjected to the most strict discipline.. Members of political parties who had not reported themselves with the authorities were arrested, charged with counterrevolutionary crimes, and imprisoned They were held under the direct surveillance and supervision of the security police. .The rules and regulations were even more rigorous. must closely combine management and reeducation. They were tight, continuous, comprehensive, and specific. Each inmate must be managed individually and personally, in terms of thoughts and actions, words and deeds, philosophy of life and ways of livelihood, and social education in association with interrogation. (Nguyen Tri, Interview with Nhat Tran, December 14, 1992).
The Criteria
The conditions of living were lamentable. Since there was little space (50 cm x 60 cm per person) for a great number of prisoners, the sanitary standard was exceedingly low, and the inmate’s personal security was not guaranteed. As a result, theft, robbery, and fight occurred.
Camp authorities combine rules and regulations of socialist methods of thought reform and management of labor throughout the reeducation process. The slogan is "firm devotion to thought reform and good performance of productive labor." Reeducation of thought and labor must be tight as the reeducated had long lived under harsh imperialism, had been crammed in their heads with erroneous thoughts, and had been corrupted by bad habits and social mores. They all committed crimes against the people --war criminals. They must be reeducated to repent on their crimes and rehabilitated to become again honest elements in the new society. The two fundamental criteria serve as a ruler to measure to what extent the reeducated has achieved in his task of reeducation reform. Each inmate‘s progress is evaluated individually and personally in terms of his fervor with which devoted himself to thought reform in association with his correct norms of performance of socialist productive labor As soon as he has performed well this task, he is released from the camp.
Thought Reform
Though reform is clearly not defined. It is essentially a concept. Rather, it is a process, which was instrumental in the thought education of cadres to achieve the political objectives for land reforms (1952-1958) and correction of disoriented intellectuals, writers, and artists after the Nhan Van Affair. (1956-1958) in Hanoi The process aims not only to transform the thought and way of thinking of the reeducated, to abandon the ideology of the imperialist oppressors and capitalist bourgeoisie and their ways of life. It also serves as a means to change the behavior of the reeducated, to transform him into a new man-- a socialist in a socialist society! The reverse proved to be true. There was only a dialogue between the deaf! There was an abyss of conflicts of thoughts and contradictions in the spiritual and moral ways of life that separated the Communist and non-Communists had made.
Thought reform after the liberation of the South, in many instances, became a farce! Most political commissioners were peasants who used to handle a plough and a gun at he same time. They treated the reeducated as uncivilized illiterates They had not enough knowledge about the culture and the level of education of the people in the South. They were not aware of the fact that most officials and officers of the old political regime were the holders of university degrees! Bestial treatment of camp officials, in addition, could only reverse the results and disastrous consequences to the reeducated.
In its effort to ensure a new socialist order in the South, Hanoi relied on the methods and techniques of thought education they adopted from socialist countries, especially Communist China. These new devices included thought reform, population resettlement, and internal exile, as well as security surveillance and mass political mobilization. Party-sponsored study sessions were obligatory for all adults. For the former elite of the Saigon regime, a more rigorous form of indoctrination was used. Hundreds of thousands of former military officers, bureaucrats, politicians, religious figures and lawyers, as well as critics of the new regime were ordered to reeducation camps for varying periods. At any periods they were all subjected to reeducation.
During the first months, intensive thought reform is the key element of reeducation in the camps. The inmates were instructed to reveal and denounce all the crimes the American imperialism and the puppet government had committed against the people. They themselves had the obligation to confess theirs for their participation in bringing catastrophe upon the people and country. They were required to write statements of their crimes, no matter how trivial they were. They were guilty of of their crimes and repented their crimes. They appealed for leniency from the Revolution. They promised to overcome bad thought and wrong doings to become good citizens again. Nine lectures comprising subjects ranging from praising the Communist victory of April 1975 over the American imperialists and their henchmen of the people and the People’s Army under the leadership of the Party to the glory of the ever-victorious Marxism-Leninism.
Reproductive Labor
Though reform must go hand in hand with productive labor called socialist labor. It became the key element of the reeducation process following the first months of intensive thought reform. It helps to transform the reeducate into a real socialist man. Labor is glory. Socialist labor works are, in fact, all forms of forced labor that are used to intimidate and coerced the reeducated to submit himself to the camp’s rules and regulations. They vary from the construction works to clearing mine fields. There is no definition for this form of reeducation. They include whatever form of labor the camp authorities consider as useful and necessary for reeducation reform. Labor education helps the reeducated reform his thought and thus acquire new views of life to adapt himself to the socialist society and serve it accordingly.
In the evening, the inmates reviewed their work in their group through mutual criticism and self-criticism, Productive labor for the camps ere primarily hard physical work much of which was hazardous such as building camps, clearing the forest, digging canals and wells, planting and harvesting crops,, quarrying rocks, felling trees, and cleaning the minefields. All of these works were done by hand and with rough implements and without equipment. The prisoners were organized into work teams. Each individual and group was forced to compete with each other to surpass the work indicator set by the camps. Failure to fulfill the task would result in being shackled or placed in solitary confinement. Not only did the prisoners suffer maltreatment with forced labor, they were also used as human shields on the battlefield., Aurora Foundation (1989) indicated that The Eighth Infantry Division of the VNPA kept over 1,000 prisoners in Moc Hoa in the late 1970’s. The prisoners were frequently exposed to Cambodia artillery fire from 177-1978.
The Requests
Requests by Amnesty International and other humanitarian agencies, both governmental and non-governmental, for impartial investigations of prison conditions remained unanswered. Families who inquired about husbands, wives, daughters, or sons were ignored. It was an abiding commitment to fundamental principles of human dignity, freedom, and self-determination that motivated many Americans to oppose the government of South Vietnam and the United States’ participation in the war. It is that same commitment that compels international figures to speak out against the Communist government ‘s brutal disregard of human rights. They found it necessary to raise voices so that the Vietnamese people might live. They appealed to the Communist government to end the imprisonment and torture-- to allow an international team of neutral observers to inspect the prisons and reeducation centers. They urged this government to follow the tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Convent for Civil and Political Rights which, as a member of the United States, the Communist country is pledged to uphold. They urge it to reaffirm its stated commitment to the basic principles of freedom and human dignity ... to establish real peace in Vietnam (Joan Baez. Ibid. 1979: 1).
TESTIMONIES
Housing Conditions
Housing conditions in the prisons and camps were far worse than unsatisfactory. Dang Chi Binh related how he suffered pain from the hazardous suffocating atmosphere due to lack of air in a tight cell when he was held at the Hoa Lo prison (Hanoi Hilton). He had never been sick due to restriction to movement outside the cell. Air was the cure. He was hungry, he still had air for compensation. In this cell, air was blocked from flowing in. Worse still, in this polluted cell, a foul smell persisted. The more intensity of it he inhaled, the less chance of survival he would have. (Dang Chi Binh, Thep Den, 1987:93)
At the Z39 D, Ham Tan camp, criminals and political prisoners of all backgrounds-- priests and intellectuals-- were locked in the same house or cell. They were all subject to the same savage treatment. The housing conditions were lamentable. Since there was little space (50 cm x 60 cm per person) for a great number of prisoners, the sanitary conditions was exceedingly low, and the inmate’s personal security was on full alert. As a result, theft, robbery, and fight occurred at any moment,. Such living conditions created constant troubles, making ferocity a habit. Human decency and moral mores deteriorated. Men of dignity were tortured by brutal criminals, the hooligans of the black society who were used by camp authorities to penalize unbending political prisoners. (Tran Manh Quynh, A Report, 1994).
Likewise, at the A20 camp, Xuan Phuoc, Phu Yen, criminals and political prisoners were indiscriminately treated and crammed in the same house or cell. Among those political prisoners were the Catholic priests Dinh Van Hieu and Le Hoai Son, the Buddhist monks Nguyen Duc Chuong, Tue Sy Pham Van Thuong, Le Hien, and Ho Huu Tin. Other personalities among whom were Honorable Huynh Van De, Honorable Ho Huu Khanh, and Professor Doan Viet Hoat. Also incarcerated in the camp were the overseas Vietnamese from the U.S.A., Canada, Germany, and France who were arrested on charges of scheming to overthrow the Revolution. They were: Ly Tong, Tran Manh Quynh, Peter Tran Vu, Vann Nelson Do Huon, Michael Nguyen Van Muon, Do Hoang Van, Pham Duc Hau, Nguyen Ngoc Dang, Nguyen Nghiep, Pierre Pham Anh Dung, and Le Hoan Son. Criminals and political prisoners alike were treated brutally by the same camp measures. (Pham Van Thanh, A Report., 1994)
Food Rations
Severe malnutrition plagued all reeducation camps. At the outset of concentration reeducation, the reeducated were told to bring e food for a period of ten days to thirty days. Supplies then were insufficient for a long period of detention. Camp guards and prisoners shared food equally. Still, supplies sent to the camps by family members were frequently intercepted by the camp authorities. As a result, the inmates’ food rations became increasingly meager.
Buu Lich reported that food limitation became a serious problem. Camp prisoners felt their health collapsed due to excruciating hunger. Succumbed due to forced starvation, they still did hard labor. In the beginning, their monthly apportion of rice was 18 kgs. The amount was gradually reduced to 15 kgs, 12 kgs, 8 kgs, and finally, none. Rice was lacking. and manioc, sweet potato, yam, or barley flour were substituted for it. All these foodstuffs were of the worst quality. Spoiled sweet potato or moth-eaten rice were the main diet. The only sauce that went with it was some kind of fish sauce, which was, in fact, a mixture of water and dark salt. The inmate had the right to a few stalks of vegetable a day, a piece of fish of a thumb size a week, and a piece of meat of the same size biweekly or even a month. Fish and meat became the diet of luxury. The craving for sugar was true torture. Four inmates shared a tiny box of sugar a month, and the amount was only given on the first days of reeducation!
Ho N. related that, during 1975-1976, at the Suoi Mau camp, Bien Hoa Province, South Vietnam, camp prisoners were only fed with decayed rice unearthed from dugouts in some old day secret guerrilla zones in the jungle. That was the kind of rice that Communists guerrillas stored in caves during the Vietnam War. floats when soaked in water and, is naturally without nutrient. His fellow prisoner, Dinh Pho, a Cao Dai believer and vegetarian, lamented that he survived reeducation thanks to his faith in the Cao Dai Supreme. He had been washed with favors from the Almighty God to brave hardship and starvation, and face shame and torture during the years in the reeducation camp. There were days of constant excruciating hunger and severe illness. No one gave him a bite of food or a capsule of medicine. He prayed and prayed, and at last was saved. You could not imagine how painful the kind of hunger at a reeducation camp was! It deprives you of reason and decency. Six camp prisoners who could not resist hunger and died of eating wild fruit.
The writer Pham Quoc Bao described how hunger tortured the camp prisoner and how it drove him to insanity: One day, the cook, a Northern Communist invalid and an inmate, received a jack-fruit from his family member who came to visit him. He cleaved the fruit in halves, had his fellow inmates in his room shared one half. He gave a piece of it to the camp nurses and hid the remainder somewhere --to save it for some other fellow inmates. Everyone could have a bite! The secret was disclosed, and the cook would soon be punished for acting against the camp’s regulations. Someone threw the poor piece of jack-fruit into a pail of urine --to destroy the evidence. Regretting a gold piece of food, the cook rushed to the place to recover it. It was only too late! A sick inmate had sneaked out ahead of him and had already taken several good bites of it.
At the A20 camp, Xuan Phuoc, Phu Yen Province, each inmate was given 12 kgs of foodstuffs monthly! Without the provisions sent in the camp from their relatives, the inmates would certainly starve. Life in the camp was utterly woeful. The inmates were subject to forced labor from 6:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. under the sun and in the rain They were always in serious want of food. Because of this, fights between criminals occurred almost daily. The inmate under solitary detention still suffered the most excruciating starvation. He was only given one meal a day that consisted of one small bowl of rice and a pinch of salt. Punishment such as this did kill the Catholic priests Nguyen Quang Minh, Nguyen Luan, and Nguyen Van Vang. They died between 1985 and mid-1986 for their unyielding tenacity against the cadres of the Ministry of the Interior.
At the Thanh Liet camp, Ha Son Binh Province, the prisoners were classified into different categories based on the evaluation of types of crimes against the people they had committed. The food ration then varied depending on the degree of sincerity of open confession of their crimes. The least honest was given 6 kgs of rice monthly or a bowl of cooked rice and a bit of soup of plain vegetable daily; the honest, 12 kgs of rice monthly --a bowl of cooked rice, a few blades of vegetable and soup of boiled vegetable daily; the advanced , 15 kgs of cooked rice monthly-- 2 bowls of cooked rice, a few blades of vegetable, some plain soup of boiled vegetable daily, and two minces of meat monthly; and. the exemplary, 18 kgs of rice monthly --two bowls of cooked rice and boiled vegetable and plain vegetable soup daily, and three minces of meat monthly.
Thach Xum, an officer of Cambodian origin explicated that contrary to the Communist propaganda, officials and officers of the Republic of Vietnam were summoned to camps not for reeducation but for brainwashing and for expiation of their crimes. They were treated more savagely then the prisoners of war. The Communists said that "one gains from one’s labor." Nevertheless, the prisoner exhausted himself with forced labor but was not given in return the minimum amount of food he desperately needed. Camp guards shared his provisions and camp wardens maliciously exploited their labor starved the him for their interests. They forced the prisoner to think about nothing but food. Many prisoners would eat whatever living thing they could find. A snake and even a grasshopper was to them a treasure!
Forced Labor
Camp detainees were organized into work groups or units to compete with one another for better productive work records The writer Ta Ty made a sketch of a scene of forced labor while he served reeducation at the camp:
"The water-buffalo with a pair of long curbed horns dully followed the laborer. Hardly had the animal seen the ground, it bolted up and tried to break loose. The laborer managed hard to rein the rope to control it, driving it onto the ground but failed to do so. The beast scuttled across a small stream and into the bushes at the foot of the hill. Not only man, a water-buffalo is also scared of force labor, sighed the laborer. "
The writer recalled the death of his fellow camp prisoner, Lt. Col. Nguyen Quang Hung, the former Chief of Staff at the Political Warfare Academy. The officer died of excessive forced labor. An excellent swimmer, he was drowned when crossing the rapids. He failed to resist the current because of exhaustion!
At the Xuan Loc camp, the authorities established standards for different categories of forced labor according to the communist motto, "one gains from one’s labor." A inmate under separate confinement was given only 2 kgs of rice per month. An inmate of the category of light forced labor was given 4 kgs of rice per month; an inmate of the category of normal forced labor, 6 kgs; and an inmate with a special skill -- a carpenter or bricklayer-- 8 kgs. The rations of rice was later replaced with manioc, maize. or yam. The meager diet was the main cause of death due to overwork.
The reeducated worked under guard in the forest, usually 15 km away from the camp. Each prisoner was forced to gather at least 20 kgs of firewood-- which is half of the weight of a Vietnamese of middle weight-- and carried to the camp, all together with his saw and hatch! The reeducated who had not been used to doing hard work was likely to succumb due to overwork or to die of the victim of an unexpected accident.
Another cause that is not less fatal was the impassivity of the camp guards towards the prisoners. One day, Lt. Nguyen Trong recalled, a tree trunk fell on a prisoner Everyone rushed to the place and managed to help the unfortunate inmate out. The guardian on watch only showed an expressionless face. The prisoners requested him to bring the victim back to the camp, but the request was ignored. The injured inmate lay on the ground, unattended. About 5 or 6 hours later, he was carried on the back by his fellow prisoner. He was soon dying and died on the way back to camp.
At the A20 camp, Xuan Phuoc, Phu Yen Province, the authorities exploited to the fullest the prisoner’s labor for their own profits. Each prisoner of the group of brick-makers, for instance, was forced to produce 1,400 blocks a month. This amount of bricks was sold in the market at a retail sale of $VN 140,000 dong// 1,000 blocks. Nevertheless, the prisoner could only receive $VN 30,000 dong. A sick inmate was exempt from work, a sum of $VN 1’300 dong/ a day was subtracted from his total salary. The group as a whole had to place a monthly deposit of $VN 1,000,000 dong out of $VN 4,000,000 dong paid for their work from the account at the overseer’s office. The difference would go to the quan giao (camp custodian).
The prisoner labored hard for the camp, but no attention was paid to their health. Not only did the camp authorities exploit the group of brick-makers’ labor on construction work. They also forced other groups of prisoners to labor for their own interests, The farming group, another case in point, held domestic jobs for the camp authorities, beside clearing wild fields and breaking rocks.
Living scenes of labor exploitation in the camps as such are described in numerous accounts, reports, and memoirs of veteran political prisoners, by Dang Chi Binh, Ha Thuc Sinh, Pham Quoc Bao, Nguyen Chi Thien, Doan Viet Hoat, and so on. They denounced the maltreatment that is even more savage than the atrocities afflicted on the prisoners of war by wardens in the prisons and concentration camps in the despotic world. And, the reader can come across a great deal of these incidents in the woks of Stendhall Georghiu, Charriere, Solzhenitsyn, Silvio Pellico, Bevenito Cellenini, and so on.
Ha Thuc Sinh in his memoirs Blood University asserted that prison authorities in the Free World may resort to violence to control the prisoners. An innate sense of human love is still there, deep in their hearts. Most wardens in the prisons and reeducation camps, on the contrary, seemed impassive and acted with indifference towards their fellow compatriots sufferings. They developed methods of maltreatment with insistence on the basis of the principles of the class struggle. They treated their defeated fellow compatriots like the deadly enemies. --the blood debtors to the people-- and regarded them as wild beasts. And, these beasts deserve the most excruciating torture!
Witnessing the harsh treatment against political prisoners of the camp authorities at the Nam Ha camp, on March 1, 1994, Doan Viet Hoat sent a letter of protest to the Vietnamese Communist leadership, denouncing the barbarous methods of organized forced labor and the horrible practices of the rules and regulations of the camp he and his fellow prisoners had lived through. These methods and practices were entirely intended for purposeful punishment and vengeance. The camp prisoners were assigned the task "to make the camp rich." As a consequence, exploitation of labor only produces negative effects. Forced labor was instrumental in gaining profits for the camp at the expense of the prisoners. They were mercilessly exploited. while their living conditions became increasingly unsustainable. Reeducation, in this situation failed to achieve its objectives, thereby causing disadvantages to the State’s policy. Labor at the camp should be accompanied with true education, to elevate the knowledge --to reform thoughts, improve the skills, and implement the environment in accordance with the norms and principles of education in a civilized society.
Health Care
Food and medical supplies were inadequate. Sick prisoners were not transferred in time to a hospital. Many prisoners therefore died painfully. Illness was frequently the consequence of starvation. Other than this villainous cause, the inmates usually became sick as a result of the unhygienic environment of the camp. The most common diseases were diarrhea and malaria, and most patients died because of lack of health care. Worse still, while illness and injury caused by forced labor were widespread, medical treatment was virtually nonexistent The camp did not supply medicine, and the inmate could only rely on herbs or the little medicine they brought with him the day he was summoned to reeducation. The inmate did not have the right to keep it, however. It was kept at the camp office and was only given to the possessor only when he was truly in need of it. He had to apply for it with a written form.
A sick inmate had a little good food ration and was exempted from work. However, that was not the case for any prisoner all the time. Prof. Doan Viet Hoat constantly resisted pain in his back; he still had to work in the field. He was severely myopic but had never been given an eye examination. He was even not permitted to replace his old eye glasses, which had already been unfit for his weak vision. The poet Nguyen Van Thuan suffered heart attack and became seriously ill. He had never been permitted to return home for medical care, regardless of the intervention of Jackie Manihorn, the Executive Director of the Canadian Center International PEN. In fact, illnesses did not constitute a motive for the reeducated to return home. Only could a dying inmates be granted permission. They died soon after homecoming!
The death of a prisoner in the camp is kept a secret. During his official visit to France in April 1977, Prime Minister Pham Van Dong maintained in an interview with the press that the lawyer Tran Van Tuyen, a national public figure of the South and a reeducated, was still alive while he certainly knew that Tran Van Tuyen had died in the Lao Kay reeducation camp in April 1976. The lawyer’s family was kept uninformed.
The writer Hoang Hai Thuy recollected in his memoirs how the worst heath service had caused the deaths of the two famous writers Nguyen Hoat and Duong Hung Cuong. Nguyen Hoat died of high blood pressure due to the lack of medical treatment. Nguyen was detained at the ED Collrctive Room, close to Hoang’s room, the ED 10, in Phan Dang Luu Prison, Saigon. The lawyer Khuat Duy Trac, who was detained at ED 9, which was also close to Hoang’ s room, suddenly heard in the night a prisoner cry out to the cadres in charge of the ED, warning that there was an seriously sick inmate in need of emergency care. The writer Nguyen Hoat had already been unconscious. Until later, his fellow inmate was ordered to carry him on the back to the dispensary of Chi Hoa Prison, 4-5 kilometers away. He died the following morning. The writer Duong Hung Cuong suffered severe pneumonia without medical care. He died while under solitary confinement. The prison warden found him already dead when he came by his cell to make the morning roll call.
Aurora Foundation (1989) reported that the majority of camps had no trained medical personnel. Deaths in the camp results mostly from medical negligence. Ninety percent of seriously ill inmates at Binh Gia Camp died in the camp. At the Thanh Phong prison sub-camp K-1, Thanh Hoa Province, the death rate was inordinately high in the 1980’s. Thirty percent of the inmates died each year from 1980. The former senator of the Republic of Vietnam Hoang Xuan Hao reported in his memoirs that forced starvation was perdurable in the Communist prisons and camps in the provinces of the North. Throughout the period of 1976-1979, in the reeducation camps such as the Lam Son and Thanh Cam camps Thanh Hoa Province, the number of prisoners who died of forced starvation was enormously high. Criminals and prisoners of ethnic minorities were also among the victims. They were mostly the inmates who had been rounded up and crammed into the various prisons at the time of the Chinese invasion into the six provinces along the Vietnam-China borders. in 1979. Since there were not enough coffins to match the demand, the camp’s supervisor devised on his own initiative a style of multipurpose coffin. This kind of coffin was made with automatic bolts fixed at the bottom plank. One could only unfasten the bolts, and the corpse was automatically released. As many as a hundred dead bodies could be dropped into the ditches at a time. That is truly convenient!
Punishment
Bruce Stanley of the Associated Press, on September 28, 1994 reported that political prisoners at a detention camp were beaten by guards. They were denied medical care and forced to survive on a diet of rice and salt. The Vietnam Committee on Human Rights, based in Gennevillers, France, quoted a document reportedly written on July 25, 1994, and smuggled out of Vietnam by Pham Van Thanh, gave a glimpse of what it said the the miserable conditions inside the country’s reeducation camps. Security police beat up the political prisoners with unbelievable violence. They were beaten like animals.
It is not unusual, though, to see even a Communist suffer maltreatment in the Party’s jail. Ngo Duc Mau, a veteran Communist who had served a ten-year term in the French’s prison disclosed that there was a vast chasm separating the treatment against the inmates in an imperial prison and that in the Communist one. While in a dark, damp cell of a colonial prison, the prisoners still had chance to comfort one another. They only suffered physical pain, and their minds were at rest. In the Communist prison, they were trampled underfoot, both mentally and physically. The wardens regarded the inmate a traitor or a spy.
Punishment against political prisoners --beating and torture-- is politically instituted. Reeducation is defined by the Communist regime as "the means to educate the military and civil personnel of the puppet administration so that they will be made aware of the new politics, that they will repent, and that they will be ably live in the bosom of the people when returning home." On the contrary, the cadres, haughty and arrogant, never hesitated to scream, humiliate, insult, abuse, and beat and torment without mercy the political prisoner. In a way, they revenged themselves on "the henchmen of the puppet government." They were treated like the horrible creatures, the one-time oppressors and blood debtors to the people! The idea certainly reflected the Communist propaganda, brainwashing the bovine people of the North, alluring them to believe that all former officials and officers of the South Vietnamese government were the deadliest enemies.
Beating and torture wee the common practices. Punishment of these types were normally conducive to fatal consequences. At the Hoc Mon camp, 10 kilometers south of Saigon, a reeducated became delirious as a result of high fever. He unconsciously provoked the camp wardens, insulting Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap, Truong Chinh,, and Pham Van Dong. for having invaded South Vietnam and engulfed the whole Vietnamese people in starvation and misery. He was immediately crammed into and held tight in a connex. The warden on watch had tortured the victim savagely, knocking on his head with the cross-head of a handgun all night. He breathed his last breath the following morning.
At the Thanh Liet camp, Ha Nam Ninh Province, the inmate under solitary confinement was held in a separate cell. His hands were not shackled, but his feet were chained in fetters. His mouth was stuffed with a piece of rubber fastened by a steel string that is pulled toward the back of the head and held with a lock. In this position, the inmate could in no way cry out. The security police of Hanoi still adopted other special techniques of torture without causing an immediate death. They cause internal injury that is serious enough to gradually wear out the inmate physical strength so that he can sustain continued torture within several days of recovery. The victim would then be physically resistant for another flurry of torture.
In particular, these professional executioners of the Communist prisons did not apply electric shock. They tied up the inmate, cornered him to the wall, bent his head down to the ground, and kicked and trampled him underfoot. Putting the inmate’s feet in fetters and starving him were the common practices at the Hilton Hotel (Hoa Lo Hanoi, i.e., Hanoi Prison).
Nguyen Ly Tuong, a former deputy of the National Assembly of the Republic of Vietnam, reported in the interview with the daily Thoi Luan (Vietnam Post), on August 14, 1994, that there were two categories of inmates at the camp: the ordinary reeducated and the members of the political dissidence. The former category were generally treated with less rigorous and severe punishment. The latter category was subject to strict discipline measures. They were classified into the category of the most dangerous elements to the regime --the blood debtors to the people.! The prison wardens and guards usually applied special methods with technical skills to torture them. The inmate under solitary confinement in this category were kept in a kennel. He had to sit with his back curved and crawl out to grab food just like a beast! The poet Truong Thai Son, Chairman of the Committee of the Struggle for the Rights of Man, who demanded the camp authorities to treat the political prisoners with decency and respect was arbitrarily placed under solitary confinement. Professor Doan Viet Hoat and Tran Manh Quynh, and other personalities were transferred to other prisons and camps in the North because of their intervention in this effort.
Various forms of corporal torture were also the common practices in other reeducation camps and prisons. The inmates were subject to interrogations with beatings’ They were tied up in contorted positions, hands and feet shacked, and confined in dark cells. At the Ben Gia camp, Cuu Long Province, the camp wardens used living graves, tiger cages, and steel-barred dark cells for solitary confinement of unbending prisoners. At the Vuo Dao, Tien Giang Province, the obstinate inmate suffered the forced death in tiger cages or execution by strangulation. The officials at the Dong Nai camp, Dong Nai Province, forced the inmates to detect mines without equipment and clear the mine fields with bare hands. Failures to do the task resulted in fatal beatings. At the Ha Nam Ninh camps, where political and religious prisoners were held, the inmates were forced to do labor works on starvation diets. Failures to meet the established standards resulted in fatal beatings and solitary confinement. At the Thanh Phong camps and sub-camps, with 900 inmates each, the political prisoners including former senators, journalists, Catholic priests, pastors, and former officers and officials suffered brutal torment. As a result, a considerable number of inmates committed suicide; others died due to disease, overworking, malnutrition, torture, and solitary confinement.
The Glory of Bad Faith
The writer Nhat Tran was arrested for ungrounded reasons. He was charged with counterrevolutionary crimes --masterminding subversive activities against the Revolution. A refugee from the North in July 1954, he had been for twenty years a law student then a businessman. He had not involved in any anti-Communist activities whatsoever. Having searched through his home, the red guards could only find an old national flag and nothing else.. Squeezed into the corner of a dark cell at the Phab Dang Luu prison, Gia Dinh Province, he came to realize that hatred and vengeance on certain enemies was the primary cause of his arrest. He was only a son of a refugee family from the North in July 1954 when the Communists came back to Hanoi to take over the nationalist government.. An immigrant to the South at that time was regarded a traitor to the Communist fatherland. The reason for his arrest was simple! :He was anti-Communist without doubt. Anyone acts contrarily to the Communists’ will is regarded a traitor. Nhat Tran confided:
"The battle has not ended. As long as hatred and vengeance prevailed, national reconciliation and concord will remain the rhetoric of political propaganda The guerrilla war in the 1960’s wagged by the communists had cost tens of hundred hundreds of human beings. The so-called liberation of the South only sowed division among various layers of population and monstrous disaster to the people. The victory of the North Vietnamese that followed engendered tragic disaster losses to the people.. The Vietnamese of the South writhed with pain when seeing their land and properties stripped off and fell into the hands of the unruly North Vietnamese Communists. The Communists will never successfully convince the people of the South of their cause. They will never justify with certitude their failed ideology. Unsuccessful in doing so, the Communists have tried to putt the blame on the others, the former officials and officers, of the SVN administration and all members of the elite class that they thoughts the henchmen of or adherents to it.
Upon seizing the political power in the South, the Communists apparently declared to carry out a policy of leniency towards the officials and officers of the old regime. They nevertheless summoned all of them and members of the political parties, social organizations, and religions in concentration reeducation. In reality, personalities of the various political, social and religious organizations who responded to their call were crammed into various prisons in the cities and reeducation camps in distant forests and mountains. In Saigon, Phan Dang Luu Prison became a notorious concentration camp. Thousands of political figures arbitrarily labeled as reactionary elements were arrested and imprisoned. There was seldom a trial.
Nhat Tran was transferred to the North and held at the most infamous Quyet Tien Camp in the Hoang Lien Son Mountains. For months, he was cornered in a dark cell, the political prisoner lay on the floor with his hands and feet tied to his back. Interrogations were conducted day and night. He was lucky to escape death. Many prisoners died because of savage torture. After the period of interrogations with torture, the prisoner was transferred to a sub-camp for reeducation --thought reform and forced labor. People in the North were fearful of such term as reeducation at Quyet Tien Camp! There is no fixed term of detention for reeducation. A man’s life is worth nothing in a Communist reeducation camp!
As a rule, the most fractious political prisoners were sent to the Quyet Tien Camp, which is known as Cong Troi (Gate to Heaven). There are no trails whatsoever in the regions. One can reach nowhere but the Gate to Heaven! A camp cadre once told Nhat Tran :"Your life is worth a sheet of a student’s notebook!" He only told the truth. The Communists don’t kill the political prisoners. They only starve them and enslave them into hopelessness, instilling in their minds the idea that they will not survive their prison term and will only bury their lives in there. In truth, many healthy inmates became insane; many others perished out of hopelessness, still, others died because of torture and harsh endurance
Solitary Confinement
Major Pham Sy became blind during the time he served solitary confinement. He was cooped up in a tight-shut cell of 1, 8 in length and 0.60 m width. It was pitch-dark inside. His eyes got so intently accustomed to the darkness in the cell that he lost eyesight when he came into contact again with the light. It was the most terrifying kind of cell. The floor was rained down with cement mixed with salt. When it is hot, the floor moistens, excruciating your body with sweat and your throat with stiffness. The prisoner under solitary confinement often could not resist pain and fainted. With hands and feet tied crosswise to the back, he laid there on his stomach, waiting for death. He wasn’t allow to have visitors. Each day he was given a small bowl of rice and water mixed with a lot of salt. The more one drinks it, the faster the stomach constricts!
Colonel Vo Dai Ton intimated to his readers in Tam Mau Den (The Bath in Black Blood) that the bitterest memory and cruelest punishment at the camp is loneliness. For more than 10 years under solitary detention, he had never been allowed to expose himself to live activity. Day and night, he was cooped up alone in the cell. Emptiness exerts on one’s nerves, makes one lose one’s mind, and drives one to insanity. As always, food was awful: only rice and salt. Tediousness and hunger filled his heart with despair. Worse still, the inmate was toyed with the camp authority’s tricks. He was never allowed to write to his family. There was no news from home. Only now and then, they showed him the picture of his wife and children. And, in an instant, they pulled it away-- a real piercing stroke of torture!
Humiliation to the reeducated is another common practice in a reeducation camp. At the opening of each session of political indoctrination, the instructor read aloud all the letters sent to camp from the prisoners’ relatives. He would not miss a single detail in the letter, even the most intimate and confidential feature, regardless of the annoyance of the audience! The cadre pretended to ignore the most common practice of courtesy-- to respect the formula of private courtesy that a man of decency should observe. Or, he might think that form of politeness would only be a kind of corrupted social conduct of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie, and a Communist would not care!
Artful Tricks
Dr. Nguyen Quoc Quan, Chairman of the International Committee for the Vietnam High-Tide Movement for Humanism, informed in August 1994 that the Hanoi administration avenged on his brother, Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, a prisoner of conscience. Hanoi had failed to compromise with Dr. Nguyen Dan Que on an agreement in the preparation for a meeting between Dr. Nguyen Dan Que and U.S. Senator Charles Robb. Nevertheless, on August 29, Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, was successful in sending a short note to the senator. The note stressed the fact that the Hanoi police was trying to take revenge on him. They were up to tricks and repressive measures against the political prisoner, having failed to make arrangements between Senator Charles Robb and him.The fact is before his visit to Vietnam in August 1955, Senator Charles Robb had sent a letter to Le Van Bang, the Ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the United States of America, informing him that he wanted to meet Dr. Nguyen Dan Que and give him medicine and a letter from his brother, Dr. Nguyen Quoc Quan. The said ambassador promised he could satisfy the request. Nevertheless, the Communist authority in Vietnam denied the senator’s request to visit the camp.
Correspondence
No prisoner has the right to direct contact with his family. Correspondence without consent or permission following the censure of the camp authorities is completely forbidden. On the Tet Day (Lunar New Year’s Day) and the Labor Day --May 1--, the prisoner is allowed to send a letter to his family, provided that his letter be strictly conformed with the prison’s superintendent’s instructions and follow the three following topics: 1) I am well (regardless of what physical condition the prisoner’ is in); 2) The Government is merciful to me (for all my wrong-doings; and 3) At home, you must obey the orders of the Government, which is so generous to us (Washington Area League for Human Rights, 1978: 17).
The mail content must be expressed in a polite form, showing political faith in the regime. There are also regulations for mail writing with which the prisoner has to comply. The regulations specify, among other things, that the mail content must not be written in a foreign language, that it must not disclose the name of the location of the camp, and that it must not contain any complaint or order in any form. Finally, it must be censured, by the camp wardens. Under strict control, the prisoner always seeks to convey his hidden ideas on hints in his letter to his family.
Mails leaving camp that are not censured by the camp authorities constitutes a serious violation of the camp’s regulations, and the writer is subject to discipline. All other deviations from discipline in this matter are met with solitary confinement, which is coupled with punishment --hands and feet in fetters in a dark cell.
Following is the content of a letter of a prisoner who developed beriberi:
"My Dear ...
I’m very well. You and the children don’t have to worry about me. I work happily during the daytime. I no longer spend a fast life or drink as I did years ago. Moreover, the Revolution really cares for me, mentally and spiritually. I’m getting fat now. Today, the Revolution grants me a favor, allowing me to write to you, telling you that I can receive from you a three-kilogram package of food and medicine for additional use. To tell you the truth, I practically don’t need anything. But, if possible, send me the following items: 1) 3 packs of tobacco; 2) 2 kgs of raw sugar; and 1 kg of brown sugar mixed in lime juice. And, of most importance, Vitamin B1, the largest capsules.
Nguyen Van A
P.S. Absolutely, no salt food. Specifically, I don’t like meat. Again, 3 kgs only. otherwise, we will violate the camp’s regulations. The best thing to do is to read carefully the official announcement in the newspaper."
Ha Thuc Sinh remarked that, by applying the strict measures of control, the camp wardens exploited to the fullest the prisoner’s obedience, to grant the least favor in exchange for the prisoner’s absolute submission. An full bowl of rice or a little more plain, rice soup, or a vague promise to be allowed receive a package of food of more than 3 kgs would make a credulous inmate a spy for the camp authorities! Such a favor is also tenable enough for fellow prisoners to kill each other with ruse and tricks (Ha Thuc Sinh, Blood University, 1993:253-261)
Visits
Mrs. Tran Thi Thuc, Dr. Doan Viet Hoat’s wife, in her letter of May 13, 1994, presented to the Vietnamese Communist Party leadership and government the consequences of the unjust arrest and trial of her husband. She equally denounced the incidents of hardship her husband suffered under imprisonment. Still, she herself was subject to all troubles and restrictions and interdiction from the camp authorities, Having traveled thousands of kilometers, she was sent from one camp to another and not allowed to see her husband. The letter specified, in part:
"Recently, I and my son have undergone so many difficulties to travel as fas Nam Ha (Ba Sao Camp) to visit and supply my husband with some provisions. My son and I reached the camp on May 1, 1994, exhausted after a long journey of thousands of kilometers from far away in the South. Nevertheless, we were informed by the authorities of the Ba Sao camp that my husband had been transferred to Thanh Cam Camp, Thanh Hoa Province, which is approximately 200 kilometers from Ba Sao Camp. We had to resign ourselves to go away, guessing our way to Thanh Cam. On May 2, we arrived at Thanh Cam, but the camp authorities resolutely denied my request, not allowing me to see my husband. They only agreed to hand over our gift of 3 kgs to my husband. Finally, I had to content myself to leave the gift at the camp. office. I had to ask them to hand it over to my husband. After a week-long journey, I was not allowed to see my husband, even for a minute!
In this letter, I would like to extend to you my strongest protest, as far as my husband’s imprisonment is concerned, for the following reasons: 1). The Ministry for the Interior continually transfers my husband from one camp to another and farther and farther in the distant forest 0f severe climate --Ham Tan, Xuan Phuoc, Ba Sao,Thanh Cam-- and have him detained among dangerous criminals; 2) Doan Viet Hoat has never been convicted with a forced labor sentence. Therefore, he has the right to refuse to perform heavy work, such as rock breaking. Then, why have the camp boards of administration disciplined him, coercively, placing him under solitary confinement; 3). My husband has a history of severe kidney stones. My family needs to follow up his health condition regularly. Yet, he has continually been transferred from one place to another. We have not heard any news about him, and when we can come to his place of detention, we are not allowed to see him. Then, how can we conclude that he is safe, as far as his health is concerned?"
Visits by international personalities are often blocked and denied. On August 10, 1994, the American Human Rights activist David Phillips of U. S. Congressional Human Rights Foundation was debarred from entering Vietnam. The activist flew to Vietnam and arrived at Tan Son Nhat Airport on August 8, 1994. He was denied the entry permission by the officials at the airport. He had with him a rights prize awarded to Dr. Nguyen Dan Que by the human rights foundation Raoul Wallenberg. Dr. Nguyen had not been allowed to come to the United States to receive the award. The activist was also not allowed to meet with the Vietnamese authorities to discuss the human rights situation in Vietnam.
Visits to camps by international personalities was kept a dead secret until the last minute. An occasion as such comforts the prisoner and helps him invigorate faith to face trials of hardship while in the prison. Tran Manh Quynh happened to have a chance to reveal his heart when the Honorable James Christ Smith came to see him at the Chi Hoa Prison:
"That morning (Friday, October 12, 1993), they brought me to see Mr. James Curtis Smith, Consul-general and Counselor for Consular Affairs at U.S. Embassy in Thailand, at the meeting room in Chi Hoa Prison, Saigon. There was mystery about the visit. I have not been aware of anything about it. I was granted the haircut to shave without my asking for it. I was told to change clothes . I was allowed to see my family member. By that time, my mother was visiting Vietnam. I was really excited. She might want to see me before she came back to the United States, on November 13, 1993. I guessed the prison authorities probably granted her a favor so that she would say something advantageous to the regime. There were, in fact, important points which I had openly expressed in court during my trial and which are disadvantageous to it. .. While we were talking, security policemen of this tyrannical stood all around, the room watching; they could not prevent me from telling the truth.
In this report, I wish to express my gratitude to the Government of the United States and the World for their concerns over the fate of thousands of political prisoners who have been under detention by this tyrannical regime. The impertinent statements by SRVN Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Le Mai were completely untrue. They came out of infantile tricks and vile deceit and can only be instrumental in beguiling the World.
Mr. Janes Curtis Struble told me if I wish he would be willing help me to present the facts I had disclosed to him to my family, the Vietnamese communities, the U. S. Congress, and the World,. I replied: "Yes, I certainly do." He gave me a piece of paper on which I jotted down the kinds of activities and other incidents I had disclosed to him. When I was about to sign the testament, the group of security police present at the meeting stopped me to do so. (Tran Manh Quynh, A Report. 1994, 8)
A Protest
The Committee on Human Rights in Paris reported from reliable sources inside Vietnam that the supervisors at A20 Camp duped the U. N. Human Rights Action Team led by the Honorable Louis Joinet when they visited the camp on October 28, 1994.
The camp was located in Phu Yen Province, commonly known as the Death Valley where 2,000 graves of prisoners stood around it. These graves were the evidences of the deaths of the victims of intolerance. They were the prisoners of conscience and political prisoners who died from maltreatment from 1976 to 1987.
Sources from inside Vietnam reported on the developments of a revolt inside the camp during the visit of the international delegation to the camp. They specifically recounted that at 10:30 p, m. October 28, 1994, the supervisors at the A20 Camp ordered all the prisoners, including ailing ones, to leave the camp without delay. Before that, a group of prisoners had been transferred to another camp. Still, a group of prisoners among whom were the monks Thich Tue Sy Pham Van Thuong, Thich Phuoc Vien Le Hien, Thich Tam Can Nguyen Huu Tin, and another group of political prisoners including Pham Van Thanh, Le Hoan Son, Pham Anh Dung, and Nguyen Ngoc Dang were isolated and put under strict control.
At 16:00., the U. N. Human Rights Team arrived at the camp. They requested the camp’s board of supervisors to see the prisoners at the eight rows of houses of the camp. The request was not met, because "the prisoners had been moved from the camp to rescue the flood victims in the Mekong Delta." The visitors could only see the four typical categories of inmates in the camp. They were all healthy and neatly dressed. As a matter of fact, they praised the Party’s policy of leniency to the prisoners. The visit lasted two hours. During this time, electricity at the camp was cut. The prisoners were ordered not to make noise to create an atmosphere of silence and emptiness
At 22:00., the prisoners were moved back to camp. They did not realize there had been a visit of a U. N. team to the camp. They had missed a chance to see the international delegation and present to it the severe measures the camp’s board supervisors had executed against them. Like a flash of light, the news of a visit of a U. N. team electrified the whole camp the following morning. Indignant over the camp’s trick on them, the prisoners rose up in a revolt against the camp’s authorities.
The violent protest was nevertheless flattened out instantly. All 250 prisoners who had heated up the protest were called in the camp’s office for interrogation. Eighty-seven others were quieted down and subjected to the camp’s discipline.
Resistance persisted, nonetheless. At 20:00 of the same day, the political prisoner Pham Van Thanh announced the start of a hunger strike. Confronting an all-out open protest, the camp’s board in coordination with the military mobilized the prison wardens and the local troops to crack down on the protesters. There were gunshots, and many prisoners were wounded. The following morning, Pham Van Thanh was cooped up with hands and feet in fetters in a separate cell. The hunger strike still lasted seven days that followed and ended up in the brutal repression on other individual prisoners of the security police.
The political prisoner Tran Van Thanh exalted his wrath against the regime in strong terms. He challenged the tyrannical regime, demanding it to free thousands of political prisoners, and not just 585, as the press abroad claimed. It must respect and carry out the provisions as prescribed in the International Bill of Human Rights. The violations of these rights would cause his fellow compatriots suffer more injustices and isolate them from the world in the quest for peace and social stability. He also demanded it to realize democracy and bring welfare to the people. He expressed confidence in the struggle for freedom and democracy of patriotic associations and organizations. He called for the support of the people and the world in this endeavor.
Demands
A victim of continual solitary confinement, Professor Doan Viet Hoat had repeatedly expressed concerns about the deplorable conditions of life in the reeducation camp. In his request sent to the central Communist administration in October 1992, the professor suggested to it a plan of practical of rehabilitation. He pointed out such objectives as:
"1- To establish a national commission to inspect the living conditions in the prisons and camps. This commission should work independently from all administrative organs in charge in matters of organization and administration of the prisons and camps. It should be placed and works with authority within the legislative and administrative supervision of the National Assembly and of the Prime Minister. It should be vested with the responsibility to inspect and study the situations at all prisons and camps and impart recommendations for implementation,
2- To review all legal documents regarding organization and management in all prisons and camps as well as the implementation for better living conditions for the inmate. Any infringement on the spirit or content of the current Constitution must be rectified, and
3- While awaiting for due rehabilitation, an immediate mandate for the implementation for working and living conditions should be realized. Prison and camp conditions need to be improved and pernicious measures and punitive methods be substituted with cooperative participation through education."
Doubts
Captain Ho Nguyen expressed doubts about the willingness on the part of the Communist regime. Any promise, if any, is mere rhetoric:
"Whoever believes in what the Communist administration has promised will only live in despair. They promised to carry out the policy of leniency and national reconciliation and concord but practiced discrimination, repression, and violence, instead. Some people say that the new regime has employed the civil servants of the old regime, except the reeducated. That’s not true. Only the specialists and experts can be. Employees in the new personnel --workers and the civil personnel-- are largely recruited among the relatives of the cadres with power or through the recommendation of party members. In a special case, an engineer is called back to work in a factory or firm. The Vice-director of the Cogido Paper Mill at Bien Hoa is a case in point.
We should remember that the Communist administration never tolerate the old puppet military and civil personnel. The new contingent thus necessarily comprises adherents to or associates with Communist-affiliated organizations and the cadres with good political backgrounds. Professionalism doesn’t matter. One can be sent to the in-job training schools for complementary cultural education. A short-term course of this type would be good for a cadre to be assigned to even the position of leadership in a factory, firm, or office." (Van Chuong. VNHRW. 10 (June 1992))
Comments
Le Thanh, a high-ranking officer of the pre-1975 Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam who had been detained in camp for 13 and a half years, commented on the conduct of affairs of the totalitarian regime as follows:
"Now, we aren’t in a time the savages reigned the society and repression is no longer instrumental in shaping the human life. and society. The genocide tragedy that developed under the Pol Pot regime only reflects the ideological principles and practices of primitive communism. We are now in the last decade of the 20th century when international commitments are to be duly carried out. The Communists must respect the rights of man --to treat the prisoners with decency. The Communist administration must, under any circumstances, abide by the international laws and treaties, and particularly, the provisions as stipulated in U. N. International Bill of Human Rights by which it pledged to abide when it was admitted to U. N. membership (Trung Tan. VNHW 9 (April 1992).
The writer Nhat Tran described the situation in which he and his fellow reeducated was about to be released from Cong Troi Camp, Hoang Lien Son, North Vietnam:
"Under the Communist regime like Vietnam, to be released from the camp is almost an impossibility to any prisoner. Even at the moment when his name is called out from the list, he would still be stunned and couldn’t believe his ears. Even the reality could not be real to him. The bare truth is that when the names of 34 prisoners from the list were called out, only 32 of them stepped out.. The two absentees had died a year before that!"
Is He Really Free ?
In his memoirs Blood University, the writer Ha Thuc Sinh ended his book with a living scene near a stream running across the Ham Tan reeducation camp. The author and his fellow inmates had just got their temporary release permit. They celebrated the event by taking a bath right in the stream where the camp stood before leaving. Seeing the inmates happily enjoying themselves, a camp security guard shouted at them:
- Hey! you prisoner rascals, which battalion and which ward do you belong? Why are you still having a bath at this time?
-Dear cadre, we’ve been released. We’re free ...
The guard intercepted:
-Watch your tongue! How dare you address to a cadre in such a manner? Do you think that you are already free?
Ha Thuc Sinh concluded his memoirs at this point. The last question in the dialogue had no reply. However, it was literally and textually registered in the book for the readership to contemplate. Every now and then, a communist made a slip of his tongue for a question. Quite a few people are nevertheless unaware of it. If they are aware of it, the would save so much time, paper and ink, and blood (Ha Thuc Sinh. Dai Hoc Mau. (3rd edition) California: Tu Quynh, 1993:821).
ADMINISTRATIVE SURVEILLANCE
A prison term to a political prisoner given by the People’s Court
is routinely coupled with an additional term of administrative surveillance. Nguyen Thi Diep, a female Buddhist, described how the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do of the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church lived under the administrative surveillance.
"Vu Thu isn’t the home village of the Most Venerable Quang Do. I myself had to visit him in secret. Acting as if I were his niece, I was successful in passing the control of the local police. I had a contact with him through the help of a cadre, who is one of my relatives. At first, the Most Venerable seemed to be embarrassed since I’m really not his niece. But, he soon realized that I was his visitor. He told me to wait for him in a small thatch house. He went to the pond nearby to wash his face, but, in reality, he observed the place to see if there was anyone spying on him.
The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do was given 13 kgs of rice a month. He had to trade some portion of the supply for salt and household commodities. But, since 1986, under the contract system, the local authorities had ceased giving him his monthly rice supply only. He was allocated a piece of land to grow crops to support himself (Thien Nhan.VNHRW 39 (January 1995).
The writer Nhat Tran recalled:
."A week before his release, the inmate’s family in the South is summoned to the local security police office to be informed of the news. In reality, they are warned of their liability for any act of activity that is considered as wrong the reeducated while he is under surveillance back home. For the reeducated, he had to report himself with the local security police office. There, the authority verifies the release document which will be used in replacement of an identity card for movement in or outside his home. He had to present to them a monthly report in which all his daily activities were to be described (Nguyen Tri, VNHRW 40 (February 1995)).
Dinh Phu commented on the administrative Surveillance policy:
"Anyone released from camp is subject without exception to administrative surveillance. The term varies with the local authorities’ rules and according to their whims and wishes. In the Inter-zone V (central Vietnam) --Quang Nam, Quang Nghia, Binh Dinh, and Phu Yen provinces-- where I belonged, the regulations were stricter. I was placed unde the administrative surveillance for three years. I had to keep a diary. I had to note everything I did and thought of during the day. I reported myself at the village security police office at the end of every month. I was of summoned to report myself at this office without prior notice. Oftentimes, there was an interrogation.
At each interrogation, they threatened me so as to force myself to avow either to have had some kind of connection with certain ex-prisoners or anti-Communist elements or to have engaged in any subversive activities operated by them. They encouraged me to disclose any plan of escape from the country by these people or incidents treason of which I might know. They invented stories of anti-Communist activities to trap me in. I wasn’t easily taken by their lies. And they knew it. I was strictly controlled by a network of local undercover agents.
Having threatened me in vain, they allured me into cooperating with them. The security police captain Nguyen Trong A of Mo Duc District, Quang Ngai Province, Central Vietnam, once promised to grant me privileges if I offered myself to join him in his false counterrevolutionary plan. spying on an assumed anti-Communist organization or an attempt of evasion of ex-prisoners. I refused, saying that I am old and in poor health and thus I am fit for the job (Van Chuong, 41 (March 1995)).
Mai A, a WAAC Major, a Saigon resident disclosed the secrets of her heart:
"I myself totally lost and desperate since I did not know how to start my life again. Neither did my colleagues. Being a former WAAC lieutenant in the Air Force, Ms. Y. who had been a student for four years at United States university, committed suicide by drinking soda mixed with optalidon pills. She died in her sleep when she was only 25 years old. The reason for her death is understandable. Having been released from the camp after two years under detention, she came to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health and applied for a job. She was assigned to a job-- to work at the distant rain forest of Xuan Moc. Seeing there was little chance to survive there, she decided to kill herself.
As for me, I graduated from the French School of Special Services, Centre Caritas, 38 Tu Xuong Street, Saigon. I also applied for job at the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health. The reply was the department did not know of any job or position to which I could be assigned. They then sent me to work at an agricultural farm. The job, I thought, would practically help me to convert myself to become a member of the working class. Moreover, I had freshly returned from reeducation. With no other choice, I accepted the job. I had to do this so that my four children and I would not be forced to go and live in anew economic zone as did many families of the reeducated."
Mai A believed that, in the negotiations with U. S. delegates to allow veteran political prisoners to leave the country on the Orderly Departures Programs, the Vietnamese Communists aimed to achieve a twofold purpose. One, they want to prove to the World that, like the Americans, they themselves are humane. Two ,by allowing the political prisoner to leave the country, they will probably clean out an overlaying dangerous political opposition. So long as a great number of officials and officers of the old regime still stay in Vietnam, they will likely either face a boost a revolt against the regime or an anti-Communist alliance of veteran political prisoners with overseas hostile elements to overthrow the regime. (Trung Tan, VNHRW 42 (April 1995).
Discrimination
Political discrimination, Colonel Le Thanh, the former Governor of Da Nang- Quang Nam, observed, is very strong. In many cases, a private, a sergeant, a second lieutenant, a teacher, a priest, a writer, or even a businessman could be detained in the camp for ten years. if he was a prominent personality whose prestige may influence the population in the local area, and he is likely a danger to the Communist regime, he could be held in the camp a much longer period. Once he has been released from the camp, the prisoner, regardless of his social status, is arbitrarily placed under the control of the local police or confined in some other areas.
There was no surprise when the Communists managed to employ some old members of administrative personnel of the Republic of Vietnam. They only want to maintain the status quo. They needed them to normalize the public administration. However, after they had stabilized their control over the administrative systems, they gradually replaced the officials of the old political regime with the cadres from the North. The officials of the old regime would then be dismissed from office. Regarding the specialists and experts, the Communists employed only those whom they consider the most essential to their system. They are most concerned about the State workers and officials and party members loyal to them. They don’t practically need people with a creative mind. They particularly need people who carry out with complete obedience their commandments and orders. Who among the reeducated would the Communists employ?"
Major Pham Sy, a resident of Thang Binh District, Quang Nam Province, explicated:
"After the Communist takeover of the South Vietnam, ranking officials and officers of the Republic of Vietnam were summoned to the concentration camps. The Armed Forces were disbanded. Most rank and file officials of the lower ranks stayed with new regime. although they were unwilling to work under it. Only the number of opportunists showed eagerness to serve it . At every level of the new administration, there appeared gangs of opportunists, the so-called the revolutionary of April 30, that voluntarily exploited the situation of people in troubled times to make profits at the expense of the alone and helpless. They were mostly corner-boys or hooligans, who wore red bands to control the traffic and managed services at the offices. They served the Communist troopers in the local administration to control the people. They were truly the executioners of the new rule!, And, there was no place in this administration for the true vanquished!"
Captain Ho Nguyen,, a resident at Tu Nghia Precinct , Quang Ngai Province, expressed doubts about the so-called policy of leniency and national reconciliation of the Vietnamese Communist Party:
"Anyone who has said that the Vietnamese Communist administration has carried out a policy of leniency and national reconciliation is dead wrong. Some people even has said that the Communist government has employed all the civil servants of the old regime. except those who are summoned to camps for reeducation are equally silly. That’s totally untrue. Only a small number of civil servants, specialists, and most needed experts among the reeducated were employed in the new administration. A few experts were called back from a reeducation camp to work in an dusty shop or firm. The then vice-director at the Ha Tien Cogido Paper Mill, for instance. They stayed on the job only for a time then were then back to the camp. We should also remember that the new regime has recruited a new contingent of working personnel. Most of them are their collaborators during the war, members of the State-affiliated organs or the cadres’ relatives with good political backgrounds."
Major Pham Hai, a Catholic of Vuon Soai Parish, Third Precinct, Saigon, who had been detained in various camp for 11 years,, confided that he was ever regarded a dangerous element to the regime. He was constantly spied on by local agents who frequented his home any time. He had to keep a diary --to record all his daily activities, which were often crossed checked with the reports on file at the local police by secret agents in his neighborhood. Permission for movement outside home could only be given when his rights as citizen be granted. Until he and his family members were allowed to go to settle in the United States on the Orderly Departure Program in 1992, after six years following his release from camp, he had never received the citizen title. All through this time, the family survived on the meager salary of his wife.
Le Thanh explained the reason for which the reeducated was placed under surveillance:
"As is known, the Communists always isolate personalities of the old regime from the people for the fear that their influence could again take root in the population and thus engender possible political opposition against the regime, a danger that is likely to happen at any time in Communist Vietnam. It’s not owing to the policy of renovation that took place after the Sixth Vietnamese Communist Party Congress (1986) that the officials and officers of the old regime could be treated leniently. It could only came out of fear! We should also keep in mind that he officials and officers of the Republic of Vietnam are, to the Communists, the lackeys of the imperialists and the enemies of the people. They could only treated leniently --to allow the educated and their families to leave the country on the ODP-- after episodes of constant intervention and under the persistent pressure of human rights agencies. Being fearful of isolation from the world and suffering financial aids cuts by Western democratic countries, which are desperately needed to sustain the debilitated economy, the Communists had to loosen their grip on the officials and officers of the old regime (Trung Tan. VNHRW 43 (May 1995).
