1982
Note: The
following article was published in _The Indochina Newsletter_, a newsletter I
edited at the time, October-November 1982. Much has changed in the 16 years
since this article was written. So far as is known all of the former South
Vietnam government officials and officers have been released from the re-education
camps and many have been allowed to emigrate to the U.S. under a special program,
called Humanitarian Operation. But many of former prisoners have experienced
various problems resulting from their long term incarceration under difficult conditions. I hope this article might be of historical
interest in understanding what these prisoners have experienced; and also in
understanding conditions of imprisonment endured by those dissidents and others
still detained in Vietnam.
- Steve Denney
THE
INDOCHINA NEWSLETTER
October-November
1982
RE-EDUCATION IN UNLIBERATED VIETNAM: LONELINESS, SUFFERING AND
DEATH
By Ginetta Sagan and
Stephen Denney
(Editor's
Note: The following article is part of a preliminary draft of a report that
will be issued later this year on human rights in Vietnam. The report is
prepared for the Aurora Foundation, of which Ginetta Sagan is the Executive
Director.
Mrs. Sagan
is a well-known human rights activist who interviewed over 200 former prisoners
from Vietnam in preparation for this report. Details of the interviews will be
brought out in fuller detail
when the report is issued.)
Ten years
ago, demonstrations were held around the world to protest political repression
and imprisonment in South Vietnam.
Seven
years ago, Communist forces completed their conquest of South Vietnam. In June
of 1975, the new regime ordered hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese to report
to authorities for "re-education". Many are still held in the camps
today, but the world is mostly silent on their plight.
"Re-education"
means different things to different people. To the Hanoi regime and its more
vocal defenders abroad, re-education is seen as a very positive way to
integrate the former enemy into
the new
society. It is, according to Communist leaders of Vietnam, an act of mercy,
since those in the camps deserve the death penalty or life imprisonment.(1).
The former prisoners, on the other hand, see re-education from quite a
different perspective.
Re-education
as it has been implemented in Vietnam is both a means of revenge and a
sophisticated technique of repression and indoctrination which developed for
several years in the North and was extended to the South following the 1975
Communist takeover. Yet it has largely failed in its effort to remold
individuals because the ideology upon which it is based underestimates the power
of the human spirit.
In
preparation for this report, we have interviewed over 200 former prisoners from
Vietnam's re-education camps and examined all available articles from the Hanoi
press and the Western press
on the
camps. The picture that emerges from our research is of hard-labor camps where
hunger and disease predominate, where prisoners are harshly punished for minor
infractions of camp rules, subjected to political indoctrination and forced to
write long "confessions" denouncing themselves and others for alleged
misdeeds in the past.
Estimates of those still detained in the camps
range from 20,000 (government estimate) to 200,000.(2). We know of at least 80 reeducation
camps in Vietnam (although some of them may have been consolidated since the
prisoners we interviewed were released), and estimate that 100,000 are still in
the camps. Those detained include military officers and government officials of
the former regime, medical doctors, religious leaders, artists, poets, political
leaders and schoolteachers, just to mention a few.(3)
In this
article, we will begin with a brief description of the beginnings of the
re-education system in North Vietnam, and then examine the re-education camps
that have been instituted for the
South
Vietnamese since 1975. We will focus this report on the re-education camps in
Vietnam, rather than the prisons, of which there are many, because we have much
less information about the latter.
The Precedent in the North
According
to Hoang Son, a spokesman for the Hanoi regime, the use of
"re-education" camps began in North Vietnam in 1961, at a time, he
says, when the United States and the South Vietnamese government
of Ngo Dinh Diem had sabotaged the 1954 Geneva Accords, and were attempting to
incite rebellion among "counter-revolutionary elements" in the North,
most notably among former
members of the pro-French army and government that existed during the colonial
period. Son cited acts that threatened public security, such as "economic
sabotage" and attempted assassinations
of Party cadres. It was under these circumstances, said Son, that the DRV
("Democratic Republic of Vietnam") enacted on 20 June 1961 Resolution
49-NQTVQH, with the task of concentrating for educational reform
"counter-revolutionary elements who continue to be culpable of acts which
threaten public security." (4).
The method
of implementing Resolution 49 was brought out in General Circular No. 121-CP,
dated 8 September 1961, of the DRV Council of Ministers "regarding
concentration for educational reform of
elements dangerous to society." The circular said Resolution 49 was to
apply to "all obstinate counter-revolutionary elements who threaten public
security" and
"all
professional scoundrels." The "obstinate counterrevolutionary
elements," said the circular, included the following groups:
"1)
All old dangerous spies, guides or agents, all elements of the old puppet army
or administration, former Rangers with many heinous crimes, who received
clemency from the Government and much education but who still obstinately
refuse to reform and who still have acts threatening public security.
"2)
All hard core members of the former opposing organizations and parties, who
before committed many heinous crimes, who received clemency from the Government
and much education but who still obstinately refuse to reform and who still
have acts threatening public security;
"3)
Obstinate elements in the former exploiting class and all other
counter-revolutionaries with deep feelings of vengeance towards our system
always acting in opposition;
"4)
All dangerous counter-revolutionaries having completed a prison sentence but
who refuse to reform."
The
circular also described different categories of "professional scoundrels,"
including thieves, pimps and "recalcitrant hooligans," all of whom
have been "educationally reformed" many
times, but
"who refuse to mend their ways."(5) It is evident, therefore, that
"professional scoundrels" would mean common criminals, while
"obstinate counter-revolutionary elements" would generally refer to
political criminals, in the eyes of the government, and those imprisoned on the
latter basis should therefore be regarded as political prisoners.
It is also
evident, from the description of "professional scoundrels", that
these do not include the most dangerous criminals, such as murderers. The
system of re-education developed in North Vietnam since 1961, and in all of
Vietnam since 1975, is not looked upon by Vietnamese Communist leaders as punishment,
but rather as a form of rehabilitation, in which Vietnamese who do not conform
to the government's norms are deprived of citizenship rights until they are
ready to return to society. As stated in Resolution 49, "All persons given
educational reform shall not be considered as criminal offenders who have been
sentenced to punishment but during the period of educational reform they shall
not receive the benefits of the rights of the citizens."
The system
of re-education, according to the circular of the Council of Ministers, is to
follow the line of "combining labor and political education," and the
regimen is to include eight hours of "productive labor" a day, two
half-days set aside each week for "political study," with cultural
classes in the evenings. Those who violate camp discipline, said Resolution 49,
depending on the seriousness of the violation, "shall be prosecuted before
a people's court or sanctioned administratively."
Resolution
49 set the period of "educational reform" at three years, but allowed
for early releases for those who "genuinely reform," while stating
that those who "refuse to reform" will
have their
period of "educational reform" extended. According to Hoang Son, as
of 1980 all those in North Vietnam who were interned in the early 1960's for
reeducation have since been released (but how many of the released have since
been arrested?). On the other hand, he said, there are still "a small number
of counter- revolutionary elements interned in virtue of Resolution 49 since
the beginning of the early 70's."(6).
Vietnamese
Communist leaders argue that the system of reeducation is a humane alternative
for those who deserve educational reform but not punishment. From what we have
discussed so far, however, the difference between re-education and imprisonment
is not clear. The main difference, it seems, is that under re-education, the
inmate is subjected to an indefinite sentence, with its length officially
dependent upon how well the inmate submits to political indoctrination and
"productive labor." If the re-education camps are more humane than
the prisons of Vietnam, then it is
only in the truest sense of the "lesser of two evils."
Re-education Since 1975
Article 11
of the 1973 Paris Agreements guaranteed the people of South Vietnam the
following rights:
1) freedom
from reprisal and discrimination against those who collaborated with one side
or the other during the war, and
2)
democratic freedoms, such as freedom of speech, press, assembly, belief,
movement, organization, meeting, residence and freedom of political activities.
The Paris
Agreements was proclaimed a victory for their side by the DRV and NLF (National
Liberation Front), and its representatives pointed out that several portions of
the treaty, including Article 11, were virtually identical to statements made in
previous declarations of the NLF, including its founding statement in 1960.
While presenting themselves as genuine civil libertarians (despite the police
state in the North), while proclaiming that Article 11 was in perfect agreement
with international law, including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, DRV and NLF leaders severely criticized the South Vietnamese government
for not respecting the human rights mentioned in Article 11.(7)
When the
DRV and NLF launched the 1975 Spring Offensive, leading to the military
takeover of South Vietnam, they claimed they did so in order to
"enforce" the Paris Agreements. Yet upon taking control over the
South, these new leaders did not set about to implement the rights mentioned in
Article 11 but rather to permanently destroy them through the establishment of
a "dictatorship
of the proletariat."
The
hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who have been imprisoned in re-education
camps since 1975 basically fall into two categories:
(1) Those who have been detained in
re-education camps since 1975 because they collaborated with the other side
during the war, and
(2) Those who have been arrested in the years
since 1975 for attempting to exercise such democratic freedoms as those mentioned
in Article 11 of the 1973 Paris Agreements.
In other
words, both categories of prisoners are held in direct violation of Article 11
of the 1973 Paris Agreements, an international treaty, and therefore of
international law.
CLICK "READ MORE" TO CONTINUE READING
Registration and Arrest
In May of
1975, various groups of Vietnamese were ordered to register with the new regime
that had established control over the South on April 30, 1975. Then, in June,
the new regime issued
orders
instructing those who had registered in May to report to various places for
re-education. Soldiers, noncommissioned officers and rank-and-file personnel of
the former South Vietnamese government were to undergo three-day "reform
study," June 11-13, in which they would attend during the day and go home at
night.(8)
The others
ordered to report for "reform study" were not allowed to attend
during the day and go home at night, but were instead to be confined to their
sites of "reform study" until the course ended. Nevertheless, there
was some hope, for the government gave the clear impression that reform study
would last no more than a month for even the highest ranking officers and
officials of the former government in South Vietnam, and ten days for lower-ranking
officers and officials.
Thus,
officers of the RVN (South Vietnam) armed forces from the rank of second
lieutenant to captain, along with low-ranking police officers and intelligence
cadres, were ordered to report
to various
sites, bringing along "enough paper, pens, clothes, mosquito nets,
personal effects, food or money for use in ten days beginning from the day of
gathering."(9). High- ranking military and police officers of the RVN,
from major to general, along with mid and high-ranking intelligence officers,
members of the RVN executive, judicial and legislative branches, including all
elected members of the House of Representatives and Senate, and, finally,
leaders of "reactionary" (i.e. non-communist) political parties in
South Vietnam, were ordered to report to various sites bringing enough
"paper, pens, clothes, mosquito-nets, personal effects, food or money for
a month
beginning
the first meeting."(10)
Dr. Tran
Xuan Ninh, a pediatrician who served as a medical officer in the armed forces,
was among those who eagerly reported for re-education with ten days provisions,
as prescribed by the government. Compared to what had been expected, the deal
was too good, said Dr. Ninh - three days of re-education for RVN soldiers, ten
days for low-ranking officers and officials, and one month for high-ranking RVN
officers and officials. Many teachers reported for reeducation, assuming that
they would have to undergo it sooner or later anyway. sick people also reported
for
re-education, assured by the government (falsely) that there would be medical
doctors and facilities in the "schools" and the patients would be
well treated.(11). Yet, as we shall see, very
few, if
any, of those ordered to report for ten days or thirty days were released within
that period, and many still suffer in the camps seven-and-a-half years later,
living under the most inhuman
conditions.
The Hanoi
regime and its apologists defend the reeducation camps by placing the "war
criminal" label on the prisoners. A 1981 memorandum of the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam to Amnesty
International
claimed that all those in the re-education camps were guilty of acts of
national treason as defined in Article 3 of the 30 October 1967 Law on
Counter-revolutionary Crimes
(enacted
for the government of North Vietnam) which specifies punishment of 20 years to
life imprisonment or the death penalty. But because the regime was so merciful,
it was instead allowing the prisoners to experience "re-education without
trial," which "as applied in Vietnam is the most humanitarian system,
and the most advantageous for law offenders ... in accordance with the tradition
of generosity and humanitarianism of the Vietnamese nation and the loftiest
ideals of mankind."(12)
Thus we
see that hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese have been detained in re-education
camps since 1975 not for any specific individual deeds, but for the act of
collaborating with the other
side
during the war. This applies not only to top-ranking government officials and
military officers of the former regime in South Vietnam, but also to more
ordinary people such as medical doctors conscripted into the army (like Dr.
Ninh), who were told that in treating sick and wounded soldiers, they had committed
the crime of "strengthening the puppet forces." College graduates,
who attended officer's training school, as required by law, and then became RVN
reserve military officers were also sent to the re-education camps. Others sent
to the camps in June of 1975 included nearly 400 writers, poets and journalists
and over 2,000 religious leaders, including 194 Buddhist, Catholic and Protestant
chaplains, and 516 Catholic priests and fathers.(13).
Even
leaders of the opposition to U.S.-supported regimes, such as the legislator
Tran Van Tuyen (who died after three years imprisonment) were sent to the
camps.
Furthermore,
Amnesty International has appealed to Hanoi on behalf of many writers,
scholars, priests, human rights activists and others who had no connection with
the Thieu regime or previous South Vietnamese governments supported by the
U.S., yet were arrested "months and even years after the end of military conflict
in April 1975." Amnesty International believes that
"many
were detained for the nonviolent expression of views critical of the present
government."'(14). Under the present legal system in Vietnam, the
government can, in political cases, detain an individual for up to twelve
months for interrogation without formal charge or trial.(15). Some Vietnamese,
such as leaders of the Unified Buddhist Church arrested in April 1977
have been
held for interrogation for much longer than twelve months. Following this
period, the prisoner may be (1) released with a formal warning, (2) sent to a
re-education camp in accordance with the 1961 Resolution 49, or (3) brought to
trial.
If brought
to trial, the prisoner will be tried under laws originally enacted for the
government of North Vietnam, which include penalties such as two to twelve
years imprisonment for "propagandizing the enslavement policy and depraved
culture of imperialism," three to twelve years imprisonment for attempting
to flee the country, and five to fifteen years imprisonment for
"undermining
the religious policy" of the government or "causing disunity among
the various religions, between believers and non-believers and between
believers and the administration."(16).
Bui Dinh
Ha, a former RVN soldier, was brought to trial on the 25th of June 1981 for
selling and loaning "reactionary and decadent books" and magazines in
Saigon. He was sentenced to life
imprisonment,in
accordance with articles 4,7 and 8 of the Decree-law 267 promulgated on 15 June
1956 by the Council of Ministers of North Vietnam.(17)
From the
discussion so far, it can be seen that the Hanoi government grants itself sweeping
powers of arrest and imprisonment, and these powers are based not on any sense
of justice, but on the desire to protect the security of a totalitarian
government. It is from these circumstances that so many Vietnamese have fled
the country over the last seven years.
Camp Conditions
We know of
at least eighty re-education camps in northern and southern Vietnam, although
it is possible that some of them may have been closed or consolidated since the
prisoners we interviewed were released. Many of the camps are arranged in groups
of three or four, with three to fifteen miles between each sub-camp. In the
South, the camps are generally located in the remote jungle areas or near
"safe" villages (pro-NLF before 1975). The high-ranking military
officers and government officials of the former regime in South Vietnam, along
with other Vietnamese considered high-security risks, were moved to camps in the
North, some near the Chinese border, in 1976 and 1977, but they were moved away
from the border with the outbreak of hostilities in 1978.
According
to Amnesty International, conditions vary widely in thee camps, depending on
their location, the composition of prisoners in the particular camps and the
administrators of the camp, among other factors.(18). In its 1978 annual report
on world conditions, Amnesty International said there were four categories of
re-education camps in Vietnam, and described them in the following manner:
"(a) detention centers in towns where the initial inquiries are held; (b)
second category camps which hold both criminal and political prisoners, where
detainees are encouraged to write accounts of their backgrounds; (c) third category
camps where prisoners are held according to the nature of their alleged past
offenses and (d) camps for former senior officers and members of intelligence
services who have been judged to be `ac on' (wicked), which are mostly situated
north of Hanoi."(19). With regard to the third category camps mentioned, this
is apparently referring not to specific deeds committed in the past but rather
to positions held. For example, low-ranking military officers would be in
certain camps in the South, while
high-ranking
officers and officials would be in other camps, usually in the North. Most of the former prisoners we have
interviewed have been in between three and five different re-education camps.
It is our belief that the movement of prisoners from one camp to another may be
intended to delay Vietnamese from knowing the whereabouts of their relatives in
the camps and to prevent prisoners from forming bonds of friendship with each
other or with some of the guards. Some of the camps are administered by the
military, some by the security police, and some by both.
In
assessing conditions within the camps, there are basically three sources we can
rely on: (1) official statements of the Hanoi government, (2) accounts by
visitors to the camps and (3) accounts of the former prisoners. All three
sources must be considered, but the value of the first two sources is limited.
We have found translated articles from the official press to be very useful,
especially with regard to rules that prisoners and their families are required
to obey, and also with the attitude displayed by the government in these
articles. But articles for foreign consumption tend to be highly self-serving
and propagandistic.
When
foreign delegations visit the camps, the prisoners are briefed on what to say
to the visitors. In some cases, about half of the prisoners would be taken out
to the fields or jungles to hide until the delegates departed. We know of at
least one case where government agents pretended to be prisoners during a visit.(20).
In another case, a prisoner was punished for reading a prepared statement to a
visiting delegation rather than memorizing it.(21)
Nevertheless,
such possibilities are not considered by most of these delegations, and this
attitude is precisely why they were invited to tour the model camps. Since
these visitors are ideologically predisposed to support the Hanoi regime,
committed to improving relations between the regime and Western countries, they
naturally try to portray the reeducation camps in the beat possible light -- as
if the typical camp were merely a training school rather than a prison. In
defending the re-education camps, these visitors encourage the Hanoi regime to
continue this policy
and
therefore bear a responsibility for the suffering of Vietnam's political
prisoners.
However,
not all of the visitors to the re-education camps in Vietnam have been so
myopic. Among the exceptions would be an Amnesty International delegation that
visited Vietnam in December
of 1979
and Dermot Kinlen, a distinguished Irish lawyer who led a delegation to Vietnam
for nine days in April of 1980. The AI delegation, which visited three
re-education camps and one prison
in
Vietnam, said it could not make a general assessment of camp conditions based
on the visit: "Amnesty International is not professionally equipped to
carry out prison visits in the manner that the International Committee of the
Red Cross can. Thorough camp inspections necessitate lengthier visits to more
camps and would require medical expertise among the inspection team."(22)
Dermot
Kinlen noted that the camps his delegation visited "were exactly the same
camps as Amnesty had visited some months earlier and had also been visited by
other groups. It is a pity that only three camps are available for
inspection." In all of the camps they visited, he said, most of the
inmates "were not seen as they were absent at fieldwork." Kinlen also
said: "Aa a lawyer of thirty years experience and as a prison visitor and
having made a study of penology I am satisfied that there is wholesale and widespread
violation of human rights in Vietnam. The retention of
an
uncertain but large number of people without trial in detention and forcing
them to do forced labor and subjecting them to indoctrination and depriving
them of support and social
contact
with their families and friends, and providing inadequate medical facilities,
and denying them any spiritual administration and allowing them no intellectual
exercise other than the absorption of selected texts for the purpose of
indoctrination are all negations of human rights."(23)
Camp Routine
While it
is true that conditions vary widely in the camps, we have also found a
depressing quality of similarity with regard to certain features of the
re-education camps, which appear to be universal. These include an emphasis on
political indoctrination and mandatory "confessions" during the early
stages of re-education, heavy and often dangerous physical labor, and widespread
disease due to a severe lack of food and medical care.
The
variations occur mainly with regard to the various forms of physical
mistreatment inflicted on the prisoners, but even here there are certain
features widely practiced, such as placing recalcitrant prisoners in "connex"
boxes, metal air freight containers left behind by the United States, or in
dark cella underground.
During the
early phase of re-education, lasting from a few week. to a few months, inmates
were subjected to intensive political indoctrination. Subjects studied included
the exploitation by
"American
imperialism" of workers in other countries, the glory of labor, the
inevitable victory of Vietnam, led by the Communist Party, over the U.S., and
the generosity of the new government
toward the
"rebels" (those who fought on the other aide during the war). There
were a total of nine courses, of variable length. Each course would begin with
lectures from the political cadres,
lasting
one or two days, and following this the inmates would divide into closely
supervised groups where they would discuss the lesson over the next five to
seven days and write essays summarizing each lesson. According to Ngo Trung
Trong, a former inmate in a camp for low-ranking RVN officers, the discussions would
last four hours in the morning and four hours in the
afternoon.
In the afternoon sessions, the prisoners were required to repeat the contents
of the lectures. (24)
The
nine-course political indoctrination session generally lasted about two months,
in the summer of 1975. Political indoctrination classes have continued since
then, but with much less emphasis. A
former
inmate of Xuyen Moc camp in southern Vietnam reports that the subsequent indoctrination
has consisted mainly of dividing prisoners into small groups in the evenings to
review their work through mutual criticism and self- criticism - but this conversation
never continues beyond the guards' presence.(25)
Another
feature emphasized during the early stage of reeducation, but continued
throughout one's imprisonment, is confession of one's alleged misdeeds in the
past. In a March 1981 memorandum to Amnesty International, the Hanoi government
said "in all cases of people being sent to re-education camps, the
competent Vietnamese authorities have established files recording the criminal
acts committed by the people concerned."(26) These files were established
through the mandatory confessions and denunciation of others.
Such
"confessions" provide the government with a retroactive justification
of its decision to imprison hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese in the camps.
It can point out, as it did to Amnesty International, that the prisoners
themselves had confessed to committing crimes. Of course, such reasoning is unlikely
to convince many people outside of the leadership of the Vietnamese Communist
Party, but in any case the situation provides much opportunity for false
confessions by the prisoners in order to satisfy their captors, as well as more
ill-treatment of the prisoners in order to produce the "confessions".
All
prisoners in the camps are required to write confessions, no matter how trivial
their alleged crimes might be. Mail clerks, for example, were told that they
were guilty of aiding the "puppet war machinery" through circulating
the mail, while religious chaplains were found guilty of providing spiritual comfort
and encouragement to the enemy troops.(27) A reserve military officer who
taught Vietnamese literature in high school was told that he had "misled a
whole generation of innocent children."(28)
Besides
confessing such "crimes", prisoners had to write their autobiography
and disclose their financial assets as described by a former prisoner: "You
had to write the story of your life, including your father, grandfather and
children, describing their fortunes, how everyone died, what they owned,
including television, radio, camera. New ones had to be written twice each month,
both in re-education and in prison. If they found you had left something out
that you had included earlier, you were in trouble. You would have to write new
confessions many times each
day. Each
confession was about 20 pages handwritten."(29) Following the written
confessions were the public confessions in which prisoners would confess their
"crimes" before the camp
authorities
and other prisoners. Prisoners were encouraged to criticize each other's
confessions, said a former prisoner, which was "very effective in getting
us to hate each other." The more "crimes" a prisoner confessed,
the more he is praised as "progressive" by camp authorities.
The
incessant demand for confessions places much pressure on the prisoners, leading
to insanity in some cases. A former prisoner who had previously been a medical
doctor said he saw "many cases -- screaming, yelling people." Despite
his medical experience, he was not allowed to treat them.(30)
The
purpose of these confessions has not only been to produce a sense of guilt in
the prisoners and to establish files on them, but also to get the prisoners to
denounce other former soldiers
and
government officials who had not yet reported for re- education. The government
has been very concerned about the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who have
not yet reported.
"Labor is Glory"
Much
emphasis in the re-education camps is placed on "productive labor."
Such labor was described by SRV spokesman Hoang Son as "absolutely
necessary" for re-education because "under the former regime, they
(the prisoners) represented the upper strata of society and got rich under US
patronage. They could but scorn the working people. Mow the former social order
has been turned upside down, and after they have finished their stay in camps they
have to earn their living by their own labour and live in a society where work
is held in honor."(31) Thus, in the eyes of the Vietnamese rulers,
"productive labor" is a necessary aspect in the overturning of the
social order. Yet in examining the conditions under which this labor takes
place, it seems that there is also an element of revenge.
The labor
is mostly hard physical work, some of it very dangerous, such as mine field
sweeping. No equipment is provided for this extremely risky work, and as a
result, many prisoners have been killed or wounded in mine field explosions.
Other work includes cutting trees, planting corn and root crops, clearing the
jungle, digging wells, latrines and garbage pits, and constructing barracks
within the camp and fences around it. The inmates are generally organized into
platoons and work units, where they are forced to compete with each other for
better records and work achievements. This has pushed inmates to exhaustion and
nervousness a former prisoners said: "Each person and group had to strive
to surpass or at least fulfill the norms set by camp authorities, or they would
be classified as `lazy' and ordered to do 'compensation work' on
Sundays."(32) Other prisoners who missed their quota have been shackled
and placed in solitary confinement cells.(33)
The
duration of the work has generally been eight hours a day, six days a week,
which might not seem so bad, except the work is done in the hot tropical sun,
by prisoners who are poorly nourished and receive little or no medical care.
The poor health, combined with hard work, mandatory confessions and political indoctrination,
makes life very difficult for prisoners in
Vietnam,
and has contributed to a high death rate in the camps.
Food and Medical Supplies
"My
ideal, my glory, my dream, my love, All these are remote and abstract things! I confess to you that we, hungry prisoners, Only
dream of being as well fed as animals. Why?
Our dream to be Man, alas, Has ceased to be a possibility; That dream has led
us to prison. Now, only four things on
the earth are meaningful: Rice, manioc
roots, potatoes and corn. These four
things bind us, harass us, torture us, They
never leave us in peace."(34)
It was
acknowledged by the government spokesman Hoang Son in his 1980 essay that while
poverty is a serious problem throughout the country, "Neither food nor
housing conditions can be considered as satisfactory in some of the
camps." However, Son maintains that such conditions are "equally
shared by the inmates and their guards."(35). Former prisoners would use
stronger language in describing the lack of food in the camps, and deny that
there is such equal sharing. Former prisoners believe that the government deliberately
keeps the prisoners on low rations in order to weaken their ability to unite
and resist camp policies, so all they think about will be the next meal.(36)
Since the
inmates were originally told in 1975 to bring enough food for up to 30 days,
food supplies were generally adequate for the first few weeks, but have
gradually deteriorated since that time. Prisoners interviewed in 1976 and 1977
reported that the typical diet was only one or two bowls of rice a day with no
meat and few vegetables.(37) Since then, the diet has become even
worse,
shifting from rice to corn and root crops – especially common in the diet now
is manioc, a starchy root crop which has little nutritive value other than
filling one's stomach. Besides salt and water, the total amount of food for
each prisoner is about 400 to 500 grams a day, and much of it is spoiled. There
is virtually no protein in the diet, except on rare occasions, perhaps two or
three times a year on holidays such as Ho Chi Minh's birthday, the Lunar New
Year or Independence day, when the diet is supplemented by a few tiny morsels
of meat.(38) Under such conditions, prisoners are constantly preoccupied with
food, as described in a letter smuggled out of the country: "In my forced
labor camp in the highland the event that dominates everything is the
experience of hunger. We are hungry permanently. All we can think about, day
and night, is eating!
During the
first days of the harvest season we are allowed almost our fill of corn and
manioc roots. But that lasts only a few days. During these days there are
shining eyes and smiles. But very soon the camp administration shuts up the
eating. The shining eyes and smiles disappear. We feel hungry again, so hungry
that we think of nothing else. Many of us catch lizards to eat, knowing they
provide protein. Very soon the lizards of the whole area were exterminated. I
know of a prisoner who one night caught a millepede on the ceiling, hid it
under the mat, and in the morning roasted it on a fire and ate it. He said it
was as good as roast shrimp. There are those who are very clever to invent
devices to catch mice and birds; they will roast and eat them while others
watch with envy. Others catch grasshoppers and crickets. Whenever someone
catches a snake, that is a feast. In our conversation, we only talk about
eating, and how to find things to eat. When we do not talk about eating, we
silently think about eating. As soon as we finish lunch, we begin to imagine the
supper awaiting us when we return from the field: The food put into the mouth
is like one breath of air blown into a vast empty house. What little food is
given is chewed very slowly.
"Still,
it makes no difference -- we feel even more hungry after eating. Even in our
sleep, our dreams are haunted by food. There are those who chew noisily in
their dreams...Such food as mice,
rats,
birds, snakes, grasshoppers, must be caught and eaten secretly. It is
forbidden, and if the camp guards learn about it, the prisoners will be
punished."(39)
The lack
of food has caused severe malnutrition for many prisoners and weakened their
resistance to various diseases. Most common among the diseases are malaria,
beriberi and dysentery.(40) Tuberculosis is also widespread in some of the camps.
Medical supplies are generally nonexistent in the camps and medical care is
very inadequate, usually limited to a poorly trained medic and perhaps a few
prisoners who had formerly been medical doctors. The result is a high death
rate from diseases. A prisoner in Dam Duong camp of Ha Nam Ninh province, for
example, witnessed twenty deaths, including three cases of intestinal hemorrhage
in which prisoners died because there was no plasma.(41) In Tun Hoa camp, about
thirty prisoners (out of a camp population of 5,000) died of illness in the
last three or four months of 1978.(42). Some seriously ill prisoners have been allowed
to go to hospitals outside the camp or return to their families. But others
have not, and many have died in the camps, without their families even being
notified. It is official government policy, as stated in the 1976 PRG decree
No. 02/CS-76 that terminally ill prisoners will be allowed to return to their families.
Yet Amnesty International has brought to Hanoi's attention cases of such
prisoners not allowed to return. One such prisoner was Truong Van Truoc, who
"died in August 1980 of stomach cancer in a detention camp, 90A TD 63/TC,
Doi 11, Thanh
Hoa."
Another prisoner AI mentioned was the writer Ho Huu Tuong, who was sick for
several months, but not transferred to a hospital until June 2, 1980: "He
died only three weeks later, just after he was finally given permission to
return to his family."(43)
Rules and Punishment
In the
appendix of his book Enfer Rouge, Mon Amour, Lucien Trong, who was imprisoned
in a camp of low-ranking officers, published a list of rules which he said were
posted by the authorities in his camp. Other former prisoners have told us the
same rules exist in other camps. The authorities seek to maintain strict
control over the thoughts of the prisoners, and to this end forbid prisoners from
keeping and reading books or magazines of the former regime, reminiscing in
conversation about "imperialism and the puppet south," singing old
love songs of the former regime, discussing political questions (outside
authorized discussions), harboring "reactionary" thoughts or
possessing "superstitious" beliefs. It is also forbidden to be
impolite to the cadres of the camp, and this rule has been abused to the point
where the slightest indication of a lack of reverence to the cadres has been interpreted
as rudeness and therefore harshly punished.
Violations
of these and other rules lead to various forms of punishment, including being
tied up in contorted positions, shackled in connex boxes or dark cells, forced
to work extra hours or reduced food rations. Many prisoners have been beaten, some
to death, or subjected to very harsh forms of punishment due to the cruelty of
certain camp officials and guards. Some have been executed, especially for
attempting to escape. Some of the most brutal treatment occurs in camps in southern
Vietnam around the Mekong delta, where guards apparently have no fear of any reprimand
for mistreating the prisoners.(44)
The connex
boxes vary in size, but are generally large enough to accommodate a few
prisoners crowded together. Some of the containers are made of wood, some of
metal. The metal containers
can become
unbearable in the hot ,sun, prisoners can pass out or die under such circumstances.(45)
Solitary
confinement cells are also common in the camps, such as the Gia Ray camp, where
prisoners can receive ten days solitary for minor infractions, fifteen for
making "reactionary
statements"
and one year (or the death penalty) for attempting to escape the camp.
Prisoners in these daring cells are forced to eat and sleep on the spot, and
carry out bodily functions while shackled to the wall.(46) Prisoners in such
cells in Ham Tam camp (Thuan Hai province) lie on the floor with their legs
raised and feet locked in wooden stocks.(47) In a camp in Nghe Tinh, Than
Chuong
district of Nghe Tinh province, some prisoners in the dark cells had their
hands and feet tied so tightly that they became afflicted with gangrene and
lost their hands or feet or died.(48)
Other
forms of confinement include tiger cage cells and abandoned wells. A prisoner
in Long Khanh camp (a southern camp for low-ran-ding officers) was put in such
a well for five days
because he
sang "Silent Night" on Christmas Eve, 1975.(49) In some camps, such
as Ben Gia, ditches, called "living graves" by the prisoners, are dug
around the outer perimeter, away from the
main camp,
but visible from the watchtower. Prisoners confined to these ditches in Ben Gia
were fed once daily--a bowl of rice or sorghum and water.(50)
Other
forms of torture were reported by a former prisoner of Dam Duong camp, composed
of around 1,000 prisoners, with 200 Montagnards (tribal highlanders):
1. The
Honda : with the prisoner's hands and feet tied together, he is hung and swung
to and fro while beaten. Nausea and vomiting often follow.
2. The
Auto : the prisoner is tied "butterfly" style with thumbs tied
together behind the back; one arm over the shoulder and the other pulled around
the trunk of the body. In another version of
this the
prisoner's outstretched legs are tied by the toes to the two middle fingers of
the hands of the outstretched arms. A prisoner could be kept in such positions
for weeks or even months.
3. The
Airplane : the prisoner is tied either standing to a pole, lying down, or
sitting on cement for various periods, depending on the prisoner's
"mistakes" -- one week, sometimes longer, sometimes a few days. As one would expect, prisoners released after
such treatment are often unable to walk.(51)
A case
where the airplane method was applied was described by Nguyen Ngoc Ngan in his
book, The Will of Heaven . This case occurred in May of 1977 at Bu Gia Map
camp, located in a malarial
jungle
area near the Cambodian border. Tru, a prisoner, became angry when he saw a
guard using the flag of the former government of South Vietnam as a dustcloth.
He took the flag out of the guard's hand and yelled at him for desecrating it.
The next day, Tru was brought before the prisoners in a "people's
court," but instead of confessing his "crime", Tru remained
unrepentant,
praising
the flag and criticizing the communists. The out- raged camp commander
sentenced Tru to be tied to a wooden column outdoors, standing upright for
three months. He was gagged and
his hands
were tied behind the back and around the post, his wrists lashed tightly with
telephone wire. The wire cut through his flesh by the end of the first day.
Forced to stand bareheaded all day long in the hot sun and the unusually cool
nights of the highlands, plagued by mosquitos, Tru contacted malaria by the second
week and became seriously ill. After a month, Tru was untied and carried to
meet the camp commander's superior who was visiting the camp that day, and was
given one more chance to repent. But Tru remained unrepentant and was taken out
of the camp the next day.(52)
It has
been acknowledged by Hanoi that violence has in fact been directed against the
prisoners, although it maintains that these are isolated cases and not
indicative of general camp policy.(53)
Former
prisoners, on the other hand, report frequent beatings for minor infractions,
such as missing work because of illness. In some cases, prisoners have been
beaten to death, such as Colonel Pham Ba Ham. Accused of helping an escape
attempt of other prisoners, he was bludgeoned before the other prisoners and
left without any medical treatment until he died.(54) Another prisoner, a
former noncommissioned RVN officer, insulted leaders of the Vietnamese Communist
Party while delirious with fever and was beaten to death with chains.(55)
Prisoners
have been executed, most commonly for attempting to escape the camps. In some
cases, the caught prisoners are tried by "People's Courts" held
before the other prisoners and then killed.(56)
Suicides
appear to be fairly common in the camps. In one camp, a pharmacist who ended a
letter to his wife asking her to pray for his return was brought before the
other prisoners and berated for relying upon God for his release. For the next
several nights he was interrogated by camp authorities, until he committed
suicide. His family was not notified of his death.(57)
The Prisoners and Their Families
Family
visits are important not only because of the personal need for prisoners and
their loved ones to have contact with each other, but also because the families
can bring food to their relatives in some of the camps. It has been reported that
the prisoners in these camps could not survive without such food.(58) However,
the government does not allow many visits. As of 1980, official regulations
stated that prisoners in the camps could be visited by their immediate family
once every three months.(59).
The
duration of the visits are not long, reported by former prisoners to last from
15 to 30 minutes.(60) Moreover, family visits can be suspended for prisoners
who break rules: and it has
also been
said that only families who have proven their loyalty to the regime are allowed
visiting privileges.(61) In its 1980 memorandum to the Hanoi government,
Amnesty International expressed its concern that visiting privileges are
dependent on the prisoner's conduct and "progress in re-education,"
and stated its belief that "a prisoner's rights to visits and
correspondence should be inviolable and in no way conditional, except in cases of
serious violations of camp discipline and then only for a limited
period."(62) AI also said that if "visits by family or a lawyer are
not allowed, an officer may feel secure when ill- treating a prisoner, knowing
that no one concerned about the prisoner's interests will see him or her soon
and notice any signs of physical or mental deterioration. (63)
The
families of the prisoners are regarded as responsible for the acts of the
prisoners before 1975. According to the Hanoi spokesman Hoang Son, 1.3 million
Vietnamese were part of the military or administrative apparatus of South
Vietnam, members of "so-called" political parties or of mass
organizations which Son says were American-controlled. On the basis of this
estimate, and
on the
estimate that there are an average of five members to each Vietnamese family,
Son concluded that there were 6.5 million Vietnamese who were "compromised"
by ties with the non- communist regime in South Vietnam.(64) As a result of
such logic, not only the prisoners, but also their families, suffer
discrimination in access to health care, employment and higher education.(65)
As a way
of redeeming their relatives for their past activities, families of Vietnamese
ordered to report to the re- education camps were told in 1975 that they should
"urge their dear ones to
devote
themselves to reform study." (66). In order to attain the release of their
imprisoned relatives, to demonstrate that they are good families, they have
been pressured to move to the new economic zones.(67) Some families of the
prisoners have had their food ration cards revoked until agreeing to move to
these areas.(68)
The new
economic zones are theoretically for a good purpose, to increase food
production, but actually are more like concentration camps located in malarial
jungle areas where the land is very difficult to cultivate. Conditions in these
areas are therefore not so different from life in the re- education camps--living
under harsh conditions and in isolated areas. Thus, thousands of Vietnamese
have fled these areas and returned to the cities. In doing so, they become
non-persons in the eyes of the state, ineligible for food rations, an approved
job, or housing. Living in makeshift shelters on the streets of Saigon alone
are as many as 15,000 to 20,000 such people, according to a reporter who
visited the country in 1980.(69)
Besides
being pressured to move to the new economic zones, families of the prisoners
have also been pressured to give up all their possessions to the state and work
extra hours in order to demonstrate that they are good families so that their
relatives can be released.(70)
Release Policy
The policy
of releasing prisoners from the re-education camps of Vietnam has been a story
of broken promises. The existence of the camps in is itself a broken promise
because it violates Article 11 of the 1973 Paris Agreements, which specifically
prohibits such imprisonment. Another broken promise, as we have already noted,
occurred when the Vietnamese who had reported for
re-education
in June of 1975 were not released within 30 days, as had been clearly implied
by the new regime when it issued the order to report. In June of 1976, the
Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, in one of its last
policy announcements before the official reunification of Vietnam, stated that
those in the camps would either be tried or released after three years
imprisonment. But this promise was also broken.
Over one
million Vietnamese have been re-educated and returned to society since 1975,
according to the Hanoi government. However, this would seem to contradict
another official statement from
Hanoi
which said that 40,000 is the total number of Vietnamese who have gone through
the reeducation camps since 1975, and that 26,000 remained in the camps as of
1980.(71) So if we are to take these figures seriously, and try to reconcile
them with-each other, then we might assume that the one million figure includes
those who attended "short-term, on-the-spot" re- education, in
which
Vietnamese would come to the "classes" during the day and go home at
night, while the 40,000 figure refers to those who underwent long-term re-education,
meaning internment in the
camps.
With regard to the latter, we must note that the estimates of foreign observers
of those detained in the camps since 1975 are much higher, ranging up to
300,000.(72) Our own estimate is that 100,000 Vietnamese are still in the
camps. It would be more difficult for us to estimate the total number detained
in the camps since 1975, and we will not attempt to estimate the number
of
dissidents detained in the many prisons of Vietnam.
From
accounts in the official press of Vietnam, it appears that the large-scale
release of prisoners began in the last few months of 1975. On Jan. 6, 1976 the
government newspaper Giai Phong (published in Saigon) announced the release of
hundreds of prisoners on the previous day, and added: "That was the 21st
time the Management-Training Section of the Military Management
Committee
has allowed people who make progress in reform study to return to their
families." Assuming that hundreds of prisoners were released on each
occasion, one might very roughly estimate from this statement that somewhere
between 4,000 and 10,000 prisoners had been released from the camps by the end
of 1975.
Articles
that appeared in Saigon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon) of Ho Chi Minh City on
August 24, Sept. 7,20,24 and 30, and Dec. 11 and 25, 1975, discussed categories
of prisoners that could be
released
at that time. The August 24 SGP article said certain groups of prisoners were
eligible for release. These included prisoners with close relatives (parents,
spouse, siblings) who were revolutionary cadres or had "merit toward the
revolution in the locality," and scientific and technical specialists who
did not "commit crimes" or participate in non-communist political parties
or organizations. The Sept. 7 SGP article added another category of prisoners
eligible for release: old people, people seriously ill and pregnant women.
However, as with the other categories, it stressed that "first and
foremost" prisoners must have shown "progress" in re-education
and repentance over "past mistakes" and also must not have been
engaged in "criminal acts" against the revolution before 1975. (73)
We can see from such vague wording that there were no guarantees for any
category of prisoners being released.
The most
significant policy announcement on the re-education camps was broadcast by
Saigon Domestic Service on June 9, 1976. This is the May 25 PRGRSV statement
No. 02/CS-76, signed by President Huynh Tan Phat. According to this broadcast,
95% of those "attending reform courses had their cases examined and their
citizen's rights restored" in order that they could vote in the April
elections. This figure led some foreign observers to estimate that 50,000
remained in the camps, according to official figures, since the government had
said that over one million had been re-educated.
The policy
announced that those still in the camps would stay there for three years, but
could be released earlier if they make "real progress, confess their
crimes and score merits." It also said that some Vietnamese would be
brought to trial, including those who deserted the NLF during the war, those
who owed "many blood debts" to the people and those who fled to
"foreign countries with their U.S. masters."(74)
As far as
we know, no such trials were held, or at least they were not publicized. Nor
were prisoners in the camps released after three years. The excuses offered for
the continued detention beyond the three years are increased security tensions with
China and the 1961 Resolution 49, which Hanoi argues supersedes the 1976 PRG
decree and which allows for detention in the camps beyond three years.
According to Hoang Son, Resolution 49 allows for a new three year period to be
established for those in the camps who did not sufficiently reform during the
first three years.(75) Since it is now over seven years since many of the
prisoners were first arrested, we can presume that such prisoners are in their
third three- year period. In the words of Amnesty International, "Grounds
for the continued detention of these people, therefore, seems to have shifted
from past misdeeds and present behavior to the external situation, namely
national security. These prisoners are therefore being held in what is usually
termed administrative detention without trial." The result of such
prolonged, indefinite detention is severe hardship for the prisoners and their
families, said Amnesty International.(76)
Since
there is no clear criteria for releasing the inmates from the camps, bribery
and family connections with high-ranking officials are more likely to speed up
release than the prisoner's
behavior.
Released prisoners are put under probation and surveillance for six months to
one year, and during this time they have no official status, no exit visas, no
access to government food rations and no right to send their children to school.(77).
If the progress of the former prisoners is judged unsatisfactory during this
period, they may be fired from their jobs, put under surveillance for another
six months to a year, or sent back to the re-education camps.(78) Approximately
60% of those released have been re-arrested, according to a high-ranking Vietnamese
official.(79)
Amnesty
International has appealed to Hanoi to abolish Resolution 49 and the system of
re-education camps in Vietnam. We agree. Genuine peace and reconciliation in
Vietnam cannot be brought about through forcing the people to praise the regime
or "confess" their past opposition to the Communist side. On the contrary,
as stated in 1973 by NLF leader Nguyen Van Hieu (presently Minister of Culture
in Vietnam), "..democraticfreedoms are man's fundamental rights, ardent
aspirations of all social strata, of all political and religious forces in
South Vietnam. Only a full and total exercise of democratic liberties can serve
as a basis for the realization of national
reconciliation
and concord, the settlement of the internal affairs of South Viet Nam, and the exercise
of the South Vietnamese people's right to self-determination." (80)
We call
upon the Vietnamese rulers to make these words a reality in Vietnam today.
Footnotes
1. March
1981 written reply of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) to Amnesty
International, page 42 of Amnesty International Report on Mission to the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam, June 1981.
2. Estimate
mentioned by Della Denman in the Far Eastern Economic Review, August 6, 1982
3. see
annual reports issued by Amnesty International
4. p.86,
Which Human Rights?, published in Hanoi, 1980
5. The
translated text of this document was published in the appendix of a report on
human rights in Vietnam prepared in 1978 by Stephen Young for the New York Bar
Association.
6.
ibid
7.
discussed in detail in issue 1 (Oct. 79) of this newsletter.
8. 6/10/75
Saigon-Gia Dinh Military Management Communique, broadcast by Saigon Domestic
Service on June, translated by the Daily Report (Asia-Pacific) of Broadcasting
Information Service
(hereafter
as FBIS) on June 11, 1975.
9. 6/20/75
Saigon-Gia Dinh Military Management Communique, translated by FBIS, 6/23/75
10.
6/11/75 Saigon-Gia Dinh Military Management translated by FBIS, 6/12/75
11. from
speech of Dr. Ninh at Amnesty International conference, published in Amnesty
Action (of AIUSA), Sept. 82
12. March
1981 written reply of SRV to AI, p. 42 of Amnesty International Report on
Mission to Socialist Republic of Vietnam
13. Nguc
Tu Lao Dong Vietnam, Paris 1977, as cited by Stephen Young in his 1978 report
to New York Bar
14. p.272,
Amnesty International Report 1981
15. p. 9,
AI Report on Mission to SRV
16. Law on
Counter-Revolutionary Crimes, Articles 9,12,15 Originally enacted by the
government of North Vietnam in 1967, this code became law for all of Vietnam
after the 1976 unification and was broadcast by Hanoi Domestic Service on Oct. 16,
1979 (translated text reprinted in Issue 21 of this newsletter).
17. The
trial of Bui Dinh Ha was reported in the government newspaper Saigon Giai Phong
on June 11, 25 and 26, 1981 and by a Hanoi radio broadcast on June 26. 1981.
The reports were translated by the Vietnam Report of the Joint Publications Research
Service (hereafter referred to as JPRS) on Sept. 4 and 10, 1981 and by the
FBIS, July 10, 1981.
18. p. 196
Amnesty International Annual Report 1978
19. ibid
20.
confidential interviews with former prisoners (the identities of all the
prisoners we interviewed for this report are kept confidential)
21.
Newsweek , June 26, 1978
22. p.13,
AI Report on Mission to SRV
23. pp. 4
and 6, Report on the Re-education Camps and Prisons in Vietnam, by Dermot
Kinlen, June 1981
24. The indoctrination courses were described
by former prisoner Ngo Trung Trong in his unpublished manuscript, The Vietnam Re-education
Camp . Also described by former prisoner Nguyen Ngoc Ngan in his book The Will
of Heaven (Dutton, 1982), p 123, and by the Washington Post , 4/30/78, New York
Times , 8/29/78 and by prisoners we have interviewed.
25. New
York Times, 8/14/81
26. p. 42,
Report of AI Mission to SRV
27.
Washington Post.4/30/78
28. p.112,
The Will of Heaven
29.
"They Were Us, Were We Vietnamese," by Theodore Jacqueney, Worldview
April 1977
30. ibid
31. p.97,
"Re-education Camps and Human Rights" by Hoang Son, Which Human
Rights?, Hanoi 1981
32.
Washington Post, April 30, 1978
33.
confidential interview
34.
"Tu Chuong Tren Doi," poem by Nguyen Chi Thien, translated by Nguyen
Huu Hieu
35. p. 99,
Which Human Rights?
36. see,
for example, "A Form of Torture: Food Deprivation," byCao Ngoc Phuong
of the Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation inParis. This article was published
in Issue 24 of this newsletter.Ms. Phuong believes the policy of food
deprivation for prisoners began as early as 1956 in North Vietnam.
37. New
York Times , 11/11/76 and 2/12/77 Worldview April 1977;
Christian
Science Monitor, 5/4/77
38.
confidential interviews
39.
"A Form of Torture: Food Deprivation," by Cao Ngoc Phuong
40.
Washington Post , 4/30/78; also based on confidential interviews
41.
confidential interviews
42. ibid
43. p. 38,
Report of AI Mission to SRV
44.
confidential interviews
45.
confidential interviews
46.
confidential interviews
47.
confidential interviews
48.
confidential interviews
49. pp.
137-142, The Will of Heaven
50.
confidential interviews
51.
confidential interviews
52. pp.
240-246, The Will of Heaven
53. p. 98,
Which Human Rights? (Hanoi). It was also acknowledged by Hoang Nguyen, editor
of the Hanoi magazine Vietnam Courier, that prisoners have been tortured, but
likewise claimed that it
was not
official policy to do so.(from Dermot Kinlen's June 1981 report)
54. The
Times, 10/25/78
55. from
speech of Dr. Ninh, Amnesty Action, 9/82
56. see
for example of such a trial pp. 116-118 in The Will of Heaven
57. from
speech of Dr. Ninh, Amnesty Action, 9/82
58. New
York Times, 8/14/81
59. p. 14,
Report of AI Mission to SRV
60. The
Oregonian, 12/6/77; The New York Times 8/14/81
61. The
Oregonian, 12/6/77
62. p. 14,
Report of AI Mission to SRV
63. Ibid
64. p. 81,
Which Human Rights?
65. p.
716, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices , U.S. State Department Report
to Congress, Feb. 2, 1981
66. Giai
Phong, 6/11/75, translated by FBIS, 6/16/75
67. Saigon
Giai Phong , June 16 & 18, 1975, translated by JPRS:
67909
68. New
York Times, 2/12/77
69. The
Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly , Hong Kong, 6/16/80 and
6/23/80
70.
confidential interviews
71. figure
given to Amnesty International in Dec. also to Dermot Kinlen in April 1980
visit
72. The
Amnesty International Report 1979 s belief that the number of political
prisoners was "far higher" than the then official figure of 50,000,
and mentioned estimates by foreign "50,000 to 80,000" (Le Monde,
4/19/78), 150,000 (Reuter from Bien Hoa), "150,000 to 200,000" Washington
Post , 12/20/78) and "300,000 France Presse, from Hanoi, 2/12/78).
73. The
8/24/75 and 9/7/75 articles were both translated by the Vietnam Report of the
Joint Publications Research Service, JPRS:66059 and JPRS: 66446 respectively.
74. The
text of the 1976 PRG policy announcement was translated by FBIS, June 10. 1976
75. p. 90,
Which Human Rights?
76. AI
Report on Mission to SRV June 1981
77. Far
Eastern Economic Review, August 6. 1982
78.
Article 5 of the May 25 PRGSV statement No. 02/CS-76
79. The
official was Hoang Bich Son, Acting Foreign Minister of the Socialist Republic
of Vietnam, whose remarks were reported by Dermot Kinlen in his June 1981
report.
80. p.
128, The Paris Agreement on Vietnam Fundamental Juridical Problems , published
in Hanoi, 1973
SOURCE
.
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