FIFTY YEARS of VIOLATIONS of Human Rights in Communist Vietnam 1945-1995

Life under Communist Vietnam

Fear

In his memoirs, Va Duc (1992) relates how tragic the fate of the Vietnamese people was under the Democratic Republic of Vietnam:

In the later years of the 1940's, when the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, the world ended the Second World War. It went afterwards into a rearmament competition, which was even more dangerous for it was capable of destroying mankind any time in the wink of an eye. In 1950, the growing sense of anxiety of another war spreading over the world, and the increasing fear of a new calamity seemingly pervaded the mind and heart of mankind. The American writer William H. Faulkner, in his speech at the Nobel prize awarding ceremony, declared an immemorable statement: "The basest of all things is to be afraid." The American writer would stress that there is much fear of a work of art that would not be true to the heart but would only produce the germination of an illness instead. Because of their lack of information and their inferior level of knowledge of the world, the majority of the Vietnamese people were not conscious of the fear about which Faulkner had warned. However, throughout nearly half a century, beginning in 1945, the Vietnamese have experienced another kind of fear, which is less common but much more poignant and lasting. It has become an obsessive fear that no Vietnamese will ever know when it will really disappear.

That could be the fatal fear of a bovine peasant who for all his life had been familiar only with his plough and buffalo but was charged with being a reactionary or henchman of the imperialists because of an involuntary speech. He would be interrogated, tortured, and finally persecuted by a scimitar. His body would then be thrown into the river. If he was fortunate enough, he would be banished to the Ly Ba So prison in Cam Thuy, Thanh Hoa Province.

That could be the fear of a city woman who died a victim of fanaticism and ignorance during the French-Vietnamese War. She escaped a French-occupied area but was arrested at a police checkpoint and accused of espionage for having worn by accident a tricolor turban with a tricolor rim--a French flag in miniature! The unfortunate woman was interrogated, tortured, and buried alive. Her grave was somewhere in an abandoned rice field, and her husband and children would never be able to trace back to it.

That could be the haunted fear of a woman whose husband had been working for the French before 1945. She only knew that her husband had only been a plain civil servant and had known nothing but his family life. Nevertheless, he was brought to trial before the People's Court during the agrarian reforms. He was charged for being a landlord and party member of the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnam National Party) of which they both only knew the name. Later, she was to be a witness of the execution before a firing squad of a friend of her husband, who had been tried for the same "crime." Twenty years later, a haunted fear was still apparent on her face every time the story happened to be retold.

That was the desperate fear of any state worker, official, or party member in North Vietnam during the years before 1975 who was attributed to have had relations with the French, the American, or any political party other than the Vietnamese Communist Party, even if the attribution was only a fabrication. That was the overwhelming fear of a poor, unemployed Southerner who frightfully refused the conjuration of a rich relative who besought him to hide part of her property while the census of private properties was operating in 1978.

That was also the panic-stricken fear of poet Quang Dung. He was so glad when, one day, he came across an old friend from the South on the sidewalks of Hanoi. However, he was so frightened that he could not refrain from fleeing without muttering a word when his friend told him stories about his poems and life: They had been printed and published, put into music, and circulated in Saigon before 1975.

Such a fear also explains how often a true writer under communism attached himself to the "Revolution" and the Communist Party. The writer Nguyen Minh Chau, who passed away not long ago, once said that he had felt guilty all his life. He said: "I'm like a wrongdoer, who always has some contraband goods hidden under his belt or coat. Writers in our country, deep in their hearts, feel that they are base. It's fear that makes them base!" He also told that a senior writer once, among a number of younger writers, held his cup of wine and said: "I have still survived until now; it's because I know how to be afraid!" After he had said so, the writer turned his face upwards, laughing sobbingly. Tears were flooding out of his eyes, some falling to the ground, some into his heart. Reading those lines by Nguyen Minh Chau, one had the feeling that the senior writer must have been Nguyen Tuan! The fear of the Vietnamese citizen that this we are touching is a fear which exists. It is not the fear of a war, a war against foreign invasion and for independence in which every Vietnamese is obligated to engage. That fear, he or she should think, originates from imperceptible coercive methods exerting on the people and subjugated them into accepting an illegal totalitarian rule (Van Duc, 9 (1992)).

Genocide

It was more than fear. It was terror, as Hoang Van Chi put it, when he denounced the crimes the Vietnamese Communists committed during the agrarian reforms in 1954:

Nguyen Manh Tuong aptly summarized the situation when he said:

The Fate of the "Excommunicated"

Nguyen Manh Tuong described how he himself had suffered the fate of an "excommunicated" half of his life! In prison, he deplored, a detainee who commits a crime is punished by solitary confinement. It is all very well the most rigorous indictment that could be inflicted on a human being. Beyond that, there is only capital punishment. In his personal case, there has been no punishment indicted against him; neither has there been a prison nor confinement sentence. In the Communist city, there exist unnamed, cruel punishments that are worse than a death penalty, a gradual death. It is "excommunication" that political fanaticism reproves in the arsenal of medieval criminology. Excommunication is the most decisive weapon of religious fanaticism. It does not allow the survival of the faithful, who are deprived of lodge, subsistence, clothing and who can not lead the life that no words could describe, a life without shelter, food, and clothing (Nguyen Manh Tuong, 1992: 317-318).

The Vietnamese intelligentsia in the North knew that Nguyen Manh Tuong was president of the corporation of barristers to the Court of Hanoi. He graduated from the French University of Montpellier with two doctorates, a doctorate-in-letters and a doctorate-in-laws, at the age of 22. As early as 1946, he took to the maquis and joined the Government of Ho Chi Minh. After the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, he came back to Hanoi in 1955 with a dozen of honorary titles awarded by the Government of the Resistance for having been its representative at numerous international conferences. At the Conference of the Fatherland Front on October 30, 1956, he criticized the Communist authorities for colossal errors they had committed in the Land Reform. These critiques cost him disgrace. His life, from then on, resulted in poverty and illness. (Vo Van Ai, 1992: 5-13).

The Fate of a State Cadre

Repression and terrorism were still effective methods to quench those whom the regime regarded as refractory elements. The following story took place in the wake of "glasnost" and "perestroika."

Phung Gia Loc, a teacher and writer, was about to be dismissed from his service. He served as a cadre at the Office of Information at the district of Tho Xuong in the province of Thanh Hoa. He and his friend, Le Trung Quang, Chief of the Section for Organization, were in serious financial difficulties. After having paid off the taxes, Phung Gia Loc and his family could hardly survive until the end of the year since they were running out of rice. That meant they could not subsist themselves. His wife and children looked just like their skinny dog. They were all starving. Their lives depended on several beds of vegetables.

That night, when he came home, a handful of rice was cooked for him. He ate it in front of his youngest son. The little boy watched him eating with covetous eyes. He, his brother, and his mother only had vegetable soup for dinner. His mother was 75 years old. Her jaundiced face was swollen. That night was a "sky-splitting night." The "battalion" was to come to the village to collect "products." To collect "products" meant to collect taxes. They did that in the same manner as the French had done during the time of colonialism. Their services were much more dismaying. They acted in the name of "the Fatherland," of the "Revolution." By one o'clock in the morning, the tax collectors, comprising the security police and militiamen, burst into the homes of tax debtors yelling their names on a loudspeaker. Beseeching groans for compassion were heard but ignored. Even a bicycle, a filter, or even a pail could be seized in compensation for tax debts.

What happened that night in Thanh Hoa could happen in any village in the Red River plains. It happened in the Dong Tien Village in the province of Hai Hung, reported by the press in Hanoi. It happened in the Hoai My Village in the former Interzone V, the journals "Nghia Binh" and "Dai Doan Ket" (Greater Union) reported on December 1, 1987. More fearful were acts of ferocity of the Binh Dai security police who shot innocent people at Tam Hiep Village (Le Ha Van, 1992).

The Fate of a Teacher

The daily "Saigon Giai Phong" (Saigon Liberated), on October 11, 1989, reported that the life of a teacher in the city was equally unfortunate. Although the Ho Chi Minh City administration has dispensed the policy of treatment with the kindest attention toward the contingent of teachers, their monthly income cannot guarantee their minimum cost of living. In a research funded by the State and conducted by the Institute for Labor and Social Welfare in the beginning of 1989, statistics indicated that the monthly income of a teacher in the city in 1989 was 40,000 dong, which was equivalent to 80 kilograms of rice. If such an income is evaluated in terms of the amount of rice we could buy, this income was a little "meaningful." In reality, however, that income would not at all ease the anxiety: It would not assure the employee of any guarantee for subsistence. Still, the payment was often delayed. A poor life has become a familiarity to a teacher's family.

The Conference of the Club of Veteran Resistance Fighters, held at the Ho Chi Minh City Revolution Museum on September 18, 1989, adjudged: "The true picture of a teacher under socialism, according to the description by teacher Nguyen Van Hoi, is like this: While instructing; the teacher's hand is writing, but his legs are shaking. He is starving!"

In the academic year of 1987-88, the results of the final examination of the ninth grade were: In Literature, 13.31% of the students obtained the average grade-point and above; and in Mathematics, 17.60%. Only 6% of the candidates in the provinces and 7% in Ho Chi Minh City obtained the average grade point and above in the college entrance examination. The annual national budget for education is 4.50%. The conference condemned: "This is an extremely reactionary policy because it annihilates at the root the future of the country. The future of the country will no longer exist."

The Fate of an Amerasian

Tran Van Thuy described how he and his family live under communism: "I was a policeman under the pre-1975 Republic of Vietnam. Being a policeman of the old regime, I'm not entitled to any job in the state service. I didn't have any special skill. So, I made a living first on running errands for those whoever want my service, then on trading commodities in swap markets, and finally on selling cigarettes on the sidewalks. Like the majority of the Vietnamese under communism, we live the work of our hands. We just don't know if the next day will be like the last.

You'll never know their policies. You're doing business on a state license, but the police may not consider it valid. Each state service or department has its own laws and regulations. They often contradict one another. The Taxes and Tariffs Department collects taxes for the State, and trading on the sidewalks is okayed. The Police Department, which is in charge of improving the city, doesn't allow business on the sidewalks; it defaces the beautiful looks of the city. Who's right, the tax collector or the policeman? Both are. Only the citizen is wrong.

... Our oldest daughter is an Amerasian. In our society, mestizos are often held in contempt. Amerasians are an object of discrimination, in school and in society. She was seven years old when I married to her mother. We lived happily together. She went to school like any other child. That was before 1975. When the Communists took over Saigon, we became a target for derision and suspicion. Our daughter had to quit her schooling. She couldn't stand derision from classmates and curses on "American imperialists" which cadres repeated almost every day. Our younger children also became an object of hatred. They are good high-school graduates but were denied the opportunity to take the entrance examination to universities because I was a policeman of the pre-1975 political regime. They were denied legitimate candidacy, and cadres refused to give them the required recommendation. Since we could not obtain local authorities' recommendations, their applications were rejected. Many people manage to get one for their child with bribes, but I can't afford it (Quy Nhon, 1992).

The Fate of a Worker

Son Tra reported in the weekly "Tuoi Tre Chu Nhat" ("Youth," Published on Sunday), November 2, 1990 how a weaver and her family survived under "doi moi" (openness). What are we going to do to survive? The question of T. made everyone very sad. The hard press for money burdened on her family. Her 18-year old daughter, a weaver of palm leaves like her, had run away. T. talked to us with the growing anxiety of a mother: "Our factory is planning to lay off hundreds of workers, mostly female workers."

No jobs! That was the most restless anxiety of thousands of workers, craftsmen, and handicrafts. Not only that. The production was obstructed. Many people with some capital were in a very bad situation. The situation Nguyen Thi Hoang Anh and her husband is an example. They got married a year ago. The had saved several ounces of gold and bought a loom. In the beginning, they earned a good living due to working on contract with a textile cooperative at Bay Hien [Ho Chi Minh City]. The textile industry at Bay Hien was later in abeyance. Its business was dying. The Nguyen family's business was dying accordingly.

All through the year [1990], the couple had to work for other weavers. Nguyen Hoang Anh explained: 'We live from one day to another. Our income was approximately 100,000 dong for 5 people, including 3 children; the oldest of them is not yet 5 years old.' "

The Minuses

At the reopening of school this year [1990], many families of workers did not send their children to kindergartens. That was not an individual case. That happened to any state worker whose income is dependent solely on one salary.

Right in Precinct I, where the residents were generally "well off," the number of children going to kindergartens decreased from 9,000 to 7,000. Because of their financial difficulties, quite a few parents had to spend majority of their income. Nguyen Thi Hoang Anh confided: "Our monthly income is 100,000 dong. We have to spend 60,000 dong on tuition fees for our three children."

Money becomes tighter and tighter, putting an extra pressure on the shoulders of the state workers and the working people. There are so many expenses and payments including expenses for the children's books, clothing, tuition, and payments for gas, electricity, water, house rent, communication, civil defense, etc. All payments are rising. A cadre at the City Department of Education said: "Typically, the monthly salary for a cadre with a family of two children is 40,000 dong, but the minimum monthly expenses for his children's tuition 'only' cost 40,000 dong. Forty thousand dong is the typical monthly income of a state worker in Ho Chi Minh City. There are now approximately tens of thousands of them."

Social Inequalities

The economic renovation has its setbacks. Gertrud Winke reported in the magazine "Le Monde Diplomatique" in July 1995, that Vietnam's economy is viable, but not everyone enjoys its achievements. There is an absence of a social orientation in the economic development. Vietnam only focuses on its economic development. It neglects, however, other sectors of the country's life, thus creating a distant detachment between the rich and the poor.

Le Ha Van (1995) related, for example, how excavators and pickers of garbage and waste materials in Saigon make their living. Waste materials are like silver and gold to them. An old person is observantly working beside a rubbish-heap at Hoang Van Thu park. Her rheumy eyes, which are used in place of a flash light, are searching through the heap that has been dug up with fingers by younger and stronger people who have come before her. A filthy smell expires. She says: "Waste paper is sold at 1,000 dong (approximately 10 cents) per kilogram; nylon bags may be sold at 1,500; and paper bags and bottles can only be sold at 500 dong..." Most of those people are young men. They are from the suburban wards of Tan Binh and Hoc Mon Precincts. That "army" operates from midnight to dawn when luxurious restaurants are transforming into a new scene: Saigon of perfume and neon signs. With a bicycle and two bamboo-latticed baskets or sacks, the garbage gatherer rushes for garbage cans along the sidewalk, turns them upside down, gathers the things he could use, then goes to a market place. Garbage gatherers are everywhere, in the center of Saigon, in Cho Lon (Saigon China Town), or in Hang Xanh Street.

H. Son Tra complained that while poor people laboriously rake for every cent among heaps of garbage, a class of "mandarins of the Revolution" enjoys a luxurious life easily. Abuses of power pervade, and injustices create discontent. There is now a serious problem: the unlawful distribution of housing. This abuse of public properties unfolds in almost all big cities and townships, even in the center of Ho Chi Minh City, which is the vanguard force in the fight against and the annihilation of corrupt practices--distributing favors to protégés and screening them from mistakes. That is an open injustice linked to almost all powerful rank and file officials of the Party and State. Many of them are not only allocated public housing, vehicles, servants, but also private houses, houses for summer and winter vacations. Those allocations of public properties have never been scrutinized in the searchlight of renovation as if public properties were not the people's properties. Considering the expenses only, the amount of money is not small. If we rent a four-seat sedan plus a driver in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi for one day, we have to pay from 70,000 dong to 100,000 dong, depending on the makes. Regarding house rental, in prospering business quarters such as Hang Dao Street in Hanoi or Le Thanh Ton Street in Ho Chi Minh City, a businessman has to pay 50,000 dong per month for each square meter. Calculating, we will see how colossal the State debt will be for the entire payment of all the allocations for houses and vehicles under this state cadres' protection policy?

There is, of course, no equality of wealth between the rich and the poor. However, no particular class should also be entitled to special benefits without the control of society. Social objections will become increasingly intense when the commodity economy requires all citizens to familiarize themselves with the measurement of every ounce of raw materials, every minute, and every square meter of the houses and factories.

The question is to open a bookkeeping for national properties, regulating the levels and amounts of money paid for each state agency, each state official, in such a way that the people will be able to tolerate. Every legal payment must be approved by the legislative body. The nominal salary should not be shielded as an exhibit for moral conduct, as a cover for the unjust allocations of public properties and interests, and, even worse, as the protection of corrupt practices that are decaying man and breaking down the State (H. Son Tra, 1990).

The Pedigree

According to Thanh Tin, a common citizen always faces a constant fear of all kinds in a society where democracy is ill or nonexistent. First, it is anxiety; then anxiety leads to fear. There are daily worries everyone would have about himself or his family. He is anxious for his "ly lich" (a pedigree in which personal records are inscribed); it must be clean, for his part or his near kindred's. Anxiety leads to fear since one is inseparable from the other. The fear of starvation and of misery would not weigh much heavily on the citizen of a society where the State is God. The fear on the political plane is really heavier. The "ly lich"--personal records--is the document that decides your fate, whether you are a cadre or a common citizen. The remarks by a senior officer in the administration hierarchy about a cadre or those by the security police about a citizen hold a determining value for the political fate of each citizen. For a citizen, it is ideal if the remarks made on him were "faithful to the regime" and "imbued with the Party line and the policies of the State." If he is a cadre, he should make himself "politically trusty" and "well imbued with the Party's political line." He must have "faith in the Party and the State" and have it "without doubt and hesitation." If you want your children to advance in their studies, to go on to college, to pass the state selective examination, you have to encourage them to join the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Organization, then the Party.

Due to the absence of a rule of law, everyone faces difficulties in life in an aberrant manner: doing everything possible to please the authorities. The authorities, in turn, are burdened themselves with worries. The first thing to do is to win the chief’s and his wife's favor. A wise man is the one who knows how to get along among superior members in the hierarchy. A wiser man is the one who knows how to please his superiors. The wisest man is the one who seeks all means to get close to them and seek support, protection, or patronage from them (Thanh Tin, 1994: 20-21).

Lam Thanh Liem and Jean Mais said that the choice of the Marxist-Leninist political system and its projects, and the values for its concept of the world have lethargically shaped the Vietnamese educational system. The incitement to engage in political activities is distinctively feverish in education, especially in higher education. This endeavor is manifest in the unremitting references to the Marxist-Leninist thought, supplemented by the Ho Chi Minh's thought, especially in the recent years. Political courses, which are compulsory in all types of education, be it literary, science, medical, or technical, contribute to shaping the student's mind according to the unique concept of life acquiesced by the regime. The selection of students, in particular, is done according to political criteria and applied through different phases of education. It takes place when the student enters the university, and the pressure will never slack off. The student's thought and his comportment will be matched up with the same criteria throughout his education, at each exam, at his yearly final examination, at his examination for promotion to a higher level, and at the end of his education when job assignments will be given. The courses in Marxism-Leninism continue to be compulsory in all areas of higher education. Official declarations persist to proclaim that Marxist ideology has to play a dominant role. "Education has to be built on Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh's thought," as avouched in the resolution of the Fourth Plenum--Seventh Congress of January 1993 (Lam Thanh Liem and Jean Mais, 1995: 10-12).

According to Thai Duy, party membership is a prerequisite to start a career. It is also a requirement a cadre has to fulfill to accede to a higher position. Such dereliction as the lower level of his educational and professional backgrounds, his inferior ability in performing his services or even his inaptitude in his career and inferior performance of services could be excused. In this society, if you wish your life to be better off and enjoyable and to get easy a promotion, you have to seek, by all means, to be admitted to the Party, then to the Party School. Once you are awarded a 'Red Diploma,' your position and fame will then be ensured.

If a husband is a party member, he will try, by all means, to help his wife become a party member. In the same way, if the parents are party members, they will take steps to help their children become party members. Their children do not have to study very hard; they will also have easy access to high positions. If a chief is corrupted and wants to consolidate his position, he will admit more of those party members who will easily take sides with him. They ally with one another to protect and support themselves. They will help by voting one another for higher positions. That is a rule. They will also seek to frustrate qualified subordinates if the latter will not do as told. They often fabricate an applicant's pedigree and refuse to give him a job. They have rejected so many qualified people; they have emaciated so many talented youths! (Thai Duy, 1990).

Duong Thu Huong, in her novel "Thien Duong Mu" (Paradise of the Blind), described them as those Communists who have dissipated nearly all their lives to depict a paradise on earth. However, their low-set intelligence is not good enough to help them explore what that paradise would be like and how to get there. Therefore, when they realize that their zeal is all in vain, they hurry to look for scraps of real food, gather real grains on muddy rice fields. They do this by whatever means possible. They are the very tragedy of themselves; they are the tragedy of our generation (Duong Thu Huong, 1990: 248).

In an interview with the AFP, she said that the Vietnamese Communist Party is rotten from the top of its leadership. She no longer wanted to use the term "communism" because it is denigrated and distorted. The novelist contended that the Vietnamese youths no longer have ideals. They are now in a revolt, acting as if they wanted to revenge themselves on their previous generation of fathers and brothers that has bamboozled them. According to the author of "Paradise of the Blind," ideals disappeared right after the Vietnam war when the younger generation witnessed the Communist leaders fighting one another for war booties. After decades of living in poverty and being isolated from the outside world, "two generations of Vietnamese are now able to go abroad and see with their own eyes how the peoples in the surrounding countries live. They realize they have been coerced into suffering a miserable life by the leaders of the Communist Party."

Injustice

In the words of the veteran Communist Nguyen Ho, there are countless evils under Vietnamese socialism. In many instances, they are unscrupulous. The authorities abuse power, oppress, and exploit the people. They expropriate the people's land and homes. They repress and oppress the people and trample them underfoot. They imprison them unlawfully. The Vietnamese society is now overwhelmed with bribery and injustice. Bribe taking is "deluging." The unemployed, beggars, and prostitutes are multifarious. Brigands and robbers do whatever they like. The exceedingly low salary remains stone-still for 15-20 years while the prices rise tenfold, twentyfold, ... Nothing matters! (In 1975, a bowl of beef noodle was 5 dong; it was 2,000 dong during 1991-92. All the merchandise and commodity prices rise in the same direction!).

Because of the dictatorship policy, hefty oppression, and fear of being falsely accused, the people hesitate to engage in the struggle for the protection of their interests in such demands for improvements as salary, taxes, housing, land, dismissal from work, corruption, bribery, and unlawful arrest and detention. They choke off their voice and aversively resign themselves to suffer misery and live in slavery as they did in the old days, even though they are themselves called "citizens of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam." It is clear that Vietnam--the country of heroic people--is an independent country. It is independent in the sense that it is no longer dominated by a foreign country. It has never enjoyed democracy and freedom, especially the political freedom, the freedom of expression, even though millions of Vietnamese have sacrificed themselves for democracy, liberty, and happiness (Nguyen Ho, 1993: 29).

Corruption

Regarding the Communist's political control over the people, Mai A, a former WACC officer of the VNR Armed Forces, maintained that the lowest authoritative level practically exercises political control on the people. They are the street, hamlet, and ward security police. In the beginning period of the takeover of South Vietnam, their control was so severe and tense that one dared not speak in a loud voice, lest their neighbors could hear him or her and report to the security police. But life has been becoming increasingly difficult. The people are short of everything necessary for their daily life needs, and so are security policemen. They take bribes and, then, gradually loosen their control on the masses. Just as a drop of ink spotted on a blotting piece of paper, bribery has developed and become a plague destroying the systems of political control, including the people's intelligence system. Emotionally, life is free to some extent. But, materially and spiritually, it has become unendurable.

The Most Venerable Thich Duc Nhuan (1994) keenly noted that corruption is corroding the power. Smuggling is depleting the economy. How will foreign businessmen decide if they choose to invest in Vietnam? How can the State actuate the capital flow that submerges in the masses to develop the country? How can the blocks and blocks of loans the State has been able to borrow from the World Bank and the countries that are willing to help Vietnam be forestalled from flowing into the pockets of a myriad of corrupt officials? The consequences result in generating everlasting debts which future generations and generations of Vietnamese will have to pay.

At the Conference of the Club of Veteran Resistance Fighters held at the Revolution Museum of Ho Chi Minh City on September 18, 1987, Pham Khai, a high-ranking state cadre, avowed that the most urgent task is to eliminate the old and conservative minds, to replace the present body of personnel with a new one. Those old and conservative crooks, according to Pham, say that they work for the people but always stay away from the people. A new class of onerous bureaucrats and oppressive landlords has taken shape everywhere. They do not work for the workers, peasants, soldiers, and intellectuals; instead, they associate with corrupt elements and opportunists, monopolizing the administration and protecting defrauding businessmen. From this situation are born false reports. The loss is true, but the interests are fake. That takes place everywhere.

Poverty

Tran Van Thuy, an underprivileged citizen in Vietnam, deplored about some overseas Vietnamese university researchers' attitudes toward the Communist regime's economy policy. In Tran's views, they have never lived a single day of their lives under Communist Vietnam, and they have grown up in wealthy families. They say untruthfully that lifting the trade embargo and establishing diplomatic relations with Communist Vietnam will help relieve Vietnam from poverty. That is an illusion. Each year, ten thousands of overseas Vietnamese return to Vietnam and bring with them hundreds of millions of dollars. Each year, overseas Vietnamese send hundreds of millions of dollars to help their relatives at home. Where does the money go if not to the bottomless pockets of high-ranking party-members, cadres, smugglers, and peculators? The North Vietnamese workers in Hanoi, like mice, still crowd century-old houses with each family sharing an equal four square meters. In the countryside, each peasant family is given a few acres of land. In the old days, each family had its own house. Now, the same dwelling is shared not only by the parents and their children but also by their children's husbands and wives and their children. In the old days, a landlord owned an average 20 acres of land. Now, the same piece of land is divided among 100 shareowners. Tran said he doesn't know anything about economics and economy. But, is that what they call "economic renovation"? Lifting or not lifting the trade embargo, the economic situation will remain the same. Establishing diplomatic relations or not, the Communists are still there. As long as the Communists are there, the Vietnamese people will still be helplessly immersed in poverty and misery (Qui Nhon, 1992).

The Children's Fate

The National Institute for Nutrition in Hanoi said that 50% of children are now subject to malnutrition. According to UNICEF, 22.9% of the children in the cities, 45.8% of those in the countryside, and 53.2% of those in the highlands are subject to malnutrition. Even in Saigon, where the standard of living is relatively high, 47.8% of the children under five years suffer malnutrition. In its issue on September 6, 1993, the daily "Tuoi Tre" (Youth) reported that, right in Saigon, the number of patients that contracted malaria increased from 8240 in 1990 to 8515 in 1992.

The Homeless

In their reportage on the magazine "Lao Dong" (The Workers) in its issue of 58/1993, Nguyen Xuan and Dang Hoai disclosed that, based on reliable statistics they obtained from sources close to the State, there were approximately 50,000 homeless teens in cities throughout the country. In Saigon, from 30,000 to 35,000 teens were homeless; in Hanoi, there were about 3,000 of them. There were, however, no official statistics on the homeless who wandered from one city to another because the number of these people increased or decreased seasonally. The homeless often assembled at crowded places in the city, at bus and train stations, at parks, and market places. Pagodas and sightseeing scenes where tourists often visit were favorite places of attention. The reportage also noted that thirty percent of the homeless were children and that the number of homeless could amount to 165,000, according to estimates.

In his analysis on the composition of the homeless in Hanoi, Nguyen Duc Long (1994), Head of the Regular Police Bureau, said that of 4,958 homeless who were arrested in Hanoi during the past three years, 357 were thieves, 435 prostitutes, 101 veteran prisoners, 294 escapees from economic zones, and 1,620 children dependent on mothers. The reportage also disclosed that 80.88% of the teenage homeless were school dropouts. Many were runaways, others were jobless; still, others were enticed to crimes. In 1991, of 912 teenage homeless girls, 275 became prostitutes. Others joined gangs they happened to meet in the streets. These gangs often assembled at bus and train stations, and parks or formed mobile groups roving from one place to another.

The daily Vietnam News, on December 31, 1993, reported that Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet had boosted calls for war on corruption. He acknowledged that Vietnam faces a plague of social ills. This is a society where virgin prostitutes are sold at the price of US$ 200. He truly vowed to struggle against corruption during the January 1994 National Assembly meeting: "The government would have to organize nationwide crackdown on crimes and vices." He also admitted that "this affliction is undermining the State as well as the confidence of the people. Social ailments--prostitution, alcoholism, drug addiction, debauchery--are increasing and thus causing great worry to every family." Indeed, Trinh Van Truc, Director for Drug Addicts Rehabilitation in Nam Dinh Township, for example, disclosed that the number of juvenile drug addicts is ever increasing. Sixty-five percent of the 2,000 drug addicts are young men and teenagers, and 80% of them have committed crimes.

Statistic estimates given by state organizations, such as the one by the Women's Union, revealed that there are about 200,000 full-time prostitutes throughout the country. This figure does not include occasional prostitutes. In 1994, Tran Quoc Hoan, Minister for Labor, Veteran Fighters, and Social Services, informed that the makeup in child prostitution includes teenagers younger than 18 years old. They represented only 1.2% of the total number of prostitutes in 1992. That rate, however, increased to 11% of the total number in 1994. Other statistics estimate that from 20% to 35% of the population of prostitutes of both sexes in the cities might be adolescents, and eight percent of them were younger than 14.

The AFP, on January 27, 1995, brought out the fact that, after other countries in Southeast Asia, Vietnam, in its turn, is now affected by child prostitution. Recommendations to fight against that plague were addressed to the Vietnamese authorities during the conference held at Ho Chi Minh City under the patronage of UNICEF and the Movement of Communist Youths at the end of January 1995. The regional representative of the UNICEF, Stephen Woodhouse, in particular, declared: "Henceforth, child prostitution is acknowledged as a discrete problem. It is urgent that the government and authorities concerned take necessary measures." He insisted on reinforcing legislative dispositions in this domain, redressing control on the frontiers, and launching educational campaigns. According to Woodhouse, these measures should be accompanied by the fight against poverty. The elimination of social ills is one of the objectives of social politics periodically declared to be of high priority by the government. The municipal authorities multiplied police raids and "sweeps of brooms" in the areas touched by white-slave trade and prostitution. In 1994, 2,000 prostitutes were arrested. However, these efforts were finally of little efficacy, and they only end in moving the population of prostitutes to the suburbs for a short time.

Public Health

The SRVN Health Department reported that its national budget for the third quarter of 1992 allocated only US$ 1.20 per capita as compared to US$ 12 per capita in Malaysia, US$ 9 per capita in Thailand, and US$ 7 per capita in Nepal, which are among the poorest countries in the world. High-ranking officials of the SRVN Health Department disclosed that public health has become paralyzed. The Institute for Medicine Manufacture, for example, was empty. Experts in the field quit jobs due to exceedingly low salaries. The Hospital of Traditional Medicine has become a "center of charlatans" since good doctors cannot successfully perform their duties due to the lack of medicinal herbs and because foolhardy cadres use unprepared herbs to treat patients.

The Conference on Public Health, Economic Development, and Environment held in Paris during January 16-17, 1994, examined public health, economic development, and environmental conditions as they now exist in Vietnam. It came to the conclusion that without freedom and democracy, advances in public health as well as those in other domains of the social and economic life will not be promoted. Foreign investors are now primarily seeking their own interests, disregarding those of the Vietnamese people.

Public health care, in particular, is deplorable. The Vietnamese common folks are deprived of fair and equal medical treatment. Only powerful party-members and cadres in the political systems and rich people could have access to and enjoy adequate medical care. Medical aids and supplies donated by international humanitarian agencies are improperly used in the hands of foolhardy state authorities. They should necessarily serve the poor people. The general consensus is that medicine should be given directly to those who need it. National rebuilding in Vietnam is a big problem, and no single professional group or political party could solve it. The Conference believed that overseas Vietnamese will only be able to substantially contribute to achieving this great task when Vietnam has freedom and democracy.

Charity

Charity is in serious need in such a poor country as Vietnam. International aid has come to rescue the poor. However, complaints about its misuse and dispossession by the State are heard among the religious circles, and distrust in the State in matters of religious charity is clear. In his October 1991 letter to his father living in Orange County, California, a young Caodaist believer wrote, in part:

Nicholas Rock reported how humanitarian aid services are conducted by state authorities in Vietnam:

On the other hand, economic reforms in the direction of market economy lead to the downfall of agricultural cooperatives in the countryside. Thus, many humanitarian organizations come into being and register with the government authorities. Their purposes are not political; however, the party leadership still shows dubious concerns over all forms of humanitarian activities.

Charges against the Vietnamese Communist Party

Failures

Ever since the beginning of the 1990's, the Communist rule has tried to convince international public opinion, notably the United States, and the Vietnamese communities overseas of its "open door" and national reconciliation and concord policies. Their effort, however, has come to no avail in the Vietnamese communities overseas.

The "Thao Thuc," a group of Viet Catholic intellectuals at the Vatican, Rome, for instance, contended that the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo in March 1994 is in line with the U.S. global strategy rather than a purely economic purpose. In this sense, we can recognize that Hanoi is trying to get along with the U.S. to become an ally. Hanoi has chosen between the two paths: to go with Communist China or to go with the United States.

Right now, the Vietnamese Communists realize that to go with the United States is more beneficial for them, and they decide to make their decision. Whether this event will bring about good or bad effects for the Vietnamese people and for their struggle for democracy, and whether the United States will continue to sell its friends, get hand in hand with the Vietnamese Communists to the detriment of the people of Vietnam, we have to wait and see. The really meaningful thing is that this is a real opportunity, for once, for the Vietnamese Communists to do what the Kings under the Nguyen dynasty had failed to do (the case of Nguyen Truong To in the nineteenth century who submitted a national plan to build the country which was neglected) and Ho Chi Minh (who took over the political power from Bao Dai, but sold his soul to the Third International) did in 1945. The Vietnamese Communist Party owes their duties towards the Vietnamese people, for their failure to create freedom, happiness, and prosperity.

Mistakes

Lam Le Trinh remarked that during Vietnam's long struggle for its independence, many intellectuals have wasted their time listening to Ho Chi Minh. One only has to read the painful confession of Nguyen Manh Tuong, published in Paris in 1992 under the title "Excommunicated: Trial of a Vietnamese Intellectual," to get a glimpse of the inhumane treatment to which intellectuals are subjected by Hanoi. We should also look also at the way Tran Duc Thao, a committed Marxist and philosophy "aggrege," died in isolation in Paris in 1993 after his release from a Vietnamese gulag.

World opinion has played an important part in the extraordinary congress which met in Hanoi over six days in January 1993. Postponed three times, it ended abruptly amidst popular indifference. A few figureheads were introduced within the Politburo to reinforce the various factions. Other than this, multipartism was not on agenda. The name of the country and that of the Party remain unchanged, and the leading class is the same. Secretary-General Do Muoi stated that "Doi Moi" (renovation) has taught us useful lessons, but the Party still keeps the exclusive right to correct its own mistakes. After abruptly canceling the Nguyen Dinh Huy--StephenYoung seminar to be held in Saigon, the Party announced in November 1993 a broadening of the "Mat Tran To Quoc" (the Fatherland Front) and the creation of a new Mat Tran Doan Ket Dan Toc (Front for National Unification).

Both of these, of course, are Communist in their ideology, and their aim is to promote a regime for the People and by the People, to foster solidarity between citizens and expatriates, to rebuild the economy and so on and so forth; in short, the usual propaganda. On the other hand, the Party cultivates the threat of "political instability to rein the masses and tries to make them believe that it is capable of "mutation" by taking the path of market economy, but the Party's behavior remains tyrannical, and no one is fooled. This duality reveals the Party's doubts and fears about reform (Lam Le Trinh, 1994: B4).

According to Nguyen Ho, the Vietnamese people suffered colossal sacrifices in the long struggle for independence and freedom for the Fatherland. During the "resistance war against the Americans" alone, eight million Vietnamese lost their lives throughout 20 years (according to the press of the People's Republic of China and the recent statistics by the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam). In addition, there were 1.1 million martyrs, 300,000 soldiers missing in action, and 600,000 disabled veteran soldiers. Two (2) million civilians became disabled, and two (2) million civilians became infected with toxic chemical agents. For the wars and uprisings as a whole, the total loss of lives amounts to between eleven (11) and twelve (12) million. These consequences resulted from the war characterized as national liberation and class struggle (communism against nationalism, the proletariat against the capitalists, socialism against capitalism) and the struggle for ideology (materialism against spiritualism, atheism against theism, communism against religions--Cao Dai, Hoa Hao Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, etc.). Characteristic of this war of class struggle is that the war for national liberation turned out to be a war between brothers of the same race of Lac Hong who killed each other, a civil war. The violent encounter in the class struggle, which took place along with the war for national salvation, is manifest in the casualties that have been mentioned above. It is also shown in such earthshaking events that have never happened in our history: the migration of two million North Vietnamese to the South and the impetuous migration of more than two million of Vietnamese throughout the country to foreign countries since 1975.

Although the war ended a long time ago, hatred and enmity against the present regime among all social strata of the country have still persevered. Hatred and enmity have not been erased; yet, repression, arrests, imprisonment, and exiles against religious followers, intellectuals, writers, poets, lawyers, doctors, cadres and party members, veteran Resistance fighters ever persist simply because they are bold enough to express opinions that are different from those of the Vietnamese Communist Party (Nguyen Ho, 1995: 7).

Crimes

At the Third Convention on Human Rights held in Geneva, August 10, 1994, the Vietnamese Women for Human Rights Delegate denounced crimes against fellow human beings by the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The denunciation specified as crimes consists of the Vietnamese Communist rule's harsh measures against the old Republic of Vietnam's invalids, warriors' widows, and orphans. The delegate requested the U.N. to form an Ad Hoc Penal Court Concerning Vietnam to try the Vietnamese Communist leadership for crimes against humankind in an international court as it did against political leaders in Yugoslavia on the basis of the stipulation in the U.N. Resolution 808 in 1993. They also brought forward as proofs the necessity to create an international court such as the one at Nuremburg after World War II at which the Allied Forces tried war criminals. As for Vietnam, the creation of an international court is necessary as it is essential. It is now the right time to try despotic and antidemocratic war conquerors because of their crimes against fellow human beings. They have used all means to distort history, to frighten witnesses, and to destroy evidences of their crimes against the miserable vanquished.

Luong Thi Nga of the Vietnamese Interfaith Organization, in particular strongly denounced the Communists' cruelty. The 30-year long civil war has left in South Vietnam more than one million disabled soldiers and widows and children of the war casualties of the Republic of South Vietnam. They are not only neglected but also inhumanely maltreated by the Communist rule. In her report before the U.N. Commission on Human Rights held in Geneva on August 1, 1995, she condemned the Communist administration for having treated them barbarously and disdainfully. They were thrown out of their houses, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers and relocated in the so-called new economic zones. These "new economic zones" are, in reality, prisons in disguise. There are no means of infrastructure, health care, and education.

The Communist administration, in reality, does not care how these miserable people survive. It has obstinately confiscated the disabled soldiers' houses and land, property, orthopedic implements and turned them over to disabled soldiers and cadres of the victorious Communist army. It has annulled all the subsistence allowances for disabled soldiers and widows and children of the war casualties, although it is well aware that it has replaced the old regime to occupy the territory and manage all the natural resources of the South. Worse still, it has confiscated all private humanitarian aids that overseas Vietnamese have sent to the victims. In the past seventeen years, it has sealed all contacts between international human agencies and the victims. The severe measures it has executed against those miserable victims were aimed at isolating them from the rest of society, treeing them to a suicide or gradual death because of poverty, of despair, of exhaustion, and of illness. It has nearly attained its aims. Tens of thousands of its victims have fallen in those prisons.

Luong Thi Nga also denounced the Communist rule for violating and destroying Vietnam's traditional worship of ancestors and of the dead. To the Vietnamese, the cult of ancestors and of the dead is a religious belief. The altars of ancestors and of the dead and tombs are objects of reverence. They occupy an important place in the spiritual and religious life of the Vietnamese.

The intrusion against burial grounds and tombs is the cruelest disdain against the worship of ancestors and the dead. In South Vietnam, there have been numerous military burial grounds among which the Bien Hoa Military Burial Ground is the largest. The Communist administration has 25,000 tombs of the war casualties in this burial ground destroyed, regardless of the people's traditional and religious belief. By committing such an act, it is in serious violation of Article 240 of the Penal Code of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, which provides that a) whoever excavates or destroys tombs or dispossesses articles for rites at the tomb or displays acts of intrusion against tombs, remains, shall be subject to reeducation without detention up to one (1) year or detention from 3 months and to two (2) years; and b) if his acts cause serious damage, he will be punished by detention from one (1) year to five (5) years.

Violation of the Right to Self-Determination of the Vietnamese People

Van Duc (1992) believed that the Vietnamese people have grown up, politically and spiritually, after years of struggle for independence and democracy. They cannot and must not be regarded as minors who still need to be molded into preconceived patterns of thinking that is solely readied by the Vietnamese Communist Party and State. They are now responsible and self-directed citizens who definitely stand on their own to decide what they should do and what their future should be. No longer can totalitarianism and dictatorship subsist. It is safe to say that, for the first half of the 20th century, the Vietnamese people engaged in the struggle for national independence. They are now engaging in the struggle for the liberation from despotism, poverty, misery, injustice, oppression, and repression. Unquestionably, this regime is no longer appropriate for the needs for the development of the country. It has dispossessed the citizen of those divine and unalienable rights declared in the first Declaration of Independence of the Vietnamese people. The disastrous consequences this regime has caused to the Vietnamese people are visible. They become the stumbling blocks the Vietnamese are trying to overcome. They are a bondage the Vietnamese people are striving to destroy. The Vietnamese people are now trying to get out of the darkness that for decades has enshrouded them. They are trying to help themselves to come out into the light (Van Duc, 1992: 8).

The Tragedy of the Vietnamese People

Hatred

Preaching peace for Vietnam, the Most Venerable Thich Duc Nhuan said in his open letter to Buddhist followers on Buddha's Birthday in 1994:

Expressing his opinions on the social situation in Vietnam, Mgsr. Nguyen Minh Nhat, President of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Vietnam, said, in an interview with the Hanoi magazine "Nguoi Cong Giao Viet Nam" (The Vietnamese Catholic) on April 15, 1995, that if we continue to grant privileges to economic reforms only, we will be like those who build a house without a foundation. Even if all the political lines aim to satisfy the interests of the people and take into account the material aspect only and if they tend to ignore the destitution and bring forth the riches without worrying about the moral life, he is afraid that the country will only develop on a fragile foundation. The riches that the regime accumulated will put us at a disadvantage for the people that will eventually create a lack of balance of the country’s social life.

We have had numerous experiences in this domain. Without a body of moral codes, man lacks in him the rein that will bridle him from committing errors and bringing harm to people in such eccentrics as peculation, corruption, and theft. The significant examples are not rare. Young men ride their motorcycles in the streets with an aggressive attitude. There are those people who trample conscience underfoot. There are those people whose only ambition is to run after profit, make forgery. There are those people who disdain respect for the law of the country. There are those people in high positions who draw profit from their positions and do anything they wish. This comportment results from the sole cause: corruption of public morals. In the old days, our forefathers said:

In his communiqué to the Sangha and Buddhist followers on Buddha's Birthday in 1994, the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang renewed his concerns over the disastrous consequences the Vietnamese people have suffered. The Vietnamese people have endured sufferings as a result of poverty, backwardness, social segregation, hatred, moral demotion, cultural degradation, repression and terrorism. He particularly reminded the Communist leadership of their malicious behavior regarding the severe measures they have executed against Buddhism.

The Vietnamese people are lenient and peace-loving by nature. They are willing and ready to forgive those who show repentance and mend their ways. The present favorable situations give the Communists genuine opportunities to return to the people's traditions and serve the country. Their concrete services consist in respecting human rights, allowing the people to exercise their basic human rights as stipulated in the International Bill of Human Rights, such as the rights to religious freedom and freedom of beliefs. They have to release all prisoners of conscience who are now under detention or placed under administrative house arrest. They have to create opportunities for the people from all walks of life, in and outside the country, to contribute to rebuilding the country.

Prayers for a True Peace

Reviewing the tragedy the Vietnamese people have endured for more than a half century, the Reverend Du Phuoc Long and the Reverend Tran Minh Hai (1992) had this to preach: