From: kvt@druwa.ATT.COM (TranKV)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Subject: Re: Re-education camp story
Date: 20 Nov 92 23:07:13 GMT
Reply-To: kvt@druwa.ATT.COM (KVT)

In article <1992Nov19.152847.29318@news.media.mit.edu> tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com writes:
# 
# I have heard and read many stories about re-education camps. I have talked to
# former prisoners.  And I thought that I have heard all the stories.
# 
# Recently I talked to a former Vietnamese political prisoner. He was held
# 15 years (1975-1990) in various camps throughout Vietnam.  Released, he got 
# to America thru the HO program and reunited with his family.  
# 
# He said that one of the worst camp is in Phu' Ye^n province. The terror is
# being confined in a xa` lim (cell). It is not the torture, not the climate,
# not the prison conditions that scare the prisoners.  It is the diet. 
# 
# The daily diet for a prisoner consisted of a bowl of rice soaked in salted 
# water (nu+o+'c muo^'i).  To avoid starvation, they had to eat the rice 
# anyway after decanting the salted water.  But the salted water has already
# soaked the rice. Moreover, they were not given enough water to drink.  
# Thus, the kidneys had to work overtime.  Soon, their bodies were swollen 
# (phu` thu?ng). If they could not get out of there in time, death is certain.
# 
# To alleviate the problem, at first they tried to hold their water (i.e. urine)
# until meal time. After decanting the salted water, they urinated in the
# bowl then decanting the urine, hoping to remove the salty, before eating the
# rice.  It sounded disgusting, he said, but it helped somewhat. And they will
# do anything to survive.  However, as the water ration cannot keep up with
# the body demand, soon they urinate less and less.  After a while, they
# realized that no matter what they do they could not escape an agony death
# as long as they are in there.  They equate being send to Phu' Ye^n camp with
# being sentenced to death.
# 
# He was lucky that he was transfered to another camps after a short period
# in Phu' Ye^n camp.  He commented that it just one of many ways the Hanoi
# regime can kill these prisoners quietly without a bullet.
# 
# Nha^n

It doesn't matter how many times these killings in how many ways are
exposed to the world, there are still people willing to excuse these 
inhuman acts. Some of their excuses (notably from the Americans 
claiming knowing it all about Vietnam and its people by reading 
hundreds of books written by Americans on Vietnam War) :

    - The prisoners are lucky they didn't get shot right off for all
the things they had done (???) before 75. They still have a chance
to survive, don't they? (With the same logic, probably all Confederate
officers should be tried and shot dead after the American Civil War.) 

    - The country is in poverty (no doubt the cause is the US's trade
embargo), therefore what to have left to feed the prisoners. They
are lucky they still have something to eat (see excuse #1 above).
(Trick: all evils are caused by the great Satan on this earth: the US
government -- We, Americans, should be ashame of this association.)

    - Hey, there's no bloodbath as initially expected, so a small (???)
number of deaths in education camps is still better than a huge number 
in front of fire squares. (Trick: a big number will look insignificant
when compared with a much bigger number).

    - The treatment is maybe a little too harsh, but this is still 
much better than Russia under Stalin or Cambodia under Polpot or 
Germany under Hitler. (Bad comparision: can't Vietnam deserve anything 
better than a Communist authortarian?)

It seems, for these people, once they fell in the trap of believing so 
much in the goodness of Vietnamese Communists, the only way to salvage 
their self-esteem in the face of the truth is to defend the Communists 
to the end.

Kim