1 First warning
17 Years in Re-education Camps
Of the Communists of Vietnam
Part 1
I was staying
Chapt. 1 - First Warning, the strategic
evacuation
Before April 30th, 1975, news about the loss of some
provinces in Central Vietnam made me so worry. Being an
intelligence officer of South Vietnamese Government, what
would happen for me when the Communists took over
Saigon? I heard and saw about the mass killing in Hue
when the Communists came to that city of Central Vietnam
in Mau Than New Year, 1968 (the year of the monkey).
The Communists tied people together by barbed wire and
buried them alive; the Communists forced people to dig
their own graves and shot them in there.... The evacuations
of hundred of thousands' people from many cities in
Central Vietnam proved that the people were afraid of the
Communists. The Communists of Vietnam (VC) caused
consternation to everyone in my country even innocent
people. Under the revolution label, VC found the war to
conquer South Vietnam; they established the National
Liberation Front (NLF) and began the war against the
government of the Republic of Vietnam that they called
pseudo-government (fake government or puppet
administration) of South Vietnam.
When the US Armed Forces came into South Vietnam,
the VC changed the Vietnam War to become the war to
fight against the so-called "American Empire". They
identified American with French; they put that war and the
war against French Colonialists in a same category.
Actually, the Communists had despoiled the credit of the
Vietnamese people from the war against French, and then
they conquered North Vietnam to become a Communism
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country. Vietnam was dividing to two countries by the
Geneva Agreement: North Vietnam Communism and
South Vietnam Democracy. The two countries would
develop separately waiting for a negotiation to reunify.
The political system of the country would depend on the
people in the whole country in a universal suffrage under
the control of an international organization. I didn't want to
mention here about the history of my country because there
were many books written about those, but some details
linked with the reason of my staying while hundred of
thousands' people evacuated from my country.
My father had joined the League for the Independence
of Vietnam (called Viet Minh), an association that had been
founded by the Communists to reunite the people to fight
against French Colonialists. He was killed in that war in
1952 before the Geneva Agreement, so I was a son of a
family having a hero who died in the war, a "martyr" as the
Communists called it. I did not know anything about my
father for he died when I was only seven, and he left the
family into a secret zone when I was two. I heard that he
was a financial cadre of guerilla men. On their way of
mission, he and his friend were ambushed and were killed
after they shot two soldiers of the foreign legion and a
French soldier. I used to be proud of my father. I had three
cousins who regrouped to North Vietnam in 1954, and I
heard that they used to study in the Socialism countries.
My uncle, my father's elder brother, was also a Communist;
he had been kept in Con Non Prison from 1956 to 1962.
After released, he continued to work for the VC and died in
1970; he was a martyr as well! With such a family,
sometimes I simply thought that the VC would not
"punish" me once they came into Saigon.
On the other hand, I usually heard that the Communists
didn't care about family, about religion, about country; they
worshiped their Communists Party only! In that dilemma, I
could not imagine how they would treat me when thing
happened!
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The lack of understanding about Communism, about
the Communists, made me and many others in South
Vietnam became confused about Communism and
Patriotism. When I was young, I used to admire some
Communists, especially Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap,
whom I identified as patriots. I also identified the Vietnam
War with the war between Vietnamese and French
Colonists. I wrote many patriotic poems and showed them
up in student's magazines. In addition, the chaos of
leadership in South Vietnam from the president Ngo Dinh
Diem to the president Nguyen Van Thieu made the people
in South Vietnam wait for a stable and strong government
that could build a better country. Most of the people in
South Vietnam often look upon the Government of North
Vietnam as a pattern of what they wanted. Pham Van
Dong, the prime minister of North Vietnamese Government
from 1954 to 1975 was a positive proof of stability,
perhaps! Although many worse things about Communism
happened in Soviet Union, in China, and in Eastern Europe,
we hoped that the Communists of Vietnam would be better.
Public trials in North Vietnam in the land reform period
after 1955 with scenes of children accusing their parent,
wives accusing their husbands, were not enough to
convince the people to hate the Communists. Images of
mass killing in temporary occupation zones of the VC were
skeptically seen as the strategic propaganda of South
Vietnamese Government. People were confused between
good and bad about the Communists. They could not
distinguish Patriotism and Communism! The fear and the
admiring mixed together made the people not worry about
the Communists any longer.
The strategic evacuations from Ban Me Thuot, Da
Nang were announced as a carrying out of the Paris Peace
Accords. I didn't know anything about the tenor of the
Paris Peace Accords, especially the secret treaties that I
have heard about the dividing by the 12th parallel at Phan
Rang, a province in Central Vietnam, for the National
Liberal Front. The greater part of what I heard was just
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rumors! In a country having chaotic situation, rumors
usually were more trustworthy than what the government
informed.
Although being an intelligence officer of South
Vietnam government, I never learned about Communism.
In my daily duties, I fought against the undercover
organizations of Students in the University of Saigon. I
only knew that those organizations were offspring of the
Ho Chi Minh Labor Youth Union, an organization of the
VC. I retook the Students' Association of the College of
Science in 1972 from the Bung Song group, an undercover
organization of the VC. Even though the radio of the
National Liberal Front announced my death penalty for that
success, I indifferently heard that news. They only knew
my code name, and more over, I was still living in my
region. To the contrary, if the Communists took over
Saigon, what would happen for me? My anxiety and my
misunderstanding were mixed together; I didn't know what
I had to do!
Chapt. 2 - That was happening in my family
On April 19th, 1975 after leaving my wife in her
office, I came to my mother's house as usual. I met Tai, my
brother who just came home from Da Nang. He was an
interpreter sergeant in South Vietnam Navy. Da Nang was
a big city in Central Vietnam and was also an important
harbor of South Vietnam. Tai had only his clothes on
because he had been through many hardships to reach
home. He recalled horrible things that he had seen on his
way from Da Nang to Saigon. On a ship, a woman gave
him her baby for she was looking for her other lost child;
after that she disappeared in a crowd. He didn't know what
to do and how to hold the baby going home for a long trip,
so he put the baby in the arms of a stranger and ran away.
People crowded together climbing onto any ship; many
drowned falling into the sea.
"Why didn't you go abroad?" I asked.
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"They ordered us to go to Saigon and to fight against
the VC."
"Did you see any VC in Da Nang?"
"No, I didn't see anything except the people evacuated
from Da Nang. They ordered us to leave Da Nang and
gave up that city for the VC, but we didn't see any VC in
that city. I don't know why we failed without any
fighting."
"Did you hear about the secret treaties of the Paris
Peace Accords?"
"They said many things about that, but I didn't hear
officially even when they ordered us to leave Da Nang."
"How did you get home?" I asked curiously.
"First I took my ship to Cam Ranh. From there to
Vung Tau, I climbed onto a ship of US Navy because I am
an interpreter."
"Why didn't your ship go to Saigon?"
"I don't know; it straightened to Phu Quoc Island."
"What did you see on your way to Saigon?"
"People were frightened; they talked about the VC and
massacres though no one saw any VC in their cities. They
crowded together on the way to ports. They loaded
everything possible on their motorcycles, on their bicycles,
or on their shoulders. Children cried for lost their parents;
someone lay dead on sidewalks. Thousands of people left
their home hearing the VC coming or our military units
withdraw. You are working in the Central Intelligence
Organization; do you know about a plan of the Government
or the US for the future of our country?" He asked me
unexpectedly.
"No, I didn't," I was somewhat puzzled how to answer.
My brother was four years younger than I was; he had
been an interpreter for the US Armed Forces Unit at the
Long Binh barrack from 1968. When the US Armed
Forces withdrew from Vietnam in 1972, he was transferred
to the Vietnam Navy in the same rank and had the duty of
an interpreter for the supply base of Vietnam Navy in Da
Nang. Tai looked somewhat like me with his soft hair, his
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thick lips, and his square face. My mother said that he was
more like my father than I was. Sometimes I felt a little
jealous with that judgment.
I asked my brother to use mine to change his clothes
because he was so dirty after ten days coming home.
About 10am, my cousin Lan came from his fort at the
Saigon harbor. He was a warrant officer in Vietnam Navy.
He joined the Army in 1962 and worked as a
communication officer in the headquarters of South
Vietnam Navy in Saigon. He came to ask me to prepare to
go abroad with him when necessary.
"I think my Organization has its own plan," I replied to
him, "In an urgent case, I'll see you right away!"
I didn't know actually what to do. Hearing about the
tense situation of my country, I was so confused. We
would fight against the VC if they came into Saigon; why
should we leave our country without fighting? Our Armed
Forces were strong. Our weapons were enough even if the
US no longer helped us. I just didn't know why we failed
when we were gaining victors in the battles and in the rear.
The withdrawal of our military units from many provinces
of Central Vietnam without fighting created a frighten
effect on the people. People evacuated from their cities
though they didn't see any VC. The country became more
chaotic than ever.
I looked at the street in front of the house. The
motorcycle and bicycle repair shop was still opening. The
grocery store was still noisy. The tailor and the barber
shop were still having some guests. Some hawkers shouted
their wares. Pedestrians were not in a hurry. Autos,
motorcycles, and bicycles still moved back and forth.
Everything looked normal; there was not a sign of war.
The people in Saigon lived too familiar with the war since
1945; they heard indifferently the sound of guns except that
happened next to them.
In 1954, a million people from North migrated to South
Vietnam; they said many horrible things about the
Communists, but the people in South Vietnam were always
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skeptical. They thought that the people came to South
Vietnam to seek a chance to make fortune because North
Vietnam was poor. In the minds of South Vietnamese
people, Communism and Socialism meant nothing but
poverty. Propaganda of South Vietnam government could
not convince the people to hate the Communists. The
people often thought of their interests than the ideal of antiCommunism. In addition, most people thought that they
would have time to leave when the VC came into Saigon:
The migration of a million people from North Vietnam
after the Geneva Agreement was a precise proof.
I still believed on a plan of retreat of my Organization
when necessary, but I thought thing was not bad enough! I
never planned to go to the US or any other country. I
would stay in my country if the Communists let me be a
normal citizen, if there would not be revenge. On the other
hand, I thought that South Vietnam would be temporarily a
neutral country when the war was over. A discussion for
the reunion of Vietnam would be set after that. During that
time, I could choose whether to stay or to leave.
The Vietnam War was a civil war or a war between
Communists and Capitalists, a liberation war or an
idealization war. Those were just the words! Vietnamese
people wished to end that war though they didn't know
what would happen after that. More than a hundred years
living in the war, the people were more discouraged than
any others in the world. So was I! I was born in 1945, the
year of the Second World War; Japanese conquered our
country from French Colonists. I lived in the three wars,
against Japan, French, and the so-called revolution war. I
only wanted peace for my country. My hope was as simple
as the request of the American people when they gathered
to ask their soldiers to leave Vietnam immediately. Living
on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, they didn't know
anything about Vietnam, about the anguish of Vietnamese
people who ought to bear the weight of the war between
Communists and Capitalists. Thousands of US soldiers
were killed in the Vietnam War shaking the American
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people and the whole world. What about the millions of
Vietnamese people who died in the war? My thought made
me so angry! Tears came to my eyes.
Chapt. 3 - The tragic situation
I had an appointment with my undercover agents at
noon in the Sing-Sing restaurant at Phan Dinh Phung
Street. Le, one of my agents who used to be a chairman of
the students in the College of Science asked me.
“Do you have a plan when the VC takes over
Saigon?”
“No, I don't!” I replied embarrassingly.
“I am going to go abroad in a few days; should you
go with me?” Le asked.
“I think it's too early. I have to ask my boss first.
Do you have any information for me?” I asked him about
his jobs to avoid his questions.
“The Bung Song group is rising in the College after
a long disappearance.”
“I knew that; did you see Hoan and Thang?”
"Bung Song" group was an undercover organization
of the VC founded in the College of Science from 1965;
Hoan and Thang were two leaders of that group. When I
took over the Students Association of the College of
Science from that group in 1972, the Bung Song group
disappeared. Hoan and Thang hid into a secret zone of the
VC. We captured Giau, the chief of Bung Song.
“I didn't see Hoan and Thang yet.” Le replied.
“I have to see my boss. See you here tomorrow at
10am.”
That was the last time I saw Le because he didn't
show up on April 20th. I thought he had gone away from
the country.
I came to the safe house at Phan Thanh Gian
Street. Though it was about 2 pm, almost all personnel
were waiting for my boss, Long. We wanted to know
about the situation of our country and the plan of our
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Organization. Dep, the secretary of my boss told us that
Long had a meeting in the Independence Palace. I thought
that he was attending a meeting with the top leaders and the
president Nguyen Van Thieu but could not ask anyone to
make sure. After an F-5 aircraft flown by Nguyen Thanh
Trung, a 26 year-old South Vietnam air force lieutenant,
had tried to bomb the president last week, Mr. Thieu was
hanging himself on in the palace.
My boss, Long was too young with the age of 35.
He was a little fat with his hair thin and curly, so everyone
in the Organization called him “Curly-Long” to distinguish
from some other Longs. His skin burned brown for Long
liked to play tennis at noon; he walked fast though his legs
were short. I heard that Long was a distant relative with
Mrs. Thieu, the first lady. He also lived in My Tho, a
province of South Vietnam, next door with Mrs. Thieu's
family. I didn't know if that was true, but I thought Long
was talented. He worked hard too; someone said that Long
was single and also high educated that rarely happened in
the Organization authorized mostly by military officers.
Long had graduated from the College of Law and from the
National Institute of Administration.
In our daily duty, we had to work without limit of
time. Sometime we worked until 2 or 3am, had something
to eat, and then did our jobs again. Other time, we slept all
day to regain our health. I never had a chance to take my
vacation while I was working for the A17 detachment. The
political situation in Saigon was very chaotic. Students in
the University of Saigon and the University of Van Hanh
(the University of Buddhism) demonstrated everyday
asking for peace. Most of the demonstrations of students
were induced by the VC and by some political parties
discontented with the administration. The center of the
opposition located at the An Quang pagoda. I didn't know
much about the purposes of political parties, but I thought
that to create a chaos in the country having a war was to
help the enemy.
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Long came to the safe house at about 3pm. He
looked tired and tardy. We were waiting for a bad news!
Throwing his suitcase on the table, he began in a low tone.
"I had a meeting today; they didn't explain the
situation of our country. They only said that we have to
arrange everything depending on what we see. The US
abandoned us, so we must fight the enemy by ourselves. I
will see you tomorrow in the headquarters to discuss what
we are going to do."
In those unclear words, we understood the tragic
situation of our country. We were just chess pieces on the
chessboard of the great nations. They came here on behalf
of peace and left here on behalf of peace too. We had to
fight against the Communists by ourselves, not only the
Communists of Vietnam but also the Communists in the
whole world! The US and the Allies finished their aid that
meant we ought to bear the weight of the war by ourselves.
We were not afraid of great sacrifice of blood and bone, but
afraid of the breach of faith.
I met Tuan and Banh, my close friends, in front of
the safe house. Banh told me Thuan and Giang have gone!
Banh used to be the Chairman of Students in the College of
Law in 1973. Thuan and Tuan used to work with me in the
same group when we joined the Organization. We
collected information from the Association of Students in
the University of Saigon and from the anti-government
groups of the so-called "the Third Power" in the years
1969-1970 before we joined the A17 mission. (Our
mission had a code name A17 because there were
seventeen colleges in the University of Saigon). Giang was
my partner. He married to a wealthy family; they went
away when they felt dangerous for their lives. I thought
Thuan left the country with his brother's family because
they worked in the Tan San Nhat airport. We understood
their giving up; they had to take care of their lives and their
families first.
"How are your plans?" I asked Banh and Tuan.
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"We don't have any yet. We think we have to wait
for the plan of the Organization because we don't have any
means. How is yours?" Banh smiled away his worry.
"I think we will have a plan tomorrow." I tried to
keep calm. I didn't know what to do. Climbing onto a ship
in the Saigon harbor across from our headquarters or into
airport to take an airplane, I could do that by myself, but
how about my wife with her unborn child; she was eightmonths pregnant. I only waited for a plan of my
Organization that would be safer for my wife.
I married in 1972 three years after met my wife.
We saw each other in November 1969; the very first day
we started to work for the Organization and also her
twentieth birthday. My wife's sister and brother in-law
were working in the Organization too. When I met her in
the Human Resources office, I was very amazed because
she was too young to work for the Intelligence Agency!
She just graduated from high school. After three years
married, she got pregnant and was very happy. That was
actually her second pregnancy; she had the first miscarriage
on the second month. She was totally desperate when a
doctor said that she could not carry any child because of
her disease. I brought her to many kinds of physician even
some quacks. One oriental physician told that she could
give my wife some medicine for her only child, and that
was the child she was carrying. Our lives in those days
were so peaceful. She worked for the Human Resources
Department in the Headquarters; I usually drove her to her
office every morning and picked her up every afternoon. I
rarely came into the Headquarters because I worked in a
mission detachment. Our salaries were not enough for our
lives, so I taught chemistry for some private high schools in
Saigon; that was my second job and also my cover.
If our lives flowed peacefully like that, I should not
write this memoir! Those tragic events occurred to change
everything for my life and for my people. Millions
Vietnamese left their native country in exile around the
world. Hundreds of thousand officers of South Vietnamese
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Government and Armed Forces were kept in the so-called
re-education camps from South to North Vietnam and
many of them were dead in those camps. Vietnam became
a poorest country in the world. Were those our mistakes? I
don't want to blame anyone else, but what could we do?
We didn't know even how to save ourselves. How could
we fight against the Communists in the whole world when
we were tied by the abandonment of the great nation and
the Allies? I was not a leader of the Republic of Vietnam.
I didn't know anything about strategies of the Vietnamese
Government, but I thought that the so-called strategies of
small countries were only tactics of a great country! We
could fight against the VC and should be dead for our
country. I didn't deny that, but what we could do when
they forced us to give up our forces. I heard many
criticisms blaming the Vietnamese Government especially
the leaders of the Republic of Vietnam to the loss of South
Vietnam. I didn't know if that was true, but I thought we
had to accept our faults not to blame for others even the
leaders. I didn't make an excuse for them. I only said to
understand the truth. We were confused about the safety
for us and the fate of our country, between leaving and
staying. I thought those who left Vietnam was not exactly
cowards, who stayed were not exactly heroes. Everyone
had his or her own circumstances and opportunities, and
now I am trying to remember my circumstance to know
why I was staying!
I came to pick up my wife from her office at
Number 3 of Bach Dang Street, across from the Saigon
Harbor. The port looked normal; the warships of South
Vietnam Navy were still lying alongside of each other.
Some naval soldiers and officers walked along the sidewalk
by the Navy's headquarters. The Prime Minister Palace
quietly stood underneath the blossom of the big old Banyan
tree. Some soldiers stood still guarding in front of the
buildings. The Bach Dang Street from Nguyen Hue
Boulevard to Thong Nhat Street was a restricted area; only
personnel who worked there could go in. I tried to find
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something unusual, but couldn't! I asked myself how could
everything seemed so normal like that in a disorderly
situation of the country.
I asked my wife when she sat behind me on my
motorcycle, “Did you hear a plan of our Organization?"
"No, I didn't! What's happening? Some body said
that our chief would be going away, and Mr. Loc, the
assistance, takes that position. That was just a rumor. I
saw Mr. Binh this morning."
"I don't know exactly what's going on yet, but I
think there will be a tragic situation that could lead to the
loss of our country."
My wife didn't understand about political matters.
She didn't pay attention to anything but our daily life. I
remembered when the Democratic Party of the president
Thieu showed up to public, flag of that party was opposite
of flag of North Vietnam with a red star in the yellow
background; I joked with her that those were the flags of
the VC. Horrified, she told me to turn another way to
avoid them! I didn't know what she would say if my joke
came true, if flags with a yellow star in the red background
were hanging everywhere in Saigon! I laughed with my
thought to cover my worries.
I came to my parents-in-law's home. My wife's
sister working in the Division of Study told me that she
saw some bad news from the report papers sent to the
president that she typed everyday. The tragic situation of
our country especially in the provinces of Central Vietnam
was happening after the president ordered to withdraw the
military units from Ban Me Thuot through the Seventh
Inter-Provincial Road. Thousands of people died on the
road that reporters named Horror Avenue. I have read
about that in newspapers, but I didn't know what would
happen next, especially a plan for my country due to
treaties of the Paris Peace Accords.
I wanted an
explanation from my leaders. Working in the Organization
belonging to the President, I thought there would be a plan
for us when something happened.
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Linh, my sister in law's husband said, "I don't think
the VC could come to Saigon."
"How can you be sure?" I interrupted.
Linh was working in the Division of Training. He
got a little hesitant before answering, "I heard that we gave
up our land from twelfth parallel to seventeenth parallel for
the VC and form a rigid front line from Tuy Hoa to prepare
a negotiation with the VC and North Vietnam due to the
secret treaties of the Paris Peace Accords."
"Do you think we would be able to fight against the
VC without the aids of the American?"
"I think we could. In the Mau Than New Year, we
didn't have any new weapons as M16, but we still won the
VC with AK. Now we have many!"
"After the battles in Southern Laos, our Armed
Forces were weaker; I don't know if we could deal with a
general attack like the Mau Than New Year."
"The battle on the Ninth road in Southern Laos was
a regicide! The VC knew everything about our tactics. I
thought that was the Americans who didn't want us to have
the strong Armed Forces that they could not directly
control."
"All of our thoughts were just our guesses. We
didn't have any explanation from our leaders. Now I think
we have to do what we are going to do. We need to have
our own plan not to expect our leaders any longer."
"How can we do it?" Linh suddenly asked.
"That was a reason we came here. My wife and I
couldn't do anything, but all of us could probably form an
idea!"
We silently looked at each other. I thought no one
could find out anything, so I broke a heavy silence, "We
must think about it and will see tomorrow."
On the way home, I passed by the Ben Thanh
market, a business center of Saigon and of South Vietnam.
Traffics bustled on the pavements. Merchandises filled on
the sidewalks. People crowded in the shops. Some couples
were wandering side by side on the Le Loi sidewalk.
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Things looked like everyday. I could not identify the air of
war. The cafeteria "La Pagode" at Le Lai Street where I
usually enjoyed coffee and music was still opening; sounds
of the familiar music softly echoed when I drove by. Tolls
of the bells from the Notre Dame Cathedral calmed my
soul. I was a Buddhist, but I loved those sounds because of
their lovely rhythm. The huge building of the US
Ambassador stood proudly across from the quiet building
of the United Kingdom Ambassador on Thong Nhat Street.
Some US marine-corps, in combat uniforms and M16 rifles
in their hands, stood by the gate of the building and in two
blockhouses at the corners.
We came to Thanh Da condominiums where we
were living. The family of my sister in law lived in the
upper level; they already came home. We just moved in
some weeks ago, so we had only a few things in the house:
a set of cane chairs in the living room, a mattress on the
floor in the bedroom, some cooking wares in the kitchen.
Dining room was still empty. I looked out of the window.
The Thanh Da River sparkled in the sunset. Some canoes
cleaved waves far away. Lines of coconut tree across the
river quietly reflected their images on the surface of water.
The pale violet color of the sky and the dark green color of
trees combined to form a harmonized painting. I loved to
enjoy a life like that, but what would happen for me in such
a situation of my country! An anxiety suddenly covered
my mind.
The knocks on the door interrupted my thought.
Linh came to chat with me as usual, yet I saw his sadness
instead! Linh and Lan, my sister in law, had two sons. I
didn't remember how long they married; their sons one was
about three and one just a few months of age. Linh
emigrated from North Vietnam in 1954 and was working in
the Organization. They met each other there, too. High
about 5 feet 6 inches with his long face always having a
smile, Linh gained easily sympathy for everyone.
Accompanied with Linh was Hao who used to be my friend
in the College of Science working in the Organization and
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3. The tragic situation
attached to the Police Forces. Hao just married some
months ago. I asked Hao if he knew anything, but he
shrugged his shoulders only.
I started when we seated in the balcony, "Do you
know exactly what happened in the battles of Xuan Loc?"
"The general Dao used most of his troops in that
battle field. He wanted to stop the VC and waiting for aids
of the US," Hao judged.
"I don't think the US supports us any longer! The
president Gerald Ford has failed to ask the Congress for the
aid of 722 million dollars," Linh assured. "Now we must
rely on ourselves."
"Do you think Mr. President of France, Valery
Giscard d'Estaing, could help to seek a proper plan for
Vietnam?" I asked despairingly.
"That was the last effort of French to help Vietnam,
and I think that was also the only hope for us. Hao
shrugged his shoulders again.
The difficulty was that we were working in the
organization of intelligence, but we didn't know any plan
for the country. We knew only information in newspapers
and magazines from foreign countries. In those days, news
from magazines such as Newsweek and Time or from the
radios such as Voice of America and British Broadcasting
Company seemed to have the purpose of destroying our
country. The new "War Cabinet" of the president and the
new civil Prime Minister Nguyen Ba Can could not manage
the bureaucracy. People confused about rumors spreading
thoroughly. Except for some wealthy who could pay about
eight thousand dollars for a passport, others had no chance
to escape from the country when the VC coming even those
who worked for the US and for the South Vietnamese
Government and Armed Forces. We were waiting for the
Americans to help us as the president of the US tried to ask
for the US Congress to give aid to rescue two hundred
thousands of South Vietnamese who had worked closely
with the Americans during the war. What a tragedy to put
our lives in the hand of another!
16
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3. The tragic situation
The Paris Peace Accords was a victor for both the
VC and the Americans. The falling of Phnom-Penh was
beginning for the crisis in the Indochina peninsula. What
would happen to our country next? The horrible crash of
the C-5A aircraft last week killing many orphans still
spread suspicion about the abandonment of the Americans.
With orphans almost "half American" already gone, we
didn't know about our fates. Should the US be more likely
to rescue us when worst thing happened, or that was the
only thing they had done in our country before they gave
up. Why should we not seek a way to rescue ourselves? I
asked Linh and Hao about an opportunity to evacuate when
necessary.
"We don't have money to buy a passport, so I think
we must rely on the plan of our Organization," Linh sadly
said.
"I hope our Organization already had a plan. I
cannot think that an intelligence organization didn't have a
plan to help its agents in a concrete situation." Hao said
without certainty.
"Our headquarters is very close to the harbor; I
think we could climb onto a ship. We mostly worried
about our families." I said disappointedly thinking of my
wife.
We knew that our families were always the first
things we were concerned about, and what we discussed
usually was about the safety for our families. I used to hear
a proverb that those who lost the country lost the family.
And propaganda about "the blood bath" when the VC
coming was always haunted my mind. I didn’t scare of
death if my family would be safe, but I was concerned
about the misery of my family when worst things
happened.
A quiet moment occurred after my talk. I didn't
know how to break the silence, so I recalled what I had
heard from my boss. I came to a conclusion without
meaning, "Perhaps we will know something tomorrow."
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3. The tragic situation
Hao said good-bye. Linh and I went to his sister's
home. His brother-in-law was a director in the Department
of Information. He was not home, and we made an
appointment for tomorrow.
We came home hopelessly. Linh told me to pack
our stuffs to be ready. My wife and I had only one small
suitcase from our honeymoon, so I borrowed Linh his
military kit bag for ease of carrying and helping my wife
because she was too heavy. I put some of our clothes and
something for our unborn child. I joked with my wife that
if our child were born on the way to escape, we would
name him "Evacuation" to remind us of the event. We
laughed to cover our worry.
Chapt. 4 - The CIO was preparing to evacuate.
I came to the Headquarters early. After leaving my
wife in her office, I went straight to the building of my
section instead of to school though I had my class that
morning. I could not appear in front of my students. Last
night, I did not sleep although I had taken a pill. I got
headache; therefore, I had my wife call sick for me.
The building of my section was differently noisy. I
thought I was early, but most of personnel existed. Dep,
the secretary of my boss was typing a paper while others
surrounded her. Tuan told me she was typing an address
list for personnel. In my country at that time, people didn't
have private phone except those who were wealthy or own
business. The connections between each other usually did
by liaison agents; they drove motorcycle to look for people
or to inform what people had to do. Sometimes we didn't
live in our own house, so we had to have an exact address
in a special situation. I wrote down my mother's address
instead of mine because I didn't want to live alone.
"Is there anything in the Organization?" I asked
Tuan.
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4. The CIO was preparing for evacuation
"Nothing yet! I think there will be later when our
boss arrives. I don't know if the other divisions have to do
an address list, but I think that must be important."
"Who will be liaison agents? I think Hiep and Dien
will be, won't they?"
"I think so, but we must come here frequently
because we cannot rely on them. We must take care of
ourselves. Why don't you phone your wife?" Tuan
suddenly asked.
"Yes, I am going to phone my wife, my sister-inlaw, and Linh too, so we’ll be able to know the situation of
entire Organization."
With his whiskers not shaven yet, Tuan looked
older than his thirty-two years of age. We often joked
about him being half-French for his whiskers and his
straight nose. In the early days when we just joined the
Organization, Tuan and I used to work together in the
"Student Mission Team". We took part in demonstrations
of students to collect information. We had joined the Army
on the same day and stayed in the same training center.
When we came back to the Organization, I was in charge of
missions at the College of Science and Tuan at the College
of Letters, but we usually helped each other. Tuan's wife
was also my wife's friend; we usually spend time together,
so we were the great pals.
"I think we are on the brink of an abyss," Tuan
interrupted, "my wife and I will try to go as soon as
possible!"
"I hope you can do that. Your situation is easier
than mine; my wife is too heavy with her pregnancy. I
cannot go without a plan of the Organization. Moreover, I
think our Organization must have a plan to help personnel
in crisis situation."
"I hope so, but at least we must think about it!"
Tuan worried, "I don't know if the situation of our country
is bad enough!"
We were talking about the situation of our country,
but we didn't know how bad it would be. We could not
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4. The CIO was preparing for evacuation
imagine we would lose our country; we only thought of a
great battle with the VC when they came to the capital.
There was a rumor of a retreat to the forth region, the plain
of the Mekong river, to fight against the VC, but the battle
in Xuan Loc still proceeded. We worked in an organization
aiming at political subjects and didn't know about military
affairs. That was our weakness.
In a country having the war for a long time, the
political, the military, and the economic questions got into
a muddle. Military leaders became also political leaders
made the chaos for the country. We didn't have a great
leader who could combine all power to fight against the
enemy. Vice President Tran Van Huong, an old man stood
for South Vietnam but didn't have real power. President
Nguyen Van Thieu was a lieutenant general but didn't
represent the whole armed forces. Every general was a
king in his own kingdom with his own power. The
separation between some generals made the armed forces
to be confused. Two-star Air-Forces general Nguyen Cao
Ky, the former vice president, and the general Duong Van
Minh (big Minh) were combined with Buddhists' Monks of
An Quang Pagoda and with the so-called "the Third Power"
to oppose the President. They all wanted the President to
resign. I didn't know how they could manage the country if
they took power. Some new stars in political horizon had
been killed such as Professor Nguyen Van Bong, the
director of the National Institute of Administration and also
the chairman of the "Radical" party.
I thought the best way to overcome that concrete
situation was a unity as a Vietnamese proverb "in unity is
living, in separation is death". I didn't blame our leaders
for the loss of my country, but they had held the destiny of
the country in their hands. An adage said that the victory
of a general was built on ten thousands of skeletons, and I
also thought that the failure of a general was built on
millions of skeletons!
I phoned my wife in the Human Resources Offices
and my sister-in-law in the Division of Study; they had
20
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4. The CIO was preparing for evacuation
their address lists as well. I knew that was a bad sign.
However, I didn't know how bad it would be, and how I
would deal with it. Gone to another country, prepared to
fight against the VC when they came to the capital, or
retreat to the Plain of Mekong River as rumor, I didn't
know exactly what to do. Just to make an address list was
not to solve our problem! We wanted an accurate
explanation, and we were waiting for our boss.
Right after coming, Long went hurrying into his
room. We looked wonderingly at each other. That was
unusual because he never had had that manner. He usually
came to the hall chattering with us before coming into his
office. We were in anxious waiting for his words. About
half an hour later, he went out in a sad manner.
"I am very sorry to say that we are going to have a
dangerous situation. Many pressures on the president
forced him to resign, and I don't know if he would. I also
don't know who will be in charge when Mr. Thieu gives up.
Mr. Vice-President would be temporary only. Moreover, I
don't know how our country will be. We are making a list
of your addresses under the order of our commissioner, but
I don't know what for. I just want all of us to calm
ourselves. We still work as we have been working, and we
will be all together."
Many "I-don't-know’s" in his speech made us more
confused than ever. What we had expected was not the
foggy idea like that. We thought a leader had to express
clearly and accurately the truth for his personnel not to
cover by a vague answer. We didn't care who would be
president; what we cared about was the fate of our country
and how we were going to deal with it. I thought Long was
confused for he was a distant relative with Mrs. Thieu;
once Thieu resigned, he lost his support and perhaps lost
his position. He was paying his attention on his position
more than the fate of the country, perhaps! Long was a
bright candidate in the position the commissioner of the
Organization though he was young and not a military
officer. He got success in his entire missions, and he was
Kale Memoir
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4. The CIO was preparing for evacuation
also better educated than many others. In our section, most
of us were at least graduated from high school, and many
were graduated from colleges. To manage a department
like that, Long was more suitable than any military officer
although the Organization was lead by military.
Long went out after speaking to us. Tuan, Banh,
and I came to the cafeteria "La Pagode" as usual.
"Do you think Mr. Thieu is going to resign?" I
started.
"I think he will because people didn't like him
when he was an only candidate in the recent election.
However, I don't know who would be the president," Banh
quickly said, "I think the general Duong Van Minh and the
general Nguyen Cao Ky are brightest."
"Big Minh had been a leader once; he didn't do
anything for our country. The general Nguyen Cao Ky is "a
cowboy" in military; how could he lead the country in this
situation," Tuan judged.
"I agree! It seems to me that "changing the horse in
the midstream" is not the best way. Mr. Thieu is not
perfect, but if I had to choose between the three of them, I
would choose him. Otherwise I don't know who could be
suitable." I declared.
"I know some generals and the so-called ‘the Third
Power’ want to negotiate with the VC, but how could we
trust the Communists," Tuan said.
"It's true! The Americans didn't like the so-called
Vietnam War any more; the people in the US think that this
is a civil war between North and South Vietnam. They
want us to solve the war by ourselves. They don't need to
know this is the war between Communists and Capitalists
and we are victims. I think the Americans want Mr. Thieu
to resign and to solve the war over negotiation between
North and South Vietnam, and that must be the main
pressure," Banh said quickly talking as usual.
The beard without mustache created a funny look
in his age of twenty-six. Banh was a maternal relative of
Do Kien family of My Tho; Do Kien Nhieu, the mayor of
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4. The CIO was preparing for evacuation
Saigon was his uncle. I also heard that Do Kien family was
a distant relative of Mrs. Thieu, the first lady. The leader
of the country put his relatives in important positions that
meant he didn’t trust his coworkers. That was also a reason
for the others to oppose him. The down fall of the First
Republic of Vietnam and the deaths of the president Ngo
Dinh Diem and his brothers Ngo Dinh Nhu, Ngo Dinh Can
have been a clear proof. Buddhist monks had taken a
principle role in the destruction of the First Republic, and
at this time, they also took an important part in the
opposition to the president Thieu. The "Third Power"
didn't have real power except the two generals Ky and Big
Minh who had two difference viewpoints. Some others
such as Mrs. Ngo Ba Thanh, Lawyer Tran Ngoc Lieng,
Professor Chau Tam Luan, Buddhist nun Huynh Lien, etc.
were relying only on Buddhists; in fact, the Communists
were mingling in. The main power the students were
surrounded by our students' forces since 1972 after we took
over the General Association of Students of the University
of Saigon from Huynh Tan Mam, a Communist. The
Communists could not take advantage of students any
longer, so they founded some other organizations such as
"The Help for Starvation Youth Forces", and "The Begging
Journalists Group" to create a muddle for the capital.
Except for some opposition powers against the
president Thieu, the capital has been relatively stable until
the evacuation from Ban Me Thuot and Da Nang was
announced. People blamed Nguyen Van Thieu as an
impediment to peace; the pressures from many sides were
asking the president to resign. Our Organization was a part
of the president palace; therefore the replacement of the
president meant the changes in our Organization.
"Do you think that the change of the president
would bring peace for our country?" I asked.
"I don't think so!" Tuan sadly said, "Many times
there have been changes of leaders that only create more
chaos.
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4. The CIO was preparing for evacuation
"I agree! After the collapse of the First Republic,
the Americans came to our country, and the war became
more terrible. Our leaders had been changed many times,
but no one could keep the stable condition like that in Ngo
Dinh Diem regime," Banh added.
"I think our leaders only wanted to fight for their
supremacy, not thinking of the fate of the country." Tuan
judged. "I'm very sorry for us because we have to work for
the ones who don't care about anything but their interests."
"We are young, and we have an ideal to bring peace
for our country. I think if the VC were not so selfish of
their Communists Party, it would be better to give up South
Vietnam for them to have peace for our people. I don't care
who would be a leader, North or South Vietnamese; what I
am concerned about is peace and wealth for our people" I
said with sympathy.
"I agree! We are so tired of the war. Over a
hundred years we didn’t have a chance to rebuild our
country," Banh said; "I hope there will be a day we live in
peace, so we could do what we want to do."
I went to the Sing-Sing restaurant to meet my
agents but didn't see Le. Nhan, Trung, Vinh, Tam, Tri, and
Lam hoped to know something from me. I told them what
I had heard from my boss and recommended them to do
what they could to save themselves. They were my young
agents who had helped me to takeover the Student's
Association of the College of Science from the early days.
Nhan, a leader of that group was crippled. I didn't know
what had happened for him because I never asked him. He
always looked joyful with a smile on his face. They were
attending the first year in the College of Science, but they
did their jobs very successfully. In the situation like that,
they were too young to make their own decisions, and they
mostly depended on the plan of the Organization! I
understood that they were waiting for a clear explanation,
not what I had told them. I said, a little ashamed.
"I know I didn't have what you're expecting, and
I'm worrying just like you. My circumstance is so difficult,
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Kale Memoir
4. The CIO was preparing for evacuation
and I think it's more complicated than yours are. I'm very
sorry. I think we have to do what we can, not to rely totally
on the Organization. I hope you understand what I said."
From that night on, I stayed in my mother's house
because I didn't want to miss anything when the
Organization needed to contact me. I had told my agents
that we had to solve everything by ourselves, but I still
relied on the Organization! Lan, Phung, Tai, and I played
"Four-Color Cards Game" and chattered. Phung was Lan's
brother and was a sergeant of South Vietnam Navy. He
used to live in my mother's house while he was a student,
and he also married to a seamstress working in my mother's
tailor shop. I recalled about the events in my Organization
that morning and about its preparations. We concerned
about the safety for our families. In my country, men were
always heads of household and decided important things in
their families. Lan had three children, Phung one; only Tai
was still single. Our conversation was mainly on the
subjects of the situation of our country and how to escape
when worst thing happened. With three people working in
Vietnam Navy, to escape by ship was very easy, but I
always trusted in the plan of my Organization and waited
for it
Linh came to take me to his sister's home. His
brother-in-law, Thu, a director in the Department of
Information --we called that the ministry of propaganda
and enemies' summons-- met us.
"Did you have any plan for the evacuation?" Linh
asked directly.
"No, not yet!" Thu answered with a little hurry,
"but some things happened in my Department this
morning."
"What's that?" Linh asked worriedly.
"My Minister, Hoang Duc Nha, said that there were
many pressure on the president forcing him to resign, and
perhaps he has to. We don't know when and what will
happen, but we are preparing for a change because Nha is a
cousin of the president."
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4. The CIO was preparing for evacuation
"I had already heard about that, and this morning
our Organization made the lists of personnel's addresses," I
explained. "Yesterday I also heard about the transfer from
Nguyen Khac Binh to Nguyen Phat Loc in the position of
commissioner of the Organization, but that didn't happen
yet."
"I think it will happen soon!" Linh added. "Do you
have any idea about the situation of our country?"
"I think it's very complicated. The Americans
wanted us to deal with the VC by ourselves, but they were
pressing us heavily. Some generals wanted the president to
resign for peace talking with the VC, but they didn't know
how to negotiate with the Communists who never carried
out any agreement. I don't know who would be the
president when Mr. Thieu resigns. Nguyen Cao Ky and
Duong Van Minh are two brightest candidates. With Ky,
perhaps we would have a great battle instead of
negotiation. To the contrary, Minh is now a supporter for
the "Third Power" who wanted to cooperate with the VC. I
don't know what would happen if Big Minh handled
power." Thu replied with his judgment.
"We come here to ask whether you have any plan
when worst things happen," Linh interrupted. "We must
have our own plan not rely totally on the government or on
the US."
"I didn't have it yet, but I already thought of it. I
think we would have time to go if thing happened. You
remember when we had been evacuating from North
Vietnam after the Geneva Agreement, don't you? I think
the country would not collapse so fast that we didn't have
time to get out." Thu replied sincerely.
I knew that Thu didn't have any idea of a retreat
because he had a great position that he didn't want to lose.
After some conversations, we said good-bye. Linh seemed
to be somewhat desperate because he thought his brotherin-law could help him.
26
Kale Memoir
5. The RVN collapsed
Chapt. 5 - Signs of the Collapse of the RVN.
On April 21st, 1975, I came early to my office in the
headquarters. We heard about the transfer of authority
from Mr. Nguyen Khac Binh, the commissioner to Mr.
Nguyen Phat Loc, the assistant of planning. We knew that
the change in our Organization was a result of the change
in the presidential palace, and things began to happen!
Our boss, Long, came early also. He told us to keep
calm, but I thought he weren't. He went around from the
hall to every office in the department and talked about
many things except things in the Independence Palace. We
thought he knew about the resignation of the President, but
he still avoided.
Actually, Nguyen Van Thieu or any one else in the
position of president was of no concern for us. What we
concerned about was the fate of our country and of
ourselves. Who would be president and how he would
confront with the chaos of the country? The Vice-president
Tran Van Huong did not have enough power to handle the
position.
The general Duong Van Minh meant a
compromise with the Communists. The former vicepresident Nguyen Cao Ky would lead our country to a great
battle. We weren't scare of death if we had to fight against
the VC. We knew that any compromise with the
Communists would be our failure because they never kept
their promise. Yet we didn't have any choice! The main
pressure was the Americans; that was anguish for people in
a small country. I thought the Americans no longer want
us to fight the Communists. They want negotiation to have
peace in honor as they said, and they were going to choose
Big Minh. Nguyen Van Thieu said that --don't hear what
the Communists said but watch carefully what they are
doing.-- I didn't know who the right author of that
statement was, but I thought that was exactly true.
Dep, the secretary of my boss was still typing the
personnel's address list. Some wanted to change the
address, and others hadn't come yesterday. The transfer of
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5. The RVN collapsed
authority in our Organization was very quiet, no ceremony,
no participation of personnel, so we wouldn't know
anything if we were not told. The rumor about that transfer
became real. We also heard that the only job of Mr.
Nguyen Phat Loc, the new commissioner was planning the
evacuation for personnel. We asked our boss about that
rumor, but he didn't confirm; he only said that everything
would be on its way. Those misty words didn't satisfy us,
and we didn't know how to solve our problems, whether
waiting for the plan of the Organization or seeking for
another way.
The resignation of the President Thieu was announced
that evening, and his ninety-minute message was spread on
Television and Radio. We watched and heard indifferently
although the resigned president looked sorrow and anger.
We had known that, and we also knew that the seventyone-year-old vice president Tran Van Huong was just a
temporary president. What we were concerned about was
who would be next and what would he do.
The appeal of Tran Van Huong about the reunion to
fight against the enemies was just protocol. He didn't have
power to reunite the armed forces and the people. People
didn't trust the government. They blamed the government
for being corrupted and drawing the country to that chaos.
I didn't know whether that was true or just propaganda of
the VC. If that was true, the corruption of high leaders in
government and military was the damage to the country
especially in the war because that made the enemy had
opportunities to ruin the reunion of the people. People
were scared of the Communists but distrusted the
government. That was too difficult for any one who
wanted to reunite people to fight against the Communists.
Almost all Vietnamese knew the proverb cited by the new
president in his speech that --to reunite is living, to separate
is death, -- but no one carried that out. What a tragic irony!
How could we deal with that -even if we had power and
enthusiasm-?
28
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5. The RVN collapsed
The death of the first President of Vietnam, Ngo Dinh
Diem, in 1963 had started the crisis of leadership in South
Vietnam; the resignation of Nguyen Van Thieu was
beginning for the loss of the Republic of Vietnam perhaps!
We thought of that but didn't know what to do. We
expected a last battle with the VC, and we also hoped that
the so-called "Allies" should not abandon us in that battle.
The battle at Xuan Loc had failed before the president
resigned. Rumors said that the Americans didn't allow
Major General Le Minh Dao, the Commander of 18th
Division to use a kind of chemical bomb for a victory! We
didn't know if it was true, but the failure of that battle was
hopelessness for the people in the capital because that was
a last defense line of North East Saigon.
The aid of the "Allied Nations", especially of the US
was just an illusion after President Ford had been denied by
the US Congress a $722 million of emergency military aid
to the Saigon Government. The evacuation of Americans,
Japanese, and other foreigners from Saigon was a clear
proof of the abandonment of the United States. The
twenty-year war was over in a resignation of the President
under unbearable pressures from many sides. I didn't know
whether or not the new president could bring peace for my
country. I only predicted the loss of the country when I
saw in television the new president Tran Van Huong was
hardly moving beside a bodyguard who helped him
walking. Although Tran Van Huong in his speech vowed
that he would fight until the troops die or the country lose
and will be buried with his soldiers, I thought he wouldn't
have a chance to do so because he was too feeble in his
seventy one years of age.
It was clear that the transfer of authority in the
Organization was preparing for an evacuation for
personnel, but we didn't have any plan yet. An Intelligence
Organization had to prepare many things for its
abandonment such as burning down completely documents,
transportation for thousands of personnel and their families,
and so on... We only were reminded to keep calm and
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5. The RVN collapsed
waiting for a decision from our leaders. I thought they
dared not decide anything. Those who had their own
opportunities to go abroad did go away already, and the
rest were waiting hopelessly for an imaginary plan from the
leaders.
The days following were our longest days. The appeal
from the new president to maintain positions for a last
fighting was an order. We were a hundred per cent on duty
in the Organization. We had to stay in our offices unless
came to meet our agents. We didn't know what to do but to
play cards and to chat. We didn't know what we were
waiting for, a battle with the VC, a retreat, or a collapse of
our country. What a tragic!
My wife was staying in her office, and we only met
each other at lunch times. I felt pity for her pregnancy.
She was a small woman whom I named "fragile", and she
loved that nickname. I didn't know if she would have
strength to endure hardship of that situation. I asked
myself her pregnancy was her happy or her sorrow though
she had waited for it for a long time. I could not decide
anything whenever I looked at her. She was so fragile, yet
so heavy; how could she climb onto a ship and make a long
trip to nowhere! I would not leave her alone because she
worked for the Organization. If things happened, she
would also be their target. I didn't want to abandon her to
seek a rescue for myself. We would die together if we had
to. What I hoped was that my child could be born before
worst thing happen, so we would be able to choose whether
hiding, going away, or killing ourselves.
Beside the chaos of our country, we still did our jobs.
The General Association of Students of the University of
Saigon was voted successfully. Pham Minh Canh, my
agent became the chairman. A celebration for the
appearance of new Association was preparing as usual.
Instead of a performance of singers as we used to do, we
had a movie that has been criticized as a sin at that time to
perform, "exorcise." I didn't know why my boss chose that
film because it had been prohibited by censorship of the
30
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5. The RVN collapsed
Department of Propaganda for a long time. I didn't come
because I didn't want my wife to see a horror film when she
was pregnant. The very first thing that the new Student
Association did was asking to attack North Vietnam by
nuclear weapons for solving the fate of South Vietnam. I
thought that was useless and funny because no one in the
world wanted an atomic war. The Vietnam War was the
regional battle between Capitalists and Communists to
prevent a world war. All of up-to-date weapons of both
Eastern and Western world had been tried in the Vietnam
War in nearly twenty years. That was the end of the
Vietnam War, perhaps! The worst thing was that we,
South Vietnam soldiers, were sacrificed by the Great
Nations.
The battle in the province of Xuan Loc was over with
the failure of the Eighteenth Division. Defeated soldiers
rushed disorderedly into the capital. VC troops surrounded
Saigon; rockets of the VC fell everywhere in the capital
even in the Headquarters of our Organization. Meanwhile,
the Communists declared that the government headed by an
old and feeble man, Tran Van Huong, was unacceptable for
peace talking. In the United States, the President Ford said
that the Vietnam War was over. A remain of the US was
an escape for about six thousand Americans in Vietnam.
For evacuation two hundred thousand or so of Vietnamese
associated with the US, they needed a massive troop that
was very hard to accept by the Congress.
I felt desperate to put my life in the hands of the people
living in other side of the world, who didn’t care about
anything except their interests. The Americans scared of
the longest war in their history; they loved peace! They
didn't want to continue the so-called Vietnam War, but they
never thought about millions of South Vietnamese people
whose lives would be threatened if the Communists took
over the country. In 1972, the so-called Vietnamization of
the war after the Paris Peace Accords had cleared the road
for the withdrawal of the US GI's from Vietnam. A last
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5. The RVN collapsed
American would depart from Vietnam to end the war that
they didn't want to be sunk more and more in the mud.
Americans said that the Vietnam War was the most
expensive in their history, and they no longer want to pour
money into that bottomless hole.
They blamed
Vietnamese Government to be corrupt lead to the loss of
the country, but they didn't let the Vietnamese choose their
leader. They asked the Vietnamese found democracy with
total freedom and oppositions. I thought that was so ideal
for a country having a war for almost a hundred years. The
Communists mingled into most of the opposition parties
and associations –even in government organizations. They
pushed discontented individuals to do everything useful for
them. Instead of helping to found a strong government to
fight against the Communists, the Americans created
opportunities for the Communists to take advantage by
helping the oppositions and variances in Democratic
Organizations. Student's Opposition Movements from
Huynh Tan Mam, Le Van Nuoi for example had included
the Communists in positions of leadership and supporters.
The so-called mothers, sisters who went along with the
Students Association of Huynh Tan Mam were no one but
the Communists. If the government put down those
movements, that would be violence to women and youth, if
not, that could create more and more chaos for the country.
The government was always in a dilemma. I did not
defend the government, but in my jobs I used to confront
those difficulties. I wanted to say that a country in a war is
not the same situation as a country in peace, and that we
must accept our responsibilities, not fasten them upon the
government only. I remember a Chinese proverb that --the
strength or the weakness of a country is the responsibility
of everyone, even common people.-Evacuation for Vietnamese was a main topic especially
for officers of South Vietnam military and government, but
civilians were crowded in the Tan San Nhat air base. The
Route 15th, the only escape route from Saigon was
tightened by the VC. Most South Vietnam officers having
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5. The RVN collapsed
means to escape had already done this, but others were
asking about whether or not an escape from the country
was too early! The most difficult question for us was that
an early escape was surrender without fighting, but it
would be too late when thing became worse. Nguyen Van
Thieu, the resigned president fled Saigon to Taipei though
in his resignation message he had said that he was only
resigning not abandoning. Nguyen Khac Binh, our former
commissioner, had gone abroad soon after the transfer of
his authority. Some of the leaders in our Organization such
as the deputies Tan and Giau, the chief of A-section Tam,
had given up and escaped. Meanwhile the new president
ordered us to hold our positions for a last fighting. We
confused more than ever. Our boss, Long, tried to calm us
by his regular presence in the office, but I thought he was
very worry. He walked around and avoided our question.
Chapt. 6 - The Last Day of the Country.
The echoes of explosives in the distance mixed with the
noises of traffics created an ambiguous look for the capital.
People jammed in restaurants, movies theaters and banks.
The Vietnamese withdrew their savings to buy dollars and
gold; price of dollar was rising from 118 dongs to 500 and
then to thousands for a dollar, so did the value of gold.
Those who prepared to evacuate needed dollars and gold
for their passports or for their lives in future countries;
others didn't trust Vietnamese currency and banks.
Traveler checks also took their place in Vietnamese black
market.
Though the capital seemed to be normal, a great tension
covered people's minds. They were expecting worst thing
to happen. South Vietnam officers were scare about their
lives; civilians were expecting a new life without war, and
also without predictability. Whether a great battle or a
compromise with the VC, that meant a death sooner or
later.
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6. The last days of the country
We wanted to fight, not to give up, but we had no
choice because we didn't have power. What would happen
for us when the VC took over Saigon, a blood bath,
revenge? How would they treat their enemies? Everything
led to the end of our lives. Why wouldn't we accept death
in honor instead of death in vain? Millions of lives in the
capital were being threatened, but everyone seemingly
ignored it. Life still went on as usual! The people in
Saigon were used to living in the war since French Colonial
period, since the general attack of the VC in the Mau Than
New Year 1968, and since "the red-flame" summer 1972.
People even hoped that some victors of the VC were just
temporary as in the Mau Than New Year; the Americans
have abandoned at first, and then they helped the South
Vietnamese Government to gain victory later. I thought
that no one in South Vietnam could imagine the loss of the
country as easy as "turning a hand".
Leadership crisis happened after the resignation of
Nguyen Van Thieu. Tran Van Huong, the vice-president
could not handle the power; the trying-to-open negotiation
was the main purpose of the new president though he had
announced a ready-to-fight against the VC when necessary.
The Communists immediately declared Huong's presidency
was not acceptable for Huong was Thieu's brother. North
Vietnam troops and the VC were surrounding the capital
after the failure of the South Vietnam 18th division at Long
Khanh. Bien Hoa and Tan San Nhat air bases and some
spots in the capital were attacked by VC's 130-milimeter
rockets. Meanwhile, President Ford said that the Vietnam
War was over and Americans can regain the sense of pride
that existed before Vietnam. That meant there would be no
more chance of the US to help South Vietnam, and if there
would be a total military defense, we had to confront the
situation by ourselves. While Huong promised to negotiate
by offering a minister to Hanoi, the capital of North
Vietnam, the Communists still refused the overture of
peace. In his speech to the people, the new president said
that our Allied Nations have abandoned us, so we have to
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6. The last days of the country
defend our country alone. Saigon could become a sea of
fire and a mountain of bones if there would be a great battle
that I wish to avoid.
On Sunday, April 27th 1975, under pressure from the
US ambassador G. Martin and South Vietnamese leaders,
Tran Van Huong announced his resignation after six days
in the role of president. He said that he would transfer the
presidency to whom that was chosen by South Vietnam's
Assembly for peace making for South Vietnam. We
received that information with total hopelessness; we had
to find any way to escape from the country. We all knew
that the next president would be the general Duong Van
Minh who was a high leader of the "third power" (the
middle between South Vietnamese Government and the
Communists) and linked with Buddhist monks of An
Quang Pagoda. Negotiation in weak position meant
failure; that could avoid a blood bath for the people but
could not evade a revenge for us, who used to be the
Communists' enemies.
The transfer of presidency between Huong and Minh in
early morning of April 28th was hasty and simple. Minh
promised in his speech that he would try to keep the faith
of Huong (whom Minh called teacher) to avoid a blood
bath for the people in the capital. Minh accepted a
coalition government for South Vietnam consisting of the
Communists, the Neutralists, and the Provisional
Revolution Government.
The so-called Neutralists
included some organized groups in South Vietnam such as
the Third Power, An Quang Pagoda Camp, Catholics
group, Hoa Hao and Cao Dai Religious sects. First of all,
Minh declared one of the preconditions of the Communists
for negotiations; request all US military personnel and
civilians disguised as military personnel leave Vietnam
within 24 hours. He didn’t mention anything about
millions personnel of South Vietnamese Government and
Armed Forces except an immediate order to cease-fire.
In my Organization, there were different orders about
whether to destroy documents or not. The burning stove
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6. The last days of the country
was full of papers; it could not hold more. For the first
time, my boss discussed a plan of retreat with us, but he
could not decide any thing except waited for a plan from
our commissioner. We knew that our Organization was
depending on the CIA of the US and our leader had to ask
the American Advisors first. The Americans had only 24
hours to leave Vietnam. How could they help us? We
were desperate! Some went to the Saigon Harbor across
from our Headquarters climbing onto a ship, but the others
clumsy in their own situations were waiting hopelessly for
the leaders.
I came to pick up my wife in her office after heard the
order from my boss to reunite tomorrow at the safe house
at Phan Thanh Gian Street. It was twilight, but some
helicopters still roared in the sky. Streets looked different.
Passengers walked in a hurry; armed and unarmed soldiers
went to-and-fro. Military vehicles ran back and forth.
Though there was an order of cease-fire from the new
president Minh, policemen and soldiers still kept their guns.
Some South Vietnam pilots who angered by the agony of
the country flew A-37 aircrafts attacking the Tan San Nhat
air base, burned some planes on the ground and caused
echoes of explosions to downtown Saigon. Some South
Vietnam soldiers, in uniform of Marine Corps and
Parachutist, fired at the choppers. The South Vietnam
soldiers were so desperate that they could not do any thing
but declared their discontent by firing at the escaping
Americans, but nothing happened to the Americans except
a helicopter being ditched into the sea from a US vessel.
People drove bicycles and motorcycles full with
merchandises looting from an abandoned US commissary
at New Port, Thu Duc township, about ten miles from
Saigon.
The capital became anarchy right after Big Minh taken
power. The US Embassy was surrounded by the people
who wanted to come in and get a place in choppers landing
on the flat roof of the building. American guards in Marine
Corps’ uniform with M-16 riffle in their hands stood still
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6. The last days of the country
indifferently in the blockhouses. The crowd in front of the
closed gate raised papers; sometimes the gate opened and
some Westerners went in. I saw many Vietnamese in there
too. The evacuation of the last Americans from Saigon to
aircraft carriers ought to be completed within 24 hours, so
it happened hurriedly and noisily creating more and more
confusion for the people. People in the capital sensed the
loss of the country was nearby. Some rushed to the streets
watching choppers, others seeking a way to flee the
country, or going to loot in abandoned warehouses of the
American. Discouraged Vietnamese soldiers and police
didn't want to interfere any longer. All created a chaos
more than ever!
For the first time, I brought home a small handgun. I
didn't want my wife to see it, so I hid it in the corner of a
drawer. I didn't understand why I did that, but I felt horror
for my thinking. I knew that I was preparing for our
deaths, or just for mine if I was enable going to kill my
wife. I felt sorry for my unborn child. We used to name
our child Anh Hoang for a boy and Hoang Anh for a girl.
Yet, I didn't know whether he or she could be born. I
thought that a great battle would not happen, but the loss of
my country could not be avoided. Communism or
Capitalism did not have any meaning for me. The long war
in my country would last, and I thought not any side gained
victory in the Vietnam War because countless of
Vietnamese in both sides lost their lives during the war. I
did not mention about the soldiers, what I want to say here
was the people, the innocent people who had been killed in
a meaningless war. If I died when the war was over, I
would be just one of millions people who died in that war.
I hoped my people should be happy in a peaceful country
though under the Communists' regime. I thought that
whether Communists or Capitalists everyone is
Vietnamese; it would be better than a country in
Colonialism. My thoughts calmed me down. I came home
with a gentle mind to seek another way to escape.
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6. The last days of the country
Sitting behind me on the motorcycle, my wife didn’t
say a word, but I felt her tears damping my neck where her
face closed. Her arms were tighter than other days. I knew
she was afraid of horrible things, and she was afraid of
missing the happiness that she was having. I didn't know
how to calm her but to touch her hand. Nearly three years
living together, I always drove her anywhere she wanted to
go. Whenever I came to the Headquarters, I usually
stopped by her office and gave her a kiss before came to
my department. She often recalled the first time going to
the movie together, I wished her a good night when I said
good bye; she told me that she loved me from that time.
We wanted to have two kids, a boy and a girl, but when we
knew the pregnancy was the only child that she could
carry, we hoped that it would be a boy. In our country, the
idea of having a boy is better than a girl was traditional.
Truthfully, I only wanted a boy for her sake; I didn't care
much about a boy or a girl. I knew that her baby would be
her happiness, but in our situation, I didn't know whether it
was happy or regret. I felt pity for her, for our unborn
child, and for myself! We were stuck in an embarrassing
circumstance. I only relied hopelessly on a plan of my
Organization, but seeing the evacuation in a hurry of the
Americans, I knew that we could not depend on them.
How could they take care of us when they had to retreat
immediately like that? I did not know whether the order
from Big Minh to withdraw the Americans in 24 hours was
his idea or the American's, but I thought that everything
had to be from Washington. The Americans wanted to
retreat from Vietnam "in honor". They withdrew from
Vietnam due to the order of the President of Vietnam not
their failure; that would be their honor, perhaps! I didn't
know who gained victory in the Vietnam War, but I felt
that we were being abandoned in the end of the war. In
1963, Duong Van Minh, who led the so-called “revolution”
to overthrow the First Republic of Vietnam, had cleared the
road for the US Armed Forces coming into Vietnam. In
1975, Duong Van Minh took power to negotiate with the
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6. The last days of the country
Communists; the Americans were totally withdrawing from
Vietnam. What a repeat in the opposite direction of
history!
The history of Vietnam consisted of a thousand years in
the domination of Chinese, a hundred years of the French
Colonial, and more than twenty years of the war between
Communists and Capitalists. All Vietnamese people loved
peace more than any one in the world, but first of all they
needed a peace in freedom not in dependent on another
country. The Vietnamese people could not distinguish
Patriotism and Communism. The South Vietnamese
Government could not explain that idea for the people, and
most of the people thought of the Communists as patriots
and Americans as conquerors. In addition, the interference
of the US Armed Forces in Vietnam drew the people to go
against the Americans. South Vietnamese Government lost
the ideal of anti-Communists. People didn't trust the
Government although the government had tried so hard to
explain about the cruel policy of the Communists. The
Communists called South Vietnamese Government the
pseudo-government, and the people seemed to believe that
South Vietnamese Government was just the US's servant.
The war between Communists and Capitalists became the
war of liberation to fight against the so-called American
Empire. All of those, I thought, were caused by the
interference directly of the US's Armed Forces in Vietnam
while the Soviet Union and China only poured weapons
and money into North Vietnam; they didn't have their
Armed Forces in Vietnam except their advisors.
I didn't understand why both the Americans and the
Communists said that they won the war. The true failure
just belonged to us, the South Vietnamese Government and
Armed Forces, perhaps! We had to accept every thing to
happen for us because we had failed in the war although we
wanted to blame anyone else. I knew that, and was waiting
in agony for things to happen for me and for my family. I
didn't know whether it would happen in days or weeks or
months, but it should happen, because a compromise with
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6. The last days of the country
the Communists was always a suicide especially a coalition
in weak position. The history of Vietnam had been proven.
Once in 1945 the coalition government between the
Communists and some other parties was just temporary for
the Communists having time to eject non-communists, and
in 1954 not long after the Communists had signed the
Geneva Agreements, their Armed Forces crossed the
demilitarized zone to conquer South Vietnam. I didn't
think the VC would accept a coalition government, as BigMinh's solution, because they were winning. Even if they
accepted that solution, it would be temporary for them
preparing to take over the country and eject the others. The
failure of us was just a matter of time.
I came to my mother's house and saw Lan, Phung -my
cousins- and Tai. Lan and Phung decided not to go with
their ships because their wives didn't want to go. I thought
Vietnamese people never wanted to leave their native
country unless they had no choice. Vietnamese people
used to live inside the bamboo hedge of their villages; they
rarely moved away. They were always fond of their
birthplaces although those were poor enough. The people
left for South Vietnam in 1954 when the Communists
conquered North Vietnam. They built settlement villages
and lived together; they kept their own traditions though
they lived in a part of Vietnam. I could not imagine how
Vietnamese people living abroad. Moreover, when they
climbed onto a ship or a chopper, they didn’t know where
would be their destinations. It would be a bet with destiny!
For me, I decided not to go by myself because I didn't want
to leave my wife with our unborn child. I planned to hide
somewhere to wait for our child to be born; then we would
seek for another way. Besides, I hoped that there would be
a period of transition between Big-Minh's regime and
Communists', so I could prepare for our evacuation. I told
my wife about my thinking to calm her and calm myself.
That evening, I packed our stuffs for the rearrangement with my boss tomorrow. I could not sleep
thinking of my life. The smells of smoke and coffee in the
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6. The last days of the country
room awakened me all night long. My wife fell into a deep
sleep because she was tired enough. It was a quiet night
except sound of helicopters roaring in the sky and some
blasters from a distance. The curfew was still in effect.
There was no traffic or pedestrian on the roads but military
cars in action. The flares in the sky flashed through the
window and lightened the lane underneath my upper level
room behind my mother's house where I used to live in my
childhood. The small table where I used to do my
homework from primary school to university still stood in
the corner of the room; my funny drawings still existed on
the table. The bed I was sleeping on was the one I used to
sleep on when I was young. My books from high school to
university still arranged orderly in the bookcase. Nothing
was changed except my thought. I felt regret for my
childhood that I could not relive.
The coughs of my mother downstairs dragged me back
to the present. I heard the pouring of water into a glass and
the sound of her paces. Those were the familiar sounds I
used to hear. My mother was a small woman, less than the
medium size of Vietnamese women, but she was not weak.
She could sit all day long by the sewing machine getting
money for our lives. Her life was an offering for her
children. My father had left the family to a secret-zone
since she was very young, and he was killed in a battle with
French soldiers when my mother was only twenty-nine.
Since then, she had to raise us by herself. Being a
seamstress, she had to work very hard from sunrise to
midnight every day. She let us go to school and wanted all
of us to graduate from university because she didn't want us
to be poor as she was. When I became a government
officer, my sister a teacher, and my brother an interpreter,
we asked my mother not to work any longer, but she said
that she was used to working and could not stay still to
collect money from her children. I thought her life was a
bright mirror of Vietnamese women. I felt regret that I
didn’t rendered my thanks to her yet, and I didn't know if I
could do that later.
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6. The last days of the country
I drove my wife to the safe house at Phan Thanh Gian
Street in the early morning. My youngest brother, Tuan,
and my cousin, Nghia, accompanied with us. I wanted to
have them if I could get out of the country, so my wife and
I would not be alone. Also, Nghia had been my agent;
therefore he should go for his safety. We drove by the
American Embassy building on the way to the safe house.
Streets were differently busy. Motorcyclists with piles of
suitcases in front and partners behind rushed towards
downtown Saigon. Despite barbed wire on the top of the
wall and the armed-Marine-Corps, some Vietnamese were
climbing onto the concrete walls surrounding the US
Embassy compound, besieged the front white gate and the
side gates trying to get inside. Thousands of people with
their bundles crowded around the Embassy building, and in
front of the gate of the First District Police Station behind
the US Embassy. Evacuees were waiting for helicopter on
the flat roof of some buildings in downtown Saigon. Some
surrounded the Vietnamese Navy soldiers guarding on the
way to the Saigon harbor. What a disorderly evacuation! I
did not see any Westerner in the crowd in front of the
Embassy building.
The safe house was full of personnel; I thought it was
no longer a "safe house". I saw every one including my
agents with their families. Diep, the designer of our section
with his pregnant wife met me at the door and told me that
Long, our boss was phoning Mr. Loc, the new
commissioner asking about evacuation for employees and
families. We were waiting anxiously. Tuan and his wife
came to see my wife and me. We talked about everything
that happened in the capital, but the main thing was about
our circumstances and our fates. Trung, Tam, Tri, Lam,
Vinh, and Nhan, my agents surrounded me and asked
things that I could not answer. I wondered why they didn't
escape by themselves. They were young and single;
therefore climbing onto a ship in the Saigon Harbor was so
easy. Perhaps they were also waiting for the plan of the
Organization. An unplanned preparation was always a
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6. The last days of the country
disaster. I decided not to go without a plan of the
Organization because I had to take care of my wife.
Soon after I came, Long, in the sad appearance, got out
of his room and said that the evacuation could not be
arranged right away because the Americans had to take
care of themselves first. He told us to seek any way to
escape if we didn't want to get together that night in the
building of the Organization at Nguyen Hau Street waiting
for American helicopters. We went out of the safe house.
After giving secret fund to someone remaining in the safe
house, Long and Hiep, the security officer of our section,
sneaked into the First District Police Station and climbed
onto the Embassy compound by the back wall. Almost all
of us went home and tried another way to save ourselves.
I passed by the Saigon port and saw the motor cycle of
Vu Cong Tuan, my partner, left there; I knew he had gone
away by a Navy ship. I asked my brother and Nghia if they
wanted to come into the port, but they said no. On the way
home, I stopped at Diep's home to see if they had any way
to because his wife was pregnant like mine, but they didn't
have any idea. I came home waiting desperately for to
happen.
Helicopters were still roaring, and sounds of shotguns
fired hopelessly into the sky. The thunders of cannon and
rocket resounded from a distance. In the afternoon, the jet
chopper accompanied by two fighter planes headed straight
East in the sky; many sounds of gun from the ground and
some smoke of cartridges blasting said farewell for the
deserters. That was a last escape of the Americans, of the
Ambassador Martin perhaps.
The Americans came to Vietnam in order to help
Vietnamese keep their freedom and then left Vietnam
without any ceremony but the anger of abandoned people.
French Colonists left Vietnam in 1954 after their failure in
the battle of Dien Bien Phu, but they had not withdrawn by
the back door like the Americans. They had helped those
who worked for them or who didn't want to live with the
Communists coming to South Vietnam. I didn't know why
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6. The last days of the country
the so-called great nation like the US could not find a way
to go in honor instead of running away in a hurry like that!
They always said that they had won the Vietnam War, and
they honored their soldiers by many kinds of medal; how
could they let their ambassador run away like a traitor?
Saigoneses rushed into streets watching the last exit of
the American with their bitterly humor. South Vietnam
soldiers and officers felt desperate. Their leaders resigned
or deserted; their allies withdrew. How could they deal
with the situation while the so-called peace administration
of the "third power" ordered them to give up their
weapons? The "third power", the one who had messed up
the rear to help the enemy, was reining the country to
negotiate with the enemies. How could I trust them? My
way to escape was blocked; I was in a dilemma. I only had
to wait for any disaster to happen to me, even my death. I
thought nothing was worse than waiting for a worst
situation to happen without a defense.
The night of April 29th, 1975 was a longest night in my
life. I didn't come to the station at Nguyen Hau because I
knew that was only a last trick. The Americans had gone,
who would take care for us, a huge bloc of escapee. The
only way to escape was coming into the harbor and
climbing onto a ship, but I could not do that. The gathering
at Nguyen Hau station had failed. Some went away by
navy ship; the rest came home the next morning in
desperation.
The concussions of bombs, rockets, and artillery were
heard all night long from a distance. Saigon Broadcasting
Radio only spread military music, the habit of it when
important events happening. Vietnamese used to hear that
music in the coup d'etat 1963 to overthrow the First
Republic, in the Mau Than New Year 1968, in the coups
against Duong Van Minh's regimes and Nguyen Khanh's
administration. At that time, that music was preparing for a
most importance, for the loss of the country perhaps! The
Voice of America stopped the song White Christmas that
has been sent out continuously before; the withdrawal of
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6. The last days of the country
the Americans was completed. The British Broadcasting
Company said that the new president Duong Van Minh had
failed in the attempt to compromise with the Communists,
and Communists' troops were surrounding Saigon waiting
for the surrender of Big-Minh. The Communists said that
Minh's was just the holdover from the old US's support
regime.
We failed, and our country was going to lose in a day
or so. Communists' troops surrounded the capital. South
Vietnamese Armed Forces were completely destroyed.
Most of our leaders deserted, and the new president
commanded the soldiers to give up their weapons. A
compromise, if it happened, would be a suicide. I listened
to the radio all night long waiting for the worst thing to
happen in my deep depression. I could not keep tears not
falling from my eyes.
Chapt. 7 - The Very First Day in the Communist
Regime.
April 30th, 1975 is a historical day that no one in
Vietnam or exiles the whole world can forget. I got out of
my room early though I had not slept all night. My wife
was still sleeping; I didn't wake her up because I wanted
her to have peace even if the worst thing happened in that
morning. The street in front of my mother's house was
noisy although the curfew was still in effect. People went
to-and-fro disorderly; motor vehicles honked tumultuously.
I knew something would happen for last night I had heard
about the collapse of my country through many
broadcasting stations. I didn't understand why the so-called
media of the free world usually broadcasted information
beneficial for the enemy. The massacre in My Lai and the
picture of the general Nguyen Ngoc Loan, the
commissioner of South Vietnam Police, shot a VC in the
Mau Than New Year were showed up in many magazines,
but I never saw any image of the mass killing in Hue and
Quang Tri, when the VC temporarily occupied those cities,
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7. The very first days in the Communists regime
or images of the children in the Song Phu elementary
school in Cai Lay who were killed by VC's rockets. The
War that was described as the longest and most terrible war
in the world after the Second World War could not avoid
killing innocent people. The propaganda's tactics of the
media helped the Communists to gain their righteousness
and caused the Allies to loose the support of their people.
The failure of Capitalists in the Vietnam War was not in
the war by itself, but was originated from anti-war
movements in the US and in the world.
I was waiting for the crisis of my country in
desperation. People seemed to be familiar with the war and
still lived as usual. I could not distinguish who was VC
because everyone was Vietnamese. I thought that the end
of the war was always better for my people no matter who
would win the war. We were Vietnamese whether
Communist or Capitalist. I hoped my people should have
peace and wealth. A hundred years in the French Colonial
and twenty years in the war made my country the poorest
and the most broken one in the world. If the VC could
bring happiness for my people, their victory would be
worthy. My life was only a grain of sand in a desert, and if
I died, it would be nothing. My thoughts made me feel a
little easier.
My mother's tailor shop was opening as usual.
Seamstresses still did their jobs, and clients came and went
as if nothing happened. About 10:30 am, the president
Duong Van Minh announced in the Saigon radio an
unconditional surrender to the Communists. He stated that
the surrender should avoid an unnecessary blood bath for
the people, and he asked soldiers of the Republic of
Vietnam cease fire in calmness and stay at their places
waiting for the change over with the VC.
I heard sounds of shotgun from somewhere nearby.
Despite the order of cease-fire, some parachutists guarding
in the Cancer Institute Center close to my mother's house
shot at the VC troops and then killed themselves. Some
scattered fights between VC and South Vietnam troops still
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7. The very first days in the Communists regime
happened in Ba Queo, next to Hoang Hoa Tham fort of
Parachutists. Desperate soldiers without commanding
officers made their last fights before shot themselves. They
were the last soldiers who died for the country. I didn't
know if they were heroes or not, but I admired that action.
I did not have courage doing so though I had planned by
bringing home a gun. It was very hard to end my own life
even in the most desperation.
Sounds of guns were less frequent. Streets became
noisy. I didn't see any VC but some teenagers carrying
M16 rifles and wearing red fabric bands on their sleeves
driving many kinds of vehicle including military and
civilian cars forfeited from escapees. People called them
the "thirty's revolutionaries" -- those who took opportunity
to become revolutionaries on April 30th, 1975. -- They
used to be students or people-self-defense forces in the
region. South Vietnam soldiers came home in shorts and
T-shirts; their uniforms and weapons had been left
somewhere in the streets. The appeal of the general
Nguyen Huu Hanh from the Saigon radio for all South
Vietnam soldiers and officers to stay at their positions
waiting for hand-over to the VC was not effective;
everyone sought a way to escape or to go home. Escapees
went home in a hurry after had failed in their last try. The
people stood in front of their houses trying to see the VC
for the first time in their lives!
Soldiers and officers of South Vietnam were worried
about their lives.
The wealth worried about their
properties, and the poor were waiting for an improvement
as the promises of the Communists. All of those created a
strangeness that I had not seen before. In the Mau Than
New Year, the people ran away when they heard the VC
coming. This time, they didn't know where to go because
the VC conquered the whole country! Their destinies were
no longer in their hands. They had to wait for anything to
happen to them. The radio of Hanoi said that the VC
troops were ordered not to take a needle or a string from
the people, but someone joked that they wanted something
Kale Memoir
47
7. The very first days in the Communists regime
better than a needle or a string. Some others joked that
from now on they wouldn't worry about rockets of the VC
anymore because the Liberation Front had freed Saigon!
The endurance of the people was so high that they could be
joking even in their desperation.
The appeal of the general Nguyen Huu Hanh and the
voice of Trinh Cong Son singing the song “To Round the
People's Arms” were sounded in turn from the Saigon
Radio. Trinh Cong Son, a well-known composer of South
Vietnam, in the years of 1960's- 1970's accompanied with
Khanh Ly, a singer, to sing his anti-war songs in the
universities of South Vietnam to push anti-government
movements of students. Many times we had warned about
those movements, but the government had no proof to put
them down until Trinh Cong Son joined South Vietnam
Army.
Movements of singing anti-war songs still
continued until that very first day, Trinh Cong Son
appeared to be a Communist with his song to greet his
"comrades" (From North to South we round our arms....). I
didn't know anything about Nguyen Huu Hanh because I
was not in the army. I also didn't know whether he was an
Opportunist or a Communist.
Cars, uniforms, and weapons left everywhere in streets.
Children played with rifles and M30 shells, and some
accidents happened. People disassembled cars leaving by
escapees and took any thing they could. Without sentries,
traffics were jammed and disordered. Some youths
wearing red-bands took place and tried to make everything
in order.
Around noon, the VC took over the Saigon Radio and
announced for the people to accept the unconditional
surrender of the General Duong Van Minh, the last
president of the so-called "pseudo government" of South
Vietnam. That was the first time I heard the words pseudogovernment and pseudo-armed-forces. At the same time,
the Communists announced that Saigon became Ho Chi
Minh City. I didn't hear the voice of Trinh Cong Son and
Nguyen Huu Hanh any longer. The song “Saigon Rising in
48
Kale Memoir
7. The very first days in the Communists regime
Revolt” took place, and that was also the first time
Saigoneses heard a kind of Chinese-like music. Saigon
was taken over by the so-called "Military Management
Committee of Saigon" with the general Tran Van Tra as a
chairman.
Some Molotovas -Soviet made military trucks- began
to enter Saigon carrying North Vietnam troops in green
uniforms with "non coi" --a kind of helmet of North
Vietnam Armed Forces.-- People went into the streets to
welcome the Communist soldiers who were so young and
seemingly lost in the brightness of Saigon. The Saigoneses
began their lives with the Communists and hid their
worries. I could not figure out who had a true love!
Some people still carried merchandises stolen from
abandoned warehouse on bicycles and motorcycles driving
along with the people greeting the victor soldiers. The
people in Saigon were less worried when they saw the
clumsy and astonished soldiers of North Vietnam.
Children became used to the VC and even got onto VC's
tanks. Meanwhile, Saigon TV showed a Communist tank
smash through the opened gates of the Presidential Palace;
shot unmeaning to the building, and a VC flag was raised
over the roof of the Palace. Tricolor flags of the
Provisional Republic Government were hung everywhere.
Some Chinese shops hung both the tricolor flag and the
flag of Communists China.
The most terrible war in twenty years lasted easily.
The winners were astonished, and the losers still did not
believe in the truth! The Vietnam War was over, but what
would happen after the war? South Vietnam officers
waited for revenges. Whatever would happen, we had to
accept because we had failed. Death would be the last
thing. Yet for my people, especially for Saigoneses, what
would happen when they used to live in freedom? The
peace that the Communists brought to my country was
seemingly uneasy for everyone even for the peoples who
didn't have any connection with the old regime. The
contradiction between North Vietnam soldiers and the
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49
7. The very first days in the Communists regime
people in Saigon was so obvious, especially from the
appearance. The untidy uniforms and the so-called "dep
rau" --rubber-thong slipper-- of the VC were hard to accept
by the Saigoneses who used to be fashionable.
Not long after coming, the Military Management
Committee of Ho Chi Minh City issued the edicts that
changed the Saigon's way of life; anyone who were living
in the American's way such as opening night clubs,
entertainment centers, or dressing "ridiculously" would be
punished. They cut the elephant-leg of trousers and long
hairs of the youngsters. Traditional dress --ao dai-- and
mini-robe were given up to Vietnamese blouses --ao ba ba- and black trousers. Banners and shop-signs were changed
into red background and yellow letters. Tu Du maternity
hospital became the "Maternity Factory"! Nguyen Van Hoc
Hospital became "Gia Dinh Popular Hospital".
The word "popular" was seen everywhere, Popular
Armed Forces, Popular Police, Popular Government, and
especially "Popular Court". Everything was popular, but
the Communists ruled everything. On their papers, the VC
always used the headline:
The Republic of South Vietnam
Independence, Peace, Neutral.
Yet no one believed that Vietnam was a Neutral
Country but a Communists Country.
Thursday May 1st, 1975 --Mayday-- was also the Labor
Day of the International Communists. The VC formed a
huge march for their Armed Forces including tanks T-54
and PT-76, SAM missiles of the Soviet Union and almost
all kinds of weapons from Communists Countries.
Hundreds of thousand people in Saigon and suburb came to
see the parade.
I drove my wife to her parents' home. Streets were
crowded. Although I heard that some provinces in the
Mekong plain were not surrender yet, the VC announced
that they successfully freed the whole country. They
arranged the parade in front of the old Presidential Palace
to celebrate their victory. Streets were decorated by flags
50
Kale Memoir
7. The very first days in the Communists regime
and banners in red, the color of blood. I saw slogans like:
"Nothing is more valuable than independence and
freedom", "Vietnam is unique, Vietnamese people are
unique, rivers could be gone dry, mountains could be worn,
but that truth is never altered". Most of the slogans were
under named of Ho Chi Minh as the author. I didn't know
if that was true, but I felt amusement for one that was also
named Ho Chi Minh as the author --A plan for ten years is
to grow tree, a plan for a hundred years is to grown human.
-- I knew that precept had said by Kwan Dji Ngo, a
Chinese philosopher in Eastern Zhou, fifth century BC.
Pictures of Ho Chi Minh with a sentence --The great
chairman Ho Chi Minh is living forever in our lives work-were hung everywhere. Ho used to be the first Communist
of Vietnam and an International Communist of the Soviet
Union. He died in 1969 after failed in attempt to conquer
South Vietnam in the Mau Than New Year. Southerner
happened to understand what they used to hear about
"Uncle and Party". In North Vietnam, there was nothing
except "Uncle" --uncle Ho-- and "Party" --Communist
Party--. For the people in North Vietnam, family, country,
religions meant nothing but Uncle and Party! And then
that became real for Southerners. I felt pity for my people.
By issuing the decree about new way of life, the
Communist rejected personal freedom of the people, and
by closing all private newspapers, the Communist
discarded the freedom of speech. What would happen
next?
The streets turned red. Tricolor-flags of the Provisional
Republic of South Vietnam Government intermingled with
red flags of North Vietnam and flags of Communist China.
Banners and shop-signs were painted in red too. The
Saigoneses went along so fast with new life. Yet there still
existed signs of the three-stripe flag of the Republic of
Vietnam. The Communists didn't have time to erase them
and some slogans such as "Don't hear what the Communist
say; watch carefully what they are doing" or "To have the
country is to have everything, to lose the country into
Kale Memoir
51
7. The very first days in the Communists regime
Communists' hands is to lose everything". It seemed to be
the evidence for those who wanted to witness acts of the
Communists in following days.
The cruel war lasted easily, but I thought its
consequences would not easily heal. For Southerners who
used to live in freedom would not comfortably live in a
dictatorial regime, especially the Communism.
My sister-in-law, Lan, and Linh, her husband, stayed in
the house of my wife's parents. Linh told me that we had
to show up at the Headquarters of our Organization on May
2nd due to the suggestion of Mr. Loc, the recent
commissioner. I didn't know what I was going to do
because I heard that the Communist who took over the
Organization was Nguyen Ta, my partner who worked with
me in the Section of Internal Affairs. Ta had hidden into a
secret zone when we uncovered his shadow. I used to go
with him to Da Lat when I followed the Third Power, but I
thought he only knew my code name.
"I think we have to make a choice once because we can
not hide forever. Our destiny is "a fish on a chopping
board"; we have nothing to do but "to bet with the fate".
Linh said.
“We seemed already dead from yesterday." I replied.
"I didn't care about my life anymore, so I am going to go to
the Organization with you to find out what would happen.
Yet I feel unhappy for my wife."
We were looking at each other in silence. Linh and I
had same situation because Lan, my sister-in-law, and my
wife also worked for the Organization. I didn't know
whether or not let my wife go along with me, but she didn't
want to stay home to wait for me. She wanted to accept
whatever happening for us together. Moreover, she could
not hide anywhere because her files were left in her offices,
and the Communists already knew everything about us.
52
Kale Memoir
Part 2
Re-education Camp Long Thanh
Chapt. 8 - Re-education
Almost all personnel of the Intelligence Organization
who could not go away were showing up at the
Headquarters on May 2nd 1975. We had to report
ourselves to the so-called "The Military Administration
Committee"
of
the
"Provisional
Revolutionary
Government". Everyone tried to keep calm, but no one
could hide the anxiety. Although people were crowded, a
heavy silence covered the yard. Everyone whispered to
each other and seemed to be worried about the
conversation being heard by others. Tuan, Banh, and my
agents such as Nhan, Trung, Tam, Tri, Lam, Vinh, were
staying. They were single or nearly single and climbing
onto a ship would be so easy.
I thought they totally
believed the Organization. An incomplete plan --or no
plan at all-- of the Intelligence Agency led to a disaster like
that!
After writing our names on a paper, my wife and I
came to Lan and Linh, my sister-in-law and her husband.
Last night we had destroyed our ID cards, so we could not
submit them to the clerk sitting at the table. I didn't know
the clerk, but someone told me that he was Khuong, a
retired lieutenant colonel who used to be the chief of
security in the Organization. I didn't know whether he was
a "revolutionist" or an "opportunist"! I passed by Tuan and
Banh; they looked at me and shook their heads without a
word. I could not hear the laughter of Banh and Tuan. We
gave each other bitter smiles instead.
That was the first time we had to squat down in line
waiting for our turn to do the paper work. Long, a former
employee of the Human Resources offices called us in turn
to a table by the door of the Health Department next to the
parking lot. We signed on the paper.
Kale Memoir
53
8. Re-education
From May 2nd to June 14th, I had to see the
Communists twice. The first time --I didn't remember the
day-- they sent two people to my mother's house driving
me to the "Tran Binh Trong" station. I had to write down
my job in the years 1969-1972 when I was an undercover
agent to follow the “General Association of Student of the
University of Saigon” of Huynh Tan Mam. They kept me
until 6pm and then drove me home. I had to give money
for my lunch. The second time, they sent a letter asking me
come to the safe house of my section at Phan Thanh Gian
Street. I saw Nguyen Ta who took over the Organization.
That was some day before June 13th 1975; I didn't do any
thing at that time. Nguyen Ta told me to present myself for
re-education due to the order of the Provisional
Revolutionary Government (P.R.G.) in order to have the
clemency of the Communist Regime.
Since then, the word "Re-education" was heard
everywhere! Ideological Re-education (re-education of
mind), re-education of the way of living (alter the way of
living), re-education of the society (transform the society),
re-education of the economy (transform the economy), and
so on were announced everyday from radio and television.
South Vietnam soldiers should be re-educated for three
days, non-commissioned officers for seven days, officers
from second lieutenant to captain for ten days and officers
from major to general and medium and high rank cadres of
intelligence services for a month. Our schedule was from
June 13th to 15th, and the location was the Chu Van An
High School. We had to contribute 14,000 VN dongs for
food and brought mosquitoes curtain, blanket and clothes.
The Communists chose schools for re-education location
and set time logically for every rank. Although we didn't
believe in what the Communists said, we tried to calm
ourselves hoping that should be true. Otherwise, what
could we do and where could we go?
June 13th, 1975 was Friday, an unlucky day! June 14th
was Vietnamese "Doan Ngo" (the fifth day of the fifth
month in Lunar Year), and that was also an unlucky day for
54
Kale Memoir
8. Re-education
Vietnamese! We chose June 14th, 1975 for our first day of
re-education and hoped that an unlucky day of an unlucky
event might be lucky! I didn't have any money left, so I
had to pledge my wedding ring. It seemed to be a joke, but
it was the truth that I experienced bitterly.
On the bus from my mother's house to Chu Van An
High School, we met an old man; He asked me where we
were going. I thought he saw our bundles, so I told him
that we turned ourselves in for re-education. He smiled
nervously and wished us good luck! I could not understand
his smile at that moment, but later I knew that he felt pity
for us. Not only two of us but also my unborn child was
going into the re-education camp!
Chu Van An High School was my school in 12th grade.
It was the year 1963 when the General Duong Van Minh
did the coup d'état to kill the president Ngo Dinh Diem and
began the chaos in South Vietnam. The US Armed Forces
came into Vietnam after that. Twelve year later, I was
coming back to my old school, and Duong Van Minh, who
just helped the VC to take over South Vietnam, was staying
next door in the Minh Mang Students' dormitory.
My friends and my associates were standing in front of
the school. Lan and Linh, my wife's sister and brother-inlaw had given in yesterday. They left their two boys for
my parents-in-law. Looking at the pregnancy of my wife, I
asked myself how she could endure a month of reeducation even if that would be a month! Yet I thought
everyone had his or her own difficulty. Moreover, we were
almost already dead since the day of "revolution". The rest
was only hopelessness. Life without hope was waiting for
death to free the soul. With that thinking I came into the
school after joked to our friends that who entered earlier
would leave earlier.
The Chu Van An high school stood across from the
Cathedral of "Nga Sau" (hex-crossroad), at Minh Mang
Street in the 5th district of Saigon. From the school, I
could see the building of the Association of Students of the
University of Saigon at Hong Bang Street where I had
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55
8. Re-education
usually come from 1969 to 1975. There were two twostory buildings in the school. My wife and I were sent to
the first building. My wife stayed in the first room
reserved for women, which used to be my classroom
twelve years ago. My first thought was that there was a
coincident in my life. I stood in the corridor looking at the
cathedral where I used to play with my friends. My friends
were still there, but they were not my old friends when I
was a schoolboy. Some of them were leaving; others
walked in a hurry across the street into the "school".
The "classroom" where I stayed was empty. I set my
sedge-mat on the floor where once a stage for teacher had
been. We shared an area of three by six feet for each. My
military kit bag became my pillow, and it went along with
me until I came back home seventeen years later. In the kit
bag I got a military curtain, a military blanket, two blue
Jeans, two shirts, a military can, a jacket, a poncho, ten
packs of instant noodles, dried rice, dried meat and
medicines including Tylenol, Penicillin, Diarrhea, Quinine
and Band-Aids. I prepared to live in a jungle not in a city.
I forgot a hammock that should be useful for me later. The
classroom reminded me my friends. Some had been killed
in the war; others were still living out there or in a reeducation camp just like me.
I came to the room where my wife was living.
Everyone in that room helped her to make a place next to
her sister's. Ngoc, Lieu, Ba, the ladies who used to work
with my wife in the Human Resources department
promised me to take care of my wife whenever she needed.
I left my wife after a while and went for my friends.
We talked about the word "re-education", but no one
dared to realize the truth that re-education meant nothing
but revenge. The word "brain-washing" and the book "the
Dam Dun camp" written by an author in South Vietnam
were some things that I had known about re-education of
the Communists, but the truth was still in mystery for me.
We knew that after the revolution of Lenin in the Soviet
Union, hundred of thousands "Cossacks" had been sent to
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Kale Memoir
8. Re-education
Siberia and had died there! After the Communists
conquered China, they sent hundred of thousands of
Chinese Democratic to Tan Cuong. We didn't know
anything about Vietnamese people after Ho Chi Minh took
over North Vietnam. Were they dead or still in the camps
in North Vietnam? How the Communists of Vietnam
treated their enemies? I didn't think the Communists would
massacre us like Hitler had done in Nazi's holocausts
because they didn't want to be a goal for public indignation,
but killing step by step was a plan that they could executive
without opposition. Coming into re-education camp, we
had to accept everything even death.
"Brain-washing" and "Re-education" are two words
having similar meaning! How did the Communists "brainwash" their enemies? In the early days, the Communists
usually said about ideological re-education. They said that
the people in South Vietnam who had lived with American
Empire and the Pseudo-Government of South Vietnam for
a long time had to be altered their minds for getting along
with new society, the Social Socialism! Yet how to reeducate was still a question. They had different ways to
treat people. Youth had to cut their elephant trousers;
women no longer wear "ao dai" (traditional dress) and
make-up. They prohibited "Yellow music" and burned
books edited in South Vietnam. The people had to work.
The Communists called that "transform the society".
Personnel of the old regime had to learn about the so-called
"evil crime" of the American Empire and PseudoGovernment and the victories of the revolution and of the
socialism. The Communists called that "ideological reeducation". Although we didn't think it was so simple like
that, we hoped things would not be so bad. In such a worse
situation we tried to calm ourselves by thinking of a better
side. We could not go away, could not hide anywhere; we
had to give our lives in our enemies' hands by entering into
the so-called re-education camps.
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57
9. Nonsense
Chapt. 9 - Nonsense.
Some mini-vans having the signs of the restaurants in
Saigon such as "Back Here", "Dai La Thien", "Dong
Khanh", and “Mandarin" entered the school. Waiters and
waitresses in white uniforms set foods on the tables in the
front yard. The voice from a loud speaker hanging by the
first building called "campers" to have dinner!
The campers who have given in from yesterday came
easily to their tables, but new campers hesitatingly
followed. I took some foods on the table of the "Back
Here" restaurant and came to have dinner with my wife.
My sister-in-law told me "they" explained yesterday that
our dinners were from our money. They didn't have
kitchen, so they bought foods from the restaurants. The
explanation was so simple and reasonable, but seeing their
soldiers guarding around the school having dinner in their
mess kit with rice, boiling vegetable and fish sauce, we
confused! What they were doing? What nonsense! Was
that another tactic to blindfold the people in Saigon and to
spread the humanitarian of the Communists?
After the Vietnam War was over, correspondents of
foreign countries were still watching and informing about
the post war period of the country. The Vietnam War was
the greatest war after the Second World War. The
Communists should take any chance to spread their
propaganda to the whole world just like they had done this
during the war. Foreign correspondents were always their
means to do this tactic. Who knew what would happen
behind the iron curtain? I didn't think they treated us like
that for nothing. The Communists always did something to
cover some other. What would happen to us after they
reached their purpose?
Chapt. 10 - The First Move.
At about 6pm, I was sitting by my wife when someone
came to tell her to leave the school for her expectation.
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Kale Memoir
10. The first move
She was in her ninth month of pregnancy. I thought it
would be better for her, but I didn't know how she would
be without me. I brought her suitcase and walked her to
the front gate. I said goodbye and hoped to see her after a
month. I saw her getting onto a pedicab and came back
into the school. I could never see my child when he or she
first came into the world! I could never take care of my
wife, my "fragile", in her labor! Yet I felt happy for her not
endure her pain in the camp at least.
Everyone was watching me. Some came to say
congratulation for my wife and words to comfort me, and
then we talked about our future after the VC released my
wife. The Chu Van An High School was close to the Hong
Bang maternity hospital; if we stayed in that school, it
would be so easy to send my wife to the hospital when she
gave birth. No one said anything, but we were ready for a
change!
Six buses entered the school at around 7pm. The VC
told us to prepare for a trip to a re-education camp. We
weren't amazed but didn't know where we would go, a
jungle or an island like Phu Quoc or Con Non where used
to be the cells for political prisoners and serious crime
inmates. We talked about the trip because we were almost
ready. About 8pm, two men wearing civilian clothes and
North Vietnamese Armed Forces helmet giving themselves
as Mr. Bay and Mr. Tu came to name us in the order from
team one to team six and said that we were going to leave
the school for a re-education camp. No body dared to ask
where the camp was! We waited until midnight. The buses
still parked in the dark front yard. Nobody could sleep
though we were tired after a day of tension. Campers only
whispered to each other scared that the others could
overhear their conversations, but in the silence, even the
noise of a mosquito was heard clearly. We worried about
the location of the next re-education camp and about what
would happen in that camp.
The lights in the front yard suddenly brightened up.
Everyone seemed to be waiting for that moment, stood up
Kale Memoir
59
10. The first move
and looked at the yard. Some carried their bundles to the
balcony. Mr. Bay and Mr. Tu named the campers one more
time and told them to come to the car reserve for their
team. I went to the third bus for the third team. I didn't
worry about anything anymore. Anything happened I
would accept it by myself. I didn't worry about my wife
and my unborn child at least.
The convoy left the school at 2AM in the direction of
Bay Hien crossroad. The city was quiet. First, I thought we
were going to Tay Ninh or to the war zone D of the VC,
but the convoy straightened at the Bay Hien crossroad and
turned right to the "Korean" highway. Then the convoy
turned left on the Saigon-BienHoa Highway. Why "they"
took a long way like that to come to the highway instead of
went straight on Phan Thanh Gian Street. They wanted to
confuse us about the location of the camp perhaps! The
convoy arrived at the so-called "Long Thanh Orphanage
Village" at about 7am. It took almost five hours to drive
the distance about thirty miles only to hide a location that
we already knew.
Chapt. 11 - The "Long Thanh" re-education camp
From 1968 to 1971, a Communist named Tu Su, under
the coat of Buddhist Monk, had founded and managed the
Long Thanh Orphanage Village. He used orphans to raise
money for the VC and formed a group of armed men to
fight against any attempts to enter the village. The South
Vietnamese Government could not solve that problem for a
while. If the Government attacked the village, which
would be attacking the orphans, if not it became more
dangerous to the Government.
I had come along with the people in the “Third Power”
to the Orphanage Village once in 1971 when I shadowed as
a correspondent for the Saigon Post Newspaper. What I
had seen made me so angry. Children in bare feet and
skinheads worked under the heat of the sun in the field, and
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11. The Long Thanh Re-education camp
they had only one vegetarian meal a day as the rule of
Buddhism monks. Skinny orphans had to wear yellow
coat and bare feet bare head stood under the sun welcoming
the leaders of the Third Power! They used orphans to
collect money, and children became the shield for them.
After the attack of the S.W.A.T. team, the Government
took over the "Village", rescued the orphans; the
"Orphanage Village" became the camp for the "Victims of
the war in Binh Long" where I had come once again in
1972 to give gifts for the victims upon the behalf of the
"Association of Students of the College of Science to
Relieve the Victims of War". That association was a
"previous life" of the first "Committee of Students of the
College of Science".
There was no sign to indicate the re-education camp at
the gate. I saw the slogan "Nothing is more valuable than
independence and freedom" as we used to see everywhere
after April 30th, 1975. The convoy stopped in the middle
of the "main road". It was a red clay road about fifteen feet
wide and haft mile long from the gate to the last building.
The camp stayed on the top of the hill. There was no well.
They used tank-cars to transport water to the camp. We
saw the campers standing in line behind a tank-car when
we arrived. Some of them waved to the convoy greeting
new campers.
Ten one-storied houses stood parallel each other by
both sides of the main road, five on each side, two at the
end of the road and two others close to the gate. Each
house was divided into two cells, and each cell held about a
hundred campers in two teams.
There were four
doorframes and eight window frames in every cell.
They divided the campers into four blocs. The first
bloc called “the government bloc” for the personnel of the
Government of South Vietnam from Chief of Service to
President, the second bloc "the bloc of parties" for the
members from secretary to head of the political parties in
South Vietnam. The third bloc called “the intelligence
bloc” for those who used to work in the intelligence
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61
11. The Long Thanh Re-education camp
services from middle to high rank, and the forth bloc “the
police bloc” for police officers from captain to general.
Five houses on the right side of the road were reserved
for the first bloc. The campers in the third bloc stayed in
the last three houses on the left side and the forth bloc in
two others. Two houses at the end of the road were the
cells for women and the house close to the gate for the
second bloc. Another building close to the gate was used
as the hall.
About fifty campers in a team were divided to four
groups. Each group had to set a place in one row. There
were four rows in every cell, two by the walls and two in
the middle of the cell. The campers who stayed by the wall
lay their heads to the wall, and who stayed in the middle of
the cell lay their heads to each other. The space between
the middle row and the wall row was a walkway.
Two extra rooms at both ends of every house that used
to be the dining rooms for orphans became the meeting
room for cadres and team leaders.
At first, the camp didn’t have any fence. Early 1976,
they built the walls surrounding every house, two walls by
both sides of the main road and the walls surrounding the
houses for women. In the mean time, they drilled a well
and pumped water to every house. The Long Thanh camp
was increasingly reinforced.
Chapt. 12 - The first day in the first camp
I belonged to the second group in the third team of the
third bloc, so I had to come into the first cell of the forth
house on the left side of the road. There was nothing in the
cell. I set my sedge-mat on the floor in the middle of the
room to have my place.
The first thing that I thought of was water! I didn’t
have a water container, so I had to look for anything
possible to hold water. I went around the camp and found
a sheet of tin-plated metal that used to be the roof of a
house for victims of the war. I didn't know how to make a
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bucket from the metal sheet, so I bent it by both sides and
then folded the other two sides to become a square
container. My first container was leaking. I went around
again collecting anything to weld the holes and found a
steel helmet, a tarpaper sheet, some nails, and some twoby-six timbers. I burned the tarpaper to get tar for filling
the holes in my container and then nailed two timbers by
both sides. I already got the container but could not carry it
by myself. I asked Diep who stayed next to me bring water
together. That afternoon, we had the first container full of
water. That was late of June, and the rainy season began.
We made two more containers the same way. After the
first experience, we made them better. Some weeks later, I
could even make a can from a sheet of metal, and that
supposed to be my first lesson!
There was no restroom in the camp. I only saw the
barbed wire fence surrounding the camp that I could creep
through easily. The only blockhouse stood by front the
gate. I needed a spade or a hoe and get through the fence
not to escape but to "shit" only! The camp had been an
orphanage village, so to find it was easy.
Then I wondered where I could take a bath? I wasn’t
used to bathing out door, and there were women in the
camp too! I came to an abandoned cottage, which used to
be a temporary shelter for victims of the war, but some
women stood there waiting. I had to leave that cottage for
them and took a bath in the open air with my shorts on.
For surviving in the camp, I should quickly get used to any
circumstance, and that was my second lesson!
Team leaders called the campers to get dinner. That
was my turn, so I got in line going to the kitchen. The
kitchen was a cottage about twenty-five feet wide by fifty
yards long with colonnades and a tin-plated metal sheets
roof. Two clay stoves with six lips of furnace lay along the
cottage, one for rice steaming and the other for food
cooking. There was a big pan on every furnace, and I saw
the cooks shoveled rice and food. Some campers said that
the cooks worked for the contractor, but I thought they
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12. The first day in the camp
were spies working for the intelligence service of the VC.
In the camp keeping mostly VIP’s of the old regime, the
Communists should take chance to collect information
helpful for them.
I got a bucket of rice, and my group mate got a pail of
pumpkin soup. Next, I had to share equally the rice with
twelve campers in my group. I told my group mates to put
their cans on the floor and then used my military can to
measure rice. My group mate also did that for the soup.
That was the first time we shared our dinner with each
other.
That brown rice with plenty of paddies used to be pets'
food. The "soup" contained of some slices of pumpkin and
some peanuts seasoned by salt and green onion. I had to
pick paddies out of the rice to prevent stomachache!
The clanks from the headquarters let us know that a day
in re-education camp was over. That was the sound of a
bombshell hanging on tree being drummed by a hammer.
Since then, I had to get used to the clanks, waking up,
going to work, break time, and so on. Living in the camps
meant nothing except doing what the "clanks" and the
"cadres" told us to do, and that was my third lesson in the
first day in re-education camp.
We had to get into our mosquitoes-net after the clanks
were over, but campers still whispered to each other.
Everyone wanted to share his story with his friend. I fell in
a deep sleep after a while thinking of my wife and my
unborn child.
Chapt. 13 - Ten Lessons.
The clanks busted the air of the hill. We got up when a
"cadre" named Bay came into the cell and told the campers
to come to the hall after breakfast. He said that would be
our first "class". I brushed my teeth, washed my face and
waited for my first "breakfast", a bowl of rice-gruel and
some salt. I relished it because I was so hungry.
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13. Ten lessons
Some even stood in line before hearing the clanks.
Campers in the first bloc went to the hall when the clanks
just began. They had their breakfast earlier because they
stayed close to the kitchen. There were plenty of campers
in the hall when I came in. The hall used to be the training
room for orphans when the camp was the Orphanage
Village. It was about a hundred yards long by forty yards
wide. There was a table and some chairs at the end of the
hall. A tricolor flag of the National Liberal Front and a
picture of Ho Chi Minh were hung on the wall with a
slogan "The great chairman Ho Chi Minh is living forever
in our lifework" underneath. A slogan: "Nothing is more
valuable than independence and freedom" stretched across
the left wall and a slogan "Vietnam is unique, Vietnamese
people are unique, rivers could be gone dry, mountain
could be worn, but that truth will never be changed" on the
right.
I sat on my slippers. Some cadres in civilian and
yellow helmets came and sat at the table. A cadre
introduced "comrade" Hai Con as a chief of the camp. He
asked us to stand up and take off our hats welcoming Hai
Con. Hai Con was about fifty years old, pale and skinny,
about five feet seven inches high. His voice harmonized
with the howling of the speakers. In his speech, Hai Con
said that in order to have the clemency from “the Party and
the State” we had to be re-educated to become good
citizens. For the beginning, we had to learn ten lessons
about the history of Vietnam, mainly the history of the socalled "revolution". He said that Vietnamese people were
the heroes who had fought and won the three greatest
imperialists in the world: French Colonists, Japanese
Fascists, and especially American Imperialists. American
Imperialist was an international police, a leader of
Capitalists, and Capitalists was a leech with two sucker
heads; one sucked the blood of its people and the other the
blood of the people in its colonies. The Imperialism was
dying, and the three "revolution falls" were stronger than
ever. The so-called "revolution falls" as Hai Con noted
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13. Ten lessons
were the revolution to free people in colonies, the
revolution of democracy, and the revolution of socialism.
The Vietnamese people, after won the American
Imperialists, completed the revolution to free the people.
Next was democratization and moving forward to
socialism. In addition, he said, to love the country is to
love the socialism! (I was truly amazed with that
definition!)
We had to applause following the claps of Hai Con
himself at each pause. It was the strangeness that made us
so confused.
For us, who used to serve in the so-called pseudogovernment and pseudo-armed forces of South Vietnam, he
said that we were guilty to go against the people and the
revolution. We were servants of the American Imperialists.
Therefore, we had to be re-educated to become citizens of
Vietnam. We should no longer live depending on others
and had to work for our lives. Re-education included reeducation of mind and of action.
Hai Con said that "labor" was a scale to measure the
process of campers. Our country was rich and beautiful
with forest of gold and ocean of silver (!) Our people were
heroic. Trung Sisters and Quang Trung had won the
Chinese dynasties; especially Ho Chi Minh's generation
had won the three greatest Imperialists. We had to work
for the wealthy of our country and for the equality to other
development countries.
The speech of Hai Con was fluently as if he had
learned it so well. Sometimes, he used some poems of Ho
Chi Minh to cite his speech. We silently listened. Yet the
main thing we wanted to know was still a puzzle. How
they treated us? We didn't think that we only learned ten
lessons and doing labor although we wanted everything to
happen just like that.
The speech of Hai Con was over; a deputy "cadre"
named Bao let us knows a schedule for the days coming.
We were going to attend the class in the mornings and to
discuss in our cells in the afternoons.
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14. Getting used to with the camp
Chapt. 14 - Getting used to with the camp
Life in the camp in our early days was struggles to
adapt with the new situation. Sleeping on the ground, our
backs were painful. We tried to avoid rheumatism by not
sleeping directly on the floor. I folded my poncho and lay
under my sedge-mat and used an old blanket found in an
abandoned shed as my mattress. I save everything
collected around the camp for later use. Fabric from
sandbag was materials for mending clothes, blanket,
mosquitoes net and so on. Even a small steel rod could
become a needle.
After some days of hard works, my slippers were torn.
Having a piece of vehicle tire, I thought of VC's rubberthong slippers, a "dep rau" as Vietnamese called it. I took
off a piece of steel from my military kit bag, ground it on
the floor to make a knife and cut the tire into slipper shape,
chiseled eight holes holding four belts. They looked like
slippers. Although they were not as good as I wanted, I
wore that for nearly ten years. Some campers produced
slippers exchanging with the others.
Searching for usable stuff became more popular.
Started by young campers, and then it spread to everyone.
Although the camp used to be the orphanage village and
the camp for victims of the war having aided by many
sources, especially the US humanity aid, materials became
shorter. Some campers crept out of the fence looking for
useful things, but no one escaped. Everyone was hoping
for a month of re-education would last and came back
home!
To have a toilet at least for women, we suggested the
"warden” let us build two "restrooms". We pulled down
two cottages, got timbers and metal sheets, dug two big
holes close to the fence and built two temporary houses
having ten "toilets" in each one. We called them latrines
instead. Without toilet paper, the campers used anything
possible to clean up, even leaves and water. Those latrines
were nastier and nastier even though we spread kitchen
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14. Getting used to with the camp
ashes everyday. Fly-worms were everywhere. Infectious
diseases started in the camp, especially cholera and prurigo.
The dispensary was formed having many physicians such
as Van Van Cua (used to be a mayor of Saigon). Without
medicine, campers used leaves and grass to cure diseases,
boiling guava leaves for cholera when drinking and for
prurigo when bathing, some grass for beriberi and so on.
Doctor Van Van Cua became an acupuncture physician.
Some campers joked by changing the Vietnamese "To eat
vegetable in hunger and to overcome (instead of taking
medicine) the sickness!" Some said that they had to used
"AKcillin" and "CKC" instead of "Penicillin" and "APC"
for curing their diseases! (AK and CKC were two kinds of
weapon of the VC).
To improve our meals, we began to grow sweet potato
with some potato-vines collecting from the wasted land.
To have water for potato, we dug holes and ditches next to
the bathrooms. Potatoes were added in our meals, and
potato leaves were vegetable.
We had to go to the hall every morning for ten lessons.
Yet after three days, campers were boring. I realized that
the cadres said like parrots what they had been stuffed up.
All of them spoke the same things. What we had heard
from Hai Con, we had to hear again and again, but we
could not ask anything opposing. For example in a lesson
“History of the Development of Human-beings", they said
that society of human beings proceeded from OriginalCommunism to Slave systems, to Feudal systems, to
Capitalism, to Socialism, and then to Communism. We
could not ask what would happen after Communism. For
them, Communism was the highest; the society would be
no more changing after that! What a funny idea! But we
had to accept and discuss in that way only.
The first lesson was "American Empire is the
Conqueror". We attended two classes from seven to noon,
and to discuss at cells in the afternoons. The instructor was
a "cadre" in the "politburo". They wanted a high "cadre" to
"teach" us because we were the highest rank personnel in
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14. Getting used to with the camp
the "pseudo-government". Nothing was different from
what Hai Con said. For the discussion, we had to judge
about "the crimes of the American Empire" in the whole
world and especially in the Vietnam War. The "My Lai"
massacre, the so-called "the destruction of North Vietnam
by US air forces", the blockade of North Vietnam Bay by
mines, the destruction of the "orange toxic" in South
Vietnam, and so on, were some subjects. But more
importantly, we had to talk about the hidden depositories of
weapons and supplies that the American still buried in
South Vietnam. For the former intelligence officers, they
wanted to know the plans of the American after the war
and the under cover agents whom the American left in
Vietnam. I thought the discussions aimed at the strategic
objects of the Americans after the Vietnam War. There
was always a cadre in every group, and we had to turn in a
writing note about our discussion.
After the first lesson we were free in two days. We had
to learn some "revolutionary songs" such as "Emancipation
for South Vietnam", "The Truong Son cane", "Eastern
Truong Son, Western Truong Son". (Truong Son is a long
mountain chain that stretches from North to South Vietnam
where the Ho Chi Minh trails goes along). Those who had
never sung before had to do it without exceptions.
Besides, we also learned a "famous" song named -The
Merry Day Has Been Coming Up- of Vu Thanh An, a wellknown composer of South Vietnam and also a former chief
of service of the Department of Information. The last
sentence of that song was: "The merry day has been
coming up; we rebuild our lives. Thanks to the Revolution,
we promise to become good citizens." I thought it was too
early to have a flattering like that, but every camper had his
or her own way to live in the camp. People said that some
campers could not play a heroic role by opposing the
Communists, but they didn't know that we got no
government, no country, and no supporters. The campers
had nothing except their lives, and those no longer
belonged to them as well. I also thought that I could not do
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14. Getting used to with the camp
anything, could not hide anywhere. Any opposition would
be a suicide; any flattering would be ridiculous. To play a
hero in the camp was useless. My way would be "holding
my breath to cross the river!” I just wanted to survive to
see my family again and not cowardly to sell my soul.
After Vu Thanh An, some others such as Deo Chanh
Mun in the first bloc, Bach Van Nghia in the third bloc and
so on, composed many songs, and the campers had to sing
them. The lyrics of those songs usually talked about labor
in the camp or the victory of the VC.
"Let's do the best for our re-education;
"Bring our love to join our hands,
"Build our futures by our merry!
Whether that was the true thinking or a flattering,
campers composed many songs in those days than any
other time. I thought the reason was that we didn’t work
yet and still hoped to come back home after a month!
We had to sing in every evening before sleep. Some
campers learned the songs in the hall and taught the others
one sentence at a time. Campers had to sing in turn, no
exception; therefore we knew thoroughly most of the
songs.
A song named "American Invader" became a humor
because it had the lyric "Oh, Abrams have been baffled and
sad". Baffled in Vietnamese has the same pronunciation
with pumpkin. Some campers used that word to stand for a
meal they ate every day, the soup of pumpkin and peanut.
And then they named that soup the Abrams soup
After two days, the warden wanted us continue singing
for the rest of time in the Long Thanh Camp. I didn't
known how many songs we had to learn. Some I still
remember such as "Saigon rising in revolt", "East Vam Co,
West Vam Co", "It seems to have Uncle Ho in the merry
day of our great victory", and so on. When Vietnam was
reunified, we no longer sang the song "Emancipation for
South Vietnam" and replaced it by “The Song of Marching
Troop", the National Anthem of North Vietnam. Yet, we
had to sing the song named "It seems to have Uncle Ho in
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14. Getting used to with the camp
the merry day of our great victory" in any camp. In the
hall, when beginning or stopping any event, especially after
the meetings, we had to sing that song. Someone defined
that song as “the song of aurevoir". Sometimes in the
“restroom”, I heard someone changing the name of that
song to “It seems to have a fly-worm in the nasty latrine of
the re-education camp". That was brave because cadres
usually said that any speaking ill of Ho was a serious
crime.
We were amazed when they let us sing the song named
“Voluntary” of Mien Duc Thang, a composer of South
Vietnam.
"If I was a bird, I should be a white dove"
"If I was a flower, I should be a sunflower"
"If I was a cloud, I should be a warm cloud"
"Being a human, I should die for my country"
Cadres said that the lyrics of that song were from a
poem of Ho Chi Minh. I didn't know if it was true, but I
thought everything was from Ho! The defying of leaders
was an insult to the Communists in the whole world, not
only the VC.
The second lesson, "The Pseudo-Government was a
Servant" was interpreted in two morning, but we had to
discuss in a week. After two afternoons, mostly to confess
our crimes and to denounce our accomplices, the campers
chose Diep and me to draw the diagram of the Central
Intelligence Organization. Our former leaders such as Loc,
the commissioner, Thuy, the chief of R (department of
study), Phong, the chief of Z (department of internal
affairs), Luong, the chief of A10 (department of the
combination of information), Trang, chief of A8, Cang, the
former commissioner, Quan, chief of Y (department of
supplement), and so on gave us information
In the mean time, the campers had to write down their
autobiographies. Cadres came to the cells everyday to
persuade the campers to write sincerely their crimes in
order to have the clemency of the Party and the State.
Some campers could not remember something, they asked
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14. Getting used to with the camp
each other about things they had done together and wrote it
down in their papers.
When the VC moved the high leaders to the Thu Duc
camp, Diep and I had to stop the diagram and wrote the
autobiographies. The most complicated for me was that I
didn’t know about my agents after April 30th. Therefore, I
wrote down what I had done and whom I saw in the camp
or already gone abroad. I let go any one whom I didn't see
or know exactly their whereabouts. I thought the VC
should ask about that later, so I save a copy for myself.
When writing our autobiographies, we had some meat
in our meal, and the VC said that they “enriched” us for our
"brain-labors"!
Many words we hadn't heard in
Vietnamese language. When we had some meat they
called it "fresh nutrition". When we grew vegetable or
collected some wild vegetable, they called it
"improvement". When they forced us to work on Sunday,
they called it "Labor for Socialism"! And that Sunday, we
had to do our first "Labor For Socialism" in the camp.
Those having hoes had to rebuild the main road, digging
the ditches along both sides of the road and using soil to
cover potholes on the road. The others used their bare
hands to pull out grass and to clean up the camp and the
headquarters.
Campers usually hid their thinking but could not hide
their anxious about the end of re-education. When cadres
gave the campers boards to make plank-bed, some worried
that they were going to stay longer than a month. When
cadres wanted the campers to grow cassava, some said that
they had to stay at least six months because manioc took at
least six months to have roots. To answer for that worries,
cadres always said that "the Policy of the Party and the
State was unique; those who had progress should leave
early". I heard that explanation more often and didn't
believe.
I tried to get busy all day not to think of my family, but
when getting in bed, everything appeared clearly in my
mind. How were my wife and my unborn child? A
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14. Getting used to with the camp
hundred questions haunted my mind. I tried to write a
diary but could not succeed because I was not used to
doing that. Nights in the camp were too long. Never
sleeping on the floor before, I could not sleep well at first; I
tried to take deep breaths and to count from one to a
hundred and then repeated again and again until fell into a
sleep. After a week, I got used to it, and I could easily
sleep when I came to bed. Moreover, I tried to keep busy
all day long. If not doing what they told me to do, I took
care my sweet potatoes, brought water, and did some
necessities for my life. After a group meeting, I was tired
and slept easily. I knew that sleep would be valuable, so I
trained myself to get a habit of sleeping easily, tried not to
think of any thing in bed times. It helped me to be healthy
enough to get over many difficulties.
Linh, my sister-in-law's husband was moved to the Thu
Duc camp, which used to be the detention camp for
women. Lan, my sister-in-law was still in the Long Thanh
camp, so I had to help her sometimes. Life of women in
the camp was more complicated. Seeing them, I thought of
my wife and was glad she didn’t stay. Also a lot of
questions came up about her. I remembered when my wife
had miscarried. I drove her to an emergency room and
waited outside. I hadn't heard her screams. Someday later,
she said that she had tried to keep her mouth shut although
she had so much pain. She didn't want me to worry. I
didn't know what she did when I wasn't with her in her
giving birth? I felt pity for her thinking of a Vietnamese
folk song about the loneliness of a woman in giving birth
that: "Everyone has a partner in the ocean, but I am all
alone!"
After the second lesson, the campers waited for the next
but didn't have any in a week. Everyone hoped to finish
ten lessons and go home! Cadres explained to the campers
that they were waiting for cadres from Hanoi.
Campers worried about another transfer. That Saturday
evening, in a movie out door, Hai Con said that there
would be no more transferring and campers had to focus on
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14. Getting used to with the camp
the re-education in order to have the clemency of "the Party
and the State". The warden and the cadres from "central"
were studying the autobiographies and should interview
some campers before the next lesson.
The movie was about the Dien Bien Phu battle and
revealing some heroes who used their bodies to stop the
canon not to go downhill when the pulling ropes had
broken, or some others who used their bodies to cover
loopholes. The victory of Dien Bien Phu battle was a great
pride of the VC, but in that film, the people had sacrificed
so much for that victory. With only human, the people had
to confront machine guns, tanks and airplanes. They were
not Communists. They were only the normal people who
loved and sacrificed for their country. The Communists
took advantage the patriotism of the people to take power
and then said that to love the country means to love
Socialism!
What plainly bizarre connection!
The
Communists usually said: "Our bare hands could do every
thing. With our labor, we could make gravels and stones
become rice" or "Youth in need, youth in difficulty."
Those slogans were just labels to exploit on the people.
They took the interests of the people in North Vietnam for
thirty years, and then it was the turn of the people in South
Vietnam. Labor for Socialism was nothing but unpaid
working.
The day after, we discussed that film and compared the
victory of the Dien Bien Phu battle to the victory of the socalled "Ho Chi Minh Historical Campaign" to liberate
South Vietnam on April 30th, 1975. Under the control of
cadres, the discussion later became the confession of our
"crimes" in preventing the paces of that campaign. I
understood that everything in the camp was going to be in
that manner, and I had to accept that without thinking. My
behavior would be speaking as little as possible, I advised
myself thinking of a story that I had learned in my
elementary school. We have only one mouth with two
jobs, eating and speaking and two ears with only job,
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14. Getting used to with the camp
hearing. Why don't we speak less and listen more; don't let
the mouth to be overdone!
Some days later, the VC sent away a camper in the first
bloc. Cadres explained that he had debt of blood to the
people in his old region, and they sent him to a popular
trial. I didn't know what happened to him later, but I knew
about "popular court" of the Communists since the time of
"land reform" after they took over North Vietnam.
Defendants could not say anything; accusers and judges
were under the conduct of the VC. The VC also said that
they kept us in the camps to protect us because the people
were very angry at our crimes against the revolution!
Thanks for the kindness of "revolutionaries!” We were
under the protection of our enemies and under the
clemency of the Party and the State. So many fine words
were used to explain an act of revenge. I remembered a
song of Pham Duy, a well-known composer in South
Vietnam, having a term "a basket of words", and an idiom
of Vietnamese "honey mouth, sword heart" to apply for
those who used fine words to cover their ill intentions. I
gradually used to living in re-education camp. I didn't
know if I could be alive until leaving the camp, but I would
try with all my best. I also knew that any hopelessness
should lead to a failure.
Ly Muoi Liem, a policewoman, a major of the Police
Forces was the first camper who left the camp for handling
the operation of the computer center in the headquarters of
Police. The transfer of the high leaders to the Thu Duc
camp was next, and then a camper was sent to a popular
trial. What would happen for us? We were worried but
didn't know what to do.
Chapt. 15 - The First Month in the Camp.
The struggle with life in the camp helped me to adapt
step by step with difficulties. I used to live in poverty since
my childhood, but the life in the camp was very hard for
me. I didn't know how the people who used to live
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15. First month in the camp
comfortably could adjust to that. The Long Thanh camp
kept mostly high rank personnel of the Government of
South Vietnam. The alternative between two opposite
ways of life was shocking. Some former ministers, undersecretaries, had to do hard works like the others did. The
VC didn't allow us to recall our past. They said that they
wanted us to be "equal", but I thought they wanted to create
a contradiction between us so that they could manage us
easier. In our autobiographies, some campers still used the
word Mister for their old leaders; the VC asked them
rewrite and use some impolite words such as "guy", "he",
and “him" instead. I want to notice here that the use of
pronunciation in Vietnamese language is very complicated;
it's very impolite to call a person whom we were respecting
as "he", or "him" or "you" instead of Mr., Mrs. or Sir and
Madame. We had to use the words "pseudo-government"
and "pseudo-armed forces" instead of RVN government
and ARVN. I had to rewrite my autobiography for that
reason as well.
When speaking to "cadres", we had to stand at attention
in front of them by three paces distance and hold our hats
in our hands. We had to call officers in the camp by
"cadre" and call ourselves by "I" and "me". When seeing a
cadre, we had to salute him by remove our hats and bow
our heads. Overall, we had to pay them our respect and get
used to obeying their commands. The better way was to
avoid contacts with the VC as much as possible. The VC
didn't let us call ourselves prisoners and said that we were
coming into the camp to be re-educated, not to be
imprisoned! We called ourselves campers instead.
Campers had to attend a meeting in team before sleep.
Team leader reported the daily activities in the team, in the
group, and in the bloc, and also informed things that cadres
wanted us to know. And then campers criticized each other
and self-criticized. That was new for us at first, but cadres
asked us do that seriously. We tried to find anything of
ourselves and of the others and recalled it in the meetings.
For some reasons, we also tried to find something not
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15. First month in the camp
important and let go any serious problems. Sometimes, I
had to say that I still got homesick, still remembered my
wife, still worried about my unborn child, not to ease my
mind enough. Some campers criticized the others for
falling asleep in the class or in discussion, or playing sick
not to go to class or not to do something else. Every small
thing became a subject for criticism. Little by little,
campers became turtles hiding their heads into their shells.
Day after day, criticisms became self-criticism with minor
infractions such as homesick, not paid attention in the
class, speaking in the class, not knowing the song, and so
on, and then the others criticized those infractions and the
camper who gave self-criticism promised to overcome.
When being criticized, campers had to admit their faults
and promised to correct them; if not, there would be other
meetings until they accepted. That was the way of
"criticism and self-criticism" of the Communists. Besides,
we had to write a report sending to cadres after the
meeting. I discovered later that "criticism and selfcriticism" was the way of the Communists to control each
other, not only in the camp but also in any other
organization of the Communists.
Living together for some days, we knew that there were
some spies mingling in our bloc. Phong, Ba, Lam, for
examples, were the ones we didn't know their origins.
Although they said that they used to work for the Central
Intelligence Organization, they didn't know anything about
the Organization and no one among us knew them. We
told each other not to talk too much with them because we
suspected that they were the VC who wanted to get
information from us. However, how could we prevent
totally our carelessness? Cadres knew almost everything
that we did or said. That created suspicions for each other,
and some were suspected "antennae", the campers who
reported everything in the camp to cadres. From "criticism
and self-criticism" to the "suspicions of antennae", campers
became more and more selfish and self-limited in their own
shells. No one dared to unload the heart to another. The
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VC didn't need to separate the campers, but campers
separated themselves.
By starving campers, the
Communists made the campers not think of anything else
but their stomach. By creating the suspicions of each other,
the Communists got success in dividing campers so they
easily managed the campers. They didn't need a fence to
surround campers, didn't need to lock campers in cells, the
campers locked themselves with a slender hope to be freed
after a month.
I believed in that lies at first. I hoped that I could see
my child after a month, but deep down in my heart, I didn't
think that would be true. I thought they would sent us to
somewhere else, as Ho Chi Minh Trail or the jungles in the
Central of Vietnam, to build roads or rails for the
reconstruction of Vietnam after the war. The price that I
would pay was my life, but at least I had an opportunity to
serve my people. My life no longer belonged to me. I
should die with the Republic of Vietnam on April 30th, but
I didn't have enough courage to end my life. I threw away
my handgun into the Thanh Da River and gave myself in.
What I was expecting was only a miracle. We didn't have
any one who helped us. Our government no longer existed.
Our allies deserted. Having a fence or not was meaningless
because we didn't know where we could go. The country
was under the control of the Communists. North was Red
China, west Kampuchea and Laos under Communists'
regimes, and east the Pacific Ocean. Where would we go if
we escaped from the camp? I thought only a miracle could
save us! If the Communists didn't lie, we would go into the
camps anyway because we didn’t know where to go. Yet
with their tactics, they kept us in the camp without any
attempt to escape; we hopelessly expected to leave the
camp in a month or so. The simple fence around the camp
and the cells wide open could not keep us, but their lies
was the main thing that kept us staying in the camp. We
weren’t familiar with that kind of systematic lies. What a
successful tactic!
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Diep, my friend staying next to me in the cell, in his
poem for his wife had a sentence that I would come back in
a month or a year! I thought that was the thinking of the
campers in the very first month. Although no one believed
in a month, they only thought of a year at most.
In addition, we knew nothing about the new society
except over some newspapers such as “Revolution of
Saigon”, “Popular”, and “Popular Armed Forces” that
informed only about the success in economics and in
politics of the VC.
Besides, rumors were spread
thoroughly in the camp. Some said that Duong Van Minh
was released to France after he gave up South Vietnam to
the VC. Ngo Khac Tinh, the minister of the Department of
Education had been caught trying to escape from Vung
Tau. Tran Van Huong, the vice president, was confined at
home for he was too feeble. General Nguyen Khoa Nam,
the commander of the Forth Army Corps, had killed
himself when the VC came in the headquarters. The
people in South Vietnam were formed in the "three-three
system" to control each other. They concluded that we
wouldn’t be able to live in that society. I didn't know if
those rumors were true. What if those were true, and what
would happen to us if we escaped from the camp and could
not stay at home? To be captured meant to die. No one
dared to bet with the fate one more time.
Following the second lesson and our autobiographies,
the next lessons were no longer important. Some campers
didn't even come to class, and I was included. I took care
of my sweet potatoes instead. The tropical summer sun
burned brown my skin, and I thought it became thicker. I
didn't scare of rain and sun any longer. My student
appearance gave up for a farmer appearance in two weeks
only. Yet most of all that busyness helped me not to think
much about my family.
Campers were short of necessities, especially cigarettes.
Some campers asked the employees in the kitchen buy
cigarettes and tooth pastes. The board of supervisors knew
that and called a meeting to announce that they were going
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15. First month in the camp
to open a "canteen" -a grocery store- in the camp to sell
necessary things for campers. The canteen was next to the
kitchen and sold many items such as cigarettes, tooth
pastes, dried foodstuffs, coffee and breakfast. Campers
who had money could buy or ordered anything they
wanted.
The canteen made the pessimists become
discouraged and the optimists have their chance to spend
money! Life in the camp divided into two opposite sides
between those who had money and those who didn't.
I didn't have money left because I had given it to my
wife. I needed "to overcome" my difficulties. The most
difficult for me was cigarettes because I smoked too much.
To have a cigarette I had to exchange everything I was
planting for the others. For saving money, I bought some
plain tobacco and paper and tried to roll it by hand for the
first time in my life. That reminded me of my grandmother
who used to do that when she was staying in the folding
chair to sew clothes helping my mother. My maternal
grandmother whom I have been very close since I was a
child; she was almost seventy. My childhood was
appearing clearly in my mind whenever I remembered her.
I thought of the altar in my mother's house that had been
inherited from my great grandfather, one of the
descendants of the royal family of the Lord of Trinh. The
brass censer carved in bamboo and birds that I used to
polish every New Year. Two big silver-bordered porcelain
bowls on the wooden stands with two silver spoons that
had been recalled from the Lord of Trinh had used to rinse
his mouth. Porcelain wares still had the seal of Trinh
Palace on the bottom. My grandfather named Trinh Van
Giau used to be a headmaster of Cochichina -South
Vietnam of Indochina. My first uncle had been a minister
of the Department of Internal in the Royal Cabinet. With
the family like that, my grandmother lived in poverty when
my grandfather died because she was just a concubine of
my grandfather. She kept everything left from the family
as a memory and recalled her past when we were gathering
for the anniversaries of my grandfather.
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The forth week was almost over, and ten lessons had
been done. Yet no one talked about the end of reeducation. Campers divided into three groups due to their
point of view. The optimists were waiting for the end of a
month, so they could go home to live in the new society.
They spent their money buying everything in the canteen
and living as if they were not in the camp. The pessimists
were depressed; they lived like shadows and didn't speak to
any one. Those who accepted their fates were preparing
for their lives in the camp for a long time. They saved
everything and were always ready for a move. Though I
always waited for the end of the first month, I didn't think I
would be released. I only wanted to see what would
happen after that. I dare not to say that don't hear what the
Communists said, watch carefully what they do, but I
always thought that was true. I hoped a miracle should
happen, so I could go home to see my child and to live in
my family the rest of my life as a normal citizen.
July 14th, 1975, French National Day, was the day the
campers waiting for. A month of re-education, was that
true? Hope and desperation mixed together creating
strangeness among the campers. They hoped to hear from
the warden but scared to hear bad news. One more day to
complete a month of re-education but there was nothing.
The line of cans waiting for water was shorter. Campers no
longer stood in line. They put their cans in line and had a
camper on duty fill water for them. The camp seemed to
be paused. The campers gathered smoking, drinking tea,
and talking.
I collected some sweet potatoes for the desert that night
to celebrate the end of a month! Mr. Do Kien Nau, Banh's
uncle, who used to be a chief of police in the third district
of Saigon, Banh, and I was going to have dinner together.
My potatoes were still small. I dug two beds and made two
new beds to replace them. I didn't know what I just did!
Was that a habit, or I didn't think that was the last day in
the camp. I was not certain about anything anymore. I
thought I just became suspicious! The policy of the Party
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15. First month in the camp
and the State was unique, but I still doubted about that!
How could I make progress? I chuckled to myself over my
thought. Bringing some sweet potatoes to my sister-in-law,
I overheard some women-campers saying about the
celebration to release the campers tomorrow. I asked Lan,
my sister-in-law, but she said it was just rumor only
because tomorrow was the last day of a month. Since
Nghia, Dep's husband, had been moved to the Thu Duc
camp, campers talked about the relationship between Dep
(my boss' secretary) and Tu Diep, the cadre in charge the
women cell. Campers usually took credit for information
from women and believed that was from Tu Diep. I didn't
know exactly about the relationship between Dep and Tu
Diep, but I thought that a man from jungle like Tu Diep
would easily fall in love with a pretty women like Dep.
(Her name "Dep" means pretty by itself!)
About a hundred campers in the cell for women, except
some armed forces officers and policewomen from captain,
the rest were mid-rank cadres of the Central Intelligence
Organization. Mrs. Colonel Huong, the commander officer
of women-soldiers, and Mrs. Major Thuy, the commander
of Swan Detachment of the Policewomen, had been sent to
the Thu Duc Camp. The relationships between men and
women in the camp became more serious. Although I
needed to help my sister in law, Lan, sometimes, I had to
tell myself not to come regularly to the cell of women
because I didn’t want any rumors. Most women who used
to work in the Organization knew my wife, so I didn’t want
my wife to suspect wrongly about my relation.
That evening, campers could not sleep early as usual.
Groups of three or four sat together in the yard having
dinner and chatting. Mr. Nau, the former lieutenant colonel
of police forces, my friend Banh, and I sat at the table in
the yard between the third and forth bloc, and cooked
sweet-desert after our dinner. I didn’t believe that I would
be released but also hoped a miracle would happen. Since
coming into the camp, Banh spent most of his time learning
to play Chinese chess. He became noisy himself, but that
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evening, he was strangely quiet. His uncle, Mr. Nau, was a
chain-smoker; he asked me my pipe, opened his cigarettes,
and tamped down the tobacco in the pipe for saving
cigarettes. Banh and his uncle had some money, and
sometimes they helped me when I needed. In exchange, I
grew vegetable for our meals. We usually had dinner
together. Later, Mr. Nau was sent to the camp Ha Tay in
North Vietnam and died there. We sat in silence until
midnight.
Should anything come up or were just
hopelessly waiting? A month of re-education was over, not
only us but also our families were waiting for that day. No
one could sleep that night waiting for dawn.
Campers waked up early on the 15th of July though we
didn’t have any schedule. No cadre came to the cells.
Some campers wandered on the main road toward the hall,
but the hall was empty! Some said that the ceremony
should be held in another place instead of in the camp, and
they would move us to somewhere in Saigon to attend that
ceremony. I thought that was humorous optimistic! Yet I
still hoped that would happen as a miracle.
I didn’t know what to do but to water my sweet
potatoes and vegetable. I didn’t want to be upset having
too much hope and then got nothing and always advised
myself that everything should be predestination!
Chapt. 16 - Life went on.
The expectation was over with hopelessness. Campers
got back to everyday life. Long lines of cans were set on
the main road as usual. Breakfast with rice gruel and salt,
lunch and dinner with a bowl of rice and soup of pumpkin
were continued. No camper stayed outside late. Whether
they were tired or sleepy, they went to bed early.
Next morning, Bay Soi, the baldhead cadre named Bay
who was in charge of the third bloc came to the cell early
and told us come to the hall after breakfast. Everyone was
hopefully joy. Some didn’t even take breakfast and get in
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16. Life went on
line earlier than others! It was not as quiet as usual. The
campers chattered noisily on the way to the hall.
There was no decoration in the hall. When the campers
came, some cadres carried a table and a couple of chairs
into the hall, and then Hai Con, the warden gave a speech.
He said what we used to hear that “the policy of the Party
and the State is unique, to beat deserters not those who
stayed! We had to make progress in order to have the
clemency of the Party and the State.” I asked myself how
they could beat some one who has already gone! Hai Con
said that the “Central” didn't say anything about a month of
re-education. The return to society of campers depended
on their progress not on the matter of time because we had
to get along with the new society. And then, Hai Con said
that to demonstrate the clemency of the Party and the State,
they let us write a letter to our families. We had to tell our
families that we were doing fine in the camp and making
progress in re-education, and also recommended our
families to comply with the policies of the Party and the
State. We should not tell our families about the location of
the camp and only used the code name 15NV for the return
address.
The campers, especially the optimists were
disappointed than ever. They suddenly realized that they
should understand the Communists more. For those who
didn’t believe in a month of re-education, that was a chance
to know about their families. Writing a letter was better
than nothing although we knew that we could not write
everything. The Communists would examine carefully our
letters, but at least we could connect with our families. I
cravenly wanted to know about my child, a boy or a girl
and about my wife after giving birth. My mother and my
grand mother were also my concerns. With only two
pages, what could I write? I had to use words wisely to let
them know about my situation. I wrote that I was well fed
and also grew some potatoes for my extra meal! I was in
good health and gave some medicines to my friends who
got sick.
Besides, I had to waste at least half a page
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16. Life went on
asking my family to comply with the policies of the local
government for my benefit. On the way coming to the cell,
I didn't concern about anything else but my letter. Yet I
still recognized a strange silence. The campers were
thinking about their fates and about the trick that the
Communists had been doing. In their notice, they had only
said that we had to bring our meals and clothes for a
month, not mentioned about a month of re-education! We
could not say that they had lied; it was us who hadn’t
understood precisely the notice! “I should come back in a
month or a year!” (…or how many more years?) I thought
Diep’s poem and suddenly shivered with fear. How long
before I come home? I wondered. My life had been ended
since April 30th, but how would my family be? I didn’t
want them to wait for me in hopelessness. Nothing was
worse than separation!
In the following days, we only wrote our letters. Some
wrote and rewrote their letters not satisfied with what they
had done. They seemed to accept their fate as a certain
matter. No one spent time for coffee, tea, cigarette, and
chatting. More campers grew potatoes. Not enough water
for both vegetable and potato, I had to water vegetable
only. It was rainy season; therefore I didn't worry much.
Bay Soi and Tu Diep, the cadres in charge of the third
bloc, came to collect letters everyday, but a week later
there were still some who hadn’t finished their letters yet.
They were no longer in a hurry! I had tried to send my
letter in the first day hoped to receive the return letter early,
but sometimes I regretted to do that. I thought I missed
something.
Besides the letter, life in the camp was happening as
usual. We woke up in early morning, exercised in a few
minutes the ten movements imported from North Vietnam,
had breakfast with rice gruel and salt, lunch and dinner
with rice and soup of pumpkin, attended group meeting
before bed time. Yet the difference was that after the
meeting in the hall, we had to replace the cooks. The
warden explained that we didn’t have money left;
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16. Life went on
therefore, we had to do everything in the camp. The State
and the People had to raise us instead. After that, they gave
us eight hundred dongs every month for our needs. That
meant we had to stay in the camp for a longtime, but “how
long” was always a question without an answer. We had to
make a progress in order to be released. What was that
progress? Ten lessons had been over; how would we make
progress when we did nothing?
To use spare time, some found something to do such as
learning Chinese chess, writing imaginary recipes,
drawing, engraving on wood or coconut husk, and so on.
Nguyen, a friend of mine’s, spent most of his time digging
roots of vine named Multiflorous Knootweed. He sliced
them, dried in the sun, dehydrated and then boiled them to
make a beverage. Somebody said that the root was a
medicine that blackened our hair. I didn’t know if that was
true, but Nguyen’s skin became brown, and his hair turned
gray though he was only thirty!
When didn’t take care of my vegetable, I carved wood,
engraved aluminum, and made "art-works" from coconut
husk. The hammer was a bending bolt; the chisel was a
steel wire. Everything was collected around the camp. I
sketched on wood boards, and then I chiseled the lines on
with my drawing. I cut the aluminum plate into stripes
about two millimeters wide, ground them on the concrete
floor, hammered tightly aluminum stripes into the lines and
then sanded them. For doing “art works” by coconut husk,
I cut coconut husk in a gold-fish-shaped hairpins, ground
on the floor and sanded them by jack tree leaves. Finally,
I carved scales, tails and head. The products looked like
tortoise shell. I didn’t know what for, but I truly liked
them. I used to draw and also spent a longtime; therefore
my artworks looked beautiful. I engraved four drawings
standing for four seasons including Mai flower (for winter),
Orchid (for spring), Chrysanthemum (for fall), and
Bamboo tree (for summer). I tried the drawing of mother
and son thinking of my wife and child, and I liked that the
most!
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16. Life went on
Two weeks later, we received the first letter from
families. That was a Saturday evening when Bay Soi and
Tu Diep came to the cells of the third bloc. They gave
letters to the women campers first. We asked our team
leaders receive our letters, but Bay Soi and Tu Diep wanted
to give them directly to the campers.
I got a letter and a picture of my wife holding my son.
My wife wrote that my son cried every night, that made her
exhausted. Everybody in my family loved him so much
because he was the first child. He was born about three
kilos, not too big, but my wife still hardly delivered him.
She wished me to have progress and came home early
helping her. My mother and my grand mother wrote some
lines said that they were healthy, and my mother’s tailor
shop was still working as usual. My mother was a chief of
the so-called “people in the street group”.
Some
“comrades” of my father came to see my mother and said
that I would be back soon because I was a son in a
revolutionary family! They wished me healthy and having
progress in re-education. The letter was exactly what Hai
Con had said in the hall. I thought not only me but also my
family were being re-educated by the Communists. The
strange words in Vietnamese language were written in the
letters after three months was a precise proof for the change
of the society.
I read and reread that letter until knowing every word.
I made a frame and put the picture in it. It took me a week
to do the frame, but it went along with me for almost
seventeen years in the camps.
Chapt. 17 - The First Release
Some days after receiving the letter, life went on as
usual. Except those who wanted to have some extra food
had to grow vegetable or potatoes, the others didn’t do any
labor. The campers having money could buy merchandises
in the canteen. With eight hundred a month, I could buy a
tube of toothpaste, some tobacco, and a little brown sugar.
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17. First release
About August, the Communists changed their new
currencies in the whole country and defined five hundred
South Vietnam dongs or four hundred North Vietnam
dongs for a new dong. They allowed only ten thousands
old dongs for everyone in Vietnam, the rest had to be left in
the State own bank. Some campers who sneaked too much
money into the camp had to share money with their friends
to change to new currencies. I had heard about many
things happening in the society. South Vietnamese who
were too rich had to give money to their relatives from
North Vietnam to change to new currencies, and didn’t get
money back! I didn’t know whether that happened in the
camp or not because if it did, no one would dare to say.
Since then, instead of eight hundred a month, I got only
one dong and sixty cents. First, the value didn't change, but
later, I could buy a tube of toothpaste only. The
Vietnamese economic went down so fast!
The warden told the campers to prepare for the
“Independence Day”, September 2nd, 1975. We had to do
wall-newspapers, sing in a band, and decorate for that day.
I wrote a short piece named “the class of cigarette” for
the wall-newspaper. The tenor of that writing was to say
about the down turn of popular in South Vietnam after the
Communists took over. Yet I tried to hide my intention so
the VC could not realize that.
The class of cigarette.
He is watching the straight beds of sweet potatoes that
were done by his hard work.
He puts the hoe on the ground and sits on its handle. His
left hand raises to wipe the sweat on his forehead, and his
right hand goes into his pocket, pulls out a small box.
Opening the box, he takes a roll of paper, tears a piece and
puts it on his left hand by his four fingers. His thumb is
holding that piece of paper. His right hand takes a small
amount of tobacco from the box, spreads it on the paper
and uses the left thumb holding tobacco. He then uses both
hands to roll carefully the tobacco in the piece of paper to
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17. First release
become a class of cigarette, but the difference is that it has
one end bigger than the other. Finally, he glues the
cigarette by his tongue.
The cigarette on his lips reminds him of a class of
Winston, or Lucky that he used to smoke not long before.
Only a couple of months but it seem to be many years had
gone by. He cannot imagine a day he can use a hoe to
make some beds of sweet potatoes like that, and he also
cannot imagine that he can roll professionally a class of
cigarette like that!
Everything was changing, he thinks.
I joined a band to sing a song named “Lovely Vietnam”
the “pre-war song” that we used to hear in South Vietnam.
We chose that old song for it was not as extreme as the
others. Besides, the campers in the third bloc chose Diep
and me to decorate the wall-newspapers, so I was real busy.
Campers hoped that something should happen in the
National Day of the VC, a release of some campers at least.
Everybody hoped to have his or her name in the release list.
Rumors were spread again. Campers tried to explain their
families’ letters in their way of imagination. While
family’s members said that they wished us making progress
and coming home in the Independence Day, the campers
explained that their families knew about the release in that
day but could not write in the letters. Some others even
said that their family had some relatives working in the
Department of Interior of the VC who said that all campers
in the re-education camps would be released in the
Independence Day because the VC wanted to show off
their clemency. They would move the campers to Saigon
in a ceremony, a part of Independence Day. The camp
became noisy since the warden told the campers to prepare
for the Holiday. Some campers having skill drew the
portraits of Ho Chi Minh for the decoration. Cadres
frequently came to the cells watching us doing the wallnewspapers, practice in the bands, or drawing.
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17. First release
Some days before September 2nd 1975, cadres came
early to call the campers going to the hall when we just
waked up. Everyone became active knowing that they
already hung banners and flags in the hall. Hope became
real, perhaps! Campers chose their nicest clothes and got
in line waiting. Laughter, cheerful faces, and noisiness
were coming back after a long time of silence! Two and
half months since we entered the camp, that was the most
beautiful day. Someone sang repeatedly the song of Vu
Thanh An: “The merry day was coming up, we rebuild our
lives!”
Tricolor flags of the NLF and banners reddened the hall.
A big picture of Ho hung as usual in the wall with a slogan:
“There was nothing more valuable than independence and
freedom” underneath. A most special banner hanging by
the sidewall with a slogan: “To cheer the clemency policy
of the Party and the State” was easily seen.
Clapping of the campers burst the air when the wardens
and the cadres came in. Hai Con, the warden, had a long
opening speech. He said everything that we had heard in
ten lessons about the failure of the American Empire and of
the Capitalism, the victor of Vietnamese Revolution and of
the Socialism, for the conclusion, he quoted the words from
Ho that: “Ha Noi, Hai Phong and many other cities could
be ravaged, but we should rebuild them ten time better
when we defeated the American pirate.” He said that the
campers, who were granted clemency from the Party and
the State, would give our hand to rebuild our country when
we came back to the society. And then he introduced his
deputy, “comrade Bao”, to read the release list.
Campers were excited when “comrade Bao” with a
briefcase in his hand came to the microphone. He
solemnly took out a paper, put it on the lecture stage, and
said:
“To show the clemency policy of the Party and the State,
representing for the warden, today I announce the release
list for the campers who have made progressive and should
come back to the society giving their hands to rebuild our
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17. First release
country. When coming back to the society, all of you have
to execute the plans and the policies of local government.”
The list that the “comrade Bao” read included about
twenty names, and then he came back to his chair without a
word. We found out later that most of the campers in the
list were necessary experts and some of them had had
credits or had worked for the VC. The campers were
disappointed.
After a while, Hai Con came back to the stage and said
that for those who continued to re-educate, the Party and
the State allowed them to receive gifts from their families
once in three months. Campers should write a letter to
families to let them know the day, the location, and our
needs. Then Hai Con declared the end of the meeting.
Scattered claps said goodbye for the Wardens and the
Cadres. The more excited when the campers came to the
hall, the more dejected they were when they went back to
the cells.
We didn’t do anything for the Independence Day in the
days following but writing our letters. The Independence
Day came in silence. We had only a “fresh meal” with a
piece of pork about two inches for lunch and dinner.
Gift from family, how tragic it was! How long would I
live in the camp? Once in three month and how many
times? And how long my families would be able to help
me? In the previous money changing, the people in South
Vietnam were poorer. The policy of the Communists was
to create equality in society, not equal in wealthy but equal
in poverty.
I thought of my family and didn’t know what to ask for.
What was my wife doing with her newborn child? How
was my mother? Was she still sitting by the sewing
machine? She had raised us since I was born, and now she
had to help my wife to raise me in the camp again! Her life
was totally a sacrifice for her children. I didn’t want to be
a heavy load for my family. Yet, what could I do? I tried
to choose some cheapest and most necessary things to ask
for such as sesame-salt, fine-shrimp sauce, plain tobacco,
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water-glory seeds, and cold medicines. I didn’t forget
pictures of my new boy. I wrote and rewrote my letter
many times until the last allowed day, sent it and waited for
my first gift.
A week later, a truck came in the early morning.
Everyone was excitedly waiting. Team leaders came to the
hall to check names for campers and let everyone go in turn
to get the gift. Cadres checked the parcels before gave
them to the campers. Five kilograms could not pack
everything that a camper needed after three months, but it
got at least his family’s love. I opened each item to enjoy it
with my affection. There were ten black and white photos
of my wife and my son. They kept the letter for censor
before gave it to me. I brought the pictures to show to my
sister-in-law and to my friends. My son could turn over
when he was three month old and no longer cried at night.
My sister wrote her friend “comrade Ba Son” took those
pictures. I didn’t know who that “comrade” was, but I felt
not satisfied for a stranger in my family. Yet, in the new
situation of the country, what should happen otherwise?
Our era had been over. This was the “comrade era”! My
family could not be an exception. “To loss of the country
to the Communists meant to loss everything!” I thought of
that statement of Thieu and felt sorrow.
Any pleasure was over; any sorrow was little by little
fading. We had to come back to our daily life. The “board
of supervisors” wanted to form common labor instead of
individual. They took back the fields. I no longer had my
own ground for sweet potato and vegetable. Every
morning, we worked in the field except those who were on
duty to clean up and to get water for team members. Hoes
and spades were common use also. We learned about
“common labor”, and at that time, we had to practice it.
The ground in the camp was mixed of clay and gavel, so it
was so hard. We had to use crowbar to hoe up the ground
before making beds for sweet potato. That was really hard
labor, but we were still young. The old campers didn’t
make the beds; they put cuttings of sweet potato vine into
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the beds instead. After a month, the view of the camp
totally changed. There was no vacant ground; the straight
beds of sweet potato stretched parallel each other looked
like dunes in a desert after. The campers became brown
under the heat of the sun in summer. We had to work
everyday, except Sunday, from seven A.M. to noon. That
was the beginning for us to get used to forced labor. In
addition, the ground was not enough for more than two
thousand campers. I didn’t have any land to plant
vegetable, so I used most of my free time to draw the
pictures of my wife and my son.
Not every camper had gift, and five kilogram was not
enough for three month. The campers became short of
energy after a while. Although rice supplied by the camp
was not too few, the food with some slice of pumpkin
boiled in salty water was not enough for our living. Some
had edema and prurigo. Grasshoppers, crickets, and bugs
became “flying shrimps”. Mice, frogs, snakes, and geckos
were “luxurious meat”. Wild vegetables became rare. The
campers could eat anything not poison. We joked that
everything that could move could be eaten except a bolt!
The “Guigoz milk” aluminum cans were familiar for the
campers.
We put a bail for ease to handle. In the
morning, it held drinking water; it became a holder for
things gathered in the field and a cooking pot when coming
back to the cell. When sitting in line in the hall, it became
a stool. What a useful thing! I could say that the guigoz
can was the most valuable, and we named it “Go”. The
emptied “Soya cheese” containers became Hubble-bubble
pipe for Rustic cigar or kerosene lamp. Soy sauce bottles
became glasses. Campers wasted nothing!
Life in the camp was happening in the same way day
after day: going to work, eating, waiting for letters and
gifts, meeting before sleep, and doing things for daily life.
Every day was a longest day as people said: “A day in
prison, thousand years outside”.
After three months or so, some women were released
including my sister-in-law, Lan. She left her stuffs for me.
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I felt happy for her, and for my wife. At least my wife had
someone speaking with, and over her sister my wife could
know my real life in the camp. That had been the last
group released from the Long Thanh camp except some
were scattered released due to the needs of the VC.
Chapt. 18 - “TET” in the Long Thanh Camp
Tet –Lunar New Year- was the most important holiday
to the Vietnamese people. That was the days of family
reunion, remembering the ancestor and celebrating the
harvest. Before the Tet 1976, we heard that the VC wanted
to replace the Tet by the Solar New Year or the
Independence Day. That would be a bad idea because it
would not be suitable for the Vietnamese, and they could
not avoid the people celebrating Tet. Yet, the warden let us
prepare for Tet as an act to beat that rumor.
Each bloc formed different groups including
performance group, unicorn dancing group, wall newspaper
group, and decoration group. Beside, they needed a group
to make rice cakes, the Tet pole, and the games for the
campers such as volley ball, soccer, lead in bag, and pingpong.
Beside to decorate for the third bloc, I had to do the
pole for the camp. The “Tet Pole” was a high bamboo
hanging something on its top such as a musical stone,
(fake) firecracker, and a red scroll writing in Chinese. A
cadre escorted two campers and me going to get a bamboo.
That was 23rd day of the last month, the day to say goodbye to the Kitchen-God going to see the King of Heaven.
Vietnamese families usually worshiped the Kitchen-God on
that day. We came to a family living close to the camp.
They asked us about our lives in the camp and gave us
some food saying that they only gave the bamboo for us,
not for cadres! I was surprised because the people in that
region used to help the VC in the war. The old woman said
when the cadre went out that they used to shelter and
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18. Tet in Long Thanh camp
protect the VC in the war but was robbed to their bone after
the war was over. In the old regime, they didn’t have to
contribute “agricultural tax”, but in the so-called
revolutionary government they had to give almost
everything for that tax. The people were poorer while the
VC’s were richer. Ten months after the “revolution”, the
first time I heard about the dissatisfaction from the people
who had helped the VC in the war.
We hung lanterns everywhere in the camp, extended
some banners with the sentence “Happy New Year!” or
“Greeting the Year of the Dragon, 1976” at the front gate
and at the houses. We glued papered flowers in pink and
yellow on trees around the camp to fake Mai and Peach
blossoms. Mai was a kind of flower that only existed in
South Vietnam and blossomed in Tet, and Peach
represented the Tet in North Vietnam. In Vietnamese New
Year, every home had something special to symbolize,
such as watermelon, firecracker, rice cakes, and Mai or
Peach flowers. We had almost everything except some of
them were fakes! We greeted the first Tet in the camp with
our sorrow instead of joy although we had to prepare for
that.
Before New Year, it was cool and the sunlight was
gold. The soft wind on the hilltop reminded me the Tet at
home only forty miles away. Who cleaned the set of
incense burner that I used to clean every New Year? I
remembered my grand mother instructing my sister to
make cakes and lotus seed candies, the specialties in the
Tet. Sometimes I helped her to stir the confection of green
bean. Where was the familiar and warm scent of incense in
the nights of New Year Eve? My mother used to work in
her tailor shop until New Year Eve, and sometimes I
helped her to complete her job because her seamstresses
had come home. I could not forget how to set the altar
welcoming our ancestors. Everything appeared in my
mind. Nothing could replace the Tet in family! The VC
said that we had to get used to the common life. What
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could we choose if we didn’t want a common life?
Everyone readied for the New Year without interesting.
On New Years Eve, the warden and the cadres came to
every cell. We had to stay awake until midnight waiting
for them. They said that they hoped we would make
progress for coming home early, but everyone knew that
they could not believe in what they were hearing. We
greeted each other on New Year day as usual, and that was
just savoir-faire!
The games were prepared carefully, but only some
campers responded. We could not form two teams for
soccer, only for volleyball between three blocs 1, 3, and 4.
The funny thing was that two first and second winners in
the lead-in-bag game were two cripples: Nhan, my former
agent, and Phan, the former mayor of Saigon.
Everyone was discouraged waiting for a release in the
New Year, but the three days of Tet were over in silence.
Some days later, trucks carried bricks into the camp. The
VC began to reinforce the camp. We had to move bricks
and put them along the road, and then they built the walls
everywhere in the camp. Our space was narrower!
Chapt. 19 - The First Visit
To celebrate “three great holidays” including the
birthday of Ho, the South Vietnamese Resistance Day and
the Independence Day, the campers had to come to the hall.
I didn’t like to hear their speeches, but I had no choice. In
addition, I didn’t have to work and got a “fresh meal” with
a bit of meat at least.
Flags and banners had been hanging everywhere in the
hall some days before. Since Vietnam was unified, we
didn’t see the tricolor flags of the Republic of South
Vietnam but the color of blood of North Vietnam flags.
Once again, the Communists took advantage the patriotism
of the people in South Vietnam to conquer the whole
country to become a Communism country. Who was
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puppet administration, the Republic of Vietnam or the
Republic of South Vietnam? I wondered.
The decoration in the hall was always the same with a
picture of Ho hanging in the middle of the wall and a
banner “nothing is valuable than independence and
freedom” underneath. At that time, we sat on the benches.
When we began to do labor, the campers in the second bloc
worked in the hall to make baskets, brooms, and some
other products from bamboo. They collected timbers from
the deserted cottages and made the “benches” in the hall as
well. Those benches were not comfortable at all, but at
least we didn’t sit on the floor.
Besides, they built a high platform near the back wall
and set tables and chairs for cadres.
Cadres came to the hall after we took our seats. We
stood up and sat down many times to greet them as usual,
and then Thuy, the chief of warden introduced the writer
Hoai Thanh who was going to give speech about the poems
of Ho Chi Minh. He said that Hoai Thanh was a “well
known” writer, but none of us knew him.
Hoai Thanh was about mid fifty; little fat and short
with a square face and two big cheeks. He put his shirt
inside his trouser instead of dropping outside like other
high rank cadres, and he wore a tie too! We were surprised
when a cadre brought him a beer instead of water!
I didn’t pay much attention of his speech because the
poems of Ho were so terribly worse than Vietnamese folk
verses except a book in Chinese named “diary in the
prison” that didn’t belong to him. The only thing I
remembered was Hoai Thanh's introduction, “The poetry of
the chairman Ho was interesting because that was the
poetry of the chairman Ho!” I didn’t know how dare he
say that in a speech for us? A lampoon aimed at Ho in the
country of the VC was a worst sin! Yet, I thought cadres
didn’t understand because when we clapped, they
applauded also.
Around noon after Hoai Thanh left, the deputy Bao said
something about their three great holidays.
For the
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conclusion, he said that to indicate the clemency of the
Party and the State, they were going to allow us see our
families in September 1st and 2nd.
Fourteen months in the camp, that was the most
exciting moment for me!
After hearing the “policy of the Party and the State”
about three-year re-education, I didn’t believe that would
be true. Firstly, they said we had to bring food, clothes,
blanket, and curtain for a month, and now three-year reeducation and “should be released when making progress”.
They were playing words again! What was the progress?
No one was able to know that. That meant they should
keep us forever or release us whenever they wanted
My way going home was blocked! The rest of my life,
even in the society, was just hopelessness. Living in the
camp was a life without livelihood. Days after days, I
acted like a shadow: workings, eating, sleeping, with the
clanks just like a robot, or the dog of Pavlov. My mind
was not belonging to me any more. Sometimes I did things
and thought of my family at the same time, even in my
dream. They were my life. To see my family, that was
clearly my hope! Writing a letter and two weeks waiting,
what a long time!
I didn’t know what to write. The VC didn’t want us to
think of our families and said that we had to ease our mind
and absolutely believed in the policy of the Party and the
State. What funny when we had to ease our mind staying
in prison and to believe in their lies! Yet, we had to say
that like a parrot. We experienced everyday in the camp
not only forced labor but also forced thinking.
In the letter sending over cadre, I only wrote to let my
family know about the date and the location to come to
visit me, asking about my grand mother, my mother, my
wife, my son and my siblings. I secretly wrote another
letter for my wife and hid it inside the handle of the sedge
basket. I wanted to let my wife know that I would not
come home soon and she was too young. I wanted her to
forget me and to have a different life. I wanted her to have
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a new life in the new society without me. I loved her but
didn’t want her to waste her life because of me. I just
wanted she would raise my boy even if she left me.
In those days, we were busy moving around. New
comers replaced some campers transferring to the Thu Duc
camp. The VC called them the “victims of the old regime”
–prostitutes and bargirls- and sent them to the camp for
“recovering their humanity.” They stayed in three houses
of the first bloc. We had to jam together and the third bloc
occupied two houses instead of three.
September 1st was the first day of visiting; we were
excitedly waiting. I chose my clothes and ready. More
than fourteen months doing hard labor, my “best clothes”
were the trousers torn at the knees and the blue shirt torn at
the collar! Around nine o’clock in the morning, they began
to call the campers. Campers brought empty bags, got in
line for checking before went out. I didn’t know whether
my family was coming that day or the next day.
Around noon, Diep and I were called at the same time.
Two families lived close together and went together,
perhaps. Lots of campers visited, so they search carelessly
our stuffs. I saw my grand mother, my mother, my wife
and my son while approaching the visiting house,
especially my wife holding my son. Whether he was so
tiny or because I didn’t see a baby for a long time, he
looked so small. My wife was skinnier although she had
been skinny already! I felt pity for her; three years of
happiness were not worth.
Fifteen minutes went so fast, and cadres listened our
conversation too. They wanted us to tell lies about our
situation. Our conversations were covered with lies, but
we understood each other. I tried to hold my son, but he
yielded back to my wife. My grand mom seemed older and
skinnier. Yet, her voice was still loud. That was the last
time I saw my grand mom, and the good-bye kiss I still
remember. My mother didn’t say a word. I held her hands
and saw tears in her eyes. She endured so much agony
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since my father left home. Her life rendered for her
children. I didn’t know what to say to her.
I whispered to my wife about my letter in the handle of
the bag, and she told me that she had a letter for me in the
can of shrimp sauce. Hiding a letter in shrimp sauce, a
viscous and smelly thing, what an idea! I saw tears in her
eyes when I kissed her good bye. Fifteen minutes was
over. Everyone stood lazily to lengthen the time of goodbye! Cadres called campers to get in line quickly and came
back into the camp for other group. I carried two bags of
supplies slowly going to the line. My wife turned away
hiding her tears. The excitement of waiting was given up
for the sadness of good-bye. Campers walked toward the
camp with their heads turning back until going through the
front gate –the door that separated the two prisons: the
prison for campers in re-education camp and the prison for
the people in social-socialism.
Not enough cadres to do their work, they allowed some
campers team leaders to check our stuffs. I set separately
everything on the floor. The cadre only watched for a
camper who took up and put down each item. I worried
about the letter of my wife, but everything was over.
My wife had written a ten pages letter a week before
seeing me. She said she would not have chance to say to
me in front of my family about things that happened for her
after coming home from the Chu Van An High School.
That had been happening generation to generation in
Vietnamese families! The contrariety between family of
husband and wife was the main topic in many families.
Vietnamese people often lived three generations under one
roof. The contradiction of each other could not avoided,
especially when a wife, a stranger, living alone in the
family of her husband. The problem between a woman and
the so-called “mother-in-law” and “sister-in-law” happened
long time ago, continued until recently and for how long
more? I had known that and tried to have my own house.
Yet, when she came back to my mother’s house, everything
happened like it used to be, even worse because I was not
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home. The most difficult for her was that in the new
society, being an employee of the old regime, she could not
find a job. She had to rely on my family and shared their
poverty. In addition, due to the old ethical behavior and
custom of Vietnamese, a married woman had to live in her
husband’s family when he gone; she could not be doing
otherwise.
She didn’t clearly say about the situation of my family
but wrote that she had to get in long lines to buy rice and
other necessary things for the family. My son still had
enough milk mixed with thin rice, and although my grand
mother liked coffee with milk, she had to drink black
coffee saving milk for my son. Not only in the camp but
also in the society everyone lied. The country was tattered;
the people were so poor. But everyone had to say that our
country was rich and beautiful; our difficulty was only
temporary! (Temporary for how long or forever?) I knew
about my family and didn’t ask for anything. I didn’t want
to be a “heavy burden” for them. Their supply helped me
to survive but was anguish for them because they had to
give me their already small rations. I was not able to
imagine about a country in which the people had to stay
days after days in lines only to buy necessities for their
lives. That was a precise proof for the statement “don’t
hear what the Communists say, watch carefully what they
do.”
That night I could not sleep thinking of my family,
thinking of what to write to my wife. What would I write
except to calm her and to love her? I didn’t know whether
my love was her happiness or her despair? At twenty-five
years old, she had to suppress her desire, living alone,
raising her son, and waiting for a distant and desperate
love, what a tricky circumstance! In her letter, she wrote
that she was very happy having my love; she wanted to
wait for me three years, but what if that should be not
“three-years”. She didn’t know what would happen for her
if we were going to see each other again only when our hair
turned gray or white! How could I reply to her when I
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didn’t believe in what “they” said? My life was over, what
about hers? I didn’t want to be selfish, but what should I
say? I always remembered that “to lose the country to the
Communists is to lose everything.” Yet, I knew that she
would not leave me until she had no hope, or until I died. I
thought of the death as a release for my agony and for her
life.
I thought of everything but wrote only what happened
in my mind when I saw her. Seeing her holding my son, I
knew she was happy because her son was what she used to
wish for.
September 2nd was the Independence Day of the VC;
they didn’t have a ceremony because they were so busy
with the last day of our visit. I didn’t expect anyone
anymore and just stayed at my place reading and rereading
the letter. Around noon, they called Diep to receive some
more supplies. He told me that I got a small package in his
bag. My wife sent me some dried noodles, and most
importance was her letter in the package. I found her letter
inside dried noodles. She wrote that she was trembling and
sweating seeing I came up from the camp. She thought that
I was from the hell, and that she didn't know if she would
be able to see me again. On the way home, someone joked
that whoever kissed his wife should be punished; she asked
me whether or not I was punished? She wanted to
overcome any difficulty waiting for me.
I loved her so much but didn’t want to let her down.
On the other hand, she was living in hope and happy with
her son. I didn't want to destroy her dream. People said
that to live is to hope; she was living. In my letter, I wrote
that I would love her in any circumstance even if she left
me! I wanted her not to waste her life waiting for me.
Deep down in my mind, I still wanted to be with her.
Although I didn’t believe in the three years as the
Communists said, I still hoped that would be true. Two
opposite states in my mind made me could not have any
decision.
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The visiting time was over; we sat together when some
empty buses came into the camp. Since the so-called
“victims of the old regime” filled some houses in the zone
A, we were waiting for a move! We didn’t expect that
would happen so close to the visiting day. Our stuffs were
bulky. We needed to pack them although no one said
anything yet.
About ten o’clock that evening, Tu Diep and Bay Soi,
told us ready for moving. Only some campers working in
the kitchen stayed some days before handing over to the
new campers. We were ready, but didn’t know where we
were going. One group had moved to the Thu Duc camp
some days ago! We were not different? My wife said that
Linh, my brother-in-law had moved away from the Thu
Duc camp to a camp in North Vietnam. We would replace
the campers in the Thu Duc camp, perhaps. Some days
earlier, the warden let us watch a movie named “Our
Story” to show life of a camper in the camp in North
Vietnam. I thought they wanted us ready for our lives in
coming days. I didn’t worry about anything because at
least I had already seen my family. I would accept
anything to happen as a certain matter.
Around midnight, we moved out of the Long Thanh
camp after one year two months and eighteen days staying
there.
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20. The Thu Duc Camp
Part 3
The Thu Duc Camp
Chapt. 20 - The Thu Duc Camp
The first sense when coming to the Thu Duc camp was
that I was truly imprisoned! The camp used to be the
detention center for women inmates in the Republic of
Vietnam period. It had been founded from French
Colonial, I didn’t know, but it was well constructed.
Fifteen months in the Long Thanh camp, the VC didn’t
lock the cells, but in the Thu Duc camp, the first thing they
did was to lock the cell-door behind our backs.
The camp was located in the township of Thu Duc, ten
miles from Saigon. The concrete wall with barbed wire on
top surrounded the camp. There were two guarding posts
at both sides of a steel front door and a blockhouse at every
corner of the wall. The large yard behind the front door
came to a concrete wall, which separated the yard and the
prison inside. There was only a small door at that wall.
Some compartments at the corner of the yard were used as
the offices for cadres and the warden. Beyond the wall was
a narrow gorge about four-foot wide with high walls on
both side; it looked like a communication trench.
First, they sent me into a cell in the zone B. The
campers stayed on two concrete stages about four feet high
by the walls. A passage in the middle was a walkway.
Walls surrounded the small yard in front of that cell.
Therefore, we only saw each other in the cell. Forty
campers lived in the cell having a restroom with two toilets
flushed by water and a shower. It was cleaner than the
latrine at the Long Thanh camp at least.
Some days later, I was moved to the cell 4 in the zone
A; I was ready for a big move!
The octagonal shape of the cell 4 made it looked like a
church. Some said that it used to be a praying house for
Catholic nuns, and the Thu Duc camp used to be a
seminary.
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The cell 4 held about four hundred campers. We slept
on concrete floors three feet higher than the walkways in
between. A large bathroom having four toilets, two
showers and a faucet located at the right side of the cell.
There were many window frames all around the cell with
steel bars and an only door in front coming to a large yard
next to the door to the front yard of the camp. Three other
cells across from the cell 4 were belonging to zone A, so
we could see other campers in those cells. We were
waiting for transferring to other camp. The Thu Duc camp
was only a transition station. We didn’t do anything except
some volunteer chipped firewood for the kitchen.
Every morning, cadres came to the cell opened the
door, stood at the doorway, and we sat at our places
counting in turn from one to the end of the campers in the
cell. We had only half an hour for sunbath and workout
and then came back into the cell to hear someone reading
newspaper until lunchtime. After lunch, we could sleep or
do anything in silence. In the afternoon, we took our turn
to take showers and washing. After dinner, cadres came to
check us in; sometimes we got in line in the yard, other
time, we sat at our places to count in turn.
When we came to the Thu Duc camp, they had moved
two groups out to the camp in North Vietnam. They were
the campers from the Long Thanh camp: the first group left
the camp some weeks after coming to Long Thanh, and
other group was just left Long Thanh some weeks ago. I
heard that they came to the Nam Ha camp in North
Vietnam.
This time was our turn!
Besides not doing anything, we got rather good meals
everyday with rice and soup of tomato or gourd and a little
meat and fat. We told each other that they "fed” us before
sent us doing hard labor! That was a joke, but not far from
reality.
About ten days later, some other campers include the
rest of the campers in the Long Thanh camp filled most of
the cells. Cadres came to the cell 4 and named the campers
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who were going to be moved. The others came to the zone
C. I was in the group ready for leaving.
We didn’t do anything from that day on, only gathered
to say about our future camp!
Two days later, a cadre called Tuan and me for
interrogation, and then we moved to another cell because
that night they transferred the campers to the camps
LaoKai and Quang Ninh in North Vietnam.
Chapt. 21 - I Was Staying for Interrogation!
Actually, there was nothing special about the Thu Duc
camp because that was only a transition station!
When Tuan and I stayed for interrogation, we were
moved to the zone B.
Except the zone A having four cells with a common
yard, the others separated by walls. Campers in different
houses would not be able to see each other except when
they came to the kitchen to get meals or drinking water.
Yet, there would always be cadres or rivals going along
with campers.
Campers in the Thu Duc camp included criminal
inmates, “reaction organizations” the people who went
against the Communists after April 30th 1975, boat people
who were caught trying to escape from the country,
millionaires who were caught when the VC knocked down
wealthy people in the campaign to destroy capitalists, and
personnel of the old regime. They held different kinds of
camper in different zone. Zone A was reserved for
temporary campers waiting for transfer. Zone B kept
personnel of the old regime and millionaires and zone C
criminal inmates, “reaction organizations”, and boat
people. I didn’t know how many campers in the Thu Duc
camp.
The zone B was a house having two cells with a front
yard surrounding by walls. About a hundred campers
stayed there. They had been transferred from the Long
Thanh camp a year ago. Some of them used to be high
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rank personel of South Vietnam Government such as Cang,
the former commissioner of the Central Intelligence
Organization, Trang, the chief of A8, Luong, chief of A10,
Viep and Nhu, the judges of the Supreme Court of Saigon.
In the first cell, most of the campers were personnel of
South Vietnam Government and some millionaires such as
the pharmacist La Thanh Nghe, the “king of barbed-wire”
Tran Kim Qui. The campers used to be in police and
intelligence service stayed in the second cell.
We didn’t do anything, and for some reason that I
didn’t know; the warden seemed to be easier on us. They
didn’t lock the cell until six p.m. and let us wander in the
yard, cooking, and exercising.
The interrogation happened for nearly two months.
First I had to see the VC everyday to write and rewrite
what they wanted to know. Later, they only saw me once
or twice a week, and then they no longer called me. I
thought the interrogation was over!
They asked me everything I knew about the “Third
Power”, whom I had followed from 1970 to 1972 before I
worked for A17 mission. Some of them worked for the VC
such as Mrs. Ngo Ba Thanh, the congresswoman of VC’s
assembly. They used to mix up the rear helping the VC to
conquer South Vietnam. I didn’t like them because they
stood in between to gain benefit of both sides.
I knew very little about the Third Power because I only
shadowed them as a reporter for the Saigon Post
Newspaper. I only knew about their outer side! Mrs. Ngo
Ba Thanh graduated Law degree from the University of
Sorbonne, France; her husband, Mr. Ngo Ba Thanh was a
veterinary doctor, professor of the College of Vet, Forest
and Agriculture. Lawyer Tran Ngoc Lieng used to be the
Minister of the Department of Internal Affair in the First
Republic of Vietnam. General Duong Van Minh, a leader
of the Committee of the South Vietnam Armed Forces,
who had overthrown the President Ngo Dinh Diem of the
First Republic of Vietnam. All of them used to be in high
positions in South Vietnam. They discontented with the
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21. I was staying for interrogation
president Nguyen Van Thieu, or for any other reasons that I
didn’t know, had combined with the Buddhist monks of the
An Quang Pagoda to form the so-called “The Third Power”
to go against the Government of RVN.
I thought the VC had known everything I wrote for
them because they already had the people who mingled in
the Third Power. The people in the “third power” had
helped the VC to conquer South Vietnam recently; I didn’t
know why the VC asked me about them. Whether the VC
suspected them or wanted to have proof to put them down,
the VC always did like that with anyone who was not
Communist. It was very stupid to think that they could get
a high position in the Communist Regime without joining
Communists Party. Even if they joined the Communists
Party, they should be only at a low rank; how could they
have a high position as they had been in South Vietnam
Government? The VC just temporarily used them for
getting sympathy with the people; and then removed them
when they no longer needed.
Two more transfers happened after that, but Tuan and I
still stayed in the Thu Duc camp. Two months later we
moved to the zone D.
Chapt. 22 - The Zone D
We included about one hundred campers mostly from
the Long Thanh camp. They divided us into two teams:
team one for those who used to work in RVN government
and team two for those who used to be in the Police Force
and the Central Intelligence Organization. Some others
were caught in the campaign of the VC to defeat the
capitalists such as the pharmacist Nghe, and the King of
Barbed Wire Quy staying in the team one.
The zone D located at the end of the camp in the area
about one acre surrounding by four walls. One side was
the zone C, one the zone B, and two others a plain area that
separated the camp to people living around.
Two
blockhouses stood at two corners between the zone D and
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22. Zone D
the zones B and C. The two three-foot doors, one opened
to the area outside of the camp and the other to the zone C
and the kitchen.
Two houses in the zone D stood parallel with the wall
separated the zone B. The house in the middle was the cell
for the campers who worked in the kitchen and in the
Rivals’ Committee, and the other close to the wall was the
cell for us. Both were brick houses with tile roof and tile
floor.
We stayed in the second house having a concrete front
patio fenced by barbed wire. I stayed in the cell 2. It was a
room about twenty four feet wide by eighty feet long with a
restroom at one end. The room looked new; it looked like
the warehouse had been remodeled to become the cell. The
floor and paint were new. We set our mats on the floor for
our living spaces. Three rows of mats separated by two
spaces that used as the walkways. We stretched strings
from wall to wall along the walkways to hang our curtains.
We put our personal belongings at our places. The room
looked like a temporary shelter.
I set my poncho under my mat to prevent the moisture
from the floor as usual, and put my kit bag by the wall. My
place was next to the doorway, so I could see outside of the
cell even when the door was closed. It was a sliding steelbar door.
Cadres used Uyen as team leader of team two. They
divided team into three groups, and Don, Tuan, and I were
group leaders. The most difficult for me was that the
campers in my group were mostly my former chiefs. Yet
in the Thu Duc camp, we didn’t have much of labor; the
formation of groups was just for our daily activities.
Cadres didn’t close the cell door at daytime and
allowed us to stay inside the fence. We sat about two hours
a day listening to the newspapers such as “Popular”,
“Popular Armed Forces”, “Liberation of Saigon”, and
sometimes the magazine “The Youth”. News in those
newspapers and magazine were mostly about the victories
of the VC in economy and politics. They locked the door
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22. Zone D
at about six p.m.; we had a meeting in groups and team
after dinner. Team leader informed things that the cadre
wanted us to know about.
Some months later, they gave us a television. We had
the chance to see their entertainers. They usually dressed
Vietnamese blouses, black trousers and striped scarves.
Singers sang in fast tempo and high pitch. News was
usually about their successes in agricultures, economies,
and politics. Soviet Unions’ movies aimed at the defeat
the Capitalism and the Feudalism.
The idleness in the Thu Duc camp made days to
become longer! We killed our time playing Chinese Chess,
writing imaginary recipes, cooking, and gathering to drink
tea and chatting. I spent most of my time to draw.
Sometimes, I volunteered to chip firewood in the kitchen in
order to get rice-crust. Late 1976, we cultivated the land
behind the camp. We grew pumpkin, green cabbage, and
water morning glory. The land about an acre for a hundred
campers, we only worked in the morning.
The VC allowed us to see our families in the Tet 1977.
My mother, my wife, and my son came to visit me in
twenty minutes. The camp was only ten miles from my
home. They said that they were glad and hoped to see me
again. My wife still stayed home to raise my son and to
help my mother. My son didn’t let me hold him, and my
mother remained in silence as usual. That Vietnamese
New Year we had many things for our celebration, but no
one could enjoy it because we all thought of our family not
far away. The closer to our home we stayed, the more
homesick we had.
In March 1977, many youngsters came to fill out the
zone B. They were unmannerly children whom their
families sent for re-education and urchins who had been
caught in the campaign of the VC to clean up the streets.
The VC called them the leftovers of the Americans and the
old-regime. After that, lots of bricks were transported into
the camp. We piled them along the zones C and D. They
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22. Zone D
were ready for more constructions but I didn’t witness that
because I had to move to the Tan Lap camp not long after.
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Part 4
The Tan Lap Camp
Chapt. 23 - The trip to hell
On Saturday April 16th 1977, we didn’t have “labor” as
usual. A cadre came into the cell in early morning and
called all campers to bring everything to the yard for a
routine check. In the Thu Duc camp, we were usually
ready for a change after they checked our stuffs. We
brought our belongings to the yard, set out separately
everything on the ground and waited for cadres or the
Rivals. By the regulation of the camp, we could not keep
any sharp or pointed thing for safety, could not have dried
food, salt, and pepper to prevent escape. They said that
dried food and salt were the reserve for escapee, and
pepper was used as the deviation the course of police dogs.
Yet “they” would confiscate anything they wanted. We hid
“illegal” things somewhere or left them in the room for
later use, and if we were moved, those things would be left
for others. Cadres and the Rivals knew that, so they
searched carefully everywhere in the yard and in the cell.
But how could they find everything?
I was just over a cold (a kind of typhoid fever) some
days ago and lost lots of hair! A camper physician named
Ton That Hung treated me by acupuncture, steam bath and
some Tylenol. Someone said that Ton That Hung was a
fake physician because he didn’t have Hue accent though
his last name was Ton That, the name of a royal family in
Central Vietnam, and he looked too young for the age of
fifty. He showed me a diplomat having his name Ton That
Hung, a physician graduated from the University Of Lyon,
France, and an Acupuncture Certificate from Tokyo, Japan.
I didn’t know if he was fake or not, but in that situation, I
did not have any choice except to give my life to him. I
saw Ton That Hung when coming back to Thu Duc camp
five years later; he was then not a doctor any longer but a
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23. The trip to hell
camper like the others. He was released in 1985 after ten
years only by using fake document.
That morning, I thought of a transfer because I heard
that new campers came to the Thu Duc camp from
yesterday. Since I was staying in the Thu Duc camp for
interrogation after my friends had been moved away in
1976, I was always ready. Three years of re-education was
meaningless for me. In the notice of “the Party and the
State” about the policy for the personnel of “pseudogovernment” and “pseudo-armed-forces”, they said that we
had to make progress in a three-year period in order to have
their clemency! I thought that they were playing words
again. I did not know how long I should be in the camp,
and how long I should be able to endure? I just wanted my
family to forget me as if I had been dead on the day of
“revolution”. A month, a year, then three years, and how
many more years should I have to stay in the camp? I
didn’t like to stay at the Thu Duc camp because it was too
close to my home. I didn’t want to create a hope for my
family and then they should be disappointed at the truth.
Moving far away should be a solution. With that thinking,
I brought my stuff to the yard without worry.
Dan, a camper in the Rival Committee, was watching
when four cadres checked carefully everything after
searched the campers from head to toe! That was the first
time they did it so thoroughly. And then, another cadre
came with a paper named the campers. Those who were
called stayed outside; the others came back to the cell. In
the list, there was a camper who was too sick, so the cadre
called another camper to replace him. Some of my friends
such as Tuan, Hanh, Loc, Trung, Vinh, Tam, stayed
outside, but some others having high positions such as
Cang (the former commissioner), Luong (chief of A10),
and Trang (chief of A8) came back to the cell.
They sent us to the zone A, locked into the cell close to
the gate. From there, I could see new campers in other
cells. Their pale skin and long hair looked like people in
jungle. Most of them were young. I heard a melancholy
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23. The trip to hell
voice from somewhere singing repeatedly the theme --In
the winter morning, the young soldier holds the bars of the
cell looking forward and whispering that I am kept in
prison because I didn’t want to kill, we are far away from
each other because I dare not to kill--. Vinh, my used to be
young agent, shouted asking where they from, and I heard
an answer, Tay Ninh! I thought they had been kept in the
secret zone D of the VC and were moved to the Thu Duc
camp to go to somewhere else with us. The Thu Duc camp
was only a transition location. I didn’t think the VC should
keep us so close to Saigon like that. Yet the main question
was where and when they were going to move us? I often
thought of an island or a jungle or North Vietnam. I still
hoped that would be somewhere in South Vietnam; at least
I was still in my “country”. I could not think of North
Vietnam as my country though it is a part of Vietnam.
Fabric-helmets, green-uniforms, bicycles, and furious faces
of the people in that part of Vietnam were so strange! In
the war, we confronted the VC but we didn’t hate them; we
were not angry with them. When talking about their
leaders, we also used polite words. To the contrary, they
gave more vindictive hatred at us as if they would kill us
right away if they could. They learned hatred since their
childhood.
The images of North Vietnam children in
uniforms with red-scarf always haunted my mind. How
would my son be in that kind of society? Even in the war, I
just wanted a society of kindness, not the one of grudge.
The song that someone was repeatedly singing reminded
me of the society. “Because I didn’t want to kill, I am kept
in prison.” What tragic!
Our former commanders, Cang and Trang, brought
lunch and dinner for us. They didn’t talk to us only gave us
a sorrowful look. Staying campers knew about their
situations at least, and leaving campers had to accept
whatever would happen for them in their new situations. I
had to accept everything to happen for me because I gave
up my own life in my enemies’ hands. My better way
should be quietly stand any hardship, even death if
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necessary. I thought of a theory of the Buddhism that “our
lives in this world were just temporary, our deaths were our
return” and calmed myself with that thinking.
Around midnight, a cadre came to our cell waked us up
to prepare for the move. I was ready but didn’t think it
would happen so fast. I put my clothes, mosquito’s curtain,
and blanket in the military kit bag, some food left from my
recent visit such as a can of sugar, a can of husked-riceflour, and some dried meat in two small pockets of the bag.
I tied my poncho at the side of the bag; the military can of
water at the other side, the folded-sedge-mat over the top,
and then tied up the bag’s lid. I made it as neat as possible
look like a soldier ready for a campaign. I tried the bag
over my shoulders and put it back on the floor waiting.
Everyone in the cell was ready. The light in the yard
was brightened. Cadres moved and talked noisily outside.
I heard the sounds of cars. About an hour later, three
cadres came to our cell named the campers. We came out,
got on the line and followed the two armed-cadres through
the small door to the front yard. They cuffed two campers
together by a primitive-handcuff. With the cuffs without
chain, our hands were unable to move easily. That was the
first time I was cuffed, but I didn’t think of anything and
didn’t even feel ashamed. I accepted as a certain matter,
and even worse. We climbed onto the bed of the Molotova
trucks. Two armed-cadres sat at the rear. We waited until
four hundred ten campers came. The convoy moved out of
the Thu Duc camp at about four o’clock in the morning of
April 15th 1977. I had stayed in that camp for seven
months twelve days.
The convoy with a small car leading left the camp in
early morning, but some people already biked in the street.
Some campers in my truck threw something to the street,
and I found out later that they sent home their letters. I
didn’t know whether or not the letters came to their home,
but that was careless because they could not avoid
punishments if cadres found out.
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23. The trip to hell
That time, the convoy didn’t hide its route and
straightened to the New Port about fifteen miles north from
the Thu Duc camp.
We were released from the handcuffs and boarded the
ship named “Song Huong” (Perfume River). Some said
that it used to be the ship named “Vietnam Thuong Tin”,
which had brought back a number of escapees from the
island of Guam. Four hundred and ten campers stayed in a
hold full of coal-dust. The hold was about 1,500 square
feet and 12 feet high with an opening about twenty by
twenty feet above. By the wall in the middle of the hold,
they set a latrine by wood frame cover with sedge-mats.
The toilet was a table with a small hole on the surface and a
bucket underneath. We had to set our mat on the steel floor
for our places, but in the small room like that, everyone had
to crowd together. I was boarding early and took a place
on the top of a bundle of coal-bags in the corner. That
should be my look because after a day floating on the
ocean, excrement spread all over the floor. A small bucket
could not hold the excrement of four hundred and ten
campers!
They gave us instant noodle for food and water by a
rope from above over the hole. I suddenly remembered the
animals in the Saigon Zoo. We looked like animals in a
cave. The worse was that so many of us in a dirty small
space; meanwhile a few animals lived in a cleaner cave. I
could not eat anything because I was so tired and it was
smelly! Whenever I was hungry, I gnawed some dried
noodle and sip a little water. I tried to avoid going to the
latrine as much as possible. I didn’t want to step on the
floor full of filth!
The ship left the port when it was bright. Tuan and I
played a guessing game about our destination. I said
somewhere in North Vietnam, but Tuan said Con Non
Island where used to be the prison for serious crimes and
political prisoners. I didn’t know why I thought of North
Vietnam. I heard my friends had moved to North Vietnam
perhaps.
Since Tuan and I have been held for
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interrogation, three more groups of campers moved to
North Vietnam, so this time was not so different. Some
others joined our game. After our lunch when the sun was
over the west, we watched the course of clouds and the
shadow of the sun and found out that the ship headed north.
Everyone was desperate!
Four hundred and ten campers included about fifty
from the D zone of the Thu Duc camp, those who used to
work for South Vietnam government, South Vietnam
Police Forces, Intelligence Services, and about fifty from
the C zone, those who participated in the organizations to
go against the VC after April 30th 1975 such as
“Recovering the Country Forces” of Catholic, Cao Dai and
Hoa Hao Religious Sects. The rest were from Tay Ninh
including Police officers from sergeant to lieutenant. We
were going to North Vietnam, a totally strange region. We
had heard a lot about North Vietnam, about the poverty of
that part of Vietnam, about the so-called “iron and blood”
of the Communists. This time we had a chance to see the
truth.
That evening, the ship swung back and forth as if
sailing in a strong storm. Some got seasick and vomited all
over the floor that mixed with dung and urine overflowing
from the latrine produced a nausea smell. Someone tried to
clean up, but that made the floor nastier. Some places in
the hold close to the latrine had spilled all over and the
campers moved to the higher places. The hold became
cramped. No one could sleep.
I sat with my arms clasping my knees thinking of my
wife and my son. How would they be when they knew that
I was moving to nowhere? The last time seeing my son, he
didn’t let me hold him! I wanted to see the pictures of
them but couldn’t because I had to share room for my
friends, no more room to open my bag. In addition, I
didn’t want to do that in front of my friends. We were
thinking of our families, but had to hide it one way or
another.
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23. The trip to hell
Suddenly, I heard a voice singing the song “Far away”.
Everyone listened to that song. “Waiting for you for a
couple of years, or for my whole life, until my hair was
gray, I just want to see you once.” The song was written
for a wife having a soldier husband in war, but in this
situation, the lyric of that song became more suitable than
ever. The camper who sang that song was Ho, in the group
of the campers from Tay Ninh. Ho was not a good singer;
his voice was also not polished, but melancholy. He had a
woman appearance with his graceful gait. We called him
“sister Ho” later, but in our lives together; he had more will
than we thought.
When Ho ended his song, many others joined him and
sang in turn the “yellow songs” that were forbidden for a
long time. Some drummed spoon on the mug to keep pace
with the songs. The crowd began to gather around Ho.
Nearly two year from the day of “revolution”, I was
listening excitedly to the familiar songs. Everyone seemed
to forget the tragic situation! No one was a good singer;
there was no musical instrument, yet the old songs seemed
to be absorbed thoroughly into our mind. Approaching
“revolutionary songs” everyday, we loved to hear the softly
streams of the “yellow music” to calm our souls and to
remind us of our old days. No one dared to sing those
songs in the camps because no one wanted to get punished.
Yet in that concrete situation, no one cared about “the
policies of the VC!”
The crowd became gradually sparse. Suddenly a group
of campers fought and screamed from the other side of the
hold where settled the campers from the zone C. Everyone
was watching the fight, but no one interfered. The young
campers in the group of “Recovering the Country Youth
Forces” beat a camper whom they believed to be “antenna”
in the zone C. The so-called “antennae” was the camper
who reported to the cadres acts of the others. Sometimes
the camper was suspected an “antenna” just because he was
a group leader and not wise enough to satisfy everyone,
other time, he wanted to make progress for coming home
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soon. Living in the camp was not easy because we had to
confront everyday with many kinds of people. Besides, we
had not to be a target for cadres. I chose “to hold my
breath cross the river” since the beginning but could not
believe that I would satisfy everyone. I was always careful
when hearing that someone was “antenna”. Some hated the
other and spoke ill of him, or was it true! Who knew?
Three campers named Long, Tri, and Dung came to
look for Uyen and Don. They said that Uyen and Don were
the “antennae” in the D zone. I didn’t know exactly about
Uyen and Don, but I thought they were at least educated,
Uyen was graduated from the College of Letters, and Don
was an architect. I didn’t think they would easily become a
“hunting dog” for the Communists. Yet, who knew? Tuan
and I told them not to do that because we didn’t know
exactly about Uyen and Don yet. Besides, what would
happen because we were still in the camp?
The fight interrupted the “yellow music”; the campers
came back to their place. No one could sleep. I closed my
eyes relaxing. After coming into the camp, I tried to
practice a little of Yoga. Every night before sleep, I
usually sat in lotus style. Two hands put on my knees. My
eyes closed, and tried to think of nothing separating myself
from my situations. Sometimes I felt feather light as if I
could fly away from the earth like a bird in the field full of
flowers, or dreamed of my childhood going to school
surfing on the street with the wings on my feet. Waking
up, I tried to analyze my dreams and thought that was just a
dream of freedom.
Early morning, the hold became nastier when it rained.
Campers used everything possible to cover their stuffs.
Raindrops added with dung and urine to form slimy
puddles on the floor. Campers huddled in their places
trying not to go without necessity. Campers took turn to
collect food and water. Even though we were so tired and
hungry, no one could eat or sleep! I didn’t know if worse
thing would happen in North Vietnam, but I hoped that I
would come there faster to avoid this tragic.
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23. The trip to hell
Around noon, the ship stopped. Some campers who
used to be in South Vietnam Naval Forces said that it
landed some where in Central Vietnam, could be Cam
Ranh or Da Nang, because it was too early to come to
North Vietnam. I could not know if that was true, but I
still hoped that we would stay in Central Vietnam. We
readied to leave the ship. At least we were no longer in the
filthy hold!
We were waiting, waiting, and waiting until dark. It
still rained but gradually sparser. They didn’t give instant
noodle but some watermelons for our dinner. Without
knife, we broke them into pieces on the floor. Skins of the
melon threw into dirty puddle to create even more
disgusting for the hold. Yet the campers believed that they
should leave there soon and paid no attention about that.
When it was totally dark, they opened the cover of the
hold and sent down a ladder. We climbed onto the deck. I
saw some small islands from the distance and some boats
with the sails having many rolls, the special sails of North
Vietnam and knew that we arrived the North Vietnam Gulf.
No more South Vietnam, no more Central Vietnam, we
came to North Vietnam, to the center of the Communists of
Vietnam! Everyone was desperate.
Another group of campers climbed onto the deck on
the other side of the ship. We hadn’t known about another
hold in the ship. We stood in a two-row line and a cadre
cuffed two campers standing next to each other before
landing. My right hand was cuffed to the left hand of
Nghiep, and we walked on two wooden boards from the
ship to the quay. With a handcuff without chain on the
hands of two people, when one person was moving his
hand, other had to move his hand in the same movement if
he didn’t want to hurt himself. Nghiep and I difficultly
moved on the bridges. They recalled later that when
landing, a couple in the other group fell into the sea and
disappeared. Some said that they killed themselves, but I
thought that one camper slipped and pulled along the other;
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they could not pick themselves up with the handcuff and
their heavy bundles on their shoulders.
A line of motor-coaches waited for us on the port.
Nghiep and I took our seats in the middle of the first car. It
was about six p.m., but the sky was dark because it was
still raining. In April, it was still cold with drizzle and
North Wind, which I used to read in many books about
North Vietnam. I sat on the driver side by the window and
looked at the outside. The port was totally deserted. The
broken quay seemed to have experienced numerous
bombardments. Lights of sailing boats in the bay flickered
from a distance. The silhouettes of the islands looked like
monsters rising up from the ocean. That was a beautiful
spot of Vietnam, but we could not enjoy it!
Cadre gave each of us a loaf of bread. The convoy
started around midnight. The VC was familiar with dark
activities; they usually moved us at midnight!
The city of Hai Phong was near by. The convoy drove
into that city, the second biggest city of North Vietnam. I
saw many thatched cottages intermingled with bricked
houses. Some houses had half brick half thatch; the street
scattered of potholes: the traces of destruction from the
war. The city was so dark. A few old oil lamp poles from
the period of French colonization still existed. I saw the
only cafe shop having florescent lights. The cadre
reminded us to close the windows to avoid people throwing
stones at us! Yet, I didn’t see many people in the street
except for some children who indifferently looked at the
convoy. Some people rode bicycles full of bundles. The
city was quiet.
The convoy got out of the city in a few minutes. I
thought that was only the edge of the city. I tried to watch
the activity of the people in North Vietnam but saw
nothing. Feeling tired and hungry after two days on the
ship, I fell asleep after had a bit of bread and water.
I woke up when the car was driving in the forest.
Some people pushed their pack-bicycles full of firewood on
the roadside. The first time I saw the so-called pack-
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bicycle of North Vietnamese. That kind of bicycle had
only a frame and two wheels. People used a long stick tied
at the handlebar of their bicycle to steer it; they put heavy
stuff on the frame of the bicycle. They could not sit on the
saddle because there was no saddle at all. They had to
walk beside the bicycle and drove it by their left hand and
held the stuff with their right hand. That kind of
transportation had been well known in the Dien Bien Phu
Campaign for transporting weapons and ammunitions to
the battle. Some women carried bundles of alang grass,
firewood, or a basket on their heads or their shoulders. The
poverty in North Vietnam appeared plainly.
It was early morning when the convoy turned right on a
rough track into a forest of Styrax. To the stream, the first
car stopped waiting for the convoy, and then the convoy
dived into the stream! The current flowed violently; we
were horrified because we were trapped in the car with the
handcuffs. The drivers drove slowly but easily through the
stream. The convoy crossed three more streams like that
before reached a wide river. The cadre in my car said that
was a branch of the Red River, the largest river in North
Vietnam. I wondered how the convoy could pass the wide
river without a bridge. I thought it would not be as shallow
as a stream! I saw a sloping street toward the bank of the
river. The convoy stopped for about an hour, and then a
ferryboat came from the other side of the river. It was an
old small motorboat pulling a small bamboo raft. It could
carry one car at a time! My car was the first in the convoy,
so it came onto the raft. The river flowed violently; the car
swung on the raft. The boat drove slowly upstream pulling
the car to the opposite bank, and then some people tied a
cable to the raft and pulled it to the bank. The boat then
moved back for another car. Everything happened like an
ancient story! It took more than five hours to do the job.
My right hand was numbed. The cuff was so tight
though my wrist was small. I tried to massage it by my left
hand. Sitting silently beside me, Nghiep seemed to sleep
though I knew he was still awake. I asked the cadre to go
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23. The trip to hell
to take a leak and came to a bush at the pavement. I felt a
little easy after that. People stared at us. Some children
wearing shorts and mended shirts yielded “Nguy, Nguy”
(that word of North Vietnamese to indicate people who
have been working for South Vietnam Government and
Armed Forces), but no one threw stones at us as the VC
had said. Some campers threw a few pieces of bread to the
children; they caught and ate it pleasantly. Some children
even came near the car and took watermelon from the
campers. The cadres had to drive away the children. The
convoy restarted when it was dusk.
Forests after forests, mountains after mountains, and
the convoy crossed many streams. I sat nodding tiredly
and woke up when it was dawn. The car was shaking on
the potholed-asphalted road. Hills of tea-trees by both
sides of the street looked like Da Lat, the central highland
of South Vietnam. Now and then, some groups of people
carrying basket on their back picked tea. They appeared
and disappeared between the straight lines of tea-tree.
Some people rode bicycles on the street. They went to
work for “cooperative” farms perhaps! We heard about the
land reform in North Vietnam in 1955 that there was no
more land for individuals; everything was for common
used. In ten lessons, the VC said that land and tools
belonged to everyone in the society. They called that the
common owner. The people owned everything, but they
had nothing! Their earning depended on how much they
worked. We joked that who worked less would get less,
who worked much would get much, and who worked
nothing would get everything!
The convoy came to a small city in the early morning.
I saw the sign “the people-committee of Phu Tho” hanging
in front of the brick house. Phu Tho was a part of the
province Vinh Phu (including two old provinces: Vinh Yen
and Phu Tho) in the midland of North Vietnam. The
township was small with some brick houses and the rest
were thatch cottages. The fields of manioc and tea-trees
showed plainly the special products of that region. China
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trees lined in the fields and along side of the streets. The
local people used that tree for building their cottages
because it prevented termites by its bitter resin. That
season, China trees bloomed their pale violet flowers. Hills
of fan-palm were another character of countryside in North
Vietnam. South Vietnamese used nipa leaves, a kind of
palm tree grown in water, and North Vietnamese used fanpalm leaves for roofing. Most houses in that region had
earthen walls and a small pond in the front yard. I learned
later that they dug the pond to get soil for the floor and the
walls and the pond for raising fishes.
Over Phu Tho, the convoy turned right on a rough road
into the jungle. The chain of mountains appeared in the
distance. The people of minority groups stared at us. They
were Thai, H’Mong, or Tay, I didn’t know exactly, but they
carried high baskets on their back and scimitars in their
hands. Hills and mountains surrounded small valleys.
Terraced rice fields on the hillsides looked from a distance
like snakes crawling out of their holes. Houses on stilts
with high curved roofs were a character of the mountain
area. Dirty pot-bellied children intermingled with pigs and
chickens were allowed to run freely on the ground. Dogs
snapped lazily at the doorways. Everything curiously
looked at us when the convoy drove by. In that remote
area, cars were very unusual.
Around noon, the convoy crossed the wide and violent
stream named “A Mai” at a place named “Ben Ngoc”,
drove about an hour on the twenty feet wide clay road.
There were more thatch houses by both sides of that road.
A compound with some brick houses were fenced by
bamboo and barbed wire. I saw the sign: “The general
school of agriculture and industry number 1” on the right
side of the road. Children in dirty pale-blue pajamas about
ten to fifteen of age worked in the fields around under the
surveillance of armed men in police uniform. They were
prisoners or students of that “school”! The convoy finally
stopped at the front gate of the camp; we arrived at the
“Tan Lap” re-education camp at Vinh Phu after one and a
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haft day in the cars from Hai Phong port. It was around
noon on Thursday April 21st 1977.
Chapt. 24 - The Tan Lap Camp
Two rows of “cadres” stood in front of the camp! The
yellow uniforms with army rank we hadn’t seen in the
camps in South Vietnam. They un-cuffed and escorted us
into the camp. I saw a banner above the front gate -Welcome to the Socialism of Vietnam.-The Tan Lap re-education camp located in a valley
surrounded by mountains and forests. From the camp, we
would not be able to see the horizon. The only route to the
camp was a twenty feet wide clay road from Ben Ngoc, a
wharf named after an ancient superior who found it. Those
who wanted to go to the camp from Ha Noi had to take a
train to Am Thuong station. The only means from Am
Thuợng to Ben Ngoc was a small hand-rowed boat sailing
along a branch of the Red River, the largest river in North
Vietnam. From Ben Ngoc to the camp they had to walk or
bike.
There were seven camps in the Tan Lap re-education
camp named K’s from K1 to K7. We came to K5, the
central headquarters of the Tan Lap re-education camp.
K1, K2, K3 and K4 were four other large camps and the
others smaller. The first K from the Ngoc dock was K5;
and the last was K1 about ten miles north from K5. K3
was separated from K5 by the A Mai stream. K2 was half
way from K5 to K1, and K4 was about six miles west from
K5. K6 and K7 were the transaction posts receiving
supplies for the camp.
The clay route from Ngoc dock to K5 about ten miles
came through a high slope-street named Trinh slope. The
road from the turning point of the main road to K5 crossed
the field named Mua because plenty of bushes of Mua
growing there. Mua was a kind of myrtle having a palepurple flowers and blue-black berries. A cow-house at that
turning point stood as a landmark separating the land of the
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24. Tan Lap camp
camp with hills and forests near by. From that turning
point to K5 was about half a mile.
The K5 complex of the Tan Lap re-education camp
was divided into two parts: the headquarters and the prison.
The headquarters of K5 was also the headquarters of
the camp. It contained three brick houses used as offices
laying in U shape and four rows of thatched houses for
cadres living single. The nicest house at the bottom of the
U shape stood on a high foundation. It was the office for
the whole camp and for the chief of K5. Two other brick
houses were the offices for the warden and the committee
of cadres of K5. Four other rows of thatched houses in
separated area were the houses for the families of cadres.
The kindergarten for the children of cadres was built next
to the area of cadre’s families. Scattered around the area of
the camp were some thatched cottages called “lot-houses”.
They were used as the working stations for campers and
also the guarding stations at night.
The prison was the square area about fifteen hundred
feet each side surrounded by a brick wall about ten foot
high with barbed wire about five foot high stretched on its
top. By both sides of the wall, except the front wall, was a
deep ditch full of water. The front gate was a two-storied
building with two watch stations by both sides of the
twenty-foot wide gate. The upper level stretching over the
gate was used as the office for the cadres on duty. Four
zones in the camp named A, B, infirmary, and the kitchen
and the hall.
A large yard about an acre beyon the gate used as a
plain view for guarding and a gathering zone for campers.
The zone A at the right corner of the area contained four
brick houses roofed by fan palm leaves and surrounded by
a row of rooms. The houses in the zone A were separated
by an eight-foot high mason walls with fragments of bottle
on the top. There was a locked door on every wall. The
zone B at the left side of the camp included two houses
without fence. At the left side of every house they built a
six-foot-deep underground concrete pool about thirty by
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24. Tan Lap camp
fifty feet holding water bumped from the stream. Each
house contained two cells with four ten-foot-wide
compartments for impounding campers, two storage
compartments at both sides, and two compartments at the
middle for restrooms.
Cells were fifty-by-twenty-foot rooms high about
fifteen feet. A wooden panel door at the end of every cell
could be locked from outside by a latch passing through
steel rings. Fourteen two-row-vertical-steel-bar windowframes in each cell, six by the back wall, six by the front
wall, and two by the side wall were wide open all year
round for ease of security check. Two two-level-wooden
stages framed by L steel were the sleeping places for the
campers. Those who slept on upper level had to climb on
the steel steps welded to the vertical pole of the frame. The
shelves where the campers put their stuffs set along the
walls above the windows on the upper stages. The campers
who stayed on the lower stage had to put their stuffs on the
shelves in the restroom. The lower stage was elevated
about two feet from the floor and the upper stage about five
feet, so the campers could not stand straight in the lower
stage. A six-foot walkway between two rows of stage
came to the “restroom”. The ceiling was made by bambooknitted wattles with barbed wire hidden above. The only
electric bulb in the middle of the ceiling gave a pale light at
night, but it was replaced by a flickering light of a selfmade kerosene lamp, a cut bottle having a wick hanging
right above kerosene.
The “restroom” was a room about twenty by eighteen
feet with right side was the toilet and left side the storage.
“Toilet” was a concrete latrine high about two feet with
two footed-shapes by both side of a hole. Campers had to
squat on the latrine and defecated through the hole to a
wooden container underneath. Fresh excretes would be
removed the next morning from a small opening outside of
the room and became fertilizer named night-soil! That
was a popular latrine called “three-room latrine” in North
Vietnam. Storage for the campers who lived in lower
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24. Tan Lap camp
stages was set in the front side of the “restroom”. There
were three four-level shelves along side of the walls. The
door of the restroom could not close tightly, so the cell
always smelled.
The infirmary zone had a hundred by twenty five foot
bricked house in the area about six hundred by a hundred
foot at the left side of the camp surrounded by a barbed
wire fence. The gate at the right side of the fence
connected to the garden of herbs in front of the infirmary.
Close to the right side of the house was a pond raising
Tilapia fish. The left side close to zone A was a mulberry
hedge. There was no physician in that infirmary except a
cadre and campers without experience of health care. Most
of medicines were the so-called “populous medicine”,
small balls or powder of dried leaves or dried roots.
The hall, a largest construction in the camp about forty
feet wide, a hundred fifty feet long stood on an earth floor
rimmed by brick straight across from the front gate. It was
roofed by fan palm leaves and walled by soil mixed with
straw. Its window bars were made by bamboo, and a wide
open door paralleled with the front gate. A stage with the
red curtains at the end of the hall indicated that the stage
was made for entertainment, but the hall was empty!
The kitchen zone close to the hall at the left corner of
the camp included two cottages lying in L shape: the cookhouse at the end and the house paralleled with the hall for
warehouse and for delivering meals. The kitchen zone was
enclosed by barbed wire with a wide gate at the left side
and a small gate at the right side. The cookhouse was an
opened cottage with six stoves: three for boiling water and
meals, and three for rice steaming (exactly for cooking
cassava root, or corn, or “Kaoliang”). The only well in the
camp next to the cookhouse was seen plainly from a
distance by a long bamboo crane. They tied a block of
steel at one end of the crane and the other end a rope with a
bucket. In the sunny season, the well was deep, but water
was clear. In the rainy season, it was full with muddy
water. Yet, we had to drink it anyway! A small cottage
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24. Tan Lap camp
close to the cookhouse held a buffalo. The carriage in
North Vietnam was different from that in South Vietnam
by the two wheels: they were car tires instead of wood
rimmed by steel. . They used buffalo instead of cow to pull
the cart, and we called that “buffalo-cart”.
They didn’t search our stuffs and led us straight to the
zone A. I belonged to the first team, so I had to live in the
first cell of the first house. When I came to the cell, Tuan
called me to the place that he had reserved for me close to
his at the upper end corner of the cell. They put a sedge
mat, a mosquito’s curtain, two blue pajamas, and a sedge
helmet at every place. Tuan, Loc, Hanh, and I stayed in
the stage for four people, so we would not scare of the
others who overheard our conversations.
The first thing was bathing and washing my clothes by
the pool at the end of the house. I pulled water from the
pool by a rubber pan tied by a rope. I felt a little relaxed
after that and tried my new pajama on. It was clumsy! The
funniest thing was the sedge helmet. We laughed seeing
each other in those prisoner’s uniforms! We looked like
the laborers in images from China that we used to see. The
blue color of pajama reminded me of the verse of To Huu,
the poet in North Vietnam: “When I was released from
blue pajama, there was no more cuff, chain, and rod.” The
blue pajama for prisoner that To Huu mentioned in his
poem was from the French colonial period, and then the
VC imitated it! The difference was that we were not
“prisoners”; we were “campers” in re-education camp!
Prisoners had their sentences, we didn’t. We had to make
progress in order to come back to society! What funny to
be imprisoned without a sentence.
About 2p.m., some criminal inmates brought lunches
into the “dinning room”, and then cadres called us to have
dinner! That was the most plentiful dinner we ever had: a
pot of rice, a big bow of buffalo meat, a can of soup and a
bowl of pork for six campers. There was something in the
rice that we could not identify. Some said it was a kind of
bean, but we knew later that it was a kind of kaoliang for
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24. Tan Lap camp
domestic animal. Buffalo meat was a tough bit of meat. In
South Vietnam, people rarely ate buffalo meat, but in North
Vietnam, buffalo meat was common. We could not eat the
whole meal, so we kept the excess. It was too early for
dinner but a little late for lunch. Campers waited for dinner
and hoped that we should have another plentiful meal
again. Some campers didn’t even take their excess meal
and said that they would have the meals like that every day.
What funny! Yet, there was nothing more. Cadres locked
the cell around 6p.m., and I fell into a deep sleep soon
after.
The day after, we came to the hall to hear the chief of
the camp, the “comrade” Thuy! He was pale skinny and
about five feet four inches high. The white shirt hanging
out of his yellow trousers looked like a high rank
Communist style. His speech was as fluent as any of the
others! Thuy was the chief of the camp. At first glance, he
looked sympathetic, but with his smile without opening his
lips, talking without opening his teeth, we knew that he was
wicked. With his accent hardly to understand of Nghe
Tinh, the homeland of Ho, he quoted many verses of Ho
Chi Minh in his speech. Yet in general, his speech was just
about the awareness of “the Party and the State” to those
who were guilty to the people. They wanted to move us
closer to the central for ease of our re-education. Then, in
his conclusion he said that who made progress should be
released early. Nothing was new; we heard that over and
over in any camp!
Chapt. 25 - The Hunger Strike
The first two days in the Tan Lap camp were our free
days! We gathered to sing “yellow songs”, had lunches
and dinners, washed, and wandered inside the zone A. We
could not go out of the zone because they closed the doors,
but we could go from house to house to see each other.
The criminal inmates who worked in the kitchen brought us
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25. Hunger strike
meals. Some other inmates in the rivals only watched us
from outside.
On Sunday, April 24th 1977, after the cadre on duty and
an armed cadre opened the cell doors, I heard the screams
from the yard when Tuan, Hanh, and I were drinking tea at
my place. An exited crowd in the front yard was screaming
for a fight. Some campers beat Thuong, the camper of “the
Intelligence Bloc”. They said that Thuong cowered in front
of the cadre on duty when he spoke to the cadre with his
arms folded. After the fight, Thuong’s right hand was
broken! I didn’t see the behavior of Thuong that morning.
He was not my close friend, and he was just an ordinary
camper who chose the way to hold the breath cross the
river. If he folded his arms when speaking with the cadre, I
thought, that was just a habit in the cold weather of North
Vietnam. The youths in “the Recovering the Country
Forces” were patriots, but they were too young to
understand everything. Their resentment against the
Communists pouring onto Thuong was totally unfair.
Cadres and the Rivals took Thuong to the infirmary and
closed the doors separating the houses in the zone A.
Campers began to gather in the cells, and from the second
house I heard the song “Vietnam: the proud country”.
Some campers came to tell Uyen and Binh joining them. A
hundred of campers in two teams stayed in the first cell.
Uyen, camper from zone D of the Thu Duc camp was the
leader of the team one and Binh, camper from zone C of
Thu Duc camp the leader of team two. Except for the
campers at the pool, the campers got together in the cells
and sang “yellow-music” and “struggling-music”.
About ten, four armed cadres and the cadre on duty
came into the zone A escorted some campers to the hall.
They were the campers who beat Thuong that morning
such as Tri, Long, Binh, Dung, and some others. After a
while, they let Long and Dung come back and sent the
others to the K1 for almost three months. Some died there,
and those who survived were in bad shape.
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The inmates brought our lunches to the dinning rooms
as usual, but I heard an order not to eat. I didn’t know who
gave that order. No one dared to go to dinning rooms
because no one wanted to be beaten! Perhaps that was the
first time it happened in the re-education camp. Armed
cadres walked around the zone A but didn’t go in. The
cadre on duty came to see Uyen about the occasion and
some required that their friends had to be back before they
took their meals. The hunger strike began!
The song “Vietnam: the proud country” was repeatedly
sung keeping pace with the claps creating an excitement! I
used to see that familiar momentum in the movements of
the students that induced by the Communists. It happened
right in the camp of the Communists. Even the songs such
as “Get up and marching” and “Voluntary” became a
weapon to go against the Communists. “Who win without
fail? Who was wise without any misery”, or “Being a
human, I should die for my country.” Those words became
suitable more than ever.
Tuan, Hanh, Loc, and I were staying at our places and
drinking tea for our hunger! They didn’t bring our dinners
and still left our lunches in the dinning rooms. At 6p.m.,
the cadre on duty and an armed cadre came to check us in
as usual. We didn’t line up in the front yard and had to sit
at our places to count in turn. The campers sung yellow
music and struggling music until midnight even though
they shut the light early. I didn’t know much about the
songs, so I sang a “post war song” named “Jealous”. That
was only a love song. We got into our curtains at about
midnight. I fell into a tired sleep with my empty stomach.
The hunger strike has begun noisily and then stopped
in quiet!
The Communists isolated without restraining us from
doing anything that we wanted to do. Without a support,
without any organization to lead, the struggle looked like a
small fire, fast burned fast vanished! The VC didn’t need
to crush out the revolt; it would last by itself. I knew that
and waited for the acts of the Communists later.
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25. Hunger strike
The next morning, some armed cadres and the cadre on
duty came to check out the campers. No one said about the
hunger strike. The campers were tired and hungry after a
day without food and a night staying late. When the
inmates brought lunches to the dining rooms, the campers
set their cans and shared their lunches as usual. The hunger
strike stopped easily as it had begun! Some still gathered
to sing yellow songs but could not draw many others.
After a night, everyone realized their danger of his
situation. The Communists did nothing yet, but I wondered
what would happen later. I thought they could not let that
go. Perhaps they had learned about things happening when
they removed the campers who beat Thuong, and they
would wait for it to settle down. Those who were
“famous” in the hunger strike were punished later by some
ways. Some died in other camps and some became
“antennae” even worse than the others.
Chapt. 26 - Labor is “Glorious!”
After the hunger strike, the campers gradually calmed
down! I wandered in the zone A to examine the posters
drawing on the walls. Four notices painted everywhere
including the four standards, the thirty six articles of the
regulation, the twenty statutes of the “new cultural ways of
life”, and the nineteen statutes of the discipline for labor.
The four standards for re-education included four
subjects that every camper had to do in order to have
progress. I couldn’t remember every word, but the tenor
was:
1. Recall totally and truthfully your guilt. Report the
offences of your companions or any counterrevolutionaries whom you knew although they are in the
camp or in the society.
2. Try hard for your re-education; have responsibility
to other campers.
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26. Labor is glorious
3. Obey strictly the regulations and the statutes of the
camp. Don’t speak disapprovingly or do any destructive
act.
4. Work hard in daily labor. Promote your good ideas
to manage the camp, to re-educate the campers, and to
improve the efficiency of the camp.
The rules of the camp included thirty six articles in
four parts: the general, the rules of learning, the rules of
living in the camp, and the rules of labor.
Nineteen articles of the discipline of labor and the
twenty statutes of the so-called “new cultural life” were
developed in detail from the rules of the camp.
The most important was the four standards. Cadres
often said that the campers had to carry out four standards
in order to come back to the society. That made campers
became confused between progress and self-respect. If the
camper followed four standards, he had to go against the
interest of others. What a tactic of the Communists to
separate campers! In that situation, who didn’t want to get
out? Campers were distrust of each other, and that helped
the Communists manage the camp.
On Monday, the cadre came to my cell told Uyen and
Binh, two team leaders, to have ten campers go to get
“improvement carts”! What was “improvement cart”? We
asked each other.
The cadre explained that “improvement cart” was the
means to free our shoulders. We used those carts instead of
carrying bundles on our shoulders. What an explanation!
Yet, we still wondered about the word “improvement”.
What was the improvement? A motor or something was
added to the cart?
We went along with the cadre. To the gate, the cadre
told us to remove our hats; we looked at each other didn’t
say a word, but we felt sorry for the fates of the losers.
It was late of April. The spring in North Vietnam was
still cool. We walked on the muddy clay road alongside the
concrete front wall of the camp. The posters describing the
activities of campers were painted unskillfully on the wall.
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26. Labor is glorious
Pale violet flowers of China trees fell on the ground, and
some buds grew from their bare branches. People named
them “Winter Melancholy Tree” because the trees didn’t
have any leaf in winter.
The so-called “improvement cart” was a barrow having
a wooden box about three by five feet and one and half feet
high with two steel wheels covered by rubber and two long
handles attached to the box. We pulled five carts on the
clay road by the side fence of the camp next to the A-Mai
stream from the headquarters to the brick stove.
A-Mai stream was shallow. The bank of the stream
spread far away. A-Mai was a small stream coming to the
Red River, so its course went up and down along with the
Red River. In rainy season, the course of the Red River
rose up, and sometimes it broke the piers and flooded the
plain of North Vietnam. The cadre said that A-Mai stream
used to be close to the road and flow violently in rainy
days. K3 of the camp appeared beyond the stream. A
bamboo raft driven by an inmate was the only
transportation to go to K3. A steel cable tied to two
concrete columns by both banks and the raft was connected
to that cable by a truckle. The lane from the left side of the
clay road came to the dock where the raft landing. By the
right side of the clay road, I saw two cottages. The cadre
told us that was the lot-house for campers doing carpentry
work. The field behind the camp was deserted with high
grass and wild bushes.
About a mile from the camp, the brick stove rose up
from distance with its earth walls and rusty tin roof. The
ground around the stove looked like an ancient city after
digging for archaeology. A flat yard beside was a place for
making brick.
We drew the carts into the cottage next to the stove.
He told Uyen that he would come tomorrow to take our
team to our first day of labor, and then he escorted us back
to the camp.
Near the stream at the turning point next to the pump,
the cadre allowed us to take a bath for fifteen minutes. We
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26. Labor is glorious
ran into the stream, took off our clothes washing, bathing in
a hurry. It was almost noon but still cool. We had to wear
wet clothes going back into the camp.
Not only us but also other campers were curious about
the word “improvement”.
When they heard our
description, they burst into laughter. From that time, the
word “improvement” became a joke, improvement cart,
improvement meal, improvement clothes, and so on. We
used the phrase “disordered improvement” for those who
collected everything in their sight, and that became familiar
in the re-education camps.
The campers were ready for work. The VC said that
they sent us to a place having good conditions for reeducation with labor. One way or another, we had to work
and work hard. The fine word for “forced labor” --Labor is
glorious! That slogan became familiar to every one in our
country. Not only the campers but also the people in the
socialists’ society knew that “labor is glorious”.
The Communists explained that by labor apes
developed to human, and by labor the people provided
property for the society. The development of the society
depended on the labor of the people. People in Social
Socialism had to work for their lives and for the society. In
re-education camps, labor was a scale to measure the
progress of camper, and they called that re-education with
labor. The explanations were about to force everyone to
work! Yet, what would we do except to do what the
Communists told us? To go against their orders meant to
die early. The only way was to accept our situation looking
for a way to survive. When we could avoid working, we
joked that “labor is glorious, but idleness is wonderful!”
The clank woke us up as usual. After checked out the
campers, the cadre on duty told us to get breakfast and
ready for work. Except the sick or the camper on duty to
clean up the cells, the others had to get in line going to the
gathering yard. The small boards with the number of team
were already embedded there. The campers in a team
squatted down in two lines. There were also two teams of
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26. Labor is glorious
criminal inmates. They looked dirty and languorous.
Seeing them and thinking of myself, I shivered! How long
would that prisoner pajama last, and how long would I be
able to stand?
A cadre in police uniform with his rank of pre-captain,
three stars and a stripe, the deputy in charge of K5 named
Bang said some words. Nothing was new! The campers,
the criminals of the Party and the State had to be reeducated. The Party and the State sent us to the reeducation camps to have better means. In order to come
back home, the campers had to make progressive. In three
main topics for re-education, learning, labor, and obeying
the statute of the camp, labor was the most importance.
Campers had to work hard because that was the scale to
measure the progressive. Like other cadres, Bang fluently
repeated what he has been stuffed into his head.
Bang was about mid-forty, his Nam Dinh accent with
the sound of “n” instead of “l” proved that his origin was a
poor peasant, the major class of the VC. I heard that in
order to join the Communists Police Forces, a person
needed at least three generations of poor-peasant class.
The Communists said that the people in that class didn’t
have anything to lose except their torn short, and if they
win, they get everything. What a good reason to join the
“Revolution”! Intelligentsia and bourgeoisie were not
faithful to the Party, only poor peasant and working class
were the best.
Many cadres came into the camp after Bang finished
his speech. They were educator cadres who were in charge
of the teams.
The cadre on duty called every team to go to work.
First, he called two teams of criminal inmates and then the
campers’ in the order from team 1 to team 8. When a team
was called, team leader stood up and shouted: “every one
stands up”, “takes off the hat”, and then “stands still”. He
turned back to the cadre on duty and reported the number
of campers in his team, the number of campers who were
sick, the number of campers who stayed in the camp, and
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the number of campers who went to work. Campers exited
the front gate in two lines with their hats in their hands to
the side of the row. The campers in the right line hold their
hats by their right hands, and the campers in the left line
hold their hats by their left hands. They said that for ease
to check if something hiding in the hat, but I thought that
they wanted the campers to show their respect. The armed
cadres waited for us in front of the camp. The educator
cadre walked along with the campers and two armed cadres
behind.
In the early days, they divided us into eight teams:
- Teams 1 and 2: called “brick-making teams”, to make
brick.
- Team 3: called “green-veggie team”, to plant
vegetable.
- Team 4: called “construction team” to fix houses in
the camp and the headquarters.
- Teams 5, 6, 7, and 8: called “agriculture teams”, to
work in the field around the camp.
Besides, the criminal inmates worked in “domesticanimals team” to raise pigs, cattle, and poultries, “the forest
team” to collect firewood, and “the kitchen teams” to work
in the kitchen. Some other inmates worked in the so-called
“wide-area” –to go without cadre, and to do things for
cadres.
We walked quietly on the route to the brick stove.
Two teams worked there; one made bricks and the other
prepared soil. We had to dig the soil, bring water from the
stream to pour into the soil, drawing buffalo to mix soil and
bring soil to the flat yard for the team two doing their work.
In sunny season, the ground of clay mixing with sand
was hard. We used hoes and crowbars to dig the soil from
around and carried it to a hole by improvement carts.
Bringing water was the tough job. We had to carry two
pails of water about forty litters by our shoulders on the
rough lane about half mile from the stream to the working
site. The hole for mixing soil was about eight foot under
the surface. We made a stairway for carrying down water
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and bringing up soil. Some campers knitted bambooplaited dustpans for bringing soil to the flat yard. Our team
was divided into three groups: one for water, one for
preparing soil, and one for bringing soil to the flat yard.
After soil and water was enough in the hole, two
campers drew two buffaloes into the hole and drew them
around in the hole. Buffaloes’ legs stamped onto soil
mixing with water until it became unique. If some spots
didn’t match, we had to tramp onto it. They called that
“drawing buffalo!”
Coming to the brick stove, the educator cadre told me
to split bamboo into tapes for the others to knit dustpans. I
didn’t know how to do that, so I split bamboo into bars. He
didn’t say a word but told me to dig soil instead. At
lunchtime, he gathered our team and gave me as an
example of those who didn’t know anything about “labor”,
only lived depending on the others! That night in the cell,
we had a meeting, and then the other campers criticized me
until I had to admit my “fault”. At last, I said that I didn’t
know about manual labor because I went to school from
my childhood. When growing up, I only did the brainlabor. I promised to try harder to keep up with the others.
Everyday, we went to work from morning until dark
and reviewed our works until the clanks for sleeping.
Making bricks was not better than preparing soil. We
had to squat down on the yard all day long under the sun.
Soil brought to the yard was divided into many heaps,
brick-makers had to ram down the soil into a wooden mold,
draw it to arrange on the yard, and then remove the mold
for another brick. That seemed to be easy, yet under the
sun all day long and squatted down from here to there;
everyone got hurt in his back, his thighs, and his shoulders.
In addition, in making bricks we had to do piece work with
quantitative average increasing daily.
Between two jobs, I would choose the first one.
Although that was heavier I would be able to move, not
squatting all day long! My team and team two had to take
turns doing two jobs. Fortunately, I only did those jobs for
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26. Labor is glorious
a month before transferring to a carpentry job. I didn’t
know how long I would be able to stand it if I had to do
that job? “Labor was truly glorious, especially forced
labor!”
The VC always said about “voluntary labor”, but if we
didn’t volunteer, they would force us to work or confine
us!
Chapt. 27 - I was a carpenter
Making bricks was too heavy, and I scared of leeches if
I had to work in the field. When the camp wanted to form
the carpentry team, I volunteered right away although I
didn’t know even how to use a saw! I want to recall here
that the saw in my country was old style. It was a
rectangular frame with two wood handles about two feet
long connected one end by a bar or a steel wire and other
end by a saw blade tensed with a rod in the middle. If
someone didn’t know how to use it, he could not hold it
straight.
They transferred me to the new team, team 10, and
Uyen was still a team leader. The first day at the lot house
behind the camp, the educator cadre told me to cut a coarse
timber into the beams one by four inches. He showed me
to put a four-inch-thick timber on two carpenter horses and
sat onto it. I hold the saw by both hands; my right hand at
the end of the saw frame where the blade was and my left
hand by the other end. I had to follow the marked lines
along the timber and moved the saw up and down to cut it.
That seemed to be easy, but I hadn’t done that in my life.
The saw blade moved left and right like a snake and stuck
into the timber. I sweated after a while, and my shoulders
were hurting like hell!
I tried to keep calm and told myself that at least I no
longer sunbathed and muddied doing bricks. I had to
accept the better amongst the worse! After some days, I
could intentionally drive the saw. The job became easier.
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In the following days, our team had to build the house
of visit at the turning point to K5, across from the cow
house. I didn’t know anything about construction, brick
house or cottage. Some campers from Tay Ninh, who had
done that, became “technicians” to show us what to do.
First, I had to use an ax to chip coarse lumbers into
square shape then octagonal shape and then planed it to
round shape for the columns. For the beams, we only
chipped timbers into square shape.
Long, Tranh, our technicians, put the columns and the
beams on the ground and drew the joints for us to chisel, to
cut, and to assemble them together into house frames.
We dug a pond and brought soil to lay and ram into the
earth floor. The house frame was raised up three weeks
later. And then we made the roof, the walls, and other
carpentry works.
To do the earth walls, we chiseled one-by-threecentimeter holes on the columns and beams, put bamboo
bars horizontal and vertical, and tied them together. They
looked like bamboo nets. In the mean time, some campers
dug a hole on the ground, put straw and water into it and
mixed them with soil, tramped with their bare feet until
everything became a viscous mixture. With our bare
hands, we coated bamboo nets with that mud and rubbed it
to become earthen walls.
The roof was made by three layers of bamboo.
Bamboo trees called “purlins” were tied by bamboo tapes
rafter-to-rafter horizontally with distance about three feet.
Small bamboos were tied one foot distance from the top of
the roof to the last purlin. And the last layer was bamboo
bars tied one foot distance horizontally. To roof, we used
young fan-palm leaves about four to six feet long. We tore
two small pieces of the leaf by both side, hooked them up
side down into the net. After three layers of leaves, we tied
a bamboo bar to hold palm leaves. The top of the roof was
a row of bamboo stakes slipped over, and then we set palm
leaves across together.
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27. I was a carpenter
House frames were fastened together by dovetail joints
or by bamboo sticks. We only used nails for doors and
windows! The house, actually the three-by-six-yard
cottage, was done in almost two months with the hard work
of forty campers in our team not to mention the criminal
inmates who provided wood, bamboo, and palm leaves.
Yet, I got the skill of using saw, chisel, plane, and ax. That
was useful for me later.
After the house of visit was done, they named my team
“the carpentry and temporary-construction team”. We built
and fixed wooden and bamboo houses. Besides, we did
carpentry in the lot house when didn’t have construction
job. Another team, team two, was also formed to do wood
works such as making furniture, cut off wood into planks,
and helping the construction to make doors and windows.
I tried to learn about woodworking, so I could stay in
the team ten to avoid other hard labors. With a little handy
and a background of mathematics, I mastered the works
quickly! I could calculate everything in a house and drew
the joints exactly where they were. The cadres only let me
know the size of a house and then I could tell them how
much material to make the house. Six months later, I
became the technician of the team! I took the chance to do
what I wanted.
Everyday, the educator cadre showed Uyen, the team
leader, the jobs that our team had to do, and then Uyen
asked me how many campers I needed. I usually asked for
more people, so we could do the job easier. When making
a house, I told the criminal inmates who brought materials
to put the same kind of material together, so we didn’t
move them too much. We didn’t want to waste our energy
in the underfed situation if we wanted to survive!
In the Tan Lap camp, most houses were “temporary”,
that meant made of wood, bamboo, and palm leaves. We
had too much works to do, and sometimes that created an
inverse situation. Cadres and their families needed houses
to live, cottages to raise pigs, poultry and so on, and we
were the people who made houses. Good house or bad
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house was up to us! What would we need? The campers
always looked for food! Whenever having a chance, I
always asked for eatable things such as chicken, meat,
eggs, cassava roots, and even vegetables. They could not
deny because they needed us.
Once, we built a house seven compartments for
families of cadres. When we put the ridge-beam, we saw
someone bringing a tray of food to worship and then gave
it to us. They said that the “ridge-beam” was most
important in the house, and in their belief, they needed us
to respect that beam for their fortune. We didn’t care about
anything except their food! From that time, we knew that
although they were Communists, they still believed in
superstitions.
Other time, when doing doors for them, we put the
doors straight from the front door to the back door. They
recommended us to move the back door to the other side. I
knew that was their superstition. I said that was the idea of
the planner cadre. They brought me a bag of kaoliang and
told me to do what they wanted.
The lack of food was the main topic in re-education
camp. Although doing easier jobs than others, we didn’t
have anything to “improve” our meal. I tried to persuade
the educator cadre if I could have a camper grow vegetable
for our team. He let Niet do that. After some months, Niet
replaced the inmate and became “wide working” camper
who worked for educator cadre. Niet grew calabash for our
team and went around collecting food for cadre. In the hell
like the Tan Lap camp, nothing was more important than
food, any kind of food, because everyone was hungry!
Early 1978, Uyen transferred to the “Rival
Committee”. The warden sent Yem from K1 to be team
leader of the team. Yem didn’t know about carpentry and
construction, but as a leader, he wanted to take responsible.
He let me worked in the lot house. That time I learned to
make furniture.
We made beds, food closets, chairs, and tables for
cadres and families. Sometimes, cadres asked me make
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27. I was a carpenter
wooden-box. That job was not in the plan, so I had my
chance to ask something for myself.
After some weeks, Yem could not manage the
construction job, especially a big house. The educator
cadre told me to get back to my job the “technician for the
construction”. I knew cadres needed me, and that was my
opportunity to avoid hard work and to help others in my
team. That intention made worse thing nearly happen to
me when the warden played democratic game in 1979.
They formed a vote for the “Rivals” and “Team leaders”. I
sensed that would be the tactic of the VC to eliminate the
campers whom other campers liked.
In my team, under the observation of the educator
cadre, the campers deputed Yem, Sinh the vice-leader, and
me. After the vote, I got hundred percent of campers
choice. The meeting between the wardens and Bich, an
inmate the chief of Rivals came to the decision to remove
those who were trusted by the campers. They sent Uyen,
Yem, and some other campers to K1 but me because they
didn’t have anyone to replace me in the construction job. I
stayed in the team as a technician, and they moved a
camper named Tong from K1 to become team leader.
Campers came and went. Many educator cadres came
to the team and left. I still stayed from beginning until I
moved back to South Vietnam. Long, Tranh, Tanh, the
campers in the group of 410 on the boat “Song Huong”
were released from the team 10. Vui, Nam, Gioi, Tu, the
campers moved to the Tan Lap camp from Laokai, Yen Bai,
Hoang Lien Son were the last campers in the team. Yet, I
was the only one who stayed in that team from beginning
to the end.
Not everything went smoothly! Although we usually
worked in the lot house, “the sun didn’t shine at our faces,
rain didn’t drop on our heads,” but there were always
exceptions. In storm season - North Vietnam usually had
storms- we had to fix roofs for houses and cottages in the
camp and in the headquarters while the others stayed in the
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cells, not working. The wind easily blew out Palm-leaves
roofs, so we never rested in storm season!
In addition, we did a dangerous job without protection.
Working on roof, especially in winter with drizzle and cold
wind, sharp bamboo tapes cut our hands all the time. I fell
from the roof once because the bamboo tape was fractured
when I tied a purling; I lost my balance and fell down on a
bundle of palm-leaves –fortunately! I didn’t get seriously
injury but lost a tooth. If it were not a bundle of leaves,
what would happen to me?
Another time, three campers and I cut a fig tree on the
bank of the A-Mai stream. It was just a shower. A fig tree
had much resin and hard to cut. The tree was on the rim
between the water and the bank. We could not stand in
water, so we nailed a carpenter horse to the tree and cut it
about three feet high by sitting on the horse and using
shark-saw (the hand saw having two handles by both sides
of the fish-shaped saw blade for two people pulling and
pushing). The stream level was rising up; it was heavy rain
upstream! The bank was gradually far away. When finish
the job, we could do nothing but swam with the tree along
the violent stream. Fortunately (again), it floated ashore at
last; we pulled the tree to the ground and came back to the
lot house wet and cold.
Five years in the Tan Lap camp was too long to get
used to everything. From the beginning didn’t know about
carpentry work until I could do almost everything and
became the necessary technician for the construction, I had
to overcome a lot of hardship! Cadres and wardens knew
me day after day. In early 1981, the lot-house of the team
ten moved to new location next to the headquarters and the
orange garden. I could go to the lot house by myself
without the surveillance of cadre. Sometimes the warden
allowed me to go alone to watch houses of the people
living around the camp to get idea for the construction. I
thought I could escape, and they only found out in the end
of day. Yet as I have mentioned before, the camp was
surrounded by mountains. I would not be able to know
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27. I was a carpenter
where to go if I tried to escape! There had been some
escapes but could not go far because people around the
camp, especially highlanders, who were so poor, would
catch anyone who attempted to escape for exchanging
some foods. Every unsuccessful escapee was dead one
way or another.
--A love story-- The new lot-house was also close to
the kindergarten for children of cadres.
The
schoolmistresses named Lan often came to the lot house
asked me make some rulers. I didn’t pay much attention of
her at first because she was a cadre. Yet for a long time,
that became more often, and she only asked me doing that
job although many others worked in the lot house. When I
came to her school, her pupils told me that their teacher
was going to have “makeup” before seeing me! My friends
in the team 10 and even the educator cadre knew that, but
only smiled at me whenever she came to the lot-house.
Lan was not beautiful but looked charming. She had
attractive smiles and a nice body. Our relationship became
closer day after day until I moved to South Vietnam in
early 1982. I didn’t know what would happen if I didn’t
transfer from the Tan Lap camp?
Not only me but also some others began to have affairs
with female cadres. Besides, the relationship between
campers, especially the campers in the “timber-team” and
“wide-area”, with women around the camp was more
serious. I must say that “the policy of the Party and the
State was unique”, but the people began to change their
point of view!
Chapt. 28 - Under Two Oppressors
The Tan Lap camp was not a new camp as its name
meant (Tan Lap means new found).
It was a typical
pattern of re-education camps in Vietnam because it had
been founded from 1954 after the Communists took over
North Vietnam. Tan Lap had been a camp for personnel of
the regime in French Colonial period. In the so-called
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28. Under two oppressors
“Humanity Literary Movement” 1955 in North Vietnam, it
kept the writers and the poets who had the ideas to go
against the policies of the Communists. Tan Lap had also
kept farm-owners in the “Land Reform” period after 1954
in North Vietnam. In the Vietnam War, American
P.O.W.’s were kept there too. Before we came to that
camp, Tan Lap has been a camp for juvenile delinquents.
With its history like that, the formation of the Tan Lap
camp was fully done.
The formation of the Tan Lap camp included the Police
Forces who managed the camp and the Campers.
Police Officers were divided into two sections, the
“Camp Warden” and the “Committee of Cadres”. The
“Camp Warden” or the “Board of Supervisors” included
those who managed the general matters of the camp such as
the Chief of the camp, Deputies in charge of every K,
Deputies in charge of planning, education, execution, and
security. The Committee of Cadres including Educator
Cadres who were in charge of every team and Armed
Cadres, or Security Cadres, who guarded the camp and
watched campers doing labor out of the camp.
Campers in the camp were divided into teams and
groups. Team had about thirty-to-forty campers with a
camper who was trusted by warden or educator cadre being
a team leader. A team was divided into three or four
groups depending on the tasks of the team. Each group of
about ten campers had a group leader to watch over the
work of the group given by team leader or educator cadre.
The special formation of the campers in the Tan Lap
camp was the “Board of Rivals” including the “Permanent
Rival” and the “Self-management Committee” combined
by team leaders. That was the ears and the eyes of the
Warden and Cadres.
When we just came to Tan Lap camp, the Permanent
Rival was in the hands of criminal inmates, and Bich, a
skew-eyed-buck-toothed guy, and Khoi, handled
everything in the camp. They were very powerful! Once,
they told me to come to their “office” drawing a banner, I
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28. Under two oppressors
saw the planner cadre came to their office. He needed
some campers to go with him. Bich was being massaged
by someone in his room; he shouted out that “tell him wait
for me, I’m busy!” I didn’t know what kind of prisoner he
was! If that was another, he should be severely confined
instead. Another rival, Khoi, sat every morning in the
infirmary to allow campers who were sick to stay in the
camp. Campers who wanted not to go to work had to give
him something! While campers ate a small bowl of
kaoliang, they had plenty of food; while campers were
locked in cells, they had their own bedrooms and servants
to wash and iron their clothes! They seemed to be the
kings in the camp. No one knew what kind of crimes they
had committed, and what sentences they were serving. I
have heard from some criminal inmates that Bich used to
be a finance cadre who worked for the department of
finance in Ha Noi, the capital of Vietnam. He had stolen
money from his department and was sentenced to twenty
years. Khoi, an officer in the province killed his wife and
was sentenced to life in prison. The Camp Warden trusted
them and gave them authority to manage the camp.
In 1978, some campers from “South Vietnam” joined
the Rivals and Khoi was moved to K1, but Bich was still
the head of the Permanent Rival until released in 1981.
I didn’t want to criticize or to condemn any of the
Rivals from South Vietnam. I just recalled here what
happened in the Tan Lap camp. For those who lived in the
Tan Lap camp, they knew about the Rivals, and for others,
it was hard to believe the acts of the Rivals. I didn’t know
whether they were prisoners or cadres! It was so easy to
become a kind of “hunting dog” when people lost their
conscience.
Uyen, Binh, Tu, Dieu, and so on, the rivals headed by
Bich and acted like Bich. The campers were suppressed by
two organs: Cadres and Rivals. The wicked trick of the
Communists was that they threw the stone hid their hand.
They used the Rivals as their means to manage the
campers. Cadres always said that the policy of the Party
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28. Under two oppressors
and the State was not revenge. If bad thing happened, that
was personal causes, not the policy. What the Rivals did
were their ideas, not the idea of the Warden or Cadres!
Many campers were not as angry at the Communists as the
Rivals. They forgot that Rivals were the campers who did
what the Warden told them to do.
The Rivals observed, overheard, and criticized from
outside of cells when the campers had meeting.
The Rivals organized their own –antennae systemincluded those who became Rivals’ ears and eyes.
The Rivals ordered the campers who violated the
regulation of the camp to the office, and then beat them.
The Rivals forced the campers who were sick to go to
work.
Many acts of the Rivals created the vindictive hatred
from the campers.
That tactic of the Communists was successful in the reeducation camps, especially in the Tan Lap camp.
Campers were more terrified of Bich, Uyen, Binh, Tu, and
Dieu, the Rivals than Thuy, Bang, or Trung, the Wardens.
Chapt. 29 - Turn the head toward the mountain
Winter 1977, the first winter we lived in North
Vietnam. It was so cold especially for the hungry and
skinny campers. Tattered clothes could not cover their
bodies, and slept without blanket in the cells having
windows wide opened for ease of control. Drizzle and
North Wind were something we had heard about the
bitterness of the poverties in North Vietnam. That time, we
had to live in the worse circumstance than poor people, in
the hell of the world!
Luu Dinh Viep, the former judge of the Court of
Appeal in Saigon had diabetes. He worked in the
“vegetable team”. One day, a leech bit his foot; blood
could not be stanched, and he could not stay in the camp
either. Everyday, he carried the so-called “fresh fertilizer”
to asperse vegetable. Fresh fertilizer called Night soil was
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29. Turn the head toward the mountain
a mixture of fresh discard from the campers and water from
the stream. His injury was infected, and without medicine,
he died some weeks later! He was the first camper who
died in the Tan Lap camp.
After that, campers died one by one. Some campers
died after smoked rustic tobacco; their hands still held the
pipe. Some died in the field. Some died sleeping.
I worked in the team 10, the “carpentry team”. We
made coffins almost everyday, and the criminal inmates in
the “timber team” buried the dead.
It was a winter night of December 1977. We were
meeting after the cadre locked the cell. The tinkle sound
unlocking the door interrupted our meeting. The educator
cadre came in and told Uyen, our team leader, to have five
campers go with the cadre. That was my turn; so four
campers and I went with the cadre to the lot house to make
a coffin for a camper who just died two hours ago. That
was unusual because we usually did it in work shift.
We didn’t have any board in shape. We had to cut
coarse wood with handsaws; planed them smooth, made
their edges straight, and then nailed them became a six-bytwo and half-by two-feet box with a lid ready for nailing.
The coffin was done about midnight, and then we carried it
into the infirmary to put the dead and his stuffs into it.
We tied two ropes to the coffin at both ends, and
passed a bamboo rod through those ropes for ease of
carrying on our shoulders. One of us brought a tray having
a bowl of rice, some bananas, some incense sticks, and two
small candles. One held a torch to light the route because it
was so dark. One brought a spade, and two carried the
coffin. The educator cadre in front and two armed cadres
behind, we walked on the winding-upright-clayed road
toward K4. The cemetery for dead campers set on the top
of an old tea tree hill about ten kilometers from K5. Under
the glittery light of the torch, the small tombs lying
disorderly looked like tilled land. Our friends were laying
there! Yet, at least their bodies and their minds were no
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29. Turn the head toward the mountain
longer persecuted; their families didn’t have to wait
desperately for them!
Tho, a camper wrote a song named “Turn the head
toward the mountain”:
“Once I died, you didn’t have to wait for me any
longer.
“And then when I was dead, I was laying my head
toward the mountain in the tomb without a tombstone,
without any incense.
.........
“Please grow a tiny wild flower on my tomb.
The inmates had dug the pit. We put the coffin close to
the edge of the pit, burned the incense sticks and the
candles, set rice, salt, and bananas on the tray. I secretly
prayed for him to have peace in heaven, and then we sent
the coffin down into the pit, filled the tomb, and came back
to the camp.
It was almost dawn; they gave each of us a bowl of rice
and some salt and let us to stay in the camp. That was the
first time I buried the dead, I didn’t remember his name.
Yet, that was not the last time because after that, we had to
take turns to go almost every night!
First, we made coffin when having a dead person; later
we did them ready at daytime. Too many campers died,
died starving, died sick, and died exhausted. We didn’t
have wood to make coffins, so we made one for many
dead. We put the body covering with a mat into the coffin,
brought to the tomb, removed everything in the coffin into
the tomb, and brought back the coffin for another!
The hilltop was full, so we made a new cemetery at
another hill near by.
The Tan Lap camp was located in the valley
surrounded by mountains. Dead campers always had their
heads turn toward the mountain although they were buried
in any direction!
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30. Hunger
Chapt. 30 - Hunger
Hunger was the main problem in re-education camps.
In the Tan Lap camp, that became the problem between life
and death. It was so hard to describe the hunger in reeducation camp because that was different from any other
kind of hunger. People were hungry when they didn’t have
any thing to eat. Campers had three meals a day, but they
were still hungry!
The very first day to the Tan Lap camp, we had a big
meal with rice, buffalo meat, pork. Some days later, we
still had rice with some kaoliang, that we called bobo, and
a bowl of pumpkin soup. Yet, bobo gradually replaced rice
until we had about ninety percent bobo with a little bit of
rice, and sometimes no rice at all.
Kaoliang or bobo was food for animals in India. The
grain of bobo was about a quarter of corn grain with the
skin thicker and tougher than corn. Coarse bobo was very
hard to cook, and the skin could not be peeled even when
boiled for a long time!
At first, we chewed bobo like rice, but we found out
that we discarded the whole thing. We had to chew it more
careful, but its skin was so tough that got our teeth hurt.
We tried to pestle it, and some even re-cooked it.
Hunger created many comedy acts, especially while
sharing meals.
Bobo brought from the kitchen to the cell had to have
at least two campers; one for bringing and one for watching
because everyone suspected bobo could be taken off on the
route. For sharing meals, the campers usually said
“fairness and precise!” Yet, everyone thought his share
was always less than others’. Campers didn’t trust the
bowl or the spoon to measure. Someone made a scale: a
stick with a stone hanging by one end and a disk hanging
by other end. That was not enough; some suggested to
count in an order or to pick any number by chance and then
the first one took that share even if the container was not
his. What a comedy! Vietnamese proverb said that food
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was a dusty thing; lost a bit made people crazy! The truth
of that was seen clearly in the camp.
A meal for a camper usually was a small bowl of bobo
or “something equivalent with rice”, and a bowl of
vegetable soup. The soup was some vegetable such as
green cabbage, leaves of kohlrabi, leaves of radish, or
water morning glory boiling in salty water. The so-called
“something equivalent with rice” was anything the camp
had such as bobo, cassava roots (or manioc), sweet potato,
corn, and sometimes flour cake. Cassava root or manioc
was the most because it was the main agricultural product
of Vinh Phu, where the Tan Lap camp located. We named
it “white ginseng!” The worse was that we ate not fresh
manioc but usually the dry one, Sliced Manioc or Striped
Manioc! Sliced Manioc (we called it bottle cork) and
striped manioc had been cut from cassava roots including
skin and hard center, dried under the sun (and even in the
rain), and stored a longtime in warehouse, so it was tough
and moldy. After boiling, sliced manioc was done at the
outside and still raw inside, and striped manioc became a
kind of viscous gruel.
Manioc, sweet potato, and corn were something that
local people paid agricultural tax to the government.
People in Social Socialism didn’t pay tax by money,
especially agricultural tax; they contributed their products
instead. After their harvest, the people around the camp
carried sliced and striped manioc, sweet potato, and corn,
to the camp instead of to the local government.
The people in the region were poor, they were
highlanders such as Tay, H’mong, Muong, or the people in
the Catholic village who had been moved from Ha Noi,
Nam Dinh, Hai Phong, and some other big cities after 1954
to the so-called “new economy zone”. In order to dominate
religions especially Catholic, and to take over properties of
wealthy people and of the families having relatives who
worked for the old regime, the Communists found the socalled “new economy zone” in distant desert regions and
forced the people to come there. Some place-names such
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as Ben Ngoc, A-Mai, and Trinh slope have been named
after those who first came to that region. Ngoc was a name
of a head of the village, A-Mai a girl who first died in the
stream, and Trinh was name of a girl still living who had
been raped by a Communist and going madly on the slope
close to the camp.
The people around the camp were so poor that they
didn’t have enough clothes; they exchanged anything
possible for prisoner’s uniforms! Some campers gave their
uniforms to criminal inmates to exchange food although
they knew those inmates would cut a lot from their food.
In their hunger, something was still better than nothing!
Tattered clothes could be mended, but hunger could not be
cured. One uniform for one-kilogram bobo, or threekilogram manioc, or half-kilogram rice, after a short time,
new campers were more tattered than criminal inmates.
Due to the regulation of the camp, campers were not
allowed to buy, to sell, or to exchange anything.
Sometimes, cadres went between to get profit; they said
that was helpful for both. Criminal inmates in the “timber
team” and “wide area” gained much of earnings in that
business.
Some violations of the regulation of the camp derived
from hunger were exaggerated as a violation originated
from the consciousness of the campers. A camper who
picked a pumpkin because of his hunger was confined
severely for the destruction the property of the camp, the
property of the Party and the State, and the property of the
Socialism! Some campers died in the solitary confinement
just for some vegetable that they had collected in the field.
Once in a while, they gave us some sugar, just about
two hundred gram for each camper. Sugar seemed to be
soluble into every cell of my tongue. Some even counted
every grain when put sugar into their mouths. Not only
sugar but also salt was scarce. I always remember once in
1978, we were laying a floor for the house of families of
cadres on a bed of sweet potato. We looked lickerish on
potato roots collecting for the cadres. I tried to ask the
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educator cadre potato leaves for our team. We didn’t have
any salt, and we could not bring any thing into the camp.
We had to eat tasteless leaves to fill our empty stomach!
We could collect nothing for food in the field around
the camp. Over the time, wild vegetables could not grow,
grasshopper, cricket, frog, and even mice could not live.
Many generations of prisoners had wiped them out. The AMai stream didn’t have any fish or snail! Poor people
caught anything eatable. Fish, snails, and animals were
perished.
We relied only on the ration from the camp, fifteen
kilograms of something “equivalent” with rice a month for
every camper. Manioc especially sliced and striped one
didn’t have any nutrients; it filled the stomach only. Yet,
there was not enough for our stomach either! For a long
time eating manioc, our bodies became skinnier and our
faces wider! First, I felt heavy at my cheeks, and then two
jaws grew bigger. We looked wondering at each other.
Were we fat? Our faces were bigger, but pale! The poison
of Cyanhydric acid in the coat of manioc stored in the
glands in my jaws made my face bigger. Rheum glued my
eyelids when waking up; my throat dried! The room turned
around when I set my foot on the ground. Sweet potatoes,
called “yellow ginseng” made my mouth bitter, and I was
hungrier than eating manioc! Corn, bobo, and flour cake
were little better, but not as usual as manioc. Corn was a
kind of animal food, not sweet corn, dried too hard and
cooked not soft enough. Flour cake was flour (aiding from
the USSR) kneaded and steamed about three-inch diameter
haft-inch thick round cake.
I tried to train myself to eat little, but that ration was
still not enough for me. While someone was sharing food,
I didn’t approach, but still watched from a distance and
sometimes still felt my share was less than others. I hated
myself for that, but could not control my feelings.
Everyone ate in different way. Some ate right away;
others kept it until they went to bed because they didn’t
want to sleep hungry! Some ate slowly as if they didn’t
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want their food finished; others ate quickly for they were
too hungry and as if they were scared losing their food.
Some divided their food to many small amounts and ate
each amount at a time as if they had many shares; others
ate one time but chewed carefully so it could be absorbed
totally.
I often poured water into my bowl then drank it as if I
didn’t want to waste anything! When Uyen was team
leader, I sat with him at mealtime; we ate and smoked
“rustic tobacco” to outlast our meal! After he left the team
for the Rivals, I didn’t bring my food into the cell; I ate it
right after sharing, cleaned my containers, and put it back
on the table for the next meal.
At first, we had the dining rooms close to the gate of
the zone A, but no one ate in there. It was only for us to
put our containers to get drinking water and hanging our
working clothes. In 1980, after the campers from other
camps came, those rooms became the rooms for cadres and
for the rivals. We built the cottages in the yard close to our
cells for our stuffs.
I didn’t know how to describe the hunger. We had
three meals a day, but didn’t feel anything in our stomachs.
When the campers from Hoang Lien Son, Yen Bai, moved
to the Tan Lap camp in 1978 because Chinese Armed
Forces attacked Northern of Vietnam, they looked at us and
got scared! Although we came to North Vietnam after they
did, we were too pale and skinny! We compared the
difference between the re-education camps managed by
police and by military over the haggardness of the campers.
The hunger and the lack of food sometimes falsified
our taste. Most campers would feel sweet when put some
salt in their mouth. When asked what would he like if he
was released, Chuong, the camper in my team said that he
would love a basket of manioc while he was on the train.
Yet, he could not have his dream because he died some
months later! We used to joke that we would choose a
good dinner rather than a pretty girl if we had our chance.
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A good dinner could help us to survive; otherwise, what
would we do with a girl!
Whenever having “fresh food”, a bit of pork boiling in
salty water, campers wished for a bit of fat rather than lean
meat. The lack of nutrition destroyed our reserve fat and
our skin became gray and wrinkly. Buffalo skin rimmed
the drum became a good food. Some campers ate potato
roots on the field when digging them, not cooking, not
peeling, and even not washing them up. Some diseases
such as dysentery and cholera killed many campers. A
camper working in the forging furnace grilled a small frog
and ate the whole thing; he died right after that because
frog gall was poison.
Using food as bait and a stick was the tactic of the VC.
They told us that who worked hard should have “special
ration” and who was lazy should have lesser. They divided
three kinds of ration: fifteen kilogram of food for regular
camper, eighteen for hard worker, and thirteen for lazy
ones! That sometimes trapped some campers. They were
hungry and needed more food, so they tried hard in order to
have special ration. They forgot that when working hard
they lost too much their energy and could not regain by
some kilogram of food in a month! Big guys and those
having “special ration” collapsed earlier!
Every night, the hunger made me so difficult to fall
asleep although I was so tired. The small speakers in the
cell murmured the voice of a famous singer of the
Communists, Ai Van, the daughter of the so-called “popular
actress” Ai Lien. “Life is so beautiful, love is so beautiful
although bullets and bombs were violently screaming, and
our bodies were injured....” The song earned the gold
medal in the Conference of Youth around the World (the
Communists’ world, exactly) in Eastern Berlin. I hated
that but could not do anything but plugged my ears. The
exercise of Yoga could not help me to overcome the
emptiness of my stomach! I wanted to shout out angrily
that my life and my love would be useless when my
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stomach was empty and when I lived in the hell of the
world!
Chapt. 31 - The Dock Named Ngoc
A-Mai stream, the principal source of water for the
camp and for people around the camp was one of many
streams coming to the small river, a branch of the Red
River. A-Mai stream flew violently, so boats and rafts
could not sail on it. Supplies to the camp transporting by
boats or rafts had to land on the dock named Ngoc called
“Ben Ngoc”, about ten miles from the K5.
Local people recalled that long time ago, a landlord
named Ngoc built that dock for exchanging his products
with others. When the Communists took over North
Vietnam, they killed his family. The dock was deserted.
People named that dock after him since then.
Actually, there was nothing at that dock except a bank
about a mile long. Its width was about a quarter of mile in
sunny season, but only twenty feet in rainy season. People
used the dock to land their bamboo cut from jungles in the
upstream. They tied bamboos together to become a raft,
sailed them over the violent stream to the dock, and then
landed them there for exchange or selling to others.
Food, coal, palm leaves, and gasoline supplying to the
camp were transported by train from Ha Noi, the Hang Co
station, to the Am Thuong depot, and then they used
ferryboat to ship on the stream to the Ngoc Dock. If there
was only a small amount, they transported to the camp by
buffalo carts, but if a lot more such as bamboos, palm
leaves, and coal, the campers and cadres had to bring them
to the camp.
When opening the cell door, the cadre on duty told us
to be ready to go to the Ngoc Dock. We didn’t bring our
stuffs except drinking water because we had to carry
heavily back! The improvement carts had been collected
and parked in front of the camp. The campers pulled the
carts, turned left to the turning point, and then turned right
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on a clay road to the Ngoc Dock. The campers with the
carts in front, two rows of campers following, and the
cadres behind, we walked in hurry.
Half way from K5 to the Ngoc Dock, there was the
school that shocked me the most. Its name was “The
Agricultural Industrial General School Number 1”. The
students in that “School” were kids from ten to fifteen.
They dressed in prisoner uniforms! Their “teachers” in
police uniforms watched them in the field. What kind of
school was that? Sometimes, they came to Ngoc Dock to
bring stuffs as well! I asked them about their school; they
laughed and said that it was not a school but a camp! They
called us “pop” and asked for “rustic tobacco” although
they were too young. They used to be the homeless kids
from Ha Noi, Hai Phong, the big cities in North Vietnam,
or indocile children sent there for re-education. The socalled school was actually a re-education camp for kids.
Most of them were going to come to re-education camps at
eighteen or to “sovkhov” (state own farms) the rest of their
lives.
The Communists didn’t have prison; they had
“schools”, “re-education camps”, and “sovkhovs” instead.
Those kids were pale and skinny just like us; they also
pulled “improvement carts” and walked to the Ngoc Dock
with armed cadres behind. Nothing was different except
their ages! Perhaps there was one more difference: They
spoke dirtier and used much slang that we didn’t
understand, and they rapped out “damn and fuck” too
much!
We came to the Ngoc Dock around noon. The
ferryboat didn’t land yet. It began to rain. Nowhere to
hide, we sat crouching in the rain. Cold and hunger made
me tremble; my teeth clattered. I wanted nothing but a
bowl of hot rice in a warm dining room. That was so
simple yet more difficult than flying to the moon! I looked
at my friends. They were crouching and trembling like wet
cats.
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31. Ngoc Dock
The cadres in their ponchos joked and smoked. The
campers sat in line trembling in the rain. Two opposite
images in one place! I didn’t hate cadres neither loved
them. They were Vietnamese; some of them still had
conscience.
Living in a society founded on the
vengefulness, they did like robots. My friend Khiem, who
had gone for the VC after graduated from high school, told
me when he came to Saigon in the early day that once he
joined the Communists, he had a loop around his neck. He
had to do what they told him, if not his neck should be tied
to death.
Communism created the people who did what they
were told, said what they had stuffed into their heads, and
thought what they had been directed. Years after years,
they learned that we were the enemies of the State, of the
people, and more important, the enemies of the Party, so
they treated us like their enemies.
The VC told that we were evil, who used to eat livers
and drink blood of the people. We didn’t know how to
explain for the children but said that we only ate chicken
livers and goat blood! They also said that we robbed the
people in South Vietnam to their bones and marrow, and
they had to free the people and brought equality to
everyone!
Some cadres changed his mind when they came to
South Vietnam. Lieutenant Trung, the executive cadre
hated us so much when we first came. After he came to
Saigon and saw the truth about life in South Vietnam, he
changed his point of view and became kinder than many
others.
The rain stopped, and the buffalo cart brought our
lunches to the Ngoc Dock. We took our lunches before did
our job!
Four campers loaded a cart. The cart full of coal was
very heavy; its wheels sunk into sand could not move
although we tried with all our strength. One of us held the
handle, three others pushed hard, but the cart didn’t move.
We changed the way; one still held the handle, one pushed
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at the back, and two turn the wheels to move the cart a
short distance at a time. We wrestled with the cart almost
an hour to bring it to the road! After that first time, we had
an experience. Whenever going to get coal, we brought
some baskets and carried coal from the ferryboat to the
carts on the road.
Back to the camp was about ten miles. On the uphill
slopes or muddy road, we had to wrestle with the cart again
and again. The Trinh Slope was the most difficult distance
because it was about a hundred yards and thirty degree
uphill. Local people named that slope Trinh after the name
of the girl who was still living. They said that Trinh has
been raped by a VC and got mad. In full moon nights, she
walked nude on that slope with her hair hanging down
looking like a ghost. Someone also called that slope Trinh
Hong because her name was Hong.
Coming to the camp, we were completely worn out! A
small piece of pork was not enough to convince us to eat
right away although we were so hungry.
To get palm leaves or bamboos was not much better.
Three campers a cart, the rest had to carry on their
shoulders. Two bundles of leaves about twenty kilogram
each was too heavy for a long walk. Cadres told us to tie
four bamboo sticks at four corners of the cart and piled up
bamboos or leaves higher than the edge. We tied a rope to
its handles and put over our shoulders. I used to go with
the cart although it was harder because I could not carry on
my shoulders.
From late 1979 when the camp allowed us to see our
families, the road from the Ngoc Dock to the camp was the
road for our families! The Ngoc Dock became crowded.
Some local people had a new job helping our families to
land their stuffs from the ferryboat and sometimes carrying
to the camp.
Since that time, we liked to go to the Ngoc Dock even
though it still exhausted us. We could see the people from
Saigon. They were close to our hearts at least.
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31. Ngoc Dock
Once I came to the Ngoc Dock to get wood for the
construction, a lady came to me and asked my name and
burst into tears. She was my friend’s wife going to see her
husband in K3. She said that she could not recognize me
because I changed so much.
Chapt. 32 - Rustic Tobacco
All campers knew rustic tobacco even if they never
smoked. At the Tan Lap camp, they didn’t give us
cigarettes but some shred tobacco and rustic tobacco.
Shred tobacco was the extra when people cut cigarettes
in the factory. It was difficult to roll especially with
narrow paper for rolling cigarette by machine. Some
campers used a small flag for rolling shred tobacco. I
could not roll it with the flag, so I used any other kinds of
paper to roll it by hand. Besides, it was not enough for a
month and we also had the rustic tobacco! What would we
do with that? Some didn’t know how to smoke rustic
tobacco and tried to roll and smoke it like cigarettes at first,
but it would not burn for long. I did that as well. Only a
few campers knew how to smoke, and they exchanged
rustic tobacco for shred tobacco.
Rustic tobacco would last longer because it was
smoked a small piece at a time. There were two kinds of
pipe for smoking rustic tobacco: Terra-cotta pipe and “tiller
pipe”. Most campers used “terra-cotta pipe” at first. It was
a closed pot having two holes on the lid, one for holding
rustic tobacco and the other for smoking. The hole for
holding tobacco attached with a clarinet shaped “bowl”,
and the other with a long pipe, usually a long and small
bamboo pipe. The “bowl” had to put up side down so the
small end dipped into water in the pot, and the bell-shaped
set on the top of the lid. When smoking, the fume came
into water before reached to the smoker’s mouth.
In the camp, we rarely had terra cotta pipes. Some
campers used Soya cheese bottle, but it was not good
enough for smoking and difficult to bring along with them.
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Coming to the Tan Lap camp, we saw criminal inmates
using bamboo pipe called “tiller pipes”, and they showed
us how to smoke with that pipe. The pipe was called tiller
pipe because tillers usually brought it to the field. It was a
long bamboo node about two and half feet long, one and
half inches diameter having one closed end for holding
water and one opened end for smoking. Three inches from
the node, there was a hole pierced about forty-five degree
for holding the bowl. The bowl had to set how the end of it
reaching into water when the pipe being at forty-five
degrees and its end on the surface of water when the pipe at
nearly horizontal. People bored a hole on the bowl and
made it shrieking when they smoked. We would not be
able to do that, so we had to exchange for it from the
inmates.
To burn tobacco, we needed spills that could burn and
keep the fire. Paper was very rare. We split bamboo into
tape, soaked into water for some days, and then dried them
under the sun.
Smoking rustic tobacco had to be practiced. Smoker
nipped rustic tobacco and balled it to a small piece called
“cricket”, put it on the bowl, burned the spill and then with
the position of the pipe about forty-five degree, put his
mouth to the opened end of the pipe, burned the cricket and
inhaled at the same time; the smoke got into the pipe and
the cricket was burned totally. The following moment was
the best for smokers. He blew off the cricket, raised the
pipe nearly horizontal so that the bowl was on the surface
of water and inhaled thoroughly; the pipe shrieked, and at
that time the smoker was tipsy!
I smoked rustic tobacco not long after coming to the
Tan Lap camp. Phong, the inmate working with me when I
painted the poster, gave me a “tiller pipe”, and also showed
me how to smoke.
The tipsy feeling of rustic tobacco was different than
alcohol or cigarettes. Smoker seemed to be numbed by his
face, flying off the ground, trembling his hand. He had a
clear head but could not control his movements.
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32. Rustic tobacco
Sometimes smoker would fall down. Although he wanted
to hold on to something nearby, he could not manage his
hands. That first feeling happened only in five minutes or
so and next “cricket” could not produce that feeling until
long time after that. The campers loved to smoke rustic
tobacco in early mornings because that was the best time in
a day to have the tipsy.
When Uyen was team leader of the team 10, Uyen and
I used to smoke rustic tobacco at mealtime. Every month,
we got two or three bags of rustic tobacco name “An Thai”
and “Song Cau”. In 1980, families of the campers brought
the rustic tobacco the brand “999” from South Vietnam. I
smoked it once and it knocked me down! My heartbeat
was so fast; I fell down could not control myself. I quitted
rustic tobacco since that time, gave up my pipe. It became
the common property of our team!
Nhan, the male cook of the team, brought the pipe with
him everyday although he didn’t smoke rustic tobacco. In
break times, the campers came to him for drinking water
and smoking rustic tobacco. We could not bring our own
pipe! It was not healthy for everybody to smoke on one
pipe, but we had no choice.
Chapt. 33 - Muong, the special inmate!
He was about fifty in the year 1977. His conviction
was spreading the poems of the “humanism group”. He
stayed in the re-education camps from 1955 without a
sentence. I saw him the first time when I was painting a
poster in the dining room of the zone B, close to the office
of the “Permanent Rivals”. He came to see my work.
- “Why didn’t you paint the poster by yourselves?” He
asked me.
I was surprised and asked him back.
- “What did you mean?”
- “I think you could create a poster by yourselves, not
imitate it from the newspaper.”
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33. Muong, a special inmate
- “Thank you, but this is my way in the camps. It’s
easier for me because that banner is not mine, no one could
put the hate hat on my head!”
- “You are so wise.”
He was short, but not too skinny. His hair was gray,
almost white though he didn’t look too old. He asked me
many things about South Vietnam, what I had done in the
Government, how were my family, and so on. I replied the
simple matters only because I didn’t know whether or not
he was a “cadre” to spy on me.
I wanted to ask him about his conviction, his sentence,
but it was too rude. Most inmates in the zone B were
criminals and convicted of murder, burglary, or rape. Their
sentences were ten years at least.
Phong, the inmate working with me said that Muong
was “political prisoner” not criminal. He didn’t know what
kind of “political” Muong was imprisoned for!
Muong worked in the headquarters, raising pigs for
cadres. He stayed for a long time in the camps, so he could
go anywhere without cadre. Sometimes, he brought me
some food, some vegetables, and we were getting closer.
He recalled about things that had happened in 1954 when
the Communists took over North Vietnam. All personnel
who worked for French or for the Royal Government had
been sent into re-education camps and most of them died in
the camps. The rest had been transferred to the “sovkhovs”
–the state own farms- and lived in the farms the rest of their
lives.
In the movement of “The Humanists Group” in 1955,
most poets, writers, and artists having ideas to go against
the policies of the Party had to be re-educated. He was not
an artist or writer; he only possessed some poems of that
group and was reported by someone. That cost him his life
in re-education camps from 1955. Twenty two years in
many camps from Lao Kai, Yen Bai, Son La, and so on,
they moved him to the Tan Lap camp and waited for
transferring to a “sovkhov”. He said that the VC would
keep the campers without sentence the rest of their lives
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33. Muong, a special inmate
unless they had relatives working for the Communists at
high rank, or if there was a miracle!
I asked him why he didn’t escape because he could go
anywhere without cadre. He said that he came home twice,
but could not hide anywhere or live in the society of the
Communists. They controlled everything from our families
to our relatives and neighbors.
I often saw Muong until he moved to an agricultural
camp named “the Red Sovkhov” some months later.
Chapt. 34 - A day in the Tan Lap camp
A day in the camp began when the clanks waked us up.
We had to fold our mats, blankets, curtains, and neatly
arranged them at our “head bed”. They called that
“squared blanket and straightened mat”, but I knew that it
was easier for them to check things that we hid. Due to the
regulations, we could not possess pointed and sharp things,
could not preach any religion, could not read any “reacting
and depraved” books. Therefore, beside some “sharp and
pointed” weapons, they always searched for Bible, prayer
books of Buddhism and other religions, and any kind of
books and hand-written materials in foreign language or
not published in the Communism countries. Many campers
were severely confined because of that.
The cadre on duty came to check out campers not long
after the clank. He stood at the door counting us walking
out of the cell one by one, and then the cell leader reported
to him the total of campers in the cell, the number of
campers having gone out, and the number of campers sick
or in the restroom. Those who didn’t go out had to yell out
indicating their presences.
Some campers in his turn went to the kitchen to bring
breakfast and shared with everyone in the team while the
others tried to wash their faces or brush their teeth in hurry.
We usually didn’t have time for breakfast, so we brought it
to work and ate it later.
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34. A day in Tan Lap camp
Another clank was for gathering in the yard behind the
front gate. We had about fifteen minutes to get in line and
came to the gathering site. After the campers squatted in
their places, the cadre on duty called every team to go to
work. The team leader stood up first, shouted: “every one
stands up”, “stands still”, and then “everyone removes hat.”
After that, he turned to look at the cadre on duty and
reported the total campers in his team, the campers going to
work, the campers staying in the camp with reasons.
Campers then walked in two lines through the front gate
with their hats holding to the side of the line.
On the way to the lot-house or to the field, the educator
cadre let team leader know about our jobs. At the working
spot, we stood still in line, removed our hats, and the team
leader reported to the guarding cadre before we started to
work.
From nine to ten A.M., we had a ten-minute break for
smoking, eating breakfast, or drinking water. Around noon
when hearing clanks, we brought tools to the lot house and
got in line to report to guarding cadre and went back to the
camp.
To the stream, the cadre usually allowed us ten to
fifteen minutes cleans up. Sometimes we tried to take
quick bath with our clothes on.
Before entering the camp, the team leader reported to
the cadre on duty or a guarding cadre at the front gate.
Campers in their turn came to the kitchen to bring lunch for
the team; others went to the cell to get their containers for
their lunches and to do their personal things such as
hanging out their wet clothes, preparing stuffs for
afternoon, or seeing friends.
We had about an hour at noon until hearing clanks.
Campers tried to have a nap. Everything happened
repeatedly just like in the morning except we had half an
hour for washing in the stream.
My team, the carpentry team, usually worked in the lothouse and rarely came back to the camp at noon. We
stopped working when the clanks began, went to the stream
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34. A day in Tan Lap camp
close to the lot-house, washed and cleaned, and then had
lunch. The “male cook” already went to get our lunches,
so we had more time for resting. I often slept on my
carpentry horse. In the afternoon, we readied for work
right after the clanks while other teams assembled in the
gathering site.
The cadre on duty checked us into the cells around
seven P.M. Some brought their dinners into the cell
because they didn’t have time to eat. We got in line when
hearing the clanks waiting for the cadre on duty. The cell
leader reported the total campers of the cell, the number of
campers checking in, and others with any reason. A day of
work was over, but a day in the camp was not over yet!
We had meeting to criticize and self-criticize about our
strength and our weakness in a day, a week, or a month.
The meetings often became more serious because the
cadres or the rivals stood out of the cell hearing and
making suggestion. We only slept when the light went off.
Four hundred and ten campers from the Thu Duc camp
were the first campers in the Tan Lap camp. After the
hunger strike, ten campers were sent to K1 for solitary
confinement, the rest of us stayed in two houses in the zone
A. A hundred campers in a cell meant everyone had a
space about four by seven feet, enough room for a sedgemat. In the early 1980, the campers from the camps in
North side, close to the border of Vietnam and China, were
transferred to the Tan Lap camp. The Tan Lap camp was
crowded! K5 sometimes reached the number of two
hundred campers in a cell! Two feet wide for each camper,
we could only lay on our sides, not on our back, and had to
turn opposite direction for not to jam together. Some even
slept on the walkway. Yet, that was not as bad as the
filthiness of the cells. Two hundred people with only a
small latrine, that was horrible!
Bed bugs were all over, in the boards, in the holes on
the walls, in our sedge-mats, our blankets, our curtains, and
even in our clothes. I covered my mat with the poncho; the
bugs climbed up to my curtain and “parachuted” onto my
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body. I could not keep them away, could not kill them all
either. Some campers removed the boards and caught
them, but they still reproduced. Flies, mosquitoes, bed
bugs, and stinking smell, what a hell in the world! In the
morning when checking out the campers, the cadre on duty
didn’t stand at the door; he drew back against the wall to
avoid the smell coming out from the cell.
Not enough room for our stuffs, we built the cottages in
the yard close to the cells. The yard became narrower. In
our days off, the yard looked like a flea market especially
when the campers dried their stuffs. From 1980, the VC
allowed us to see our families and received supplies;
campers set the stoves at the end of the houses. The yard
looked like an alley about ten feet wide. We had to stand
on the veranda to check in.
To avoid the crowd, some of us often asked the
educator cadre to come to the lot-house in the days off.
There would not be much work in those days, and we could
take the bathes and wash our clothes. Water was short in
the camp because the pump was unable to supply enough
for lots of campers.
Chapt. 35 - “Tet” in the Tan Lap Camp
The campers liked Tet – Vietnamese New Year –
because they didn’t work and got big meals! The camp had
to prepare for Tet about a month before. The Rivals
formed a group of campers who had the skills in many
subjects such as decorating, unicorn-dancing, and
performing.
Every year, if the camp didn’t have a major building, I
was usually in the decorating group to make lanterns,
banners, and unicorn head. Sometimes I helped to decorate
the stage for the play of the performing group.
The most important for those who worked for Tet was
that they didn’t go to work and sometimes had some extra
food. I was usually a group leader of the decorating group,
so I could ask for manioc for making glue. The rivals gave
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35. Tet in Tan Lap Camp
me more than I needed, and we shared the extra. In the
camp, everything was for a certain purpose, looking for
food! That was the ways of survival! We had to seek any
way to survive provided that we would not harm any one
else!
The campers who worked for Tet because they wanted
to avoid hard labor, they weren’t in a hurry! Therefore, the
jobs never finished until the last day.
In Tet, the campers usually had three days off. It was
cold, and cadres allowed us to have stoves in the cells! The
stove was a steel container burning by peat mixing with
soil. It produced lots of dust, yet no one paid much
attention because a little dirtier was not a problem.
Besides, we could get warm and cook something.
The campers also had special rations such as pure rice,
pork, buffalo meat, rice cakes, and candy. Some having
been hungry all year round could not abstain from foods;
they ate all of them at the same time, vomited and
discarded all around in the restroom. The cell was filthier!
In New Year Days, some campers tried to keep
traditional customs. They wore their best clothes and
greeted each other although they saw each other everyday.
In the evening, the performance was held in the hall,
usually “renovation play”– a kind of South Vietnamese
play supporting by South Vietnamese folk songs and the
song of “nostalgia”. Not only the campers but also cadres
and the people around the camp came to see. In that distant
region, people didn’t have anything in New Year except
having Tet with the campers!
When we first came to the Tan Lap camp, we had
watched the renovation play named “the mother on the Red
River” performing by the inmates. They sang South
Vietnamese folk songs by their Northern accent, so it was
so funny! Some months later, the warden formed an
entertaining team including the campers with special talent
such as Tanh, who could play many musical instruments
like guitar, violin, 16-chord zither, two-chord fiddle
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35. Tet in Tan Lap Camp
(Vietnamese vertical violin), Vietnamese round-shaped
guitar, and Dung, who could disguise as a pretty girl.
A part of prisoners was criminal inmates. They had
different way to celebrate Tet. They hang their curtains
and sedge-mats all day long to separate their own spaces,
which looked like they had their rooms in the cells. They
put tea, rustic tobacco, cakes and candies, if any, on their
own places. The cells were dark and moldy. I came to
their cells once to see Phong, an inmate who worked with
me in the “cultural section”.
Except didn’t have to work and had plenty of foods, In
the Tet I was home sick more than ever. From 1979, when
the campers were crowded, Tet was also terrible because
we were short of water. Nearly two thousand campers with
an old pump running this time and stopping the other time
were tragically! No one liked to work, but going out to
have water in the stream was better than staying dirty in the
camp.
Chapt. 36 - The Infirmary
We could say that the infirmary in the Tan Lap camp as
a morgue because it didn’t have any medicine. It was just a
place for the sick waiting for the Death or a Miracle. There
were only some populous medicine –grass, roots and
leaves— and Mercurochrome! And most of all, there was
no physician or healthcare personnel.
The infirmary was the only brick house with tile roof in
the camp. It stood in the right corner close to the fence and
surrounded by barbed wire and mulberry hedge. Mulberry
also used as a soporific medicine. In a plain area, the green
color of the infirmary was standing out as a contrast spot in
the painting mostly monochrome. For security reason, tree
and shrub was not allowed in the camp except in the
infirmary and in the kitchen. In the infirmary, they grew
papaya, vegetable and flowers.
Working in the infirmary was some campers who were
trusted by the warden. When I first came to the camp,
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36. The infirmary
Khoi, an inmate in the Rivals, who had life sentence for
murder, worked in the infirmary. He was a king; he could
let any prisoner not going to work and collect gifts from
them. He was transferred to K1 later.
In the winter of 1978, I was exhausted! Although I
didn’t do very hard work, I still had no more energy. My
reserve was gone. I was nearly a walking skeleton! Every
morning, I was unable to climb easily down the stage. One
day, I could not get up, and my friends had to bring me to
the infirmary. I knew everything, but I faked unconscious
because they would force me work if I awaked. Without
physician and medicine, I didn’t worry about my fake or
misuse of medicine. Everybody believed that I was dying.
In the room for patients, they put me on a bed close to
the front window. There were two rows of about twenty
beds in that room. The room was cleaner than the cell
because there were only ten or so patients and the latrine
located outside of the house. Except two campers who
were trusted by the wardens worked there, the patients
were almost worn out or nearly dead. They didn’t pay
much attention about security.
They gave me some powder of wild ginseng. The best
thing was that I would be able to rest and to have special
meals with rice and lots of vegetable.
My friends came to see me, but I tried not to recognize
them. I heard they said to the cadre in charge of the
infirmary that I was exhausted physically and mentally and
got mad! They wanted to keep me in the infirmary! Like
most campers who were exhausted, no one could live.
Therefore, they thought I would die sooner or later.
In the early days seeing patients dying one by one, I
thought I would not exclude. I was very discouraged. Yet
about a week later, I felt better. The instinct of survival
helped me to struggle for my life. I tried to hide my
consciousness, but I knew that I would survive. I planned
to stay in the infirmary as long as possible. Only there
could provide me the better meals without working! I
didn’t have serious illness but being famished.
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36. The infirmary
At first, I stayed on the bed all day and all night for
about a week. Whenever I waked up, I tried to mutter
some words. Sometimes, I sang softly a part of the songs.
They said to the cadre that I was mad but not dangerous!
That was good for me because I could stay in the infirmary,
not in solitary.
I felt better after a month although didn’t have any
medicine except some powder of wild ginseng and
mulberry. I knew that I could not sleep all the time, so I
faked half delirium and controlled myself on that fake. I
recognized and unrecognized things whenever I wanted.
When they thought I was in consciousness, they asked me
to do some works such as wipe the floor, pick vegetables.
When they saw me to go back and forth and muttering,
they didn’t let me do anything. Sometimes, I chuckled and
laughed at my acts looked like I was really mad. Everyone
thought I was mad either! Yet, what did I care about? I
just wanted to gain my health before came back to the cell.
I didn’t feel ashamed because I thought that I had to “wear
a yellow coat staying with the Buddha.”
Three months in the infirmary helped me a lot, but I
suspected too much agonies. Most of sick campers were
died fatigue – sick without medicine plus exhausted
without food. – Some regular diseases could easily kill
them because they didn’t have any more resistance. A
camper being tetanus had let to die terribly. Many died
because of taking wild grass for cholera. Some campers
got injures while working died infectious without
antibiotic. A camper, who had been beaten by the cadres,
laid died vomiting blood beside my bed. I could not
remember how many campers died during three months,
but I thought the word “morgue” applying for the infirmary
was absolutely right!
I was lucky to get out of the infirmary healthy. The
“health care personnel” and the “doctor cadre” let me come
back to the cell with their suggestion that I had to have a
routine check every week (although they didn’t know how
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36. The infirmary
to check it!) They were also so proud that they could cure
my illness with only the populous medicines.
Chapt. 37 - The painting job
The portraits of my wife and my son brought me to the
painting job in the Tan Lap Camp. When checking my
stuffs, the rivals and cadres saw them, and not long after
that, they called me to do the painting job.
The first time, Long who has graduated from the
College of Arts, and I had to do two panels for the reeducation of the campers, one with the subject of “labor”
and the other of “study”. Long chose the subject of “labor”
and sketched it himself. I asked Bich, head of the Rivals
give me a picture from newspaper and copied it on my
panel. I felt not safe to do it by myself because “they”
could think of the painting in their way, especially a
propagandist painting.
My painting was simple: a pen in an inkpot and an
opened book on a table with a person behind as a
background. The picture from the newspaper was clearly
sketched, so I only enlarged it to fit the canvas.
Long, with his background of Arts, drew his painting
carefully. He chose a complicated subject because “labor”
was the most importance in the camp with many subjects.
He sketched two prisoners feeding some pigs and chickens.
He used the blocks of contrast colors to build the
composition. That was obviously excellent, but I didn’t
think it was suitable for those who didn’t know and even
didn’t care about arts!
To do the painting in the Tan Lap Camp was not easy.
To have a canvas, we had to make the frames and
connected some old blankets to cover it. After that, we
crushed cassava roots and cooked them with alum for
preventing fermentation and spread the glue on the
canvases. That was a fun part though because we had extra
food! Colors were the main problem because we had
nothing. We used smut mixing with kerosene for black,
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37. The painting job
inks for blue and purple, mercurochrome or red ink for red,
powdered lime for white, quinine for yellow, and so on.
Brushes were pigtails and bamboo sticks.
We finished two paintings eight by ten feet after a
month and waited for the evaluation before hanging them!
The wardens, the cadres, and the rivals had a meeting in the
room where we put two paintings. For the painting of
Long, they said that it was good, but two campers looked
so sad, that meant Long was still not ease his mind and not
believe in the policies of the Party and the State! For my
painting, they said that the pen stuck into the inkpot looked
like the knife stabbed the heart! Bich, the head of rivals,
told them that my painting was from the poster in the
newspaper, and they didn’t have any other comment.
Long was sent to K1 for confinement and his painting
was fixed by Phong, an inmate working in the “cultural
section”. I didn’t know exactly whether they confined
Long for his painting or for his acts before. Long had taken
part in the group of the campers beating “antennae” in the
boat “Perfume River” when we were transferred from
South to North.
That was my lesson. From that time on, I never created
any painting. Whenever doing painting jobs, I always
asked for a sample and kept the originals for my protection.
Other time, they asked me draw a portrait of Ho Chi
Minh, I tried to avoid by claiming that I didn’t have skill
because I just drew the portraits of my wife and my son as
my exercises. They gave Long to do that and gave me the
pictures of Karl Max and Lenin instead. I drew the picture
in black and white by charcoal. Long drew the picture of
Ho so well, but he was still criticized that the color of the
picture made Ho look like a corpse! The self-made colors
weren’t bright and vital! Fortunately, Long had to fix it
only.
Doing “cultural job” was sometimes dangerous, but it
was an easy job and once in a while had some rewards. In
the holidays of the VC such as their Independence Day,
Police Day, or Armed Forces Day, I made banners, and
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37. The painting job
hung them in the hall. After my jobs were done, they
usually gave me a special meal.
In the early morning of December 24th, 1977, the rivals
told me to decorate for the headquarters. I was really
amazed because the VC didn’t allow us to celebrate any
religion ceremony. I didn’t think they had Christmas! Yet,
I found out later that they celebrated their Police Forces
Day, not the Christmas! After a day doing the jobs, they
gave me some peanut candies and escorted me back to the
camp. Everything had changed. For prevent us to
celebrate Christmas, they checked our stuffs and mixed the
campers in other teams together. I was still in the team ten,
and my friends had helped me to move my stuffs to another
cell. That night, we celebrated Christmas by their candies!
After released from solitary confinement, Long worked
in the rivals as a “cultural personnel”, and I was still in the
team 10. I only did the cultural jobs in holidays or when
they needed me. I didn’t like to do permanently the
painting job because I didn’t want to stay inside the camp
all the time. Working in the construction job sometimes
gave me a feel of freedom.
Chapt. 38 - My Wife Came to See Me.
In 1978, after nearly two years in the Tan Lap camp, I
was exhausted! I could not recognize myself when looked
at me in the mirror. My hair was sparser. Water in the AMai stream made my hair falling a lot. My face looked
pale but bigger at both sides of the jaw because of the
poison of Cyanhydric Acid in manioc was stored in the
glands underneath. I was skinnier though I used to be
skinny.
Seeing my friends dying one by one, I wondered if I
could overcome that hardness. I didn’t scare of death
because that would release my body and my soul. The
hunger battered me day after day. Due to the malnutrition,
I always felt hungry even right after eating. I thought I
would be dead a day, a week, or a month. Every night, I
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38. My wife came to see me
just wanted to sleep in peace and did not wake up next
morning. Yet, I didn’t die! I thought I must have much of
debt in my previous life and had to pay it in this life. Our
people exterminated the people of the kingdom of Champa,
the Southern Country of Vietnam, and we had to pay for
that sin.
From April 1977 to June 1978, the VC didn’t allow us
to write a word for our families. My family recalled later
that they thought I was dead somewhere in North Vietnam.
They asked some relatives and friends who worked for the
VC, but no one knew about me until they received my
letter.
Late 1978, after so many of us had been dead, the VC
allowed us to receive gift from our families five kilograms
once in three months with some limitations such as no
dried food, spices, and salt. In my family’s letters, I knew
they were poor when they said that the poverty was the
common circumstance of the country after the war. They
had to share their poverty with me. My first gift included
some ordinary such as sesame, shrimp sauce, brown sugar,
and so on. Something seemed to be priceless but very
valuable in the camp. It could help the campers to
overcome their hardness, or sometimes it could save a life.
Like a tree had been drought for a long time, the green
color came right back with little rain! A little bit added
into our meal helped us gain our strength; some regular
medicine such as Aspirin, Tylenol, Vitamin, could cure
some illness that existed long time.
Our relatives could come to see us since early 1979 but
very unusual. Only those who had relatives in North
Vietnam would be able to come because the transportation
from South to North was difficult. From Saigon, visitors
had to spend at least ten days or so for the trip! They had
to wait in line to buy a train ticket, sometimes which took
two or three days. From Saigon to Hanoi, the train ran
about three to four days. Waiting for a “market train” (a
short distance train) in the Hang-Co Station and then
coming to the Am Thuong Station, that took at least two
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38. My wife came to see me
days. From Am Thuong to the Ngoc Dock, visitors had to
take the ferryboat sailing a day on the river. Going to the
camp from the Ngoc Dock, visitors had no choice but
walked about ten miles on the slippery clay road with the
bundles on their shoulders. Besides the difficulties of
transportation, thieves and burglars were other problems.
Then the trip came back home. Therefore, visitors needed
nearly a month for the entire trip for just for fifteen or
twenty minutes of visit.
In her letter in early 1979, my wife seemed to be
intending to come to see me. She wrote that she was trying
to see me at least once, but she didn’t have money! I was
in a dilemma. I wanted to see her but didn’t want her to
endure the hardness of the trip. I wrote back a letter to
stop her. I said that I always loved her but didn’t want her
to take a difficult trip like that. Some gifts from her were
helping me a lot. I just wanted her to be calm and to raise
our son. Her love would be my strength.
In June 1979, when I didn’t wait for anyone, I was
called to see my wife. There were no personal clothes, so I
had to dress a nearly new prisoner pajama. I didn’t have a
mirror to see what I looked like, but I knew that I was so
clumsy! I didn’t want her to see me like that! Last time
seeing each other in the Thu Duc Camp, I was not so
languorous. I had at least enough food and didn’t work so
hard, and I still had my own clothes. Two years in the Tan
Lap Camp was almost killing me. I was not me any
longer!
I walked to the house of visit like a body without a
soul. There was an only happiness mixing with a hundred
of worries! How was my wife? How would she able to
stand a long and hard trip like that? How was my family?
How was my son? A hundred of questions haunted my
mind.
She stood at the doorway when I was approaching. We
sat in opposite sides of a table. I tried to reach her hands
and squeeze. What we had talked about in twenty minutes
I could not remember, but I thought that I only asked her
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38. My wife came to see me
about my family, my son, and about her life! More than a
week coming and then the trip to go back for just a twentyminute seeing each other, I think it were not worth.
She was still young, still “fragile”, still my love, but
she seemed to be far away, seemed to come from heaven to
see me in hell! She said that she went with Ngot, Tuan’s
wife. They were friends from high school, friends having
husbands who had worked together, and friends having
husbands who were imprisoned together! I felt little easy
to know that she would not be alone. When saying
goodbye, I saw the bandage on her toes. She said that the
bucket fell down when she tried to put it onto the carriage,
and she had to walk from the Ngoc Dock to the House of
Visit because the carriage was full.
How much difficulties she had for the trip, and on the
way back home? That haunted my mind when I came back
into the camp. I put two buckets and a bag of supplies on
my place and laid down thinking of her. She was still in
the house of visit waiting for Ngot to see her husband in
K3. Only a fence separated my wife and me, but we
seemed to be too far away! Twenty minutes was over like
a dream. Could I see her again or that was the last time?
Her supplies would help me a lot, but the most importance
for me was her love.
I could not sleep all night waiting for the clanks. The
first thing that I did when coming to the lot house was
asking Lung, the educator cadre, brought me to the house
of visit, but my wife has gone. Back to the lot house, I
could not do anything.
She wrote in her letter later that she had wanted to stay
just a night with me so we could say everything. Twenty
minutes was so fast, but she was proud when her friends
told her that I looked still young and not in a bad shape
(even in the prisoner pajama).
The camp was changing thoroughly when the campers
were visited. Campers having relatives in abroad visited
regularly. The campers helped each other and the campers
“orphan” had a little more in their daily ration. Like the
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38. My wife came to see me
trees in drought having shower, every one became
healthier.
The campers took over the “forest teams” and the
“transportation teams” from the inmates and began to get in
touch with the people living around the camp. They knew
us and Southerner. Some people had a new job helping
visitors to bring their bundles or to bike visitors to the
camp. In the distant area, Saigon fashion was very
attractive. When the visitors went to the camp, children ran
along, women and girls watched and discussed, and men
whistled. My wife in her letter recalled about her trip that
when Ngot and she were walking from the Ngoc Dock to
the camp, tattering children ran along and told each other to
come to see the “actresses”. She said that she could never
imagine of an undeveloped area like that still existed in the
country.
The families of cadres had a new job as well. They
sold merchandise for visitors and for the campers. People
bought things from the cities and sold alongside of the
route from the Ngoc Dock to the camp. Visitors didn’t buy
heavy things and fresh foods from Hanoi any longer.
Cadres brought things into the camp to sell for the campers.
Money was not allowed in the camp, but they ignored it.
Life in the camp was easier day after day. The cadre
on duty even sold alcohol to the campers and drank with
them. In the Tet of 1982, they said that the campers
brought at least two hundred liters alcohol into the camp!
Female cadres learned dancing with the campers in the
entertaining team. Yellow music was still prohibited, but
cadres asked campers teach them. All of these looked like
the struggle between two cultures, the culture of the losers
and the culture of the winners. It reminded me of the
Mongolian who had conquered the Chinese and were
acculturated by the Chinese later because the Mongolian
didn’t have a developed culture. The Communists used to
say “who wins whom between the two doctrines
Communism and Capitalism.” They won the Vietnam
War, but the war of the cultures was still happening. They
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38. My wife came to see me
destroyed books, forbad “yellow music”, prohibited fashion
of South Vietnamese, and replaced them by their books,
their music, and their fashions. Now they wanted to hear
yellow music and to dance in Southerner’s way.
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39. Back South
Part 5
The Camp Z30D
Chapt. 39 - Going Back South
Five years in the Tan Lap camp was too long to endure
suffering, especially the early years. Many died, many got
chronic ills, and many disabled. My hemorrhoid was
increasingly serious without medicine!
I didn’t know how many stayed alive from four
hundred and ten campers who first came to the Tan Lap
camp because there had been many transfers from and to
the camp. At least one-third died out of the 410 campers
from the ship “Perfume River”. Some were removed from
K5 for solitary confinement and disappeared forever!
After the attack of China Armed Forces at some
Northern Provinces of North Vietnam in 1979, the
relationship between Vietnam and China became seriously
tense. Vietnam and China were no more “the lips and the
teeth” as the VC used to say, but the teeth bit the lips until
bleeding! The VC divided Northern Vietnam into three
zones. Zone I included the provinces close to the border
with China, zone II the midland of North Vietnam, and
zone III the plain of the Red-River. After the attack of
China, they moved the campers from zone I to zone II, and
the Tan Lap camp was crowded since then. We had to dig
communication trenches next to our cells ready for another
attack of China.
The VC failed in attempt to found some “sovkhovs”
(State own farm) for us to live our whole lives. Two
sovkhovs in Thanh Hoa named Thanh Phong and Thanh
Lam were just two re-education camps! They transferred
the campers to South Vietnam in 1980, but the revolt of the
campers in New Year 1981 at the camp in Ham Tan
delayed the transfer until 1982. The Tan Lap camp
prepared for that from April 1982.
From the Tet (Vietnamese New Year) 1982, rumors
about the change from “political prisoners” to criminal
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inmates were spread all over. Most of the rumors were
from cadres. Yet, we didn’t know if that would be a
release or a move. Some releases earlier had not exceeded
a hundred. The Tan Lap camp was crowded from K1 to
K5 at least three thousand campers. Criminal inmates were
minority compared with the campers. I didn’t think they
would release a lot of campers like that.
In the morning of April 7th 1982, I worked at the lot
house as usual. Yet from yesterday, I heard from the
transportation teams and the timber teams that they already
named the campers in K1, K2, K3, and K4. Everything
seemed normal in K5! I was making a wooden suitcase for
a cadre. That was special because it made of scarce wood.
I had planed four boards for its side, just waited to cut the
mortises and joint them together. That were also the most
difficult job because I had to hand-saw a chain of small
dove tail mortises and they needed to fit each other, if not
they would be broken. I could not focus on the job, only
stood by my carpentry horse watched toward the front door
of the camp. K5 was the headquarters of the camp, they
had to move the campers to K5 before transferred them.
The educator cadre didn’t say a word to me but told
Vui and Nam, two campers in my team that nothing
happened and we had to do our jobs. I heard and said to
him that I could do anything he told me to do, but it could
not be as good as I wanted because my mind could not
manage my hands! Living too long in a camp and in the
team 10, I got used to every cadre and no longer scared of
them, but I always kept me at a limit so they could not have
reason to confine me. Besides, making a wooden suitcase
was a private job; they could not force me!
Most cadres in the re-education camp were poor. They
needed some things very simple such as a wooden suitcase,
a small chair, a table, and sometimes only a notebook
having some paintings in it. Doing those jobs I had to keep
out of the warden, but I could live easier! Sometimes I
wanted to come to the stream taking bath or washing my
clothes, but I told the cadre at the front gate that I needed to
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come to the lot house to do something. He wanted me to
paint some flowers in his notebook, so he let me go with
his suggestion that I didn’t try to escape and did good job
for him!
Around ten A.M., the campers came. They carried
stuffs. I was excited, but could not come back to the camp
until noon.
We gathered in the yard in the afternoon as usual when
a cadre came in and named the campers. Those who were
named stayed in the camp; the others had to go to work.
Fifteen campers in my team including me came back to the
cell for our belongings and moved to the zone B.
An hour later, the educator cadre escorted me to the lot
house for completing the wooden suitcase. Nam, my close
friend was staying; he looked sad but tried to keep calm. I
gave him everything in my carpentry horse. I usually hid a
lot of things in there such as orange (from the orange
garden close to the lot house), sweet potatoes, cassava
roots, cabbage, rice, bobo, and so on. Those were things
that the cadres gave me for doing their private jobs. I also
gave Vui, my assistance, my tools and showed him how to
complete the suitcase after I finished the side and the lid.
The good-byes in the camp were frequently happening.
Staying campers usually concerned for their leaving
friends, but at that moment, there was an adverse situation.
Seeing their sadness, I didn’t know what to say but to
comfort them that there may be other transfers. Nam and
Vui were released after the second transfer.
Funny thing was that some good-byes were happening
between the campers and female-cadres and the women
around the camp.
That night nearly everyone stayed awake. Some said
that we were transferring to the Thu Duc camp. The Thu
Duc camp was the camp that I left for the Tan Lap five
years ago! If we came back there that would be temporary
because that camp was only a transition post. We hoped
that the VC would release us when we came to South
Vietnam.
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The next day, I put everything in my kit bag. Having
the experience of the last moving from south to north, I
tried to keep only very necessary things for it to be as light
as possible. It was still cool, so I wore my “jacket”. It was
tattered, and I had to mend it with many kinds of fabric.
Only two prisoner pajamas seemed to be in “good
condition”, so I put them, the blanket and the curtain into
the kit bag. I had cut my poncho into two pieces, the short
one for my raincoat and the rest for setting underneath the
mat preventing bed bugs. I rolled them in my mat, tied on
the lid and hung the bottle and the mug by the side of the
kit bag. I was ready, but I thought they would move at
night.
I tried to sleep early after checking into the cell. I
sensed we had to move that night. Around midnight,
cadres came to check the campers. We got in line, and they
cuffed two of us together before got out of the camp. It
was April 9th 1982; I had lived in K5 of the Tan Lap camp
for four years, eleven months and eighteen days!
There was no car or truck in front of the camp. Under
the escort of armed cadres, we walked to the A-Mai Stream
toward the K3. That was the wrong direction if we wanted
to move back South. I was worried it should be a trick. To
the bank, we crossed the stream. My slipper’s thong fell
off. I put it into my kit bag and from that time on, I had to
go in my bare feet. Some having heavy bundles hardly
moved. They threw away some of their stuffs.
At the other bank, we turned back toward the Ngoc
Dock. I sighed of relief! Perhaps that was the only way to
cross the stream without transportation! The lane to Ngoc
Dock from K3 was across the forest of styrax. In the dark
night, I could not keep away from sensitive-plant bushes
and sharp rocks. With my trousers still wet and my bare
feet cut by sharp rocks and thorn, I had to keep pace with
the others. However, I hoped to overcome everything
going back to South for at least to see my family and my
homeland.
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That was the first time I came to the other bank of the
Ngoc Dock. It was dawn, and the convoy already parked
there!
We climbed onto the opened beds of the
“Molotova” trucks and waited for all the campers.
It was full daylight. The people surrounded us saying
good-bye, and throwing food onto the trucks. When we
came, they watched us with doubt, and when we were
leaving, they gave us their sympathy.
We left the Ngoc Dock in the early morning. The area
looked busy. More houses had been built, some brickhouses intermingled with thatch-houses, people were
denser, the land was not as deserted as before, and hills
were covered with tea-trees and manioc.
The convoy reached the asphalted road about an hour
later. I saw some Honda motorcycles on the road. We
stood swinging on the trucks when they were driving on the
road full of potholes. Seven years after the war, nothing
improved except some Honda motorcycles adopted from
South Vietnam! Cars still dived across streams, roads were
still full of potholes, and people still used bicycle.
I didn’t know where the convoy headed, but about
noon I saw some cars on the road. A car with some
foreigners -white skin blond hair- followed the convoy for
a long time. They didn’t have a sign to indicate what
country they belonged to, so I didn’t know who they were.
One of them greeted us with the V sign, and some in my
truck raised their cuffs. I thought they were reporters, but
didn’t know exactly because in the country of the
Communists, reporters especially Westerner could not go
freely like that.
I thought the convoy came to Hai Phong Harbor, but
the street was different. Forest and mountain gradually
disappeared; the convoy was running in a plain area.
Around afternoon, traffic was more crowded. The Red
River appeared along the road. The convoy crossed a
bridge at rush hour. Traffic was crowded on the bridge.
There were a lot of Honda motorcycles. The people
dressed in colorful clothes. Southerner’s fashions migrated
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to North after have been banned in South Vietnam! That
was the Thang Long Bridge across the Red River, the
longest bridge in North Vietnam. We were coming into
Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam Socialism.
People watched us curiously, but I didn’t see
animosity. Some waved their hands greeting us. The
people in Hanoi changed their way of life and changed
their point of view also!
The convoy only drove around Hanoi. I saw the glitter
from a distance and didn’t know whether or not that was
the Sword Lake.
After Hanoi, the convoy straightened south. I could
not sleep and sat down reclined on our bundles. I
wondered how I could stand a long trip to South Vietnam
on the truck like that. The convoy still drove in the dark; I
could not see anything on either side of the road to figure
out where we were going.
The sun was rising at last; I saw rice paddy all around.
Some thatch houses with a pond in front were the special
character of the plain of North Vietnam. We were in the
province of Ha Nam Ninh, the new province including Ha
Tay, Nam Dinh, and Ninh Binh. The convoy turned right
and stopped at the end of the road coming to a river. Some
campers said that was the Day River at the township of Phu
Ly, the province of Nam Dinh.
On both sides of the road from the turning point to the
river, houses in different styles crowded together. An
open-air market was near the riverbank. Some small dories
carrying passengers landed at the river bank. I didn’t see a
bridge and suddenly thought of the ferryboat that carried
one car at a time when I first came to North Vietnam five
years ago. Would that fairy tale happen again in a
township?
I saw a canoe dragging a raft from a distance. It was
not a bamboo raft but a wooden one covered by steel, and it
could carry two cars at a time. The canoe was too old and
without being maintained, looked like a small ship of South
Vietnam Marine. Fifteen trucks crossed the river around
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39. Back South
noon, ran about an hour through a chain of Limestone
Mountain to the camp A of Nam Ha re-education camp.
The Nam Ha camp was better constructed than the Tan
Lap camp with brick houses surrounding by high walls. I
didn’t have time to know about that camp because we only
stayed in a separated zone. The concrete platform in the
cell was cleaner than the wooden platform in the Tan Lap
camp at least.
Around midnight of the second day, we were moved to
Phu Ly train station. That place-name I used to know in
some books of the Tu Luc literary group. Yet, the “Phu Ly
station” was only a house having two walls by both sides
and wide open by the others sides. It had been built during
the French Colonial Period without any improvement! The
only light bulb hanging underneath the roof without ceiling
produced yellow light for a room about six by ten meters.
More than six hundred campers were jammed in that
room; we only crouched in our place. My knees and my
thighs were numb after a while, but I was unable to stretch
my legs. I told Tam, my “cuff mate”, to stand up and
reverse the position to sit in opposite side. I felt a little
better after that, but cadres didn’t allow us to move any
longer. They wanted us to sit still in the dark for ease of
control.
The train arrived at the station when the sun rose over
the horizon, about seven or eight in the morning. Cadres
named us again. We stepped onto the train. We filled
three wagons.
The benches were made for three
passengers. Two couples of camper would be able to sit on
the bench, but the third couple could not sit in both sides of
the walkway with the cuff without a chain. We switched
positions alternately, two couples on the benches and one
on the floor.
With the cuff on my hand, I still felt better than in the
hold of the “Perfume River Boat” five years ago. It was a
passenger train, so we had restrooms and food service. We
didn’t have to step on nasty floor like on the boat, and most
of all, we were going to South Vietnam, our homeland!
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Some unfound-optimists said that it had been anguish to go
north and was glorious to come back south! I didn’t know
for sure if it should be glorious, but at least I knew where
my destination was.
The railroad was going along with the National
Highway, the only road from North to South Vietnam. I
saw craters in the field, the sign of the war still left
everywhere in North-Vietnam. The National Highway was
narrow and full of potholes. The old train with coallocomotive blew smoke all over! The train didn’t stop but
moved slowly at some stations. I could see activities of the
people. Hawkers mostly children with baskets full of
merchandise ran along with the train and shouted their
wares. At some first stations, the cadres didn’t allow us to
open the windows, but they ignored later. Some campers
bought food from those kids. When they realized we were
unusual passengers, they didn’t want to take money, but we
didn’t take advantage of them.
The passenger trains –called market trains- filled of
people sitting, standing, and even hanging at the doors;
what chaos I hadn’t ever seen! I suddenly shivered
thinking of the trip when my wife came to see me in 1979.
How could she stand a long and chaotic trip like that? On
the train from South to North, besides the turmoil, there
would be thieves, robbers, burglars, and even killers.
Women with heavy stuff were obviously their targets. I
thought those trains were worse than our train except
passengers didn’t have cuffs on their hands!
At a station, I didn’t know the name, the train stopped
for a while. Some children-hawkers jumped onto the train
selling their stuffs. I bought a couple of banana baked in
stick-rice shell with the money I had hidden in my kit bag
and ate with relish as if I had a delicious meal.
I sat tiredly on the floor and took a little nap. A night
waiting in the “Phu Ly” station made me exhausted. I had
my seat when it was nearly dark. The train crossed the
“Ben Hai” River on the bridge parallel with the wellknown bridge named “Hien Luong” – the name means
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39. Back South
“virtue and honesty” – at the seventeenth parallel which
used to be the frontier separating North and South Vietnam.
How many battles had happened on that bridge of
virtue and honesty and in the so-called demilitarized zone?
What an abuse of words! The River was small, so was the
bridge! Yet, they came into Vietnamese History as a place
name that could not forget! Two times Vietnam had been
divided into two countries, and the names of Gianh River
and Ben Hai River engraved into the minds of the people as
the stains that would not be able to erase!
Vietnam was unified! The problem was that the
Communists took advantage of the patriotism of the people
in the war to found an inhumanity doctrine in the country.
They not only steal the credit of the people in the war but
also the property of the people after the war was over.
With the slogan such as “all for the construction of the
socialism” they took everything from the people! The
people were poorer and the Communists were richer. The
“Ben Hai” River was entered into the History, but the
Communism still existed. The people had overcome the
gruel war but had to live in the poverty under the reign of
the Communists. Only the Communists were patriots. “To
love the country meant to love socialism” what a bizarre
definition!
It was totally dark when the train came into the city of
Hue, the old capital of Vietnamese Emperor. In Mau Than
New Year 1968, the VC had temporarily taken over that
city and did a mass killing. I tried to watch the activity of
Hue, but it was so dark. The train stopped at a station, and
I fell in a deep sleep at my seat.
Tam, my cuff mate, was moving and woke me up when
the train was running somewhere in Central Vietnam. I
was amazed when seeing the posts running in front of me.
Last night, I remembered sitting opposite side of the
moving direction of the train, that meant the posts had to be
running from behind me. What had happened in the night?
Did the train change its route back to North Vietnam or it
was moving to somewhere in Central Vietnam? We found
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out later that at the station in Hue, they changed a diesel
locomotive instead of coal, so they changed the opposite
side of the train also.
At some small stations in Central Vietnam, people
began to realize who we were and waved at us. To the Quy
Nhon Station around noon, hundreds of people stood along
side the railroad, threw food into the train, shouted, and
waved at us as if we were their relatives. After the Quy
Nhon Station, cadres didn’t allow us to open the windows
any longer. Yet, over the window, I still saw people
gathering in the stations and greeting us.
To Nha Trang, the seaside city of Central Vietnam, the
train moved slowly because it was rush hour. Thousands
of people already stood along side the railroad. Rumor ran
faster than the train! Some campers tried to open the
windows and cadres ignored it. We opened all the
windows. People shouted, waved handkerchiefs, threw
food into the train, and some ran along with the train. The
station of Nha Trang was full of people. The train had to
slow down. The people greeted us like a “victory troop”.
Houses along side of the railroad lighted up, and the people
stood in front waiting for the train. Whether they were
really joyful or just curious, they grew in my mind a great
affection that I would never forget!
The train got out of the city when it was totally dark.
We closed the windows and tried to sleep. I laid down on
the floor hearing the sound of the steel wheels rolling on
the railroad and fell into deep sleep until it was dawn. The
train ran slower and then stopped at the station named
“Muong Man”.
Muong Man was a small train station in the province of
Phan Thiet, South-East of Central Vietnam. From there to
the Thu Duc camp was a long trip if we were really
transferred to that camp.
The station was unusually quiet. We sat on the coaches
waiting until noon, and then the coaches drove North on
the National Highway, turned right at the well-known spot
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39. Back South
in the war named “Rung La” (Forest of Palm Leaves) in the
secret zone of the VC named “May Tao”.
The camp had the code name Z30D and its real name
was “Thu Duc”, not the camp in the “Thu Duc” Township
close to Saigon, but the “Thu Duc” camp in Ham Tan, the
Province of Thuan Hai. It was around 3P.M. of April 18th
1982.
Chapt. 40 - The Re-education camp Z30D, Ham
Tan, Thuan Hai
The Thu Duc camp where we were coming in was the
“next generation” of the camp in the Thu Duc Township
close to Saigon. It was named upon the old camp, but
people often called it Z30D by its code name.
From the National Highway I to the camp we had to go
about two miles on the lane through forest of palm trees
and Barian kingwood (Baria dalbergia) – a kind of rare
wood. When I came, the camp had three sub-camps named
K1, K2, and K3. K1 was the main camp and the
headquarters. K2 stayed about three kilometers north from
K1 and K3 about four kilometers south.
The camp Z30D changed day after day, but at first
there were four zones in K1 named A, B, C and D. Four
brick houses in the zone A stood parallel of each other and
surrounded by walls. Zone B consisted of four thatch
houses with bamboo fence surrounding. Zone C was a
thatch house close to the kitchen. Zone D was a brick
house standing alone at the back side of the camp. We
were sent to the zone A and B. In the zone A, we filled out
three houses 2, 3, and 4. House 1 for the campers who
were confined; it separated to the others by the wall. Each
cell held about fifty campers. Cell was a room about six by
twelve meters with a restroom at one end having a cistern.
The construction looked alike with that in the Tan Lap
camp except the stages were concrete and tile instead of
wood and the houses were roofed by corrugated concrete
sheets. But the thatch houses in the zone B were more
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40. Z30D – HamTan - Thuan Hai
“temporary” with palm leaves and bamboo. From the zone
A to the zone B we had to cross the gate that was locked all
day unless cadres or the rivals opened for the campers
coming to the kitchen.
The kitchen located at the right end of the camp,
outside of the fence and close to the lot-house of carpentry
work. There were three different gates for three zones
except the zone D. The fence around the camp was made
of barbed wire and thick bamboo hedge. The deep ditch
full of water along with the fence separated the fence with
the camp. In the zone A, we could see each other in three
houses except the house 1. The campers living in the zone
D were the rivals and the “special-section” – the campers
who were trusted by the warden and worked in the
headquarters.
Across from the camp was the headquarters that had
three parts from left to right, the zone for cadres, the office,
and the warehouse. Most of the houses in the headquarters
were brick houses except the zone for families of cadres. A
clay route from the National Highway to the camp ended at
the stream and separated the camp with the headquarters.
The trees hyacinth (a kind of tree having white flowers,
narrow channeled leaves and spikes of fragrant) grew
everywhere in the camp and alongside of the lanes. We
collected the flowers to add to our meal as vegetable.
The forests surrounded the camp. Some small plots of
land were the cornfields. Palm trees grew everywhere;
therefore the people named that region the “palm leaves
forest”. The people used palm leaves for roofing houses
and small buds for knitting sedge fans and conical hats, the
ribs of old palm leaves for making chopstick and fishing
rod. In spring, palm trees blossomed, had fruits, and then
died. The fruits of palm tree were poisonous; it could kill
fishes, and the people crushed them and poured into the
stream to catch fishes.
Trees in that forest used to grow for a long time by
South Vietnam Government. Bassia, Barian Kingwood
(Baria Dalgergia), Ebony and Rosewood were some kinds
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40. Z30D – HamTan - Thuan Hai
of rare wood. In the War, that region used to be the “white
zone” – the freely bombardment zone. No people lived in
that region except the VC in the war zone named May Tao,
the name after the mountain that separated that region to
the ocean. A small ARVN post across from the camp
protected the National Highway.
The stream, the main source of water came from the
mountain, circled to the National Highway at K3 and back
to K1 and K2. They built a small bridge at the end of the
lane. The bridge looked like a “monkey bridge”. The
stream was deep in sunny season, but flew violently in
rainy season. Its surface almost reached the bridge. The
pump station at the bank of the stream sent water to the
camp. The land in the other side of the stream was totally
deserted. Thorn bamboo, palm trees, and many kinds of
tree grew densely. The only small track went alongside
with the stream from K1 to K3.
The difference between the forests in North Vietnam
and in South Vietnam was that in South Vietnam, there
were lots of animal in the forests such as snakes, rabbits,
birds, monkeys, boars, and even elephants. The stream had
fishes and snails. Besides, bamboo shoots, wild banana,
and mushroom would be our source of nutrition. Five
years in the Tan Lap camp taught me the way to look for
anything eatable!
The campers in the camp Z30D were not as skinny as
the campers in the Tan Lap camp even the campers in two
“confinement teams”. When coming back from work, they
usually had something that they collected in the field. It
was a good sign! Most of them dressed in sandbag-clothes.
That meant they already exchanged their uniforms!
The campers in Z30D were mostly personnel of the old
regime, some in the so-called “reactive organizations”
founded after 1975 to go against the VC, and boat people
who had failed to escape from the country. There was no
criminal inmate until 1985 when the women inmates were
transferred into the camp. In 1988, the inmates were filled
the camp after the major release of the campers.
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40. Z30D – HamTan - Thuan Hai
Those who had stayed in the Thu Duc camp when I left
for North Vietnam such as Cang, Trang, Luong, and so on,
were still in Z30D, but Nhan, my former agent was moved
to another camp after the revolt of the campers in
Vietnamese New Year, 1981. Nhan died right after
released in 1988 although he was about mid-thirty.
The Rivals headed by Tri, a former major of the RVN
Police. They searched carefully our stuffs. Some of my
friends told me to pay more attention of Cung, one of the
Rivals who used to be a major in Parachutists and the
husband of a striptease in Saigon 1970’s. Cung was
removed from the Rivals later and worked in the kitchen.
Campers called him the nick name “Cu Dau”
(pachyrrhizus, spoonerism for “fuck the dog”).
The formation of the camp Z30D was identified with
that in the Tan Lap camp. It was the common pattern of
structure in the re-education camps of the Communists. In
the camp, there were the Rivals and the Self Management
Committee of campers and in the headquarters the Wardens
and the Committee of Cadres. Nothing was different
except the way they managed the camp.
The wardens in the camp Z30D was also the wardens
in the Thu Duc camp five years ago with Mach as the chief,
Phuc the deputy, and Ninh in charge of K1. The cadre
named Nhu was going to be a special personality later; he
was only a lieutenant in charge of ordnance at that time, yet
he became more powerful. He changed everything from
the prison to the headquarters. He took power in 1985,
climbed from the chief of K1 to the chief of the camp, and
then combined two camps Z30D and Z30C. He forced the
campers to work harder to deforest and to collect rare
wood, to bring stone from the mountain and put on the
stream bed, to construct the dam for hydroelectric, and to
build houses for him and for the entertainment center. He
became an evil not only for the campers but also for the
cadres.
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41. The early days in Z30D
Chapt. 41 - The Early Days in Z30D
The excitement of coming to South Vietnam was over.
I began to live a normal life! They didn’t re-organize us,
and we worked everyday as usual. Our job was digging up
grass and growing corn. Roots of Alang grass (imperata
cylindrical) interlaced together under the ground and hard
to remove. “A hose for every camper” was the way of
labor in Z30D.
Cornfields intermingled with forest. We removed
small trees and grew corns around big trees. We had to dig
up palm trees as well. The diameter of an old palm trees
was about a meter; we dug a hole about three meters
diameter around the root to remove them. Two palm-trees
a day for every camper was obviously not easy!
The “lot-house” of our team hid in the forest, so the
educator cadre was a king in his region. Anyone wanted to
go to the lot-house had to walk on a small trail full of thorn
mimosa, snakes, centipedes, and scorpions. The wardens
didn’t come, and the educator cadre could use any camper
to do their private jobs. With the skills of painting and
carpentry, I usually worked in the lot-house. The others
jealously named those who worked the jobs for cadres as
“the officers of the lot-house”. I knew that it was a bad
thought, but I got no choice. We had to do what cadres
told us to do if we wanted to live. Besides, painting
flowers in the notebooks or making a wooden suitcase were
not a “dirty” or a “mean” job. Those were just a little
easier!
On Sunday two weeks after writing a letter for my
family, they called me to see my family. I was amazed
because it was Sunday! Tuan, my youngest brother came
from Phan Thiet. He has graduated from the College of
Economy and working at Phan Thiet Township of the
Thuan Hai Province where the camp located. He should be
working for the VC, so I was allowed to see him because
that was not a visiting day.
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41. The early days in Z30D
I was going to work as usual on next Monday. My
team didn’t go to the lot-house but worked in the field
behind the house of visit.
The house of visit stood by the right hand side of the
clay road, about half mile from the camp. It was a brick
house about six by twenty yards in a ground fenced by
barbed wire. The front gate went straight to the room of
visit. In the right hand side was a room for cadre in charge
of the house of visit and in the left hand side a waiting
room. Each room had a front and back door and some
windows.
Visitors had to resister to the cadre and then stayed in
the waiting room. The campers stayed in the camp waited
for their turn. When going to see their families, campers
drew the improved carts to the house of visit and brought
back their supplies. In the visiting room, they sat on one
side of the large table in the middle of the room and visitors
on the other side. The cadre sat at one end of the table. If
visitors wanted to give money or letters to the campers,
they had to give them to the cadre. He read the letters
before gave them to the campers. Money had to be
registered; the campers only kept a coupon valid in the
canteen only.
I was working in the cornfield behind the house of visit
when I saw my wife and my mother in the waiting room. I
waved them, and they saw me! I didn’t know why they
didn’t let me stay in the camp. My wife told my son came
to see me, but he only stood at a distance. I was totally
strange for him! I took my son to the educator cadre and
asked him about my case. He needed me to do some
private things for him; therefore he came to ask the cadre in
charge of the house of visit and then told me that I had seen
my family yesterday and could not see them again. I
explained to him that my brother only come to see if I was
in the camp and let my mother and my wife know, so they
would come to see me. The educator cadre came to the
house of visit again, and later he let me know that they
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41. The early days in Z30D
allowed me to see my family right away. It was lucky for
me to do the work behind the house of visit.
My wife looked healthier than she had been three years
ago at the Tan Lap camp! My son began to know me, his
real father, not just over the pictures. After a while, he
came to me and said “daddy”! He was almost seven years
old and at first grade in elementary school.
My mother was older and skinnier. My great loss was
the death of my grand mother. I had sensed that long time
ago, but my family had covered that for three years. I
asked about my grand mom many times, but my family
always avoided. I knew they didn’t want to worry me
because my grand mom was so close to me.
The visiting time was twenty minutes, but they allowed
me to wait for the last group. I got almost an hour with my
family. They said that they were poorer. My brothers had
to do everything even to repair bicycles on the sidewalk.
My mother’s tailor shop was unable to find customers
because people were so poor and they no longer changed
fashion. My sister could not live as the teacher of high
school, so she sold medicines in the black market instead.
My wife had nothing to do except to help my mother in the
house and in the tailor shop. Everyone in the family had to
help each other to live in the difficulty of the country.
Since the Vietnam War was over, other countries cut
their aids. With the harsh policies of the Communists
applied to the agriculture tax, farmers left their land. The
attempt to found the new-economy zones was fail; the
people came back to cities. Although Vietnam was an
agricultural country, the land was deserted. Because of
lack of materials and electricity, no industrial plant could
operate. The land reform and co-operatives policies made
the people didn’t want to work because they didn’t work
for themselves (everything was for the common good!)
The economy of Vietnam fell in crisis. After the VC
changed the currencies, the people had to bring a bag of
new currencies to buy something. One-kilogram rice was
about a hundred (South Vietnam) dongs in 1975 and about
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five hundred (new-currency) dongs in 1982, which meant
the currency was decreased 2,500 times after seven years.
What horrible!
Thinking of what my mother and my wife had said to
me, I knew that I was the heavy burden for them. They had
to help me by their difficulty. They collected every penny;
how could they share it with me? When they gave me
something they had to tighten their belts. What a misery! I
wanted to write a letter to my family but didn’t know how
to send it. In the camp Z30D, I could live with as less as
possible their supplies because I could collect foods.
Snakes, lizards, mice, frogs, and wild vegetables were
everywhere. I needed some spices and fish sauce only. I
wrote the letter and hid it in the handle of the bag for the
next visit.
From that time on, I began the plan for a long-term life
in the camp. I collected everything eatable. I didn’t know
how long I was going to live in Z30D, but I didn’t think
they would release me soon. Most of all, I didn’t want to
rely so much on my family because I didn’t want to be the
heavy burden for them.
Two more transfers from the Tan Lap camp to Z30D
happened about two months after, but they sent the
campers to K2. In September 1982, they released most of
the old campers in Z30D and part of the campers from the
Tan Lap camp. They re-organized the campers by the
campers together, transferring the campers from K1 to K2
and vice versa.
I was in the team 6, the agriculture team. Because the
fields around the camp Z30D was not rice paddy and didn’t
have leech I could stay in the agriculture team. Besides, I
could collect more foods in the field than in the lot-house,
which helped me to save for my family.
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42. My Student named Tam
Chapt. 42 - My student named Tam
In early 1993, I was re-organized to the team 2, they
called that the “sugar cane” team. We grew and cared for
the field of sugar canes in K3.
K3 about three miles south from K1 was only the cow
house. Some campers stayed with two cadres in a thatch
house. Everyday, they drove about fifty cows to the
pasture close to the foot of the mountain May Tao and
rounded them back in late afternoon. K3 used to be a part
of the prison, but it was deserted from 1980.
The first day going to K3, I met Tam, my student who
used to be in the 12th grade of the High School named
Hoang Gia Hue where I had taught from 1970 to 1975.
Hoang Gia Hue was a Catholic high school in a parish of
the people who migrated from North Vietnam in 1954.
The principle of that school was also the head father named
Dieng of the Catholic Church in that parish. In the revolt
of Catholic in 1976, the VC caught some teachers and
people in the parish. Some others dispersed. Tam told me
that father Dieng hid in the secret zone to go against the
VC. Tam also got caught in that revolt.
Tam looked younger than his age of twenty five
because he was small. His skin burned brown because he
usually worked under the sun without a hat. Actually, I
didn’t recognize him until he talked to me. Yet from that
time on, he was very helpful for me because he was young
and agile. We became close friends, and I told him called
me “brother” instead of “teacher!” Everyday he collected
eatable things in the field and cooked for us. Snakes, mice,
frogs, and even rabbits could not escape from his hands.
He was as nimble as a deer! I showed him to make some
traps, and we caught a lot of small animals.
It took almost two hours to walk to K3 on the track full
of thorn mimosa and sharp rocks, and some small streams.
In heavy rain, it was even more difficult because we had to
go into the forest to keep away from the violent stream.
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We didn’t go back to the camp in lunchtime. They only
allowed one camper who worked as “male cook” to go with
the guarding cadre to take lunches for us.
Our everyday job was to make beds for sugar cane. A
bed was about two feet high, four feet wide and as long as
the field could be. We had to stretch a string of young
palm-leaves parallel in the same distance to guide the beds.
If the bed encountered a tree, we had to remove that tree.
The field didn’t cultivate for a long time, so it was left
fallow. Alang grass, wild bushes, and especially palm trees
were very hard to remove. Making the beds for sugar cane
was really the hard labor because we only had hoses, but
we got the feeling of freedom. And most of all we could
collect some extra foods.
After the beds had been done, we put the cuttings of
sugar cane on them. In three months of hard labor, forty
campers in my team had done about ten acres. We began
to expand more land and waited for the first harvest to have
cuttings because they didn’t want to spend much money to
buy them. In the mean time, we hoed the grass.
The first harvest was about a year later when the sugar
cane began to blossom. We cut the canes to their roots,
used their tops to plant the new field, and their trunks were
sold for sugar-refineries. We also burned the leaves for the
next generation, and that was the best harvest!
The twenty acres was the original field of sugar canes
that we had done in the camp Z30D. Some years later, they
founded the sugar-refinery in the camp and bought sugar
cane from people around the camp to add to those grew in
the camp.
In the early 1984, Tam and I were transferred to the
carpentry team. He worked in the carpentry group and me
in the construction group. We saw each other once in a
while until he was released in late 1984.
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43. She said goodbye
Chapt. 43 - “She” said “goodbye!”
Once in about two or three months after the first visit,
my wife usually came alone or with my boy to see me. We
had time together. The cadre in charge of the house of visit
no longer sat at the table and allowed us to have more than
twenty minutes. Since then, I felt closer to my wife. Yet, I
also felt something that separated us. She was still
“fragile”, still my beloved, but I thought she changed. She
got more will, and she was not as “fragile” as I imagined.
The hardship in her life made her grew stronger. She no
longer needed me. In the contrary, it was me who needed
her!
I didn’t know whether the love or just an ancient ethic
tied us together. I felt pity for her to waste her life because
of me. Sometimes, I told her that I loved her so much but
didn’t want her to rely on me because I didn’t know when I
would be released. I just wanted her to raise our son to
become a good person.
Late 1983, they allowed new campers from the Tan
Lap camp to visit their wives overnight. That had only
applied for the special campers such as team leaders, the
rivals, and special-sections. My wife told me to ask the
cadre for us to stay overnight at least once so we could say
things that had happened for a long time. I felt a little
worried about her idea.
Tu, the educator cadre in charge of my team told me
that he would help me only if I was a team leader or a
deputy because that was the rule of the warden. He created
a new position for me in the team called “the deputy in
charge of living” for the campers, and that was the first
time I saw my wife overnight in October 1983.
The house for campers and families to stay overnight
was a thatch house inside the fence of the visiting zone
including four rooms for guest and a room in the middle for
cadres. Visiting room was about ten by ten feet, with
earthen floor and thatch wall. There was a small bed with a
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43. She said goodbye
sedge mat and a table without a chair inside. A light bulb
hanging under the roof produced the yellow dim light.
In that night, my wife said about her life after she left
the Chu Van An High School. In addition, she asked me to
say to my family letting her and my son move in her
parents’ home. I knew about the contradiction between her
and my family, but I thought she could overcome that. She
was always harmonious with others! Staying with her the
night, I could not sleep listening to her. I thought of her
conversation and sensed the trouble that I was going to
have. That was not simple. I could not let go her desire,
yet I knew that I would be able to lose her. Eight years
waiting for me was too long; I could not be selfish! She
had to have her own life. She could do that by herself, but
she asked me in advance, that made me in the dilemma. I
still loved her so much, but I didn’t want her to waste her
life because of me. She could begin her life again at the
age of thirty-two; if not, it would be too late! With that
thinking, I wrote a letter for my family.
Two months later, she came to see me again. She
thanked me about my decision. We stayed a night together,
and that was the last time! She had moved in her parent’s
home.
Three months after that, she came to see me. Yet that
time, she didn’t want to stay and just told me about her
prepare to go abroad with her “cousin”. According to her,
he came to the USA in 1975, and now he wanted her to
come with him. I didn’t known about her “cousin”, and I
thought I didn’t need to know. The only thing I knew was
that would be the last time she came to see me. She looked
far away from me although she was sitting next to me. She
was better dressed than before. And she positively went
home even though the cadre let us to stay. She didn’t say
“good-bye” yet, but from her behavior, that would be the
“good-bye”. I had to accept whatever happening to me
because “to lose the country to the Communists is to lose
everything.”
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43. She said goodbye
In the last visit, she asked me to sign a paper for my
son to go abroad with her. I waited for that paper, but
didn’t have it. I knew I would lose my son if I signed the
paper. I readied for those losses and just prayed for them
to have the better lives. I wrote many letters for her and
then tore them up! I didn’t want to be an impediment to
her passage. She had to have her own life!
How long I would be in the camp? No one knew. She
was absolutely right to write me a letter later that she had to
carry out the reality for her, not wasted any more time to
wait for something unreal! It was the “good-bye” that I
received from her. To engrave that even into my memory,
I decided to quit smoking. I gave up all of my cigarettes to
my friends and told them that from that time on I never put
a cigarette on my mouth. It was so hard for an addict to
cigarettes like me, but I had to do. “She quitted me; I
quitted smoking!” I thought that would be the end of my
love story, but it always followed me most of the time in
the camp. That was just a “good-bye”, not a “farewell”
yet!
Chapt. 44 - The Carpentry Team
In the early of 1984, I was transferred to the carpentry
team. Most campers in the carpentry team were usually
volunteers but I wasn’t because doing the agriculture jobs
in Z30D was not so hard and had my opportunity collecting
extra foods. My history to do carpentry jobs in the last
camp was the reason they transferred me.
The cell for the carpentry team located at the end of the
camp, close to the kitchen, and that was also the cell for the
campers in the kitchen team and the construction team.
That thatch house only had one cell with bamboo-screen
walls, bamboo-bar windows and earthen floor. The house
was so dirty, but no one paid much attention because three
teams had to work all day long, came back to the cell for
sleeping only!
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44. The Carpentry team
About one hundred fifty campers stayed in an eighteenby-two-hundred-feet cell, the campers in the kitchen team
at one end, the carpentry team in the middle, and the
construction team at the other end. There were two toilets
at both ends of the cell. Campers slept on the bambooknitted boards on the two two-storied-wooden stages. We
didn’t have shelf, so we put our stuffs on our places. The
cell still had extra room, and we weren’t too crammed!
The carpentry team was the biggest team in the camp.
It divided into four groups: the carpentry group, the
construction group, the forging group, and the sawing
group.
About forty campers in the carpentry group and the
construction group helped each other in two main jobs:
making furniture, windows, and doors, and doing the
construction jobs such as attaching doors, windows, rafters,
and beams for brick houses, and making wooden and
bamboo houses.
The sawing group was about fifteen campers who
operated the chain-saw machine and the mill-saw,
providing wood for carpentry and construction.
Ten campers in the forging group made knives for the
timber-team and hoes for the agriculture teams.
The lot-house of the Carpentry team was close to the
stream next to the kitchen. It consisted of four thatchhouses in the area about one acre fenced with barbed-wire:
the house for carpentry and construction, the house for
forging and sawing, the house for the campers who stayed
overtime, and the house for cadres.
Only the house for cadre had walls and located at the
gate of the lot house, next to the house for forging and
sawing. The house for forging and sawing was paralleled
with the clay route and across from the kitchen. The house
for the campers who stayed overtime was perpendicular
with the house for cadres and the house for carpentry and
construction was at the end of the area and paralleled with
the house of forging and sawing. The complex was in U
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44. The Carpentry team
shape with the open area in the middle for lumbers and
timbers.
The construction job in the camp Z30D was easier than
that in the Tan Lap camp because wood had been cut in
shape by chain-saw and sawmill. The mortises were square
that was simpler than dove tail.
At first, our job was to build the lot-houses and to fix
the houses in the camp and in the headquarters. About two
months after, the cadre named Nhu took over the team, and
everything was changed. Campers had to work more than
eight hours a day, and sometimes worked until dark. The
campers of the carpentry team reached the sum of a
hundred. Nhu burnt the lot house and built the new one,
put platform in the resting house because we didn’t enter
the camp at noon and sometimes had to work overnight.
The house for the chain-saw was built in two stages: the
upper floor for cadres who guarded the lot-house and the
lower for the machine and for the campers who sharpened
the saw-blades. The octagonal house close to the gate of
the lot-house was built for Nhu when he came to check the
jobs and for Gioi who helped Nhu in the construction jobs.
When the job was too busy, Nhu formed three groups
including one group of cadres to split wood twenty-four
hours a day. Campers had to stay at the lot-house and take
turn to do the job. In the evening he let the campers in
other teams hide sawdust inside the sugar-cane fields. The
forestry brigade searched for the destruction of forest, but
could not find any evidence. They sometimes caught the
campers in the timber team but had to release the campers
because they could not detain those who were in reeducation camp. About six months, the forest around the
camp was destroyed completely. Nhu let the campers grow
eucalyptus and sugar-cane to replace the forest. Nhu was
richer and more powerful.
At first, the carpentry team only helped the
constructors to build houses in the zone B. When Nhu fired
the constructors, we had to build the houses by ourselves.
The houses were built and destroyed and rebuilt many
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44. The Carpentry team
times. Cadres said that Nhu wanted to collect the budget
from the government because he only reported the sum of
the constructions. Gioi, the camper who helped Nhu in the
construction jobs was in charge of everything in the
carpentry team although Tu was the team leader. I felt
unsafe to do the construction job and asked Tu transfer me
to the sawing group. I helped the others to push the chainsaw and sometimes to measure the timbers in the ground
beside the lot-house. So many timbers were brought in,
mostly rare wood such as barian kingwood (Baria
dalbergia), rosewood, teakwood. I had to measure at
daytime and calculated the volume at night.
Working in the carpentry team, I could not collect extra
foods from the field. Yet, the lot-house of the team was
close to the stream; I made some fishing rods and leave
them in the stream to catch fish by chance. Sometimes, I
was able to go fishing at noon or at the resting time.
In 1986, Nhu transferred me to the painting job, but I
was still in the carpentry team.
Chapt. 45 - “Nhu” and the camp Z30D
Our lives in the camp Z30D depended so much on one
person. His name was Nhu. He managed the camp in his
own way, and he was an evil not only for the campers but
also for cadres.
The early warden was Doan Mach, who used to be the
chief of the Thu Duc camp in 1975. When I first came to
the camp Z30D, Mach was still the chief of the warden,
and Phuc the deputy. The head of the K1 was Ninh. Nhu
was just a lieutenant cadre in charge of ordnance. The
wardens just kept the campers in order. Campers worked
eight hours a day and only did everyday jobs on the
cornfields or in the lot-house. The area around the camp
was still deserted; trees and bushes grew densely.
Nhu was at my age, but he looked old. He was short,
skinny, and had obviously an appearance of poor peasant in
North Vietnam although he tried to cover it up! He had
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45. Nhu and the camp Z30D
dark skin, and his bucktooth covered with lots of gold. We
over-teased that when he smiled, everything was
brightened. The peculiarity was that he usually dressed
ridiculously. The first time I saw him in the warehouse, he
had the bright-green suit although it was very hot. He
usually walked in the camp and in the working sites in
colorful pajamas. When speaking to old campers, he tried
to use friendly words but very rude in his manner.
In 1985, I heard that Nhu became the Secretary of the
Communist Youth Organization, which was an important
function in the headquarters. In the Communists country,
there were always two formations in any organization, the
Government and the Party (Communists Party). In the
headquarters, two government organizations were the
warden and the committee of cadres, and the two Party
forms were the Communists Party Committee and the
Communists Youth Organization.
For the need of the construction, Nhu took over the
carpentry team. He was not an educator cadre, but as a
cadre in charge of ordnance and the secretary of the Youth,
he managed everything in the team. The educator cadre
was just a dummy! Nhu replaced the educator cadre
whenever he wanted. He reorganized the team, combined
the construction group and the carpentry group, and took
more campers in. The carpentry team became a hot spot
with the total campers up to one hundred. He forced the
campers in the team worked more than eight hours a day.
Sometimes he took things in the warehouse to reward the
campers. No one commented him because he was the
ordnance cadre, and he also said that the warehouse-keeper
is greater than the chief.
Nhu burned the lot-house of the team and built another
one. He ordered to wall the house for the campers who
stayed over because the campers had to work until dark and
didn’t come back the camp at noon. The house for the saw
machine had two stories; the upper for cadres and the lower
for the machine. He built the house for the educator cadre
next to the gate and another in octagonal shape for himself.
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45. Nhu and the camp Z30D
After the carpentry team was re-organized, Nhu took
over the construction team. Nhu fired the constructors and
let the team build the houses in zone B. Nhu didn’t care
about the quality of construction, only cared about time.
Sometimes he forced the campers to finish the job in one or
two days regardless the camper had to work day or night.
He stayed at the hot spot at every time. He rewarded those
who worked hard and confined those who looked lazy.
Those rewards were just a bit of meat, or sugar, or a
prisoner pajama, but campers had to work hard because no
one wanted to be imprisoned in the solitary cells.
That time, campers were full in the solitary
confinement rooms. They had to remove the campers who
stayed too long and cuffed them in the cells to give places
for others. When campers were locked in the solitary
confinement, they had to stay there until Nhu remembered
and released them. Sometimes the cadre on duty had to
remind Nhu of the campers who had been confined too
long. Nhu punished and rewarded campers very unusually.
He wanted to forewarn the others who had to work harder
for him.
For the need of materials, Nhu took over the timber
team. He burned the forest on the other side of the stream
where the lot-house of the timber team was and built the
new one in K3. He increased the number of campers and
let some cadres to work with the campers and to watch
them at the same time. They transported timbers to the lothouse of the carpentry team and hid in there. The forest
around the camp was destroyed so fast, and the forestry
brigade usually came to check the camp. The campers had
to hide sawdust inside the sugar-cane fields and covered
timbers with palm leaves and sugar-canes. Nhu arranged
parties for the brigade, and corrupted them day after day.
Since Nhu had taken over the carpentry team, the camp
Z30D changed as well. First, Nhu removed the temporary
houses in the zones B and C. The zone D became zone B
with four more brick houses. The kitchen moved close to
the zone B and the infirmary close to the zone A. They
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45. Nhu and the camp Z30D
built concrete walls around the camp and only one front
gate at the end of the route in between of two zones A and
B. Coming from the front gate, the kitchen stayed at the
right hand side, the infirmary at the left, the hall in between
of the zones A and B and the isolation confinement behind
the hall. Two walls separated the zones A and B to the
hall. The ground between the infirmary and the kitchen
became the gathering yard. After that, they built the library
in front of the infirmary, dug the pond, and made the rock
garden. To come to the infirmary people had to walk on
the bridge over the pond. The library was the two stories
house: the lower for the library and the upper for the living
room where Nhu met his guests. Two kiosks at the both
side of the road coming to the hall sold stuffs for the
campers. The area in front of the hall became the
“recreation area”.
Not only in the camp but also in the headquarters was
changing. They dug the pond in the yard of the
headquarters and built bridges and floating houses, dug the
upper stream to make the lake for hydroelectricity dam, and
paved the downstream with rocks from the mountain. They
made many rock gardens on both side of the stream, moved
the visiting area to the other side of the stream, built many
houses for visitors to stay overnight and the canteen to sell
things for visitors. The campers had to do everything by
their hard labor!
After the construction of the camp was nearly done,
Nhu brought a part of campers to build houses and canteens
beside the National Highway and to build the hydroelectric
dam at the township of Tan Xuan, about fifty miles from
the camp. In the mean time, he removed the timber team to
the new zone. In about six months, the forest in the
distance of ten miles around the camp was destroyed
completely. They grew eucalyptus to replace rare wood.
The structure of the wardens was changed as well.
After Doan Mach the chief of the camp had retired, the
“central” sent Y to replace him. Nhu was in charge of K1
although just a lieutenant. He took over most of the
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45. Nhu and the camp Z30D
authorities from the wardens. Y was a dummy and Phuc,
the deputy a blurry shade. Ninh the chief of K1 was
transferred somewhere else. Everything from K1 to K2
was in Nhu’s hands. When K1 and K2 merged together, he
became the chief of the wardens though his range was just
captain. In 1988, most of the campers were released, they
combined two camp Z30D and Z30C, the camp Z30C
about twenty miles from Z30D became K2 and Nhu was
the chief of two camps. He climbed three ranges from
lieutenant to major in just two years. He put his “disciples”
in the role of the chiefs of K1 and K2.
Cadres were scared of Nhu also. Educator cadres and
guarding cadres had to warn the campers when seeing Nhu
because if anything to happen, he imprisoned the campers
and transferred the cadres. Once I painted the wall picture
in the headquarters; campers dug the pond nearby, and
cadres removed the mango trees. A cadre was cutting the
branches of a mango tree having a lot of red ants. He
jumped away flicking off the ants on his neck. Nhu
shouted loudly that “you’re going to be a Communist, why
are you scared of the ants?” The cadre had to continue his
job with one hand holding the knife and the other hand
flicking the ants. What a scene I had never seen in my life!
He treated his comrades like that, how would he treat us?
Nhu believed in superstition. He used Van as his
private fortuneteller and geomancer. Tran Hong Van, the
cripple guy who used to be a journalist in the Communist
Regime, was sentenced for a reason that I didn’t know
about. He was a gasbag! Van worked as a bookkeeper in
the library and stayed in the room next to the library. He
told Nhu that the stream was the dragon with the head near
the rock behind the lot-house of the carpentry team. Nhu
built the house in octagon on the stream, and built the rock
garden look like a tomb on the bank. He believed that it
was his tomb and once it was done, he would stand in the
tomb as if he was buried there for better in his afterlife. I
knew that, and although I didn’t believe in superstition, I
wanted to wreck his belief by bury the fish. I prayed that it
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45. Nhu and the camp Z30D
would be a shark in its afterlife instead of Nhu to be a
“king!”
In the “Nhu era”, campers had to work so hard and
were punished without reason. Some campers were
injured, some died, and some others became crippling
when developing the land full of mines to grow eucalyptus.
Campers worked day and night without resting. The
carpentry team had to work twenty-four hours a day with
two groups in three shifts. The others had to do night jobs
such as digging ponds, digging the lake for hydroelectric
dam, helping the construction team, beside their main jobs.
Sometimes Nhu rewarded those who worked night with
China kung-fu movies. Campers had to stay late to watch
movies and waked up early next morning to do everyday
jobs.
Chapt. 46 - Women Prisoners
In the early 1985 when the camp was just completed
it’s inside construction, we had to jam together and left two
houses for the new comers; they were women prisoners.
About two hundred of them divided into three
categories. Firstly, the political prisoners included those
who used to be personnel of the RVN Government and the
people who went against the Communists after April 30th,
1975. Secondly, the people had been captured attempting
to flee the country and their helpers. Thirdly, the criminal
inmates who had committed serious crimes such as murder,
burglary, and so on, and were sentenced at least ten years
in prison, and those who didn’t have precise conviction and
were sentenced “resettlement in re-education camp”.
I was painting the picture on the background of the hall
when they moved in. Cadres and the Rivals searched their
stuffs before sent them to their cells. They looked nothing
different than others, dirty and careless! The difference
between them and men prisoners was that their stuffs were
so bulky! I didn’t recognize any until I heard someone
whispering my name and I was amazed to know that she
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46. Women campers
was Major Thuy, a chief of the “Swan Detachment” of
RVN Policewomen. She was perhaps the only woman
camper who was still in re-education camp after nearly ten
years.
In the cell the night before, my friends and I played the
game to use the “Tale of Kieu” to tell fortune. In that
game, we opened the book named “The Tale of Kieu”, a
well known poem in Vietnamese Literature, picked a
random verse in a random page and conjectured our fates
base on the verse. In that game, I picked a verse: “Dank
air hangs heavy here, day is falling; and there is still a
long way home!” Its meaning was so bad, especially while
I was in prison!
“Day is falling; and there is still a long way home!” I
was still staying in prison although it was too late. “Dank
air” meant the air coming from hell. It represented for
lonely souls of victims of an injustice those still wandered
in that area. When women came to the camp, I realized
that “dank air” could be belonged to “yin” or female.
Therefore, the line of the verse meant that “there would be
a lot of women coming to the camp, and I am still stayed in
prison although it was too late to go home!”
Unfortunately, that was a bad guess!
I want to mention a bit about the bizarre sentence of the
VC named “resettlement for re-education”. For those who
seemed to be dangerous for “society” but didn’t commit
any crime, the VC sent them to prison and gave them a
sentence named “resettlement for re-education” and had to
make progress in order to be released. That meant the VC
could put any one in re-education camp without judgment
and could keep them as long as they wanted. Lots of
people were caught to re-education camp with many
strange names of crime such as “suspicious of escape from
the country”, “suspecting to overthrow the government”, or
women who were prostitutes had been captured in the raids
to “clean up the cities”.
A symbolic example of that kind of “resettlement for
re-education” was Thoang, a sixteen-year-old girl who had
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been caught to have evidences in the house where she lived
with her sister. She had to stay in re-education camp for
ten years from 1976 to 1986 without a sentence. Her
brother-in-law who had been a train robbery was sentenced
ten years in prison and was released after seven years. Her
sister, the owner of the house having material evidences
was released after three years in prison. What bizarreness!
The two houses 1 and 2 in the zone B had been fenced
separately for the women prisoners. They worked in the
field at first to care for sugar cane and hot pepper. Two
months later, Nhu formed two teams of women to work in
the sewing factory. They made prisoner uniforms for
campers in the whole country.
Nhu fenced a part of the headquarters to become the
sewing factory. Campers had to dig ponds, built float
houses, rock garden, and bridges in this factory.
To build the hydroelectric dam was the most important
labor of the campers at that time.
The stream running by the camp was small. It was
about twenty yards wide and flowed violently in rainy
season. Yet, in sunny season, it looked like a ditch. Water
level at some spots was just about some inches. We could
walk easily over. Campers had only two or three places to
take bath, but water was muddy because every team had to
come there after work days.
When we heard about the decision of building the
hydroelectric dam, we were so worried. We didn’t have
any thing but spades, hoes, crowbars, and our labors. In
addition, there was no one who knew about hydroelectric
dam.
The very first thing we had to do was to expand the
creek to become a lake! We had to dig the bed of the
stream from the bridge upward to be deeper and wider.
Two campers a dustpan, we carried dirt and stone and set
them on the future bank of the lake, about a hundred yards
from the bank of the stream. Those who were stronger and
younger had to dig soil by spades, hoes and crowbars. We
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worked continuously days and nights, and even in Sundays
and Holidays.
That time, campers worked so hard and so tired that we
slept easily whenever we could. Some body had described
that in a song imitating from another song named “Spring
in the Ho Chi Minh City”, which we usually heard on the
radio. The song was renamed “Spring in Z30D”
“A mother comes to see her son in this spring,
“So she knows the way to go to the camp Z30D.
“Where her son has to work on the lake
“Days and nights made him to be so anguished!
“She arrives at five in early morning.
“Her son looks pale and skinny.
“What do you want? She asks.
“I bring you some brown sugar in that “guigoz” can,
“A can of fried shrimp and a bag of dried rice.
“Two sticky-rice cakes that I just bought for you
“To ease your hunger.
“And this is twenty five hundred piasters, which I
saved.
“You sneak into the camp, and take care of yourselves.
“When I can not come to see you,
“You have at least some money to buy things that you
need.
“Living long time in forced labor camps,
“I just hope you to overcome hardness...
“Spring in the camp Ham Tan, at the “Palm-Leaves”
forest
“Is the worst spring in the world?”
It took plenty of time and effort to dig the lake, so Nhu
formed a team of young and strong campers to do
permanently that job. Others had to do everyday jobs as
usual and to work on the hydroelectric dam at nights and
weekends.
When having women campers, Nhu created the mixing
team to dig the lake. He called that the “hot shot team”.
That was the first mixing team in the camp, and from that
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time on the relationship between men and women campers
became a complicated matter.
Every night in the hydroelectric dam site, Nhu and
some cadres were sitting in a hut on a high spot to drink
tea, listened to music and watched the campers doing their
jobs. Campers were working on the ground; Nhu was
watching from above. It looked like a movie to perform a
scene of the Roman Empire with a king who watched his
slaves to build his temple. From that time, “yellow music”
was heard every where in the camp because Nhu only
listened to “yellow music” and “oversea music”.
The “entertaining team” was changed as well. There
were no longer men in the roles of women in a play as it
used to be. Some women campers with special talent had
joint the team that made the entertaining team to become
better. Suong, who could sing folk songs and perform
rather well in her roles; she also looked pretty under the
limelight although she was actually not as beauty as she
seemed to be. Some others could sing folk-songs as well as
modern songs such as Ngoc, Thuong, Chuyen. Therefore,
the entertaining team could perform successfully some
difficult plays like “The Queen Mother Duong Van Nga”,
“Cinderella”, and so on.
Besides the job in my studio, Nhu asked me to do
numerous things in the “entertaining team”. I was costume
designer, fashion designer and stage designer at the same
time. I had to make implements for the stage, clothes for
actors and actresses, and to do the make-ups for them also.
Those were so difficult especially in the camp because
materials were too rare. I had to use prisoner’s pajamas,
curtains, and even old blanket and asked the campers in the
sewing factory to do clothes due to my imagination
because I didn’t have any book or document to study first.
After that, I used color powder to draw on the clothes and
collected aluminum paper in wasted packs of cigarette for
decoration. Swords and spears were made from bamboo
and cardboard. To apply make-up for actors and actresses,
I had to use their own cosmetics and even use color
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powders for whom that didn’t have cosmetics. That could
harm their skin, but I had no choice. They accept that any
way because they wanted to stay in the “entertaining team”
rather than to go to work. In late of the year 1987, Nhu let
me go with a group of selected campers to the Ben Thanh
market to buy cosmetics, yet only for those who have
money because Nhu didn’t give me money.
The entertaining team only performed two or three
times a years, especially in the Tet and in the Independence
Day of the VC. Other time, they helped the others in the
field.
A complicated matter that happened when women
came to the camp was the relationship between men and
women campers. Plenty of things were derived from that
relationship.
First of all, the regulation of the camp restricted any
relation between campers despite they were same sex or
different sex. Nhu confined severely those who had manwoman relations. Yet, he encouraged them to work
together! He said that that would help camper to work
more effectively. Every night on the hydroelectric-dam
site, he told a man and a woman to bring a dustpan
together, but when he was dislike, he sent them into the
solitary confinement right away!
Besides, each camper had different point of view about
that matter. Some was indifferent, others had bad
judgment.
The relationship between men and women was
happening secretly at first. They hid their letters folded in
small pieces called “candy” for their contacts. Sometimes
they just glanced or waved each other from distance called
“shot”. Therefore, it was too hard to know that relation
was a true love or just a sham to fulfill their lacks of love
and their needs.
Most women campers, especially criminal inmates,
used to be abandoned by their families. Men usually had
supplies from relatives, but they were single or divorced.
These two kinds of people were easy to meet each other in
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46. Women campers
a narrow place like re-education camp. To exchange
something for a glance or a smile despite a true love or not
was just a human character. Some people had condemned
but could not prevent it to happen!
Nhu took the advantage of that and used it as bait when
he wanted or confined the campers when he no longer
needed. At the same time, he chose five girls for himself.
Campers called these “the five dragon princesses”. They
stayed in their forbidden house where no one, even cadres,
dared to come except Nhu. They were Loan, Mai, Chau,
Anh and Phi. Four worked as seamstresses to fix uniforms
for cadres and Phi worked in the canteen. Tu replaced Phi
later when Phi was released. Nhu watched out of Loan the
most, so the campers knew that she was Nhu’s lady! To
contact with one of “the five dragon princesses” meant to
have a bad luck. Loc, a camper in the entertaining team
was confined many times because of his relation with
Loan. Nam, a camper working in the sugar refinery,
committed suicide by antiseptic because of his desperate
love with Tu.
That time, I did painting jobs around the camp, in the
headquarters, at the new construction sites. I often got
“candies” in my paint box. They wrote plenty of things,
but I just felt sorry for them when I thought of my
situation. I thought that even they wanted to take
advantage for their needs that was certainty. Everybody in
that circumstance had to look for his or her way to live one
way or another!
A girl whom I felt pity the most was Phi, one of “the
five dragon princesses”. I knew that she liked me but she
had to hide her emotion because she scared of Nhu.
Whenever she went by my studio, she put a can of soymilk
for me. When she was released, she wrote me some letters,
but I didn’t reply because I didn’t want to give her hope. I
knew that I still loved my wife though she had said “good
bye!”
The relationship between men and women campers
was gradually more obvious, especially when there was the
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so-called “recreation area” in the camp and campers were
allowed to see each other in that area every night.
From 1989, women campers began to took part in the
so-called “wide area section” (went around the camp
without watching of cadres).
Some of them got
pregnancies and delivered babies in the camp.
Beside the relationship between men and women,
numerous of women campers had homosexuality as well.
They were jealous one another, scrambled for their
“lovers”, even beat each other. Xa, a drummer in the band
of “the entertaining team” was a best “lover” for many
women campers though she had slovenly appearance!
Chapt. 47 - My Studio
It was so strange to have my own studio in reeducation camp. Yet as the matter of fact, it happened to
me in the camp Z30D. In 1985, when Nhu, the new chief
of the camp re-modeled the hall, he asked the Rivals to
have an artist to paint a picture on the background of the
hall. He wanted it to be painted permanently on the wall,
not on a drapery, so everyone could see it right away when
he or she went into the hall.
The rivals told me to stay in the camp to see Nhu when
I was ready to go to work. I was stunned and a little afraid
because every camper knew that to see Nhu meant to have
trouble. Working in the carpentry team, I tried to avoid
him by asking Tu, the team leader, transfer me to the wood
splitting group instead of the construction group. At that
time, the camp began to re-model. Nhu spent most of his
time with the construction group, and he sent a lot of
campers into the solitary cells because they seemed to be
lazy.
I waited for him in the hall until noon. The
construction group was working there too. Nhu showed me
the metal sheet panel at the end of the hall and asked me:
- “Can you draw a big picture over there?”
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- “I think I can, but I don’t know what you want me to
do.” I replied him with my relief.
- “Just a landscape!” He said, and then he softly sang a
lyric in an old song: “The winding lane goes around the old
pine trees!” “I wanted everyone who looks at your
painting and feels that the hall was coming far away.” He
added.
- “I will try with my best, and I just need some paints
and brushes.”
I went along with him to get the materials at the
warehouse in the headquarters and began the painting.
That was the first landscaping I had done in the camp.
To do the painting job in re-education camp was
dangerous because every cadre had different way to
criticize, and most of those critics were inappropriate for
those who did the painting. Many campers had to be
locked in solitary cell for that. Yet in that situation, I had
to do what Nhu told me to do if I didn’t want to be
confined. For my protection, I did the sketch and had Nhu
approve it first.
I painted the Xuan Huong Lake (at Da Lat, the
highland in Central Vietnam) as the background and some
pine trees as the foreground; the lane wound from distance
and came to the stage at the end of the hall. Coming from
the door, people seemed to be in the forest of pines going
to the lake far away. I finished that painting in four weeks.
Nhu was very pleased with that and gave me some money
as the “reward”. The first time in the camp I received
money from a cadre. I didn’t care about money but I knew
that I could avoid hard labor by doing painting job. I told
myself I would do landscaping only because it was neutral
at least, and no one could have inappropriate critic on
landscaping except it was pretty or not.
After that, Nhu had the construction team build three
brick panels in the open air around the gathering area. I
painted three pictures presenting three parts of Vietnam:
North, Central, and South. I painted the Single-Column
Pagoda in Hanoi on the panel at the zone B, the Thien Mu
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(Heaven Mistress) Bell Tower at the infirmary, and the Ben
Thanh Market at the zone A. Each one was about eight by
ten feet and took me about a month to complete. I had to
renew those pictures many times because they were located
in open air but I used indoor paints very easy to fade out in
the sun and in the rain.
I was transferred to the painting job but still in the
carpentry team. Everyday, I went with the team to the lot
house and brought paints and brushes to do the paintings,
mostly on the wall. I was on the order of Nhu only. For
easier to do my job, I told Nhu that some cadres criticized
my paintings in different ways and made me didn’t know
what to do. I didn’t know what he had done, but from that
time no body said anything about my paintings. I knew
Nhu needed me, but I still kept me at a limit for him not to
have any reason to confine me.
Whenever I painted the picture, especially out door, I
usually delayed the job. In the camp, we had to work even
if it was light rain. Once, Nhu told me to paint in the rain, I
diluted the paint in kerosene and painted it on the wall.
The raindrop smeared the paint all over the wall. I had to
scrap the wall and redo the painting later. Since that time, I
had the reason take the rest when it was rain.
Early 1986, while I was painting in the canteen, Nhu
told me to have another artist work with me. I introduced
Diep, who just transferred from the camp Z30C. Diep used
to be my friend in the Central Intelligence Organization,
who had his own showroom in Saigon the years 1970’s.
Yet, he didn’t used to do landscaping. When he was
transferred to the camp Z30D, some of my friends came to
ask me to help him to do the painting job with me for him
could not be up to the rivals. They told me that Diep had
caused damage to many campers in the camp in North
Vietnam when he was in the rivals. I didn’t know for sure
about that, but I rather did something. Besides, I needed
someone to help me because I had plenty of works.
With two people, Nhu gave us a room, which used to
be the house for the educator cadre in charge of the
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carpentry team, for our studio. My studio was a thatch
house about eighteen by twenty feet having concrete floor
and wooden board wall. It stood alongside with the road in
front of the lot house of the carpentry team. Its front door
opened to the road and the side door to the plain area
between the lot house and the canteen, next to the
hydroelectric dam. In the studio, there were two self-made
easels, a bed, and a table with two chairs for Nhu when he
came to see our works. I made a small locker about six by
three feet in the corner of the room to store paints and to
hide my personal things. We began to do the paintings,
mostly landscaping on canvas. I had to make frames by
myself. Tissue for canvases was the coarse fabric for
prisoner pajamas; therefore, they were not last long
especially big canvases, but who cared.
That time, Linh, my wife’s brother-in-law was
transferred to the camp. He worked as a “male cook” for
his team. Everyday, he went to the stream close to my
studio to carry water for his team and brought foods for us.
Diep and I gave him things we had such as fishes that I
caught from the stream or something they rewarded for our
team.
At noon breaks, I usually went fishing while Diep
stayed in the studio. He was the guardian of the studio!
His family came to see him regularly, so he didn’t need to
look for food. Those were my easy days in the reeducation camp. Besides not to work hard, I had time and
opportunity to go fishing, and could raise some ducks,
some chickens and even a cat. Once in a while, my son
came with my mother to visit me; he could sneak to the
studio to see me before I came to the house of visit.
Nhu didn’t allow any cadre to come to the studio but
him, so I had to pay attention of him only. Since he said
that my paintings were his ideas, I didn’t hear an
inappropriate word of criticism any longer! Some cadres
secretly came to the studio just for their private things such
as to ask me to make notebooks, to paint some flowers in
their notebook, or to prepare the decoration for their
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weddings. Diep usually did those things. I spent most of
my spare time at the stream to catch fishes, any size! I
made hooks by myself and became a kind of expert in this
field. My skin was darker, but I felt healthier. Since the
stream became the dam, fishes were rarer. Sometimes, I
had to go downstream to search for fishes, but I still had
enough. That could save a lot for my family because I
needed only some spices, fish sauce, and some necessary
things.
Every three or four months, my mother came to visit
me, sometimes with my son in his vacations or in the Tet. I
didn’t know much about my wife since she left me. My
son didn’t say about her. Besides, I didn’t want to know
about her new life. I had come to see my wife’s sister once
when she came to see her husband, Linh, but she didn’t
want to see me; she told Linh that I would better not to see
her again. I avoided her since then. I knew they didn’t
want me to disturb my wife. I didn’t know if she had filed
a divorce yet because I didn’t ask her, and she didn’t
mention about that also. I thought that I still loved her, but
I felt better when she left me for her new life. Most of all, I
felt a little relief not to be an impediment on her path any
longer! In my paintings, sometimes I added an image of a
girl who was going far away: a slight melancholy but a
peaceful emptiness. People asked me about this emptiness
in my paintings; I usually said that they represented for the
sadness of my mind in my situation.
Diep and I had done at least five hundred paintings in
many sizes, a huge amount! We usually didn’t know what
to do when started a new painting. Sometimes, we had to
move a tree, to change the point of view, to change the
course of the stream, or to alter the color from the old
painting to create a new one. Gradually, we became
familiar with the creation of landscaping! We could
develop five to ten paintings from a picture. Our paintings
were hung everywhere: in the camp, in the headquarters, in
the houses of visit, in the canteens and so on. Once in a
while, Nhu gave them to his guests as the gift. The
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problem was that those paintings had been made from
house paints on the bad coarse fabric, so they could not last
long without being cracked, faded, and sometimes being
torn!
Diep was released in January 1988. The studio still
existed until Lap, an inmate with life sentence worked with
me in early 1990. The studio was moved into the camp, in
the room at the end of the first house in the zone A, close to
the office of the rivals. They suspected Lap would escape
if he stayed out of the camp. I didn’t like to stay in the
camp because I could not go fishing, but I had no choice.
Lap didn’t know how to do the painting, so he usually did
the decorative jobs for the rivals. Sometimes, I didn’t have
anything to do because everything was depending on the
carpentry team. I had to wait for frames, for paints, and for
the order of Nhu because he didn’t come to the studio as
frequently as before. Some days, I did nothing. I showed
Lap to do the jobs and lay on the hammock in the studio,
went around chatting with others, or helped the entertaining
team to prepare the performance. What the boring days!
In September 1990, Nhu transferred me to the timber
team after confined me in the solitary cell for a night. He
claimed that I hadn’t obeyed his order when he had me fix
the painting, but I knew that he didn’t need any more
painting. The studio was closed. The room became the
“cultural office” for the rivals, and Lap still worked there.
That was the way of Nhu to treat the campers when he
didn’t need them any longer: “to squeeze a lemon juice and
to throw away its skin.” I knew that, but I didn’t care
because my way to live in re-education camp was to avoid
hard labor as much as possible. I had had at least five years
not to do hard labor.
Chapt. 48 - The Release in 1988
Nothing was sadder than to see my friends being
released while I still had to stay in the camp. I said
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congratulation to them, but deep down in my heart, I felt
desperate and sorry for me!
Nearly thirteen years in many re-education camps, I
had to witness numerous of those occasions happening.
Whenever hearing they read a release list, I just wanted to
have my name, and then I had been desperately going to
work while the others went back into the cells to pack up
for leaving the camp! Thirteen years from south to north
and then from north to south, I could not remember how
many times like that had happened? I was sleepless at first,
feeling hopeless, worried for my destiny, but everything
was over at last. I had to live my life in the camp, to
struggle for my survival one way or another.
People said that those who stayed long time in prison
to have a habit and to become impudent. Yet, I thought
that was not habit, not impudence as well. It was
acceptance, endurance! We had to accept things that
happened out of our will despite how bad they were.
Coming back south, I often saw my family. They
talked about my friends who had been released. Some of
my friends concluded that they got out of a small prison to
a larger one, the Society of the Communists. People said
that they had to live more difficult in the society than they
used to live in the camp! Yet, I thought that was just their
words. No body wanted to come back into re-education
camp even if he lived a hardest life in the society. A bit of
freedom was still better than nothing!
From 1985, when Nhu began to take power, the camp
Z30D has changed day after day. Besides campers had to
work harder, some things had been forbidden before were
allowed in the Nhu era. “Yellow music” for example had
been banned for a long time; singing yellow music used to
be a serious violate and could lead to be confined severely.
When we wanted to hear Nghiem Phu Phat to sing a few
“over-sea” songs such as “The gifts for my native country”
of Viet Dung or “Farewell Saigon” of Nam Loc, we had to
have the campers guard around the cell and had to choose
listeners as well. Whoever got caught or was reported to
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sing “yellow music” usually spent a long time in solitary
confinement.
To the contrary, Nhu played cassettes of “yellow
music” all night in the working site and said that he wanted
to give campers more energy, so they could work more
effective. China kung-fu movies became the rewards for
the campers who worked night. The “entertaining team”
could perform “yellow music” and “revolutionary music”
in their shows.
Our relatives also told us that the same thing was
happening in the society. No body wanted to listen to the
so-called “revolutionary music” and watched movies
having propaganda meaning any longer. People returned to
“yellow music” and “kung-fu movies”. Even those who
worked for the VC and the Communists themselves could
not be otherwise.
Besides, the economy of Vietnam fell in deep crisis.
The “closed door policy” of the VC had failed. They
loosened the goods exchange for the people but could not
rescue the failure of the economy. The war between
Vietnam and China in some northern provinces of Vietnam
had happened; China was no longer a supporter for
Vietnam. Soviet Union and the countries in Eastern
Europe were applying economic reform trying to rescue the
economy crisis of their countries. Therefore, they could
not help Vietnam as they used to do in the war.
In the country, the so-called “co-operative policies”,
especially the “agriculture co-operative”, were totally
failed. Farmers left their land. The “new economy zones”
were unable to develop; people came back to the cities.
The economy of Vietnam depended on agriculture, but land
was deserted, cities had no job. What terrible!
In the mean time, the trade embargo of the US applied
on Vietnam was worsening the economic situation of the
country. The only source of revenue of the country was
goods and currencies from the people around the world
who sent to their relatives. The economy of Vietnam
became parasitism. In the country, beside two existing
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classes, the ruling class and the ruled class there produced a
new one, which was the class of people having supplies
from their relatives living abroad!
Our families also told us that the negotiations between
the Americans and the VC on the matter of P.O.W. and
M.I.A were happening. The carrot of the Uncle Sam at that
time was to lift the trade embargo on Vietnam. In those
negotiations, they were also speaking of the RVN
personnel who were still in re-education camps. Once
again, we had a little hope from our ally who had been
abandoned us for a long time in Communists’ hands.
In fact, we didn’t have any thing to rely on. We didn’t
have any organization, any government to help us. It was
better to have something than nothing. I always thought of
Muong, a prisoner from 1955 in North Vietnam, who said
that “to imprison in the Communists’ Regime without
sentence meant never be released except there would be a
miracle!” We were hopefully waiting for that miracle.
We knew that the Americans always thought of their
interest first, but at least we had an expectation even if it
was just very frail hope.
Working with Diep in the studio, I usually felt so lost
and so lonely when his family came to see him and then
stayed with him over night! I tried to calm myself and
thought that who lost the country lost the family. Yet deep
down in my heart, I was still feeling sorrow. I wanted to
blame for my fate, but could not understand why in the
same circumstance, everybody had different situations.
While I told myself that I have not been a heavy load of my
wife any longer, I was still desperate! Two opposite sides
always haunted my mind.
I was not jealous. I just felt sad and knew that I had to
accept my situation one way or another.
In the early of 1988, rumors about a huge release was
spread all over in the camp. Z30D was an only camp in
South Vietnam to keep prisoners of the RVN regime after
the camp Z30C has become a prison for criminal inmates a
year ago. More than one thousand campers in two K’s of
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48. The release in 1988
the camp Z30D, if the VC had to release a lot of campers
like that, it ought to be an alternative of their policy.
Close to the Tet (Lunar New Year) 1988, cadres from
the Ministry of Internal Affair of the VC came to the camp
and met some campers. We knew that would be the last
chance they persuaded those who were going to be release
to work for them.
Diep and I were working late on the evening of January
18th when Nhu was in the studio watching our paintings.
He asked me unexpectedly.
“What have you done in the South Vietnam
government? I have suggested releasing you many times,
but ‘they’ didn’t let you go home!”
I was amazed to reply
“I thought you knew everything about me because you
keep my file. Perhaps you haven’t tried hard enough.”
He said nothing more, and didn’t mention about Diep
who was waiting near by.
That was the first time I knew my fate. I was shocked
and so sad could not sleep all night. Sitting in my
mosquitoes net, I played my guitar continuously all of the
classical music that I have learned in the camp such as
some Vietnamese music arranged for guitar, the Tristesse
of Chopin, the Serenade of Schubert, the melody in C
major of Paganini, and so on. I didn’t know whether the
sound of my guitar was so sad or everyone in the room was
waiting for the next morning; I heard sighs now and then.
The gathering area looked differently in the morning.
Cadres stood around the yard. The women teams got out
first, and then some other cadres came in with the suitcases
in their hands. They began to name those who were
released.
I nervously waited for my name although I have known
about my situation. I still hoped that Nhu would be wrong!
The list was too long. Most of campers were named. I
tried to listen but could not hear any of my friends. I didn’t
know when Diep was called though he sat beside me, and
he didn’t say anything either. I seemed to be in a
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48. The release in 1988
nightmare until everyone stood up coming back to the cells.
I desperately knew that most of my friends were released!
I was sitting still at my place in the cell when the others
shouted joyfully around me. They gave their stuffs for
those who leftover, or to the inmates, or to the rivals
sending for the women prisoners whom they knew. I
didn’t realize anything even when Diep and my friends
came to say good bye and to give me their stuffs.
Campers got out of the camp at last. About twenty of
us were remaining! We looked surprisingly at each other.
What was happening? Why they could release most of the
campers and kept only some ones like that? What were
they going to do to us?
The cadre in duty gathered us in the first cell of the
zone A. They cleaned the other cells for new comers.
Later, the warden Nhu sent us to the lot houses outside of
the camp. Hung, Diem, and I came to the lot house of the
carpentry team, Cang and Nghi to the kitchen, and the
others to the K2 tending cows. The K2 was deserted and
become a cow house.
That first night staying outside of the camp, I slept
alone in my studio. Croak of frogs and sound of insects
made me awake all night thinking of my family. Diep has
come home, and my family has already known about me!
What they were thinking? Why I could not make any
progress after nearly thirteen years in re-education camps.
Two weeks after that, the VC transferred the campers
from the Nam Ha camp to the Z30D. The total campers
remained in re-education camp after the release in 1988
were two hundred and ten included some former generals
such as Dao, Truong, Tat, Sang, Than, Giai, some colonels
such as Han, Xao, Cua, Pho, Tan and so on. The others
were those who used to be officers of South Vietnam in
Security Armed Forces, Special Police Forces and the
Central Intelligence Organization.
The radio of the VC said that we have had debt of
blood to the people and could not be re-educated; therefore,
they
would
not
release
us.
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49. The timber team
Chapt. 49 - The Timber Team
After the release in 1988, I stayed alone in my studio. I
only worked during working time of the carpentry team. In
my spare time, I was usually fishing along the bank of the
stream or sometimes going to see my friends who just
transferred from the Nam Ha camp.
When Nhu had “kung-fu” movies to show for the
campers who worked over time, I could watch them until
midnight and woke up late next morning because I knew
that Nhu didn’t wake up early either. When my mother and
my son came to see me, I could see my son in my studio
before came to the visiting room. I could even raise some
ducks and chickens in the yard next to my studio. I needed
to be careful about the warden Nhu only.
In early 1990, they sent Lap, an inmate, to work with
me in the studio. I heard that Lap used to be a police
officer of the VC. His job was to form phony escapes and
to catch escapees. Then he wanted to escape himself and
killed his comrades. He had been caught and was
sentenced to life in prison. He was injured by mine when
working in the field; after hospitalized, he was sent to my
studio because he knew about decoration.
About a week after Lap coming, the studio was moved
into the camp. Cadres said that they didn’t want to give
Lap a chance to escape because his sentence was still long.
The new studio was in a room at the end of the first cell
in the zone A, next to the office of the rivals. In the camp,
I could not make frames, and sometimes I didn’t have
anything to do the art work. I only helped the entertaining
team, and Lap worked for the rivals. Besides, Nhu didn’t
need more painting. We had already made lots of them, so
they removed the paintings from old houses to new ones.
Since the camp Z30C became the K2 of Z30D, Nhu
brought the campers from Z30D to develop Z30C. They
deforested, built new houses. Sometimes, they asked me
come there to do the decoration. When Lap was
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trustworthy, they let Lap replace me doing that job. I just
stayed in the camp and did nothing.
I was still in the carpentry team and had to live with the
inmates in their cell. Many times, I asked Tu, the cadre in
charge of K1, to transfer me to the team 20 with my
friends, but he was unable to decide. One evening, they
told me to go to a meeting of the campers in the hall. I had
to stand out of the line. The guarding cadre beat me by my
chest because I didn’t check in although I have told him
that was the order of the warden. In that meeting, Nhu said
sorry for the act of his comrade and sent the cadre to K2.
Some days later, they transferred me to the team 20.
When working in the canteen at the National Highway,
Nhu told me to mend a torn picture. I tried to do that but
could not because it has been destroyed severely. I said
that it was rather to let me do a new one than to mend it.
Nhu shouted out loudly and told the cadre standing nearby
to take me to confinement!
I thought that he wanted to revenge for his apology in
the meeting. Moreover, he didn’t need me any longer. Yet
I didn’t think much about the reason because Nhu would
confine any camper whom he didn’t like without any
reason, without any paper as well. On the way to the camp,
I just worried about how long I was going to stay in
confinement because it would be up to Nhu only.
Before sent me to the confinement cell, the cadre in
duty let me have a shirt although the policy of the camp
didn’t allow camper to have it. They said that was to
prevent us to kill ourselves using fabric from our shirt.
Without a shirt in confinement was terrible because of
mosquitoes were so dense.
Fifteen years in re-education camps, I had tried to
avoid confinement cell. I knew that would let down my
health easily. Yet I could not get away that time for a
nonsense reason!
The confinement block standing behind the hall was
well constructed. It looked like a military post about six by
ten meters. The area separated to the hall by a high
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49. The timber team
concrete wall and to the zones A and B by fences. Two
small doors at its both ends were locked all day except
when cadres or the rivals brought meals or when they let
campers clean up. Beyond the doors was a walkway about
three feet wide. Both sides of that walkway were two rows
of confinement cells.
A confinement cell was a room about seven by three
feet without window. A small hole on a steel door at every
cell has been designed for giving meals into the cell. A
small light bulb usually without power hung under the
ceiling! Therefore, the cell was always dark.
From the door, on the left side of the cell was a
concrete stage about seven by one and half feet and one
foot high. On the right hand side, they put a small plastic
bucket used as a toilet. Prisoner had to lie down on the
stage with his legs toward the door because his legs were
locked to a long steel rod going room through room. If
prisoner was locked by one leg, he could choose his right
or left one. The leg had to put onto the steel rod and locked
by a U-shaped cuff to that rod. He could only sit or lie
down, not stand up. If he wanted to take a leak, he had to
crouch at the edge of the stage.
The cell was moldy and stinky. Prisoner ate and leaked
at a same place. Besides, he had only a piece of newspaper
and one quarter gallon of water everyday. Because of the
darkness, there was no fly but lots of mosquitoes. I have
taken two quinines, but still worried about malaria. I could
not sleep a second trying to fan away mosquitoes, but they
still bit me through my shirt!
In the confinement cell, I didn’t feel any sorrow but a
little worry. How long would I be in that cell? Whom who
had been confined by Nhu had to stay at least two to three
months in the cell. And when getting out, he or she would
be in worst shape, looked like a walking skeleton plus
some illness. Mosquitoes, bed bugs, staying awake, a
small bow of manioc with some salt, dirty condition of the
cell, and so on; all of these could kill easily anyone
although he used to be strong enough!
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I had corrupted cadres and the rivals sometimes trying
to send something for my friends in confinement. Now it
was my turn; I didn’t know if anybody did that for me. I
also thought of my family. If they came to visit me, I could
not see them while I was in confinement. I thought of
everything had happened in my life while my hand moved
around to fan away mosquitoes. Then I had to tear my
sleeve to use it as a fan, yet next morning I saw lots of red
spots all around my body.
The cadre in duty opened the cell door in early
morning. In fact, I could not know it was day or night until
seeing the light. He told me that the warden let me get out
of the confinement and go to work in the timber team right
away! I was amazed, but said nothing. I came to my room
to get my stuffs and to go to work. The timber team had
gone already. The cadre in charge of that team waited for
me at the gate. He showed me to the lot house in the old
K3. At that time, the timber team consisted of criminal
inmates. I was an only camper and was also the oldest
member of that team.
They gave me a knife, and I used palm leaves to tie it
by my waist walking along with others to the forest. From
North to South Vietnam, I used to come to forest, but never
cut down any tree. In the Tan Lap camp, I had only cut
trees at the edge of forest for the construction, and at the
Z30D, I used to go to the forest just for measuring timber
that they already cut down. This time, I had to cut them by
myself. I didn’t know what I was going to do.
I left the lot house at about nine o’clock. The forest
around the camp Z30D was destroyed to the mountain, so
we had to go to the K2, the old Z30C, about ten miles from
K1. To the corn field, some picked a few corns or came to
see their traps. The timber team was a “wide-area” team;
the campers could go to work without cadre. Most of
inmates in the team were nearly finish their time; they
didn’t want to escape.
The first time going with them, I didn’t know the way,
so I was going along with the “male cook”. We came to
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49. The timber team
the working area at about noon. I help the cook to boil and
share rice for others. They came one by one and began to
work after having lunch. That day, they cut down some
trees that they have chosen.
First, some of them climbed up the trees and cut vines
which tied those trees together. I thought that was the most
difficult job. After that, they sawed to open a V shape by
one side of the trees’ root, and then they cut the other side
to let down the trees. When the trees were down, those
who were old and feeble cut branches and cleared a road
for trucks coming to transport timbers. I was in a group
doing that. It was said an easy job, but I was sweat all
over, and my hands were numb. That night, I slept like a
baby. A sleepless night and a day of hard labor made me
so fatigue! I was lucky because they let me stay in the cell
for the team 20 instead of the timber team.
After a few days, I began to make traps. The members
of the timber team were surprised seeing me catching more
animals than they did. I have learnt about the habits of
animals and used that knowledge to trap them. I gave
everything that I caught for the male cook and shared with
every one in the team. Therefore, they liked me, and they
covered my work for me to help the male cook to do the
“improvement” for the team. Besides animals, I collected
fishes, crabs and snails in streams, bamboo shoots, and
mushrooms. I became a helper for the male cook!
After finished their jobs for the camp, some campers
especially the young ones could even make money by
cutting palm leaves and timbers for people. They had to
share money with cadres. That was the way of living of
cadres and prisoners in the timber team.
Besides timbers, the team had to collect palm leaves
shoots for the cone-hat team, pick bamboo-shoots and firewood for the kitchen, and bamboos for construction.
To cut palm leaves shoots, we used long handle
scythes. That was an easy job for those who could not cut
down trees. Yet to cut bamboos was an interesting job for
me. Bamboo in jungle was a kind of thorn bamboo; they
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49. The timber team
knitted together. We could not pull them out of their bush.
First of all, we had to clear a way to climb onto the top of
bamboo shrub. Then we cut branches of them from top to
bottom. At last, we could pull them out easily. Doing like
that, we usually cut down almost the whole shrub of
bamboo. There was no more bamboo around the camp. We
had to go far away from the camp on a truck; after that it
transported bamboos back.
Two months in the timber team, I went around a lot. I
knew almost everywhere around the camp and enjoyed my
free time the most!
Chapt. 50 - The Camp Z30D Continued to
Change
After the release of January, 1988, the sub-camp K2
was deserted and became a cow house. They moved the
cows from K3 to K2.
Criminal inmates replaced campers and became a main
source of labor. In the meantime, Nhu rejected Y and
became chief of the warden. All of his opponents had been
excluded one by one and replaced by his fellows. Nhu put
his associates in key positions. A female cadre named
Phuc was his deputy. Tu replaced Binh as the cadre in
charge of K1 although Tu was just a lieutenant. The real
power was in Nhu’s hand. He did whatever he wanted to
do. Two of his main targets were still construction and
lumber.
The hydraulic dam had been done and produced
electricity for the camp in rainy season and a little in sunny
season, but the bed of the dam was gradually higher.
Prisoners had to dig it all year round.
Criminal inmates were young and strong, and just got
into prison for a short time. They worked harder and more
effective than the campers.
The area across from the bank of the stream had been
cleared. They built a clay road going along with the stream
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51. We became a kind of hostage
from K1 to K3. The field around was grown hot pepper for
export and cane sugar for the refinery factory in the camp.
The visiting area was rebuilt with more houses for
those who stayed overnight. At first, they only allowed
special prisoners such as team leaders, the rivals, wide-area
campers, and so on, to stay overnight with their families.
Later, they allowed lots of prisoners to stay overnight
provided that they had to pay for their rooms and especially
to give gifts for cadres and for Nhu as well! Prisoners not
only stayed over for one night but also for a week or ten
days, and relatives were not only wives but also parents,
children, or even friends. Day after day, the visiting area
became the party area for cadres.
Buses transported guests used to stop at the National
Highway, could come to the canteen, next to the dam. The
canteen had lots of thing such as ice, soda, banana, chicken,
meat, vegetables, sugar, candy, and so on. It not only sold
for prisoners but for guests as well. They built a deck
behind the canteen over the stream for guests and prisoners
to sit, to drink and to eat after seeing each other in the
visiting room.
The area between the canteen and the lot house of the
carpentry team became a park with rock gardens, bridges,
stoned chairs, and statues. Lanes and stream bed were
covered by stones. Prisoners had to collect stones from the
mountain, transported to the camp and put onto the bed of
stream. In flood season, water washed away stones, and
prisoners were going to do that again and again!
The number of campers seeing families overnight was
increased day after day. They built more cottages along the
bank of the stream; each one was a room for campers who
stayed overnight. The cottages located next to the lot
house of the team 23, the team of “old uncles” as Nhu said.
The campers in that team usually stayed in those houses
when seeing families. Therefore, they kept that area very
clean and neat. Nhu liked to show off that area whenever
he had visitors.
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51. We became a kind of hostage
The forest around the camp was totally destroyed.
They grew eucalyptus and Virginia tobacco. Nhu formed a
group of inmates making fake cigarettes using many brand
names such as Hero, Jet, 555, Dunhill, Craven A. Those
inmates were sentenced because of their counterfeit
cigarettes, and then they did what they used to do in the
society.
Nhu send those fake cigarettes to sell in the
society again. What bizarre!
A few ponds had been dug around the camp and in the
camp to raise catfish and Tilapia fish. Prisoners who didn’t
want hard work and had money could contribute babyfishes and raised them for the camp.
Nhu built the hotel and night club at National Highway
and let Dung and his family managed it. Dung, a young
inmate who got life sentenced for his crime to kill some
police officers in Saigon. His family was powerful in the
VC government; therefore he could avoid death sentence.
That hotel and night club was also a place for Nhu and his
guests having fun. Besides, a coffee-music saloon at the
township of Long Khanh using women prisoners as
waitress was another place for Nhu to have fun and to
collect money. I had to come to those places for
decoration; therefore, I knew most of them.
The octagon house on the stream, next to the lot house
of the carpentry team, where used to be Nhu’s home
became a worship temple for a woman whom we called
“goddess”. She has been imprisoned for her cult, and now
she was a photographer to take photos for visitors and to
collect money for Nhu.
The change took place in the camp as well! When
prisoners consisted of campers and inmates, Nhu replaced
the rivals by a group of prisoners from Tien Lanh camp.
Lan, Nuoi, Pho, and so on, was the campers who had been
sent to a trial in the camp Tien Lanh because of listening to
a radio. The person who made the radio had gotten death
sentence. Lan was sentenced to life in prison; Nuoi, Pho,
and so on from twenty to ten years. Nhu put them to the
rivals committee when they came to Z30D. I thought that
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51. We became a kind of hostage
was a wise decision of Nhu because they were an
intermediate between campers and inmates. After the
release in 1988, inmates became majority, Nhu replaced
Nuoi and Pho by Hanh, an inmate, but still kept Lan as
head of the rivals.
For women prisoners, Nhu used Tam. Tam’s father had
been killed in the black April, 1975. She married to a VC
and then persuaded her husband to go against the VC. Her
husband got a death penalty, Tam twenty years in prison.
When Tam was released, Chau took place as a rival. Nhu
often fed the rivals, and they worked successfully and not
being hated by prisoners.
The strangest change in the camp was perhaps the socalled “recreation center”.
In the early time, after campers finished their overtime
jobs on the hydraulic dam site, they stopped by the canteen
next to the dam to relax and to have a drink, usually a cup
of soymilk. Sometimes, they could watch Kung-fu movie
in the headquarters. In 1988, Nhu built a “recreation
center” in the camp, in front of the hall. Two kiosks at the
front end sold cakes, candies, lemonades, soda, cigarettes,
etc... Prisoners coming to the center could see each other
even between male and female. After that, they watched
movie or music video in the hall. Sometimes, they could
sing along with the band of the entertaining group and
could even dance freely.
Three groups of prisoners could come to the recreation
center. First were those who bought ticket; second, those
who work overtime and third the campers in first house of
the zone A, the officers of old regime. Although they
allowed us to go to the recreation center without ticket, we
rarely came there unless when they had music video,
usually from abroad such as “Paris by Night”.
To get the policy of self-improvement, the camp
gradually became a business center by any means.
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51. We became a kind of hostage
Chapt. 51 - We Became a Kind of Hostage
We were totally shock to be left over when most of the
campers had been released in the early of 1988. What
would the VC intended to do to us? Why they release
thousands and kept just twenty?
Instead of keeping us inside the camp to avoid escape,
they let us stay outside without guarding.
What
strangeness! We thought that they were going to release us
after Tet, because we didn’t have anything different than
the others. We had to ready for our saddest New Year and
hoped that we would leave the camp after that.
Hung and Diem worked in the carpentry team; I stayed
by myself in my work shop. Doing my daily job as usual,
but I could not concentrate in my paintings. I did them like
a robot, filling color on the canvases without thinking of
them; just waiting for break time to go fishing at the
stream. No body watched the studio; I had to close the
door in my break time. Besides, Nhu didn’t come to the
studio as usual as before. He knew that I was in bad mood,
I thought!
Inmates were transferred to the carpentry team. Thuc,
who had been caught to left the country, helped me
cooking and we had lunches and dinners together. Another
inmate named Nam, who was sentenced for his crime of
fleeing the country working in the sugar refinery, usually
came to my studio and sneaked brown sugar for me;
therefore, I never shorted of sugar! Nam committed
suicide later because of his hopeless love to a woman
inmate named Tu, who worked in the canteen.
Our friends who just came home let us know that they
were no longer in probation as those who had been released
before. They also said that their lives in the society were
so difficult. Except those who had relations living abroad
and helping them, the others could not find a job and could
not work any hard jobs like pedaling a pedicab, or carrying
heavy bundles. That happened not only for those who just
got out of the camp but also for the people in the country.
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51. We became a kind of hostage
The VC used to say that the difficulty of the country
was just temporary. It was thirteen years since the war was
over, the country was poorer! I didn’t know how long the
so-called “temporary” would last?
Two weeks after the release, the VC transferred the
left-over in the Nam Ha Camp to the Z30D. They released
some old and sick campers after. The rest of us, about two
hundred and ten campers, had to continue a new period in
the re-education camp.
The radio of Ha Noi said that they had released most of
the campers in re-education camps and kept only a few
whom they could not let go because of the debt of blood to
the people and didn’t want to be re-educated.
We could not come home unless there would be a
miracle! How would they treat us? Would they send us to
a public trial? Or would they send us to an island like Phu
Quoc or Con Non? Or send us and our families to a
sovkhov (state own farm) as they used to do in North
Vietnam after 1955? Why didn’t they send us to North
Vietnam for easier to manage?
In the meantime, the negotiations between the
American headed by the General Vessy and the VC on the
issue of POW and MIA were heard in the radio. They also
talked about our fates. The POW, MIA, and we were
becoming merchandise, a kind of hostage for the VC!
They wanted to trade us to the lifting of sanction from the
US.
Our lives in the camp were totally changes. For a
reason, we didn’t have to work too hard. They formed the
campers into two teams, the team 20 and the team 23. At
that time, prisoners in the camp had to work very hard days
and nights to dig the ponds, to dig the lake, to construct
new site in the Z30C. Yet campers of two teams 20 and 23
worked only around their lot houses and didn’t have to
work over time. The rooms for two teams 20 and 23 were
opened until ten p.m. and campers could go to the
recreation center without buying tickets. They didn’t lock
the rooms for campers’ former generals and colonels.
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51. We became a kind of hostage
Besides, we could watch TV in a television room at the
corner of our zone. When there was a soccer game, we
could watch until it lasted provided that we gave a pack of
555 cigarettes to the cadre on duty “to smoke away”
mosquitoes!
They didn’t hide news about the collapse of the
Communism any longer. We could bring in some
magazines such as Times, Newsweek, or Le Monde. We
could watch the TV about the destruction of the Wall of
Berlin. I thought the VC seemed to ignore about politic
issue and cared only about their interests. They loved
imported cigarettes and instant noodles more than the
existence of the USSR!
In 1990, the program named HO for those who had
been released from re-education camps to go to the US was
beginning. Some of our friends had already gone; the
others were waiting for air planes. We were worry of our
fates hearing that. We thought that the real “miracle” was
coming, but when would be our turn?
A few optimistic said that we would not be released for
the program HO, and we were going to the US from the
camp! Every night, some groups of campers sitting
together talked about information they have heard from
their families. Everyone tried to have a “vitamin” (good
news) when seeing family. Some even said that we were
going to get repays when coming to the US. What a funny
optimism! I thought that although everybody wanted to
exaggerate, those were actually the vitamins that help us to
overcome our sadness and our depression.
Since the campers from the Nam Ha Camp coming,
their families visited them a lot. At first, they stayed one
night, then a week or ten days, especially when cadres
allowed us to stay for a long time and pay for rooms. The
campers who had their relatives living abroad lived very
comfortable; they didn’t need their daily ration.
In the end of 1990, some people introduced the women
to the campers who were single or divorced with the
purpose of going to the US! The campers were in need of
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51. We became a kind of hostage
sex and materials, and the women wanted to escape from
the country. They saw each other in a temporary
engagement!
What were our futures at that time? Was that a ticket
to the bright horizon of the US? What funny! We only
wanted a miracle to rescue us from the camp. Long time in
that hell of the world, we just wanted to come back home
to live the rest of our lives.
In Vietnamese history, there never a moment the
people wanted to flee the country like that. Why people
loved to leave the country having lots of heroes? What
strangeness! People said that “if a light pole could walk, it
would leave the country anyway!” It was just humor, but
not far from reality. Could I repeat the idea that the VC
used to say when then first came to South Vietnam:
“Between Communism and Capitalism, who are going to
win?”
I was not an exception! I could not overcome my
desire and saw a woman at last. Although my situation was
different than others’, it had the same demand of sex and
materials.
“She” was a daughter of a camper who just came from
the Nam Ha camp. She knew me when I worked in the
studio outside of the camp. “She” and her son used to visit
her father, and her son usually came to my studio and gave
me something. I thought that was just normal behavior of
the visitors to the campers. Many others gave me gifts as
well. I just thanked for their kindness.
Her father was released in November, 1989, and my
studio was moved into the camp after that. I didn’t
remember anything until my mother told me in early 1990
when she came to see me that there was a woman who
wanted to take her place to visit me. I was surprised saying
that I didn’t want it.
In August, 1990, “she” came surprisingly to see me
once, twice, and many other times; until she could stay
with me overnight. I didn’t know how to behave in my
situation but to see her. Moreover, I had been “vegetarian”
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for a long time and could not go against my desire of sex!
“She” was also a sex lover! Therefore, I just “went with
the wind” until it was too late to recognize that I was
playing with fire. I could no longer get out.
In November, 1990, the camp let us write down the
names of relatives who were going to go with us to the US.
Cadres said that was the suggestion of the American. I
thought of my wife and sent my wife a letter asking her
permission. I knew that I still loved my wife, and wanted
her to come back. My wife wrote that I had to let her be
free. She wanted me to have my son and my mother going
with me.
I didn’t know why “she” knew about my letter, and we
had a fight in the visiting room that time. “She” wanted to
be my only! “She” also said that “if I wanted children, she
would give me a lot, not my son!” I was stunned and told
her not to come to see me any longer, but she still came. In
the camp, I had no choice but to see her. That continued
until I was released and until I got out of the country.
That was my situation. I didn’t know about the others’,
but I thought that any love with intention could not last
long!
Our other activity was to study English. Everyone was
ready to go to the US, perhaps! Learning any foreign
language used to be strictly prohibited in re-education
camp. Whom who had any kind of paper in foreign
language would be severely confined if the VC found out.
The policy of the camp also stated that “campers could not
speak any foreign language.” The VC said that was
spreading the reactionary and bad civilization! That time,
the VC not only ignored about their policy but also asked
us to teach them English.
In the camp, we used books, magazines, or dictionary
to learn English. We also had a teacher named Viet Huy, or
Nguyen Dinh Huy, who used to be an English teacher in
Saigon. Mr. Huy became our teacher. Lately, he continued
to go against the VC after released and was caught into a
camp again.
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51. We became a kind of hostage
Early 1991, we received the first New Year gifts from
our friends who were in the US. Things I didn’t see for a
long time such as beer Budweiser, Marlboro cigarettes, and
chocolate cadies. They gave us some US dollars as well,
but we had to change to Vietnam currencies. Cadres came
to our rooms every day to spend New Year with us; they
talked about our futures in the US and hoped that we would
think of them when we get there. That meant we would
send them gifts like that. What the most materialism I ever
seen!
Moreover, that was the beginning of the collapse of the
USSR and other Communism countries in Eastern Europe.
Cadres were worry about their Communists Party and
about their lives. I remembered on August, 1991, when
news about the Communists’ Troops surrounded the
Kremlin, cadres were joyfully said that Gorbachev would
fail and Russia was going to come back to Communism.
Seeing our situation, they worried about their fates. They
could not imagine how they would be if the VC failed at
last. After Yeltsin won the Communists in Russia, the
cadre on duty told me that the American was going to take
us out of re-education camp; he didn’t know who would
help him if he was in my situation!
When we first came into re-education camp, we always
heard that “the American is a conqueror” and “Fake
Government was American’s servants”. Now everything
was turning one hundred eighty degree! I thought it ought
to be a miracle. Without that miracle, we would die in the
jungle of North Vietnam anyway.
I thought that the VC could not disturb the history.
They could not avoid the natural law of human either.
Human being is always human being, never been apes, and
would never be robots as well!
Chapt. 52 - Back Home
After two months in the timber team, I was back to my
friends in the team 20 at last. Nhu suggested that I made
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52. Back home
fifteen paintings for him before he sent me back to my
friends. I thought that was not a suggestion but a
command. He was a warden and I was a prisoner, so I had
to do what he wanted.
Mr. Le Minh Dao, team leader of the team 23 let me
know Nhu told him that he wanted to send me back to the
team 20. I felt a little humor. Nhu was a king in the camp;
he could do whatever he wanted. Why would he say that?
Yet I thought he wanted me to beg him, perhaps! I told
Mr. Dao asking him for me to come back. And after about
two months for completing fifteen paintings, I was
transferred to the team 20.
I didn’t know exactly what the team 23 was doing
although I used to fish next to the lot house of that team.
For the team 20, we had to care for a garden of cashew
(Anacardium occidentale) four kilometers from the camp
and close to the National Highway.
Everyday, we went to the lot house of the team before
working. More than five years in the studio, I worked with
Diep or Lap only. Now I felt better when going with my
friends. Our jobs were not so hard, just work-out a little bit
for not to be idle in the camp. We slept in the lot house at
noon and continued to work until five in the afternoon. We
took our bath by the well at the lot house or in the stream
and came back to the camp.
The lot house was not too far from the National
Highway; cadres allowed Hoa, Hieu, or someone else went
to buy our needs. People stopped by selling meat of wild
animals they trapped, banana, vegetable, and so on.
Sometimes, cadres cooked dog meat and drank with the
campers. Cadres in the team usually had special ration
because campers in the team having visitors almost
everyday. I thought it was just normal to give them a little
bit of something to have easy life.
That was the time when they began to develop Z30C
(or K2). Nhu brought the prisoners to work there, and he
spent most of his time in K2 also. He never set his foot to
the lot house of the team 20. Therefore we didn’t worry
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52. Back home
about him. I just wanted to keep away from him because I
no longer wanted to do the painting job. I had just wanted
to avoid hard labor.
Going to work everyday, working out a little bit at
night or watching movie in the hall or chatting with women
prisoners in the recreation center sometimes, time passed
day after day. On January 16th, 1992, about ten days before
Tet, I was released! They let go one half of us and kept the
rest until after that Tet.
I used to think that I would be more joyful when
hearing my name, but I didn’t! When they called me, I
didn’t feel anything. I thought that was certain; they didn’t
have anyone else to release except us!
Coming back to the cell, I gave Uy some of my
necessary stuffs and gave the rest for Lap, an inmate
working with me in the studio. I brought home my kit-bag
and the mosquitoes net; those were things that went along
with me since my first day. I didn’t forget a new prisoner’s
uniform as a souvenir. I had to help Mr. Si because he was
so ill, could not walk by himself.
They gave us some money for our trip home, but most
of us sent money for Lan, who had life sentence in prison
and worked as a rival in the camp Z30D.
I heard sound of motorcycle behind me while walking
on the clay road. The cadre named Tu, in charge of K1,
stopped and told me to let him drive me to the National
Highway for the motor coach coming home.
Tu used to be the cadre in charge of the “cane sugar”
team, the carpentry team, and had helped me to see my
wife over night in 1983 to solve my family problem. He
had usually sneaked into my studio and asked me to draw
the pictures for his wife who taught first grade in an
elementary school. Beside Nhu seemed to be an evil, Tu
was very gentle. A wrong doctrine didn’t create only bad
people, I thought.
On the car to Saigon, people asked me lots of things.
They were surprised knowing that there still were campers
in re-education camp after nearly seventeen years. The
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driver and the helper didn’t take my money saying that I
just got out of the camp, how I could have money.
Sitting in the bus, I was thinking of my situation when
I got home. And then I was thinking of a poem named
“coming back home” of To Huu, a poet of North Vietnam.
Once I left my prisoner’s pajama.
No cuffs, no chain, no rod.
I left the prison behind me going home.
Here was the familiar lane since I was young.
Bamboos bent their top greeting me.
Smoke flying from the roof of the house.
Is that where I used to live?
My children were grown up, perhaps;
They are playing in the yard!
Posed and cried out seeing me to come.
And my wife cooked in the kitchen,
Threw away her chopsticks,
Ran for me, crying, loving!!
Her hair was still loosening.
Yet, my old house is there,
The red column, the bamboo hedge is still there.
But the panel with strange name,
I seemed to be lost,
Wanted to enter, but still hesitated.
The dog barked as if to see a stranger.
I looked at the new areca-palm tree garden,
And the windshield-panel stands still.
This is exactly where I used to live.
The old bamboos and the small temple were still there!
While I was trying to remember my past,
Someone asked me: who you are looking for?
“This is not your home!” She said,
And then shut the door!
Let me stand alone under the bamboo hedge,
In the mist and in the cold wind!
How many times I used to think of the happiness when
I came back home? Yet now I was totally lost and lonely!
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There would be no scene of reunion, of my beloved wife
greeting me with her hair still loosen!! That was the main
reason that made me could not sense a thing when they
called my name.
I will be back, my dear, I will be back!
Though it’s dark, and I didn’t have any loved one left.
Or you’re no longer my heaven!
I have to come back to die at my birthplace.
Yes, I had to come back at last although to see my
broken heaven. I had to come back to die at my birthplace!
The lyrics of that song were more suitable to me than ever.
The bus stopped at the crossroad named Hang Xanh.
The highway Saigon-Bien Hoa was crowded and noisy.
Lots of pedicab stopped around the car. I had planned to
walk home, but for no reason, I climbed onto a pedicab and
told the driver. “Drive me to the crossroad of Binh Hoa!”
The driver asked me, “Were you just got out of the
camp?”
“How do you know?” I asked him back.
“I saw your kit-bag and your clothes, and I knew right
away.”
“How many times did you see a guest like me?”
“A lot!” He laughed. “I used to be in the camp for
nearly a year; I was a sergeant in Marine Corp. Why are
you so late?”
“I don’t know! I thought I didn’t make any progress,
perhaps!”
“You were so truthfully, weren’t you?”
I smiled without answer. I had heard that way of
talking many times. Truthful or not, progress or not, many
others have been released earlier although they used to be
in high positions than we were! Why I had to stay in the
camp four more years when the others had left the camp in
1988? Everything was not important any longer! I was
only thinking of my family and my situation in my coming
days.
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The Chi Lang Street from Hang Xanh to Ba Chieu was
noisy. The pedicab with its high platform driving into the
crowd made me scare. Saigon was not my Saigon any
longer. Saigon was changed to Ho Chi Minh City, which
made me not recognize my Saigon where I used to live.
Streets were busier, disorderly busy.
Shops were
everywhere. Streets looked narrower. Houses were built
to pavements; some houses even covered the light poles.
Traffics moved disorderly. It was totally true that they
have freed Saigon and had freed the conscience of the
Saigoneses as well.
The pedicab turned right on the Le Quang Dinh Street.
The Ba Chieu Market with its sign was still there, but I
could not see the Nam Tinh Ly elementary school and the
Ho Ngoc Can high school. Kiosks surrounded those
schools and the walls. My memory came back when I saw
that street. I had known every stone, every step of the
street where I used to walk every day from the beginning of
my elementary school to the end of my high school. It was
now so strange to me. There was only a pavement left
without sidewalk. Pedestrians had to share that narrow
pavement with traffics.
There came the crossroad of Binh Hoa! What was the
street in front of me? I was stunned seeing the strange
name on the street sign: “No Trang Long.” How could I
forget its name Nguyen Van Hoc, and the tomb at the
corner of that street and the Chi Lang Street? It was certain
that it had become No Trang Long Street since Saigon had
become Ho Chi Minh City.
My heart was pounding rapidly. I tried to look at my
house where I used to live my childhood. The scene was
changed differently. There was no space across the street.
There were no yards in front of houses.
Weird
constructions were replaced them already. I could not
forget location of my house of course, and I told the driver
to stop his pedicab.
Some body shouted from the next door:
“Ah,
everybody comes to see Mr. Hai coming home!!” I could
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52. Back home
not recognize any one. They were just young girls when I
had left; now they were standing there with their babies!
My brother and sister ran for me, and then my mother
came to get me into my home. I was coming back home
after sixteen years seven months and two days!
Spring 2002
Princess City, Indiana.
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