Amnesty in Vietnam, 1987-88
From: Balazs Szalontai <aoverl@yahoo.co.uk>
Reply-To: aoverl@yahoo.co.uk, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Date: Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 2:59 AM
Dear All,
excuse me for pestering you, but I urgently need precise chronological information about the release of political prisoners from Vietnam's "re-education" camps in 1987-1988. The electronic and printed sources I found routinely note that "thousands of reeducation camp inmates were released in 1987 and 1988" (see, for instance, Amnesty International's reports), but unfortunately they do not specify the months in which these amnesty decrees were passed. As I am just in the process of analyzing the genesis of Vietnam's doi moi program, it would be extremely important for me to know when exactly the government issued these decrees. If the precise date is impossible to specify, I would like to know whether it was the first or second half of 1987. The difference may be of great importance, since several crucial decisions in Vietnamese economic and foreign policy were made in November and December 1987, and I wonder whether the 1987 amnesty decree was also issued in this period or not.
With apologies for disturbing you,
Balazs Szalontai
Mongolia International University
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From: Quang X. Pham <quang@qxpham.com>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: aoverl@yahoo.co.uk, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 7:44 AM
Attachments: hoa.re-ed.release.pdf
Balazs,
Source: 2004 personal interview with General John Vessey, Jr. (retired), former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, special emissary to Vietnam for POW/MIA Affairs for President Reagan. General Vessey told me about an exchange he had in 1987 with then deputy foreign minister Nguyen Dy Nien, “We couldn’t release the ARVN prisoners from the prison camps because they would disrupt the country and possibly form a rebellion.” Vessey quickly interrupted, “We’ll take every one of them into the Unites States.” Thus the Humanitarian Operation (H.O. or “Hac O”) Program was born.
I have the notes as well as the final text on how and why these prisoners were released in the fall of 1987. Enlisted men underwent several days of reeducation, lieutenants (3-5 years), captains (5-7 years), majors (8-10 years), lieutenant colonels (11-12 years) and colonels (13-15 years), generals (up to 18 years). By 1987, most of 1 million originally rounded up in the summer of 1975 had been released except for senior military and political officials.
The attachment is my father’s actual release paper from trai cai tao (Camp Nam Ha) in September 1987. (About 80,000 Amerasians and family members were allowed to come to the U.S. in 1988 under the Amerasian Homecoming Act.) Here’s a short article highlighting his captivity and his arrival in the U.S. five years later, http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/930308/archive_014767.htm
Regards,
Quang X. Pham
ceo | speaker | author
www.quangxpham.com
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From: Stephen Denney <sdenney@ocf.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: aoverl@yahoo.co.uk, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 10:07 AM
Prison amnesties in Vietnam normally take place around National Day, Sept. 2, and Tet. In its report, "Vietnam: 'Renovation' (doi moi), the law and human rights in the 1980's" published by Amnesty International USA in Feb. 1990, Amnesty International reported the following on p. 33-35:
- VNA reported Sept. 13, 1987 that 2,474 prisoners were released from re-education camps on National Day, among whom were 480 former RVN military officers and government personnel who had been detained since 1975.
- On Jan. 21 1988 party secretary Nguyen Van Linh announced that the Communist Party had decided to release all remaining personnel in the re-education camps.
- On Feb. 11, 1988 the government announced it would release 3,820 more prisoners from the camps, including 1,014 former RVN military officers and civilian officials -- former senators, religious chaplains, government ministers, etc. A spokesman said that with this latest amnesty only 159 officials continued to be held in the camps.
- In Sept. 1988 a smaller amnesty was granted, ih which 1,978 prisoners were released from the camps, including 30 former military officers and civilian officials held since 1975.
- The three amnesties from this period of Sept. 1987-Sept. 1988 resulted in the officially reported release of nearly 8.300 prisoners from the re-education camps, 1,524 of whom had been held since 1975 "on account of their real or imputed political sympaties for, or the positions held in, the former Republic of Viet Nam governments."
- A visiting Amnesty International delegation was told in May 1989 that no more than 128 political prisoners from the RVN were still in the camps, detained since 1975, and that all these prisoners were detained in Thu Duc re-education camp (K1 Z30D) in Ham TAn, Thuan Hai province. The camp commander told the delegation that he had recommended the release of all these prisoners. However, Amnesty International said that from unofficial sources, there were around 400 former RVN officers and officials who had been summoned for re-education in 1975 and whose present circumstances were unknown, meaning they could still be in the camps.
- Steve Denney
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From: Joe Hannah <jhannah@u.washington.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 10:19 AM
Dear Balazs,
My research for my masters degree (completed in 1989) dovetails nicely with Anh Quang's work, though mine has much less detail. I also found that General Vessey was directly involved in presenting the Vietnamese government with the option of allowing all former ARVN and RVN oficials to emmigrate to the US under a special program (called by many Vietnamese emigres the "HO" program). Freeing of these political prisoners was part of the American diplomatic "roadmap" to allow for normalization of relations. the roadmap included increased efforts to sort out the POW-MIA issue and provide expedited immigration for "Amerasian" children of American GIs. Vessey's offer to resettle the political prisoners in the US was designed to fascilitate that entire process.
Cheers,
Joe Hannah
Department of Geography
University of Washington
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From: Balazs Szalontai <aoverl@yahoo.co.uk>
Reply-To: aoverl@yahoo.co.uk, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 10:44 AM
Dear Joe,
thanks a lot for your help! I wonder whether the emigration option was ever discussed during the Carter administration. After all, Carter laid a great emphasis on human rights, and in 1977 he made substantial efforts to normalize U.S-Indochinese relations (see the visit of the Woodcock delegation in Vietnam and Laos).
All the best and thanks again,
Balazs
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From: Joe Hannah <jhannah@u.washington.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: aoverl@yahoo.co.uk, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 11:35 AM
It's been a long time since I was reading this history, but as I recall, there was a strong internal split inthe Carter administration between those who wanted to normalize relations with Vietnam (including Anthony Lake and others) and those who wanted to build stronger ties with China (Brzinski, et. al.). I remember as a young MA student reading articles in Foreign Affairs and other such policy journals about these issues -- one by Lake comes to mind in particular -- and wondering about how things were going to play out in Washington.
I do not recall any talk of the emigration/immigration option, but I know that the political prisoners/human right issue was talked about. It seemed a little difficult to get any traction discussing Human Rights, though, when put in terms of a "China or Vietnam" policy choice.
Anyway, the pro-China faction won, Deng visited DC in late '78, and 2 or 3 days later China invaded VN. The main US reaction seemed to be to counter Soviet navel moves in the Pacific. (The Soviets moved ships and Bear strategic bombers to threaten China in support of VN, we countered soviet moves... in support of the Chinese invasion? Weird stuff. Of course, it is weirder still to contemplate the fact that the US was supporting the Pol Pot regime's UN Seat at this time also. But then again, the Chinese were supporting Pol Pot.. The enemy of our enemy is our friend...)
All this reminds me of the third pillar of US-Vietnam realtions -- the "roadmap" -- of the time (in conjunction with Amerasion children and re-education camp prisoners) which was the demand for Vietnam to withdraw its troops from Cambodia.
I am rambling, but this all brings back fond memories of dusty hours inteh Echols collection in teh Cornel library...
Best,
Joe Hannah
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From: Marc J. Gilbert <mgilbert@hpu.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 3:39 PM
Thanks, Joe.
For a critical review of a book by an acolyte (Gholam Chaudhury) on
Brezinski's Vietnam-China policy, go to:
http://chr.sagepub.com/cgi/pdf_extract/19/3/39
Vietnam's mauling of Chinese forces in 1979 was, of course, one of the
reasons for the overhaul and expansion of the Chinese military. That
fact, as one of the unintended consequences of US policy, and Joe
Hannah's memories, recall for the contemporary Doonesbury cartoon
wherein BD's former Viet Cong friend, Nguyen Van Phred, risen to
post-war Vietnam's UN ambassador, defends the Soviet Union's invasion of
Afghanistan by asserting that the Soviet Union only intervened to
silence a too-Marxist Afghan ruler as his atheistic (and pro-feminist)
policies were attracting massive US support for Muslim fundamentalists
who would take Afghanistan off its Soviet-backed course towards
modernization. The Assembly erupts in laughter as Phred explains that
Soviet invasion was merely a response to, and thus a victim of, a CIA
plot. Phred appeals to his fellow delegates that what he is saying is
true, declaring, "It is all the CIA's fault! They reply, "Of course it
is. That is why it is so funny!"
Brezinski still believes that the deliberate arming of the mujahidin to
bleed the Soviets was the best thing he did in office. He actually
giggled with glee (a rare thing for him) during an interview a few years
ago as he boasted that this strategy helped bring down the Soviet Union
by bleeding them as the American War in Vietnam damaged the US. (In the
70's, he now famously remarked "We now have the opportunity of giving
to the USSR its Vietnam war.").
My own recollection (I left Afghanistan well before the invasion--after
the fall of the monarchy) is that few concerned with the peoples of
Afghanistan and Vietnam laughed much in 1979.
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