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Implement The Treaty: Free Saigon's Political Prisoners

By VVAW

During the week of October 1-8, VVAW/WSO participated in "Indochina Solidarity Week" throughout the country. This national action was called to bring home the fact that the war in Indochina is not yet over, that the peace treaty has not been implemented, that the Thieu regime is imprisoning 200,000 political prisoners, and the CIA is paying U.S. mercenaries $2,400 a week to fight in Cambodia. The demands of the actions called for a complete cessation of U.S. involvement in Indochina and the withdrawal of support for Thieu and Lon Nol. The week of actions was a great success. VVAW/WSO chapters in New York, Texas, Colorado, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, Florida, New Mexico, Illinois, California, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. filled their week with postering, leafleting, speaking engagements, media presentations, guerilla theater and demonstrations. From the responses received, VVAW/WSO went a little further in exhibiting to the American people that the war in Indochina is not over and it is the responsibility of the people of this country to ensure that peace becomes reality.

In order for there to be a lasting peace in Vietnam, it is imperative that all parties adhere to the articles of the Agreement on Ending the War which was signed in January of this year. However, there is only one article of this agreement which Thieu has continually refused to abide by, and his failure to do so is one of the major obstacles to achieving peace. Article 11 of the January agreement says: "Immediately after the ceasefire, the two south Vietnamese parties will... Ensure the democratic liberties of the people: personal freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of meeting, freedom of political activities, freedom of belief...." Because of Thieu's refusal to participate in ensuring these freedoms, the Joint Communique on Vietnam of June 13, 1973 stressed the requirement that Thieu free the remaining POWs of the PRG and all political prisoners. As with the Paris agreement, Thieu has also ignored this demand of the Joint Communique and continued to operate his government of military dictatorship as a repressive and cruel police state, where the arrest of innocent people and torture of prisoners has become a standard policy.

It is difficult to determine the exact number of political prisoners now being held by the Thieu government. In his "White Paper on Political Prisoners," Deputy Ho Ngoc Nhuan of the Saigon Lower house stated: "For various reasons, we cannot ascertain the exact number of political prisoners. There are countless official and unofficial, public and secret agencies for repressing and arresting people. There are public and secret prisons and detention camps." However, Ho goes on to say that it may be speculated that there are now over 200,000 political prisoners now imprisoned by the Thieu regime. This figure is partially based on the fact that since April, 1972, an average of 14,000 civilians are arrested each month.

Those people imprisoned by the Saigon government come from a variety of sectors of Vietnamese society. Thieu has referred to those who disagree in any form with his regime as "communists." The regime has also given itself the authority to arrest, eliminate, torture or "shoot to kill" any person considered to be a "communist." But in fact, the majority of people arrested are not members of any political party, but are considered to be "neutralists." The neutralists are the "Third Force" in South Vietnam and Thieu has grown increasingly afraid of this force because they are to be included in any "three party" combination which is to compose the South Vietnamese government as set forth in the January Agreement. The neutralist force is largely made up of lawyers, professors, students, intellectuals and religious leaders and these are the people that have recently begun to appear in the prisons.

In South Vietnam, a person may be arrested at any time or place and the reasons for arrest are many and unique. An individual may be searched, seized, jailed and tortured for any of the following reasons: failure to have all six pieces of identification at the time of search, refusal to fly or salute the Saigon flag, a vague accusation from an individual, an anonymous letter of accusation, possessing a "suspicious attitude," refusing to give bribes to the police, having a relative with the PRG or NLF, living in an area "suspected of Viet Cong activities," etc. As if these reasons weren't enough, shortly before the Peace Agreement was signed, Thieu enacted Decree No. 004/66, which says: "Those persons considered dangerous to the national defense and public safety may be interned in a prison or designated area for a maximum of two years, which is renewable." What this particular decree has come to mean is that people may be imprisoned without having specific charges brought against them and without being brought to trial.

Once imprisoned, the life of the prisoner is in serious jeopardy because of the widespread torture that is employed throughout Thieu's prison system. Torture is used to obtain information about Thieu's "enemies" and to force innocent persons to admit guilt. According to eye-witness and first-hand reports, the most common methods of torture are: 1. Beating by billy clubs on all parts of the prisoner's body. This does not leave scars but causes serious internal damage. 2. The Submarine Trip --Tying a prisoner to a bench and pouring drainage water, soap water or latrine water down the throat until the stomach is pumped up like a balloon. Then the interrogators jump on the stomach to make the prisoner vomit, giving the sensation of drowning. 3. Smoking Salem Cigarettes --The prisoner is tied to a bench and then burnt with cigarettes on sensitive parts of the body. 4. Airplane trip --The prisoner is bound and pulled up by a rope through a trolley. The prisoner is swung while interrogators beat on the victim. When the prisoner faints, he/she is lowered into a bucket of water to regain consciousness and then the procedure is repeated. 5. Electric Shock Treatment --This method causes severe nervous sickness and often the prisoner suffers form "seizures" for the rest of his/her life.

The brain center behind the majority of arrests and torture is National Police Headquarters in Saigon. Coincidentally, the director of NPH was also the Secretary-General of the Phoenix Program (a joint effort on the part of the CIA and Saigon government to eliminate "enemy civilians.") The scope of the NPH is huge. Including the number of undercover police and civilian personnel authorized to make arrests, the NPH is composed of nearly 300,000 police officials.

It is not difficult to understand the broad scale of repression that Thieu's police state has reached when considering the fact that all operations are almost completely financed by the U.S. government. The American tax-payers are providing 90% of Thieu's annual budget, and during this year alone, $20.4 million has been channeled into the organization of the Saigon prison system. U.S. money is paying for materials and services for the prisons, including the payment of salaries for U.S. Public Safety Advisors who are on loan to Vietnam from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons. The function of these "advisors" is to maintain security, supervise construction of new prisons, and conduct training sessions. Not only is the U.S. financing the personnel for the prisons, but they are financing the prisons themselves. Many of the prisons have been constructed by U.S. corporations, including the $400,000 contract to Raymond, Morrison, Knutson/Brown, Root, Jones for the production of "tiger cages" for Con Son Island. (This contract was awarded after members of Congress visiting Vietnam discovered the cages and denounced them for being deplorable and over-crowded). RMK/BRJ has filled its contract, and production is now being handled by the U.S. AID (Agency for International Development). Not only is the AID providing materials, it is also training Vietnamese personnel to carry out its work. This year, 264 police from Saigon will receive training in the United States. They will be trained in riot-control, use of tear-gas and explosives, and methods of torture. With this wide extent of involvement on The part of the U.S. in Thieu's imprisoning and torturing of political prisoners, it is not difficult to understand why Nixon has not pressured Thieu into abiding by the demands of the Peace Agreement. That pressure will have to come from the American people themselves, because we are the ones footing the bill for Saigon's operations. It is the responsibility of the people of this country to force the administration into ending its support and aid of Thieu. Only by doing this will Saigon's political prisoners be freed and a peace in Vietnam recognized.

President Thieu is about the business of silencing anyone who opposes his regime. If silencing means permanent crippling or death, then so be it. What Thieu does not seem to understand, however, is that his repressive tactics have not broken the spirit of the Vietnamese people who are struggling for a free and independent nation. Throughout Thieu's prisons, songs of freedom are being scrawled on walls. As the Association of Vietnamese Women has said:

Because they love freedom and independence,
peace and justice,
Because they refuse to send their children into the ranks of an army under the command of a foreign country, to fight against their brothers
They were imprisoned.
But who could put into a cage conscience, chain the wings of thought?
In spite of tears and wounds, blood and tortures
Their poems keep blooming on the prison walls
Born behind bars, their songs fly away into the world
and bring us this faithful message:
Love, Hope, Determination, Courage.