The Sleeping Tigers
Nguyễn Việt Nữ
Editor: Nam Truc
(From p.183 to 200)
(HumNgu page183 to200 atquantity 18 pages out of total 447)
We are on the path toward Socialism, more precisely we are searching for one, exploring."
Next Duong Thu Huong wrote:
- Setting an entire nation on a course still being probed by hit or miss, not yet being really one, at the same time demanding all Party members and the people to give absolute trust, forbidding them to entertain thoughts, express opinions, make contributions, is unscientific and immodest. Such coping with the circumstances does not befit an organization to serve and to belong to the people....
The oppressive dictatorship of the Communist Party which set the Vietnamese nation on a course that resulted in the current misery and great suffering was reported by party member Tran Duy to the "Emperor of Jade" in the “The Giants” 35 years before Party member Duong Thu Huong uncovered it in 1990:
“Something may be cause for joy, but if the people are not yet disposed to be cheerful, then do not expect them to smile. Something is laudable, but if the people have no clear ideas about it, then spare them the praising effort. Though it is heaven's will, but if the human heart has not yet been won over, then it is still wrong. Though an opportunity seems to present itself, do not pressure for acceptance, if disagreement still exists."
Alas! In addition to that good discernment the “Hearted Giant" Tran Duy also forcefully offered the conclusive remark:
"A mind, and no heart, is incompatible with human life”. Nonetheless he still let “the corps of giants go back to earth to live with humans” and, as before, to level mountains, dam rivers, drain seas, toil till the earth was cleared of obstacles, before calling the day off".
"The earth was free from obstacles" because that corps of giants obeyed "the Emperor of Jade's edict": “CLEAR ALL THE THICKETS “to enable the world to eradicate all injustices”; hence "the cries and the tears persist eternally on earth..."
The situation was not ignored, but the heart-endowed giant Tran Duy, for OWNING A HEART, did not have the heart to ask the Emperor of Jade to eliminate his co-Party members who unfortunately were manufactured with no heart, so resigned himself to share the lot of the earthlings and... without a heart unluckily manufactured without a heart, and as the result he
resigned himself to share life on earth and "nodded appreciatively, giving the non-hearted giants his pitiful gaze, and cheerfully waiting for the day the Emperor of Jade supplied hearts to them..."
Due to his sentiment of pity Tran Duy let the earth long for the day when the Emperor of Jade would manufacture more hearts in response to the Kitchen God’s report; but he completely forgot that when the Kitchen God offered his proposal, the entire Celestial Court unanimously reported that: There was not a bit of material left(!!), so Tran Duy himself and the heart-endowed giants of the time, and the 70 million Vietnamese nationals now, together with their spirit and their existence, have been treaded upon by the Giants with a MIND but WITHOUT A HEART! Perhaps because Duong Thu Huong was a heart-endowed giant she was able to self-examine in the following words: "In the present social state, I cannot afford absence of thinking, walking with eyes closed like a blind, keeping my mouth shut for money, grab for wealth, as profiteers do”.
Clearly Duong Thu Huong knew who “Led the entire nation on a road still being sought by trial and error?” and yet she assuredly affirmed that "there hasn’t been any road yet?" Duong Thu Huong clearly knew who played the active role, but she wilfully omitted the name of “that person”, the logical subject for the clause "Led the entire nation..."
Afraid she should be impious toward the ancestors, Duong Thu Huong chose to keep her piety pure and thus dared not touch on Uncle Ho's name. As she expressed her "Apology", Duong Thu Huong used invectives toward Le Chieu Thong, Le Ngoa Trieu charging that they were “hordes of debauched kings, idiotic lords". But these “hordes” are Duong Thu Huong's ancestors, are they
not? Aren't these "ancestral kings” those on whom not just Duong Thu Huong, but also the whole nation and history have on record as traitors to the nation? But for doing so our nation did not commit impiety toward the ancestors, did it?
For a good dissertation on piety in the light of Confucian morals, then in the corps of giants no one was comparable to the Confucian scholar Phan Khoi who once joined the resistance forces against the French in the Viet-Bac Zone and who, to the satisfaction of everyone, completed his task of translating Chinese or French books into Vietnamese. For this achievement he was awarded an American jacket by Uncle Ho (A Hundred Flowers Blossom in the North, page 55). But because "he had a heart", the venerable elderly Phan Khoi was indignant at the terrorism of the Viet Minh, for he had seen very early their savage killing methods, of which a victim was Pham Ngoc Thao, who was sent "diving for shrimps"(drowned with limbs tied and a weigh attached to the body) at the bottom of some watery grave in the South.
In a remote uninhabited location of the wild jungle of the North (Viet Bac), Phan Khoi alluded to the Viet Minh as a species of beasts as he composed a poem in Chinese which The Lu translated in the following verses:
"Alone in this green forest scenery,I am proud living with apes and gibbons, Running from trouble I happened on it."When the Viet Minh resistance movement revealed its true identity as the Communist Party, Phan Khoi wrote his article "The Communist Plant" and pointed unequivocally at the Viet Bac region, the home of the revolution:
"There is another species of plant which was nonnative to our country like the Japanese lotus but which now abounds here. Anywhere else I haven’t seen except in the Northern provinces where it thrives everywhere."
Phan Khoi said that it grew densely at the townlets where there were efforts to weed it. At places it got the name of Evil-smelling Bug weed because its smell was reminiscent of this type of bug; at others it was called the Pig Dung Plant, and at other places still it was known as the Son of a Bitch Plant. All those names are not a bit refined (...). The educated people called it the Communist Weed. Phan Khoi thought that in the past our country did not have this Pig Dung
Weed, but the French brought it to the coffee and rubber plantations to provide shade to the plant or tree base”:
“Very quickly it covered the entire plantation areas, defying all efforts to weed it and spreading further and further. This happened during the years 1930-1931, at the same time the Indochinese Communist Party began to operate, and the Communist movement spread in the same quick and uncontrollable manner as the weed, earning it the name given by the
plantation owners as “herbe communiste” (French for Communist grass), translated correctly into Vietnamese as Communist weed, but many people are used to the name Communist Plant. But there remains one more bizarre name to be mentionned...”
Phan Khoi became even more audacious when he made up the story that he had met an old North Vietnamese aboriginee. “I asked him the name of the weed,” Phan Khoi wrote, “and he replied “Uncle Ho’s Weed”. This species of plant did not exist here formerly, but since the day Uncle Ho came home to lead the revolution, it was seen growing apace, covering roadsides, hills and dales; no one knew its name, but as it appeared at the same time as Uncle Ho came home, they named it by Uncle Ho’s name.”
This Confucianist teacher Phan Khoi loves the resistance but loathes Communism because of its policy of violence and terrorism. He wrote in order to squarely uncover and recognize that the Communist Weed was the Son of A Bitch Plant which Ho Chi Minh brought into Vietnam when...he led the revolution. Having spent 9 years in the cradle of this revolution by the side of Uncle Ho, having enjoyed his favors, he nevertheless never felt he was bound by “piety” and should therefore praise criminals. Of course, his article never passed censuring, but Duong Thu Huong can find it in the August 1958 issue of the Literature and Arts Journal which cited the above excerpt to charge Phan Khoi as a reactionary.
I sympathize wholeheartedly with those who had been honoring Uncle Ho as the father of the nation, and who had not been able to alter their sentiments.
But the Communists used to pride themselves upon their courage, their sense of sacrifice, their disparagement of the ordinary sentiments in order to focus on the great goal. Formerly, because of the goal of liberation of the proletariat, the General-Secretary of the Party Truong Chinh denounced his father, and Marxist theoretician Nguyen Khac Vien denounced his uncle as
members of the exploiting class.
As to poet To Huu, when a son left to join the resistance movement and his father wrote to counsel him to come home, To Huu roused the son to answer his father in the following verses:
Your fatherly advices I have read,
"Alone in this green forest scenery,I am proud living with apes and gibbons, Running from trouble I happened on it."When the Viet Minh resistance movement revealed its true identity as the Communist Party, Phan Khoi wrote his article "The Communist Plant" and pointed unequivocally at the Viet Bac region, the home of the revolution:
"There is another species of plant which was nonnative to our country like the Japanese lotus but which now abounds here. Anywhere else I haven’t seen except in the Northern provinces where it thrives everywhere."
Phan Khoi said that it grew densely at the townlets where there were efforts to weed it. At places it got the name of Evil-smelling Bug weed because its smell was reminiscent of this type of bug; at others it was called the Pig Dung Plant, and at other places still it was known as the Son of a Bitch Plant. All those names are not a bit refined (...). The educated people called it the Communist Weed. Phan Khoi thought that in the past our country did not have this Pig Dung
Weed, but the French brought it to the coffee and rubber plantations to provide shade to the plant or tree base”:
“Very quickly it covered the entire plantation areas, defying all efforts to weed it and spreading further and further. This happened during the years 1930-1931, at the same time the Indochinese Communist Party began to operate, and the Communist movement spread in the same quick and uncontrollable manner as the weed, earning it the name given by the
plantation owners as “herbe communiste” (French for Communist grass), translated correctly into Vietnamese as Communist weed, but many people are used to the name Communist Plant. But there remains one more bizarre name to be mentionned...”
Phan Khoi became even more audacious when he made up the story that he had met an old North Vietnamese aboriginee. “I asked him the name of the weed,” Phan Khoi wrote, “and he replied “Uncle Ho’s Weed”. This species of plant did not exist here formerly, but since the day Uncle Ho came home to lead the revolution, it was seen growing apace, covering roadsides, hills and dales; no one knew its name, but as it appeared at the same time as Uncle Ho came home, they named it by Uncle Ho’s name.”
This Confucianist teacher Phan Khoi loves the resistance but loathes Communism because of its policy of violence and terrorism. He wrote in order to squarely uncover and recognize that the Communist Weed was the Son of A Bitch Plant which Ho Chi Minh brought into Vietnam when...he led the revolution. Having spent 9 years in the cradle of this revolution by the side of Uncle Ho, having enjoyed his favors, he nevertheless never felt he was bound by “piety” and should therefore praise criminals. Of course, his article never passed censuring, but Duong Thu Huong can find it in the August 1958 issue of the Literature and Arts Journal which cited the above excerpt to charge Phan Khoi as a reactionary.
I sympathize wholeheartedly with those who had been honoring Uncle Ho as the father of the nation, and who had not been able to alter their sentiments.
But the Communists used to pride themselves upon their courage, their sense of sacrifice, their disparagement of the ordinary sentiments in order to focus on the great goal. Formerly, because of the goal of liberation of the proletariat, the General-Secretary of the Party Truong Chinh denounced his father, and Marxist theoretician Nguyen Khac Vien denounced his uncle as
members of the exploiting class.
As to poet To Huu, when a son left to join the resistance movement and his father wrote to counsel him to come home, To Huu roused the son to answer his father in the following verses:
Your fatherly advices I have read,
My flow of tears has defiled my armor.
When I departed, full of ambitions,
My heart, radiant with pride, I imagined
A sacred sword stained with enemy blood.
But vainglory froze the hero’s heart,
In the tempest shadows of struggling whales
Netted while regaling on choice victuals,
The tiger, once the mighty jungle king,
Being a gourmand now lived in cages.
Lures of glory always debase the soul,
But toward them I remained unshaken.
Resentment obscured the clouds of Hong Linh,
Rancor laded the flow of the Nhi Ha:
They remind my life is for my homeland.
The lonely wind or rain does not fret me.
The times you delight in your egoist way,
I cry tears of sadness for our country.
At night, you slumber in soft warm down blankets,
And I lie sleepless on jungle needles.
You inhale strong sensuous incense-perfume,
Reeked of the rank smell of the masses’ blood,
As I suffocate, for my nose goes dry,
And I hear the innocent ghosts’ laments.
Your chest bears an array of gold medals,
But an old enemy sword gleams at my hip.
You’re gone on maiden lying by your side,
I’m dutiful only to my homeland.
In brief, you marshall your intelligence,
To seek glory, your sole final pursuit;
But to pledge my very life and my strength,
To save my country, I hereby resolve.
You and I belong to conflicting sides.
You advance on one side, I the other.
Henceforth, the set of Confucian morals
Shall honor the national piety.
Wish not for my return, nor reunion.
We’ll talk only amidst our cannon’s roar.
Let this farewell letter seal our dialog.
You were my father then, no longer are.
As this ink dries, our relations end off,
So the world shall condemn the wrongdoers.
This unsheathed blade I keep handy to strike!”
When I departed, full of ambitions,
My heart, radiant with pride, I imagined
A sacred sword stained with enemy blood.
But vainglory froze the hero’s heart,
In the tempest shadows of struggling whales
Netted while regaling on choice victuals,
The tiger, once the mighty jungle king,
Being a gourmand now lived in cages.
Lures of glory always debase the soul,
But toward them I remained unshaken.
Resentment obscured the clouds of Hong Linh,
Rancor laded the flow of the Nhi Ha:
They remind my life is for my homeland.
The lonely wind or rain does not fret me.
The times you delight in your egoist way,
I cry tears of sadness for our country.
At night, you slumber in soft warm down blankets,
And I lie sleepless on jungle needles.
You inhale strong sensuous incense-perfume,
Reeked of the rank smell of the masses’ blood,
As I suffocate, for my nose goes dry,
And I hear the innocent ghosts’ laments.
Your chest bears an array of gold medals,
But an old enemy sword gleams at my hip.
You’re gone on maiden lying by your side,
I’m dutiful only to my homeland.
In brief, you marshall your intelligence,
To seek glory, your sole final pursuit;
But to pledge my very life and my strength,
To save my country, I hereby resolve.
You and I belong to conflicting sides.
You advance on one side, I the other.
Henceforth, the set of Confucian morals
Shall honor the national piety.
Wish not for my return, nor reunion.
We’ll talk only amidst our cannon’s roar.
Let this farewell letter seal our dialog.
You were my father then, no longer are.
As this ink dries, our relations end off,
So the world shall condemn the wrongdoers.
This unsheathed blade I keep handy to strike!”
The wrongdoer here is the father. Even though he works for the French colonists he is still mindful of his parenthood, and coaxes his son to come home to enjoy the good living, the good food, warm clothes, and sound sleep in one’s own room. But the son chooses the heroic life in the jungle, and charges him of “seeking both honors and riches”, and is determined to “keep
his unsheathed sword handy to strike at”...his father!
Uncle Ho “coaxes” his sons and grandsons to “expend their flesh and blood to save the nation” for Communism, a regime which Duong Thu Huong has clarified in her “Apology”, describing that it is “a kind of religion made logical by primitive and shallow scientific deductions”, and concerning it she has concluded that “all their life they could not enjoy any comfort, but instead they had to toil and endure utmost misery...” It would be so wonderful if Uncle Ho’s sons and grandsons could exactly fit the description alluded to by Duong Thu Huong as she quoted predecessors such as Andre Gide, Arthur Koestler as commenting: The appeal of Communism resides in the fact that it
gives nothing to us as it expects us to sacrifice ourselves, to renounce pleasure and comfort, to be ready to sacrifice our individual and family interest for the struggle...” like the son in To Huu’s poem. But shouldn’t we be concerned about the interest of the 70 million Vietnamese for whom
that son “forwent his deep sentiments” in order to carry out his struggle?
They have “Ears” to hear the clear lament of the innocent ghosts caught up in the Agrarian Reform tragedy, don’t they? They have ears too to hear the loud lament of some hundred thousand of innocent lives lost on the ocean when they fled their homeland, repudiating your “love” and your “sacrifices”, don’t they? They have a “Nose” to smell the fetid flesh and blood of the multitude caught up in the 1968 Mau Than Tet (Lunar New Year) offensive, don’t they? Among those masses there were close to 3,000 civilians who had been buried in collective graves in the city of Hue. When the graves were dug up there were victims with hands tied up behind their backs, or with the right hand tied to the left leg, after both legs and arms had been snapped and folded behind their backs. The bodies were covered with wounds, evidence of torture undergone before death. There were teachers, among whom were three German professors (currently, every year Germans hold a commemorative event in honor of the three professors), of the civil servants, the servicemen of the Republic of Vietnam and their families, and of other civilians. The Vietcong had listed them as reactionaries and opponents. When they occupied Hue for 29 days, they used the list, went to each house, arrested and led their victims away.It was the Hanoi Radio Station that announced and campaigned for this onslaugh. Foreign press agencies had monitored its broadcasts. Yet when the mass graves were exhumed and there were still survivors in them showing evidence of one of the most savage massacres of the century, the Vietcong denied the existence of those mass graves. The spectacles of the victims’
family members in mourning turban, writhing in grief, lamenting heart-rendingly by the side of the bodies of their relatives, televised on the national network of the South, were described by the Vietcong as ploys of distorted propaganda of the Americans and the Rebels. The anti-war
communications media abroad disseminated this same tainted type of news. Long after, the Vietcong being unable to deny the existence of mass graves, because all the victims had been missing during the month they took control of the city of Hue, they admitted that there had been massacres, but that the killing of the victims had been perpetrated by the Americans and the
Rebels.
In his book “Memoirs of a Vietcong” published in the United States in 1985, the Vietcong Minister of Justice Truong Nhu Tang (who also had fled the country by sea to become a refugee of Communism) admitted to the existence of the massacre, but opined that the number of the victims was smaller.
Today, the official figure kept on record by the American press agencies is 2,800 victims. This figure was reported by Peter White, the assistant-editor of the National Geographic Magazine, in the November 1989 issue, on page 600. Mr. White wrote that when he visited Hue, he inquired about the massacre of the Mau Than Lunar New Year, and Mr. Nguyen Van Dieu, Director of the Service for Expatriates of the Binh Tri Thien Provincial People’s Committee informed him that the commanding officer of the historical Battle of Hue was Le Minh. Peter White succeeded in making contact with this “hero”, and wrote: Le Minh “acknowledged that he was the commanding officer of this assault on the city of Hue, and that his men had carried out the massacre”, but Le Minh observed that “we had no way of controlling the brutal conduct of individual combatants”, but “in any circumstance, the leaders, including me, have to bear responsability”.
In one single magazine issue the old and experienced foreign journalist Peter White cited the names of two “gentlemen” who dared to admit responsability for the collective, planned, killing of thousands of their own compatriots. Page 591: during the Agrarian Reform in the 1950’s, after the immediate execution of thousands of party members...Uncle Ho in person went on air to weep and say he took responsability for that mistake”. Was there historical happenstance? Minh was the name of both Vietcong heroes!
When he was visiting Hanoi, after he had inquired the relatives of the Party members executed or imprisonned due to this mistake, journalist Peter White saw a Vietnam on the brink of ruin, contrary to Uncle Ho’s dream, and he asked Vu Ky: ”Assuming that Uncle Ho came back to life tomorrow, what advice would he likely give you? Pondering a moment Vu Ky replied:”Life
always creates difficulties”. You must keep moving forward, and be not afraid of making mistakes. But do not let mistakes last, and do not hide the difficulties” (page 589). (Vu Ky was Personal Secretary to Ho Chi Minh, and followed him and participated in the revolution until Ho’s death.)
If that is so, then that is truly frightening! Mistakes that kill thousands of lives, and Uncle Ho kept urging not to be afraid! Keep going forward! When this foreign journalist was given such an answer he subtly wrote:”Mistakes, difficulties” appeared to be a structural element of the
current politics of the Party”.
Even to the eyes of a foreigner who had never been a victim of Uncle’s heroism in terms of loss of property, or loss of life, clearly mistakes appeared to have been appropriately schemed. They did not arise from the vengeful vilification of the regime by the “extremist” victims whose future
the regime of Uncle had ruined!
If the revolutionary son of the former times, and Duong Thu Huong, and the present heart-endowed giants had “Sworn to offer their white bones and red blood
To fullfill their promise to save the nation”, Duong Thu Huong must have discerned the situation where the nation “had died a million times” for having been loved by Uncle:
“Your front line, father, is different from mine,
You march one way, and I march another”.
And so
“Henceforth, the set rules of morality
Need to include piety for the homeland”.
And so
“Henceforth, the set rules of morality
Need to include piety for the homeland”.
It was Peter White, an objective foreigner, siding neither with the Republic of Vietnam, nor with Communist Vietnam, examining the economical, social situation of Socialist Vietnam after 14 years of peace, who cited the following typical example:
A West German expert, working on a United Nations project, brought a modern printing machine to equip a printing house in Hanoi. He told the story that to enable the new machine to be in working conditions, there was a need to demolish the old house, for a very simple reason: The new machine could not fit in the old printing house. Peter White asked: To enable Vietnam to join in the present civilized world, should there be a wholesale demolition of the entire existing regime?
Clearly, the dissolution of the Socialist regime, the disbanding of non-hearted giants is the unique solution to realize a harmonization of the nation with the human civilization. To destroy the old house to build a new one suitable to the dimensions of the latest modern equipment is the reverent offering to show “devotion to the people, to the nation”. Fear not that this is impious toward the ancestors, for there is nothing more wrong!
Clearly, the dissolution of the Socialist regime, the disbanding of non-hearted giants is the unique solution to realize a harmonization of the nation with the human civilization. To destroy the old house to build a new one suitable to the dimensions of the latest modern equipment is the reverent offering to show “devotion to the people, to the nation”. Fear not that this is impious toward the ancestors, for there is nothing more wrong!
As to imputing the demolition to vengeance, this is simply too far-fetched!
So, when the newest Constitution of the Socialist regime (April 1992) still
maintains that the Party continues to lead according to those
Marxist-Leninist tenets and Ho Chi Minh thoughts, the decent Communists need
to have the courage to change the content of this Constitution in the form
of a To Huu’s reply letter:
“This letter is my last reply to yours;
It tells you, father, you’re no longer mine.
I rest my case: our sentiments must stop
To let the world charge the evildoer...”
To correctly identify the sins of Uncle Ho shows great courage, not only for the benefit of the nation, but also for Uncle’s very soul. Duong Thu Huong believed there is life after death; it must then be relevant for her to admit that the children, who knew that their deceased parents had been cruel when they were alive, must be more earnestly confessing, doing penance and praying. They must assemble to ask for pardon, to pray steadfastly, so that the sins of their parents would have greater potential to be nullified. The story of Muc Lien Thanh De could be used as a good illustrative example.
One could never erase crime by pursuing a life of cruelty. This is an immutable principle, in the physical as well as the spiritual world.
To save a nation which Duong Thu Huong movingly shouted as “having died a million times” there is no other better means than fighting the fierceful tigers by unearthing their origins, not to build hatred, but to know exactly where the claws, the fangs of the genus tiger are, and then put them in front of a mirror for the tigers to see which parts of their body do not resemble the human species, and need to be shed to revert to humankind.
Those claws and fangs are:
- Rousing one class to destroy another class.
- Thought reformation. “A thought reformation is for a political purpose.”
- For one person who commits a crime three to four generations of offsprings must be chastised in compliance to the identity regime.
- Arrest, detention of people of different political opinions.
- To prevent an enemy life to be spared, ten innocent lives may be taken.
If that could be realized, then everyone, whether Communist or Republican, would be able to share a peaceful coexistence. Let it be remembered that there is no class worth being “eradicated” as much as... the “class of murderers”, that of Robert Alton Harris, that of John Kinckley, the assassin of President Reagan, that of Ha Minh Tri, the assassin of
President Diem, and yet everything must wait for a court trial.
It is not necessary that the Socialist Regime should condone “luxury” and excessive freedom as in the Capitalist Regime, but it does need to establish a justice system to be adhered to by everybody and based on the principle of “the freeing of a criminal by mistake could happen, but the execution of an innocent should never take place”, this is the way to skin the tiger on the
spot.
But, there was not a chance for that to ever happen. Indeed, on Uncle’s trek, right from the time of the resistance in 1945, in the name of the struggle against the French, whoever was seen wearing western clothing like Pham Ngoc Thao, was hurriedly sent to the bottom of some watery grave.
spot.
But, there was not a chance for that to ever happen. Indeed, on Uncle’s trek, right from the time of the resistance in 1945, in the name of the struggle against the French, whoever was seen wearing western clothing like Pham Ngoc Thao, was hurriedly sent to the bottom of some watery grave.
Today the killing continues. Imprisonment is carried out against those that have differences of opinion; worse still, like the case of party member Pham Dac Lu who was imprisonned 93 days just for simply having “read” and “kept” materials containing views different from those of the government! But those were the materials authored by Duong Thu Huong herself, a loyal and steadfast party member, as she aimed at building up the party.
In this book I attempted to select, to record the easy to understand and remember facts, the stories of everyday in the life of the common people of Vietnam, so that those who know how to read can also tell them to those who don’t, or to those who do not have the time to read, in order to bring some light into a nation which Duong Thu Huong described in her own terms as living “In an isolated country where information is covered up, a backward country...That isolated country, located so far away from the centre of civilization of mankind, has a population made up of 90% of farmers, most of them illiterate”. With such a population, democracy remains really an abstract concept to the individuals. Hence this book hopes to supply a concrete image to enable even the commonest person to understand the free, democratic way of life, to see for themselves what a regime that RESPECTS HUMAN RIGHTS is like, so as to contribute to the gradual dispelling of the pitch-dark night befallen their existence...But surely this book will be viewed as reactionary by the Party, and the population will not be allowed to read it.
One may wonder whether the advocates of the “Cultural junction”, the “Cultural exchange” would help in making available this “exchange” book to the people in the ancestral homeland or not? Or at least it reaches the hands of Duong Thu Huong. So that “justice” is served, that is “give and
take”, isn’t it?
***
I would personally regard Duong Thu Huong as a precious pearl, if she just stood squarely between her two sons, one Communist, the other Republican, and applied the formula “seek the truth, not stubbornly clasp...” Then problem would get solved in no time at all.
Awaiting Duong Thu Huong and the “non-extremist” Communists to rescind their decided views (a difficult proposition), I meant to use news abroad, like I said before: Even the assassin Robert Alton Harris received from the entire American nation an exceedingly meticulous burial, though he had committed an exceedingly brutal crime, the murder of two innocent youths to steal and use their car in a bank robbery, and after the robbery he ate in defiance the hamburgers the dead men had not finished.
Sometimes, to keep security and order to his society, man must kill. But when this approach is unavoidable, the civilized man uses utmost precaution to make certain that the suffering of the condemned to death as well as the damage caused to his relatives is minimized.
So when a criminal is liable to be put to death, before killing him a humanistic justice system reserves for him the right to absolute defense, like the case of Harris which dragged on for nearly 14 years, until all arguments have been exhausted, then...he could die.
And after an execution of this kind, the United States would listen and seek ways for improvement.
take”, isn’t it?
***
I would personally regard Duong Thu Huong as a precious pearl, if she just stood squarely between her two sons, one Communist, the other Republican, and applied the formula “seek the truth, not stubbornly clasp...” Then problem would get solved in no time at all.
Awaiting Duong Thu Huong and the “non-extremist” Communists to rescind their decided views (a difficult proposition), I meant to use news abroad, like I said before: Even the assassin Robert Alton Harris received from the entire American nation an exceedingly meticulous burial, though he had committed an exceedingly brutal crime, the murder of two innocent youths to steal and use their car in a bank robbery, and after the robbery he ate in defiance the hamburgers the dead men had not finished.
Sometimes, to keep security and order to his society, man must kill. But when this approach is unavoidable, the civilized man uses utmost precaution to make certain that the suffering of the condemned to death as well as the damage caused to his relatives is minimized.
So when a criminal is liable to be put to death, before killing him a humanistic justice system reserves for him the right to absolute defense, like the case of Harris which dragged on for nearly 14 years, until all arguments have been exhausted, then...he could die.
And after an execution of this kind, the United States would listen and seek ways for improvement.
In the history of the United States, after each execution, its “echoes” are always recorded.
For instance, the condemned Jack O’Neil was executed for the murder of Hattie McCloud. Before being hanged in the State of Massachussetts on January 7, 1898 he made the declaration:”I’ll have to report to the god of death like everybody (unavoidably), and I hope that those who see me hanged today will survive till the day when I will be proved innocent, and it will
come, I am quite certain.”
Indeed, only a few months after the execution, a soldier of this State, injured in battle in Cuba in the Spanish-American War, and moribund in his hospital bed, confessed that it was he who killed McCloud. Clearly, the State of Massachussetts had executed an innocent!
Later, in the statistics on the execution of the innocent in the United States, we noted that they all happened in the State of New York during the years 1914, 1916, 1920, 1930, 1936, 1937. And in the majority, after the executions, it was discovered that either the partners in the crimes had committed perjury, or that the witnesses had made mistakes of identity, etc...
Later, in the statistics on the execution of the innocent in the United States, we noted that they all happened in the State of New York during the years 1914, 1916, 1920, 1930, 1936, 1937. And in the majority, after the executions, it was discovered that either the partners in the crimes had committed perjury, or that the witnesses had made mistakes of identity, etc...
Those ten killings or so of innocents is one of the many reasons leading to the suspension of the death penalty for the several current decades, for its brutality and exceptionality that violate the Constitution of the United States. So, particularly in California, the last inmate to die was Aaron
Mitchell, executed on April 12, 1967. Today, after a 25-year iddleness, the gas chamber of the “Golden State” reopened for business, and Robert Alton Harris was the first condemned to “be allowed” to die. Harris writhed barely 7 minutes before dying, but six hours later a proposition was submitted to the Congress of the State of California to request the substitution of the lethal gas by a poison which will kill the condemned after only a 5-minute coma.
Currently, the California Congress is working on this proposal, and the next inmate on death row is Bernard Lee Hamilton, sentenced in 1981 for the murder of a mother of two, by the name of Eleanore Fiances Buchanan. The authorities found her headless, armless body by the highwayside. Even for his heinous crime, Hamilton, who had been enjoying 11 years of “hotel-like” living no less costly than Harris’s, might be able to meet a less agonizing death than Harris’s...by 2 minutes, if the proposal became law soon enough.
California was not the only “fussed” state. Two weeks before the death of Harris, Arizona, too, executed an inmate early April 1992 by lethal gas (Out of 50 states of the United States 22 execute by lethal injection, or by anesthesia, while only three, Maryland, California, and Arizona, still use lethal gas).
A witness in Arizona who had watched the executed inmate convulved with pain for 7 minutes in the chair in the gas chamber, a scene reminiscent of Harris’s death, lamented that “We kill our old pets much more humanely!”
Following that execution things happened like in California. Several representatives of the State of Arizona proposed a bill demanding the abolition of lethal gas and its replacement by the “putting to sleep” method which was more peaceful!
Nonetheless, the three states that still clung to the lethal gas which causes a painful 7-minute agony before death instead of a 5-minute ordeal...remains by far much more inhumane compared with the State of New York...
One might wonder whether or not the fact that in the history of “mistaken killing” of the United States the State of New York held the record (6 out of a total of 8 wrongful executions) when the current crime rate also increased at a record in New York had something to do with the passage by the Congress of this state of the law allowing the death penalty, but when the bill reached the executive to be put in force it was vetoed several times by the Sate Governor. To this day, 1992, the State of New York still has not authorized the putting to death...inmates!
Of the 6 wrongful executions in the State of New York one case on file concerns Thomas Bambrick, sentenced to death for murder and executed on October 7, 1916. As Thomas was about to sit in the electric chair, there came proofs that he was innocent, and “jailer” Osborne did all he could to contact the State Governor to request an order to desist the execution, but
to no avail, and so the electrocution had to proceed...
One wonders whether or not it was those “conscience wounds” that gave Americans the experience which led to the installation of telephones at execution rooms in all of the states, and the requirement that officials in charge, such as California Governor Pete Wilson in the execution of Robert Harris for instance, must be within reach “at all times” just in case there is a need. That is why, as we have seen, around 2 hours before Harris died, a call still came ordering to desist the execution, and the condemned was removed from his chair and led out of the gas chamber...
It is fair to say that from the Governor, the Secretary of Justice, the “Jailer” (Warden) of the San Quentin Penitentiary to the execution detail and all the 40 judges of the Court of various levels in the United States who are directly or indirectly involved in the trial of Harris, would be able to take a rest, to be “free” only after 6 A.M. on April 21, 1992, the time when doctors confirmed that Harris had breathed for the last time.
Even if the condemned had just one minute left to live, one-minute moribundity, those in charge still had to be “permanently” “ready” to discharge their functions.
The Pete Wilsons, the Judge O’Connors, the Patels, etc..., needed not to live in 1898 or 1916, or to be the eyewitnesses to the innocent death of Jack O’Neil or Thomas Bambrick to be careful in the putting to death a human being. All they needed was to have a conscience, to know to suffer the pain of a moribund life.
During the Agrarian Reform, the Party members even shouted “Hail to Party Chairman Ho” before they were executed, but Chairman Ho’s conscience was never stirred.
The American Criminal Justice recorded the last will of Jack O’Neil and of other innocents put to death in order to get experience, and the pressure of the organizations struggling for human rights has led the United States to stop executing prisoners.
The Vietnamese Communists on their side kept records of the killing of tens of thousand of victims in the Agrarian Reform in order to go on killing and jailing without trial. And yet they considered this leniency and humaneness.
Surprisingly, Duong Thu Huong kept on boasting that “it would not be easy at all to find a nation which inflicted to a world power like the United States a Vietnam Syndrome which they later included in the Dictionary...”
Little did Duong Thu Huong know that to the degree the Americans’ Vietnam Syndrome is severe, to the same degree the knavery, the savagery of the Vietnamese Communists is thick.I might well add that the two criminals Clarence Chance and Benjamin Powell were involved in the murder of the Los Angeles District Deputy Police Chief
in 1973, and served a nearly 18-year time in prison till March 25, 1992 when they were released because the Court had found them innocent. They curently have filed a lawsuit for US$50 million in damages. The claim not only includes the damages incurred as being in prison they could not generate revenues, but also the damages for mental distress caused by separation from
parents, from spouse and children, etc...
If the Vietnamese people can understand what democracy and human rights are, and have no excessive fear of violence, and dare stand up to demand compensation for the lives and properties taken from them by the Communist Party since the time of the Tax Reduction and the Agrarian Reform to the time of the Reeducational Concentration and Taxation of Private Property in the South...and demand compensation for the damages incurred from unjust imprisonment since the day Uncle Ho lived in the Pac Bo caves till the day the City of Saigon was forced to take his name...what will the Communist Party do? The only solution is the arrest and detention of those who dare demand, isn’t it?
Surprisingly, Duong Thu Huong kept on boasting that “it would not be easy at all to find a nation which inflicted to a world power like the United States a Vietnam Syndrome which they later included in the Dictionary...”
Little did Duong Thu Huong know that to the degree the Americans’ Vietnam Syndrome is severe, to the same degree the knavery, the savagery of the Vietnamese Communists is thick.I might well add that the two criminals Clarence Chance and Benjamin Powell were involved in the murder of the Los Angeles District Deputy Police Chief
in 1973, and served a nearly 18-year time in prison till March 25, 1992 when they were released because the Court had found them innocent. They curently have filed a lawsuit for US$50 million in damages. The claim not only includes the damages incurred as being in prison they could not generate revenues, but also the damages for mental distress caused by separation from
parents, from spouse and children, etc...
If the Vietnamese people can understand what democracy and human rights are, and have no excessive fear of violence, and dare stand up to demand compensation for the lives and properties taken from them by the Communist Party since the time of the Tax Reduction and the Agrarian Reform to the time of the Reeducational Concentration and Taxation of Private Property in the South...and demand compensation for the damages incurred from unjust imprisonment since the day Uncle Ho lived in the Pac Bo caves till the day the City of Saigon was forced to take his name...what will the Communist Party do? The only solution is the arrest and detention of those who dare demand, isn’t it?
The difference between the Communists and the Capitalists is their method of solving the demands of the people.
Communism blows your brains out or imprisons you until you no longer dare open your mouth and complain.
Communism blows your brains out or imprisons you until you no longer dare open your mouth and complain.
As for the “American Imperialists”, currently the Los Angeles Court of Appeal was putting down for hearing this US$50-million damage compensation lawsuit, and when the court ruling for
compensation was final the government will have to must pay the plaintiff, even though the State of California budget has a deficit of 11 billion dollars (the 1992-1993 annual budget should have been made public on July 1, but because of the “budget fight” between the California Democratic
Party-controlled Congress (Legislative) which demands a tax increase and the Republican Party-controlled Executive which requires spending reductions, in the past 2 months the California military, civil servants, government officials have been paid their salaries only in IOU certificates for the reason that the governmental budget was out of cash.
compensation was final the government will have to must pay the plaintiff, even though the State of California budget has a deficit of 11 billion dollars (the 1992-1993 annual budget should have been made public on July 1, but because of the “budget fight” between the California Democratic
Party-controlled Congress (Legislative) which demands a tax increase and the Republican Party-controlled Executive which requires spending reductions, in the past 2 months the California military, civil servants, government officials have been paid their salaries only in IOU certificates for the reason that the governmental budget was out of cash.
The “fight” lasted 63 days before a new budget was announced on September 2, 1992 after
concessions had been made by the Democratic Party). To alleviate this burden of the budget, the government cut spendings, reduced social assistance, increased tuition fees in the university system, etc...This common policy of the Republican Party may shake the presidency of Mr. Bush in the Presidential electoral campaign this coming November.
But the fact that the government ran out of money, or that there was fear of the loss of the Presidency or the Governorship, does not give Mr. Bush or Mr. Wilson the right to apprehend the innocent, and keep them in prison indefinitely, or to release them without having to pay the damages ordered by the court.
concessions had been made by the Democratic Party). To alleviate this burden of the budget, the government cut spendings, reduced social assistance, increased tuition fees in the university system, etc...This common policy of the Republican Party may shake the presidency of Mr. Bush in the Presidential electoral campaign this coming November.
But the fact that the government ran out of money, or that there was fear of the loss of the Presidency or the Governorship, does not give Mr. Bush or Mr. Wilson the right to apprehend the innocent, and keep them in prison indefinitely, or to release them without having to pay the damages ordered by the court.
It might be of benefit to the readers to be more amply informed about the news reported by the American communications media in recent times to enable them to get a better idea about the respect for human rights in “Imperialistic America”, be they the rights of a mere...convict!
In August 1991 three inmates in a mental penitentiary in Vacaville, California, died of summer overheat. Their relatives had lawyers bring the case into court.
The court could not find fault with the management of the asylum. But the institution was old and lacked the adequate cooling equipment to prevent dehydration, the cause of the death of the inmates; and so the court sentenced “Mr. Government” for incarceration of prisoners in ill-equipped facilites. Last September 1992 the court gave a final decision on the case, ordering the government to pay damages to the families of the three deceased inmates, in the amount of two hundred ninety thousand dollars. At the same time, by an injunction of the court, the mental institution was to repair or upgrade the air-conditionning and heating system to keep the room
temperature always between 70 and 75 degrees Farenheit.
The Detention Center for Mental Inmates is currently enforcing the “Weather Plan” required by the court.
The Vacaville Mental Prison carried out repairs and replaced a great number of its glass windows, and installed an air-conditionning and insulation system. Next, it had to test the efficiency of the measure, in order to be on the safety side. Efficiency was the aim of the “Weather Plan”.
The Vacaville Mental Prison carried out repairs and replaced a great number of its glass windows, and installed an air-conditionning and insulation system. Next, it had to test the efficiency of the measure, in order to be on the safety side. Efficiency was the aim of the “Weather Plan”.
Following is a brief description of the perspective in which the plan was visualized:
At every detention ward there was to be a thermometer big enough for everybody, including the inmates, to read. Recordings of the room temperature of the ward were to be kept every three hours with the signature of the official on duty. Thus daily, the Office of the Warden of the Center
receives 8 temperature reports for each ward. The center had 25 wards.
At every detention ward there was to be a thermometer big enough for everybody, including the inmates, to read. Recordings of the room temperature of the ward were to be kept every three hours with the signature of the official on duty. Thus daily, the Office of the Warden of the Center
receives 8 temperature reports for each ward. The center had 25 wards.
Such was the plan to control the temperature inside the ward. As for the outdoor temperature at the center, the warden’s office has to contact the central meteorological office to be warned on time of coming temperatures of 90 degrees Farenheit (around 43 degrees centigrade) or higher. When such temperatures are forecast the entire center will be put on the alert. The
personnel of the prison-asylum will have to contact in person the inmates listed as Heat Risk (due to their physical constitution, or due to their use of highly dehydrating medicine which excessive heat would make even more drastic) who may be working or moving outdoor, and escort them back to their ward or to the nearest heat-safe place. And if the temperature rises to over
95 degrees the medical personnel will have to be bodily present at the wards with Heat Risk inmates to inquire about their condition and report to the doctors signs of dehydration, if any.
personnel of the prison-asylum will have to contact in person the inmates listed as Heat Risk (due to their physical constitution, or due to their use of highly dehydrating medicine which excessive heat would make even more drastic) who may be working or moving outdoor, and escort them back to their ward or to the nearest heat-safe place. And if the temperature rises to over
95 degrees the medical personnel will have to be bodily present at the wards with Heat Risk inmates to inquire about their condition and report to the doctors signs of dehydration, if any.
This procedure is to be carried out every four hours until the high temperature has subsided to below 90 degrees.
When such precaution was being taken the prison personnel would bring with them all the equipment for emergency cooling, including bottles of icy lemonade. These drinks are passed free of charge to all the inmates on the list each time the outdoor temperature exceeds 95 degrees F, whether or not they have shown signs of dehydratation.
That was the part of the Heat Plan in the Weather Plan; the other part of the Weather Plan is the Cold Plan, a plan applied during the winter, an even more unusually elaborate plan (to be presented in detail in “Of A Common Human destiny”).
To enforce the court order to protect the health of the inmates who were in majority convicted for murder, the government spent an extra million dollars minimum in 1991 despite a budget deficit of 4 trillion dollars (4,000 billion). If the court order was not enforced, and inmates should die in prison like before, there would have to be not only damage payments with tax-payers
money, but also the punishment measure affecting the personnel in charge of the prison for failing to obey court orders.
That was how the principle of balance of power between the three branches of government, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial, work to protect the interests of the people.
money, but also the punishment measure affecting the personnel in charge of the prison for failing to obey court orders.
That was how the principle of balance of power between the three branches of government, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial, work to protect the interests of the people.
A society where the power of the three branches of government is balanced, where the Government cannot order the Court to judge the way it wants, is a society “of the people, for the people and by the people”, in its true sense.
Under the Vietnamese Socialist Regime those three powers remain in the hands of one person: the Vietnamese Communist Party, so no matter what “innovative solutions”, may they be “market economy”, or “harmonious union, reconciliation”, etc..., whatever solutions in short, are applied,
ultimately the Vietnamese nation will not progress toward democracy.
Granted that Uncle Ho introduced Communism to Vietnam assuming that the ideology serves mankind, nonetheless the collective murder of a whole class is a crime, a “blood debt” incurred to the nation. The method of governing by public security forces, the army, to apprehend the people who owe taxes, and by decree #49/NQ/TVQH signed by Ho Chi Minh’s government in 1961, which set up the Reeducation Camps to incarcerate opponents, a measure that the Socialist Regime continued to apply after victory in 1975, is against the civilization of mankind.
Unfortunately, the Vietnamese Communists have not yet realized their error.
Recently, in April 1992, a delegation of American Representatives led by Senator John Kerry traveled to Vietnam and was given a tour of the country from North to South to investigate the American Missing-in-Action, Prisoner of War issue (MIA-POW). Everywhere they went children by the hundreds ran after them, the majority barefoot... At the airport of the town of Rach Gia especially, after the children had assembled, the government cadre prompted them to sing. On the C.SPAN television which broadcast the event during 4 consecutive days at the beginning of September, I could hear clearly the cueing words of official Nguyen Xuan Phong, representative of the Foreign Ministry “Sing the song “As if Uncle Ho was there”!” Xuan Phong had to repeat the cue many times to unresponsive children. Finally he had to start the tune himself, and the children had no choice but to sing “As if Uncle Ho was present on the big victory day celebration...” and “Long Live Ho Chi Minh! Long Live Ho Chi Minh!”
If the Party had scored some success in the C. SPAN television station broadcast which it intended to be propaganda to show the entire world that in the country there was still idolization of Ho Chi Minh...it should not forget that, no matter what, the spectators were able to discern that the words uttered by the children were in reality forced upon them by oppressive adults.
The more Communist Vietnam uses propaganda, the more the repression of the thoughts of the children became evident under the current regime.
Through the interpreters the visitors asked the children: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” One child answered: “I want to be a soldier.” Another child replied: “I want to be a public security man!”
Hearing the children’s answers made me recall Duong Thu Huong’s words that prompted me to think that truly our nation “will forever be unfortunate”, because those children could not go to school, and the Party took advantage of their iddle life to use them as tools for their propaganda, by sending them running after foreigners to stir their pity, to open their purse to save the moribund Party.
Assuming that those children would go to school, they would but be crammed with the images of the heroes erected by the Party, or be forced to hum:“Long Live Ho Chi Minh”
Thus, when those children grow up they will resemble their fathers and brothers: they now saw their future confined within two “trades”, namely the soldier and the public security cadre!
When their time comes those children will also arrest, torture and murder their own people without restraint, in exactly the same way their fathers and brothers are doing now...
Hearing the children’s answers made me recall Duong Thu Huong’s words that prompted me to think that truly our nation “will forever be unfortunate”, because those children could not go to school, and the Party took advantage of their iddle life to use them as tools for their propaganda, by sending them running after foreigners to stir their pity, to open their purse to save the moribund Party.
Assuming that those children would go to school, they would but be crammed with the images of the heroes erected by the Party, or be forced to hum:“Long Live Ho Chi Minh”
Thus, when those children grow up they will resemble their fathers and brothers: they now saw their future confined within two “trades”, namely the soldier and the public security cadre!
When their time comes those children will also arrest, torture and murder their own people without restraint, in exactly the same way their fathers and brothers are doing now...
They would then commit crimes, but it would be unjust to punish them, for since the day they were born they were be placed in the cradle of sin. How would they be able to know what was right?
Alas! Duong Thu Huong’s fear was well founded! Our nation would “sink in
eternal misery”!
Those images of the future of the Vietnamese children stirred in me a boundless love that covers also the Communist Vietnamese who are keeping themselves as well as the whole country in the chains of slavery... An ideological slavery: Evil is passed for good, tyranny is thought of as
mercy; barbarism is mistaken for civilization.
Alas! Duong Thu Huong’s fear was well founded! Our nation would “sink in
eternal misery”!
Those images of the future of the Vietnamese children stirred in me a boundless love that covers also the Communist Vietnamese who are keeping themselves as well as the whole country in the chains of slavery... An ideological slavery: Evil is passed for good, tyranny is thought of as
mercy; barbarism is mistaken for civilization.
The situation is self-explanatory: those Communists as much of those children have been seing the flag of the hammer and the sickle ever since they first opened their eyes, and hearing the praises of Ho Chi Minh ever since their ears first caught sounds...Not only were they not given an
alternate route, but more than that: they were kept from knowing a more virtuous and civilized alternate route!
Indeed, they were forbidden to swerve from the path that Uncle Ho ordered them to take.
The root of sin rightly resides in this old father of the nation.For Duong Thu Huong and the Communists to show genuine national piety, they have no other way than honestly admit the sin of their father, and ask for forgiveness and do penance. On the contrary, pursuing the task of corrupting youth, distorting history, like the Communists have been and are currently doing, can only turn “the equal honoring of both the Republican and
Communist children”, in order “to bring about harmonious union and reconciliation” into a gross deception, the same as any of the hundred thousand others practiced in the past.
Communist children”, in order “to bring about harmonious union and reconciliation” into a gross deception, the same as any of the hundred thousand others practiced in the past.
In the final account, an Uncle Ho, dead in the belief of the Communist regime, will bring success to mankind. He has not had the opportunity to see the destruction and the horrible result that Socialism has brought to his nation. His heirs have seen clearly this crime, yet they still “adamantly tightly embraces” it; the sin of the Vietnamese Communist Party is therefore
a thousand times more horrible.
A Vietnamese proverb runs:
“Love me, correct me;
Hate me, ignore my mistakes.” (Spare the rod; spoil the child.)
Continuing to praise that old father is not love. This is condoning crime. “Smack” the bottom, or point the finger at the face of the assassin is not a mark of hate, but of love to save hundreds of thousand innocent lives.
If the criminals adamantly seek to harm the nation and we keep forgiving them, then we are the accomplices to those crimes.
No comments:
Post a Comment