The Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Hellman Hammett are the NGO, actually the Amnesty International founded in London 1961, the article” the Forgotten Prisoners” published on the Observer on May 28, 1961, by lawyer Peter Lenenson raised the alarm to the world, the organization received the support worldwide with 7 million members and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, following the United Nation Prize in the Field of Human Rights in 1978.
The NGO are the hope of the forgotten prisoners around the world, the political prisoners in the communist country are the current recipients. However, the rescuers made the mistakes as the case of Điếu Cày (Nguyễn Văn Hải), a former Vietcong trooper, his division invaded the South Vietnam. After winning the war, Vietcong has applied the cruel policy to the occupied land, that reflects a speech of Mr. Nguyễn Hộ, high ranking cadre of the Vietnam communist party, he said at Saigon:” their houses, we occupy their wives, we take- their children, we enslave”. The North communist trooper as a former corporal Nguyễn Văn Hải, the conquer, they robbed the asset of the people in the South Vietnam and became the wealthy family.
Mr. Nguyễn Văn Hải, also known as Nguyễn Hoàng Hải, the pen name is Điếu Cày, there is someone translated Điếu Cày is” Peasant’s Pine”, indeed Điếu Cày means” the smoking pine’s tool of Laotian”. In Vietnam, a smoking habit is điếu cày that made by bamboo, mostly the smoker uses the common tobaco of Laotian’s style, the other meaning is the điếu cày is like the plow. In Vietnam, the poor people including peasant use the” điếu Cày”. (Author Hoa Minh Truong was a điếu cày smoke in the re-education camp)
A Vietnamese blogger who was prosecuted by his comrade’s regime as the tax evasion. But he was considered by the NGO as a political prisoner or promoted a Prisoner of conscience. His resistance is against China, not fights against the Vietcong’s tyranny regime.
However, the most Vietnamese people recognize Vietcong regime is the actual vassal of China, in anti-foreigner’s history, the Vietnam’s ancestor always fought against the colonial government in the homeland, but the China’s target was never reached. When the colonial government fell, the country returned the independence. The fighting of Điếu Cày is the rival, not for the people or the democracy, likely a person opposes the crime of a local gang but not the Mafia.
Mr. Nguyễn Văn Hải shined in 2008 with the protest against the Beijing Olympic and the Vietnam-China maritime argument. On July 5, 2011, his wife is Dương Thị Tân lied about the husband in the jail, he lost one of his arms in the jail, indeed, Điếu Cày was healthy. The inform of his wife spread broadly to overseas, it reinforced the reason of the political prisoner, ultimately Mr. Điếu Cày resettled in the US and president Barack Obama welcomed, invited Mr. Nguyễn Văn Hải in White House.
The Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International helped the scam political prisoners as Cù Huy Hà Vũ, Tạ Phong Tần, Nguyễn Văn Hải…all came to the US under the humanity scheme. A case of Điếu Cày proven the terrible mistake of the NGO and the US government. Moreover, Mr. Điếu Cày received the International Press Freedom Ward of the Committee to protection Journalists.
During the real political prisoners are such as the organization Hôi Đồng Công Luật Công Án Bia Sơn in the Phú Yên Province, mostly the members are not Vietcong’s background, they were punished by the heavy sentences from 10 years to life in prison, but where are the NGO?
The other forgotten prisoner is a former South Vietnam’s captain Nguyễn Hữu Cầu who was imprisoned long term more than Neilson Mandela. Despite the Human Rights Watch eyed on, but he just released from the prison camp on March 21, 2014, but he has been keeping under the surveillance of local government, although he has been suffering the illness (nearly blind), heart disease, lost hearing. Captain Nguyễn Hữu Cầu’s circumstance is pitiful, but why didn’t the NGO and the US’s government help to get out from the tyranny regime?
I (Hoa Minh Truong) am a former political prisoner after Saigon failed on April 30, 1975, the Vietcong regime congregated more than 800,000 members of Army Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the public servant. The Vietcong regime mistreated the political prisoner by the revenge policy: the worse living condition (mostly the prisoner slept on the oil), torture, starvation, and execution, illness without medicine and treatment, currently spiritual intimidation, forced laborer. The Vietcong killed about 165,000 prisoners. During 6 years in the hell of the prison camp, I had never known the Amnesty International. Therefore they helped the Vietcong’s scam political prisoners as Điếu Cày, Tạ Phong Tần, Cù Huy Hà Vũ….moreover, during in the re-education camp, my family being faced the difficulty, my mother had to sell the clothes, furniture and anything in the house for food, because the family had a political prisoner to be considered the counter-revolution element, the family met the hardship by local government. Therefore, during living in the jail, Mr. Điếu Cày still had the house for rent and her daughter sent to Canada for study.
I would like to remind the NGO as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Hellman-Hammett, and Report Without Border…please do not make the mistake anymore.
Hoa Minh Truong.
(Ex-Lt of ARVN, a formerly forgotten prisoner with 6 years in the re-education camp)