Within the framework of its policy of mass arrests and the promulgation of ordinance No 6 providing for establishment of concentration camps for the detention of patriots under the pretext of ‘national defence’ and ‘public security’, the south Viet Nam administration has, on the one hand, enlarged the system of prisons left by the French colonialists and, on the other hand, set up a whole network of concentration camps in south Viet Nam.
Prisons.— At the time of the cessation of hostilities, throughout south Viet Nam there were about 50 prisons located in most cases in big cities and provincial towns.
At present, districts and sometimes even communes have their own prisons. Thus, in a small province like Phu Yen, the figure at one time reached 109 for a population of about 250,000 inhabitants. As there were not enough prisons, the south Viet Nam administration transformed churches, pagodas and schools into jails. In a number of localities, they even used for this purpose underground cellars or former fortifications built during the war. The Nhat Tai and Tuong Giac pagodas..., and even the Caodaist Holy See of Tay Ninh were turned into jails with hundreds of detainees being packed inside.
The number of political prisoners interned in the Mang Lang church reached at one time 300.
In south Viet Nam there are at present about 100 big jails (not counting the small and middle-sized ones). These include the prisons in:
| - Quang Nam, | with more than 2,000 detainees. |
| - Thu Duc, | with more than 2,000 detainees. |
| - Hoi An, | with more than 2,000 detainees. |
| - Tam Ky | with more than 2,500 detainees. |
| - Bien Hoa, | with more than 3,000 detainees. |
| - Chi Hoa (Saigon), | with more than 4,000 detainees. |
| - Con Dao, | with more than 4,000 detainees. |
| - Phu Loi, | with more than 6,000 detainees. |
The regime of detention is very harsh.
The prisoners are given insufficient food rations. They are supplied daily with 600 grams of mouldy rice cooked in lime water, and rotten dried fish. They also receive insufficient rations of drinking water and a restricted quantity of water for washing. Medicines are lacking: Sick people are not admitted to any hospital, or are sent there only when their life is doomed. The relatives of the detainees are not allowed to send them a letter or parcel. Ill treatment and savage torture are frequently inflicted. Cases happened when prisoners were executed in the dead of night without reason. Lieutenant-Colonel Nguyen Quoc Hoang, Chief of the Kien Phong province, within a few nights in late June 1960, ordered over 50 detainees in the Cao Lanh jail to be beheaded, their corpses being thrown into the river.
Such a regime has resulted in every detainee catching at least one of the following diseases: beri-beri, heart disease, tuberculosis, dysentery, anaemia. In a prison where about 2,000 prisoners are detained, from 200 to 400, sometimes even 500 people are daily confined to bed owing to sickness while the daily death rate is from one to three.
Very concrete evidence on the detention regime in south Viet Nam prisons is to be found in the following statement by M.P. Tran Ngoc Ban concerning the Gia Dinh prison:
“Let us take one room among so many others in the Gia Dinh prison: 15 metres long by 3.6 metres wide, that is to say an area of 54 square metres. In this area are generally packed 150 detainees. A division suffices to let us see that in this room three persons occupy a square metre. It is in this place that the detainees sleep, eat, wash themselves and ease their bowels. A bucket with a lid is put in a corner of the room for that purpose. It suffices that each of the 150 prisoners uses it once a day for five minutes, and the bucket would remain open 700 minutes. If the detainees go there twice daily, this means that the bucket is never covered. It is easy to imagine the stink prevailing in the room. Besides, — allow me to go into another detail — there are in this room a little ‘door’ 2 metres high and 0.08 metre wide and in the opposite wall, an indirect light 3.6 metres by 0.04 metre. It is in such a place that 150 people live. Now let us speak about the possibilities for sitting and lying down. As I have said, there are on an average three persons per square metre. Squatting they have just enough room ; sitting cross-legged, they are very cramped for room. At night, they can just sleep lying with their knees under their chin. So a quarter of the detainees have to stand up to allow the others to stretch out for a moment. It is a fraternal gesture but also a necessity. Because of the sweltering heat and smallness of the room for so many occupants, many detainees are unable to bear wearing a garment and remain half-naked. They must live day and night in this room and only go out into the court-yard once a day for a meal, which has to be taken outside, even in rainy weather. Medicines hardly exist and as it is very difficult to be admitted to a hospital, many sick persons frequently lose consciousness”. (Report No 75 of the January 3, 1958 sitting of the south Viet Nam ‘National Assembly’).
Many other deputies, such as Messrs. Pham Van Thung, Ho Ngan, Tran Thuc Linh, also spoke about the detention regime in south Viet Nam prisons.
Concentration camps.— A number of camps are openly recognized as concentration camps, such as those of Pho Trach, Cho Niu, Dai Loc, etc. But most are camouflaged under various names: ‘camp for a just cause’ (as was the case in almost all the camps at district level in Trung Bo in 1955), ‘re-education centre’ (as at Thu Duc, Bien Hoa, Phu Loi, Con Dao etc.). Since 1957, there have existed camps disguised as ‘agricultural settlements’.
Up to the end of 1958, the number of ‘agricultural settlements’ alone reached 50. In 1960, the figure rose to 126 with more than 200,000 former resistance members being detained there.
In concentration camps, the regime of detention is not less harsh than in prisons. In particular, the political detainees in ‘agricultural settlements’, are required to work very hard at least for 12 hours, sometimes even for 18 hours, a day. Their task is to build military bases, strategic roads and military storehouses.
Here are some characteristic features of concentration camps in south Viet Nam:
‘The Con Son ( Poulo Condore) political re-education centre’, established on an island several hundred kilometres away from the mainland is used on a permanent basis for the detention of about 4,000 prisoners.
As regards food, the lack of vegetables there is such that the political detainees are obliged to eat herbs; shortage of water has resulted in their being compelled in a number of cases to quench their thirst with their own urine. The children who have followed their mothers, or who were born in the camp, are deprived not only of water for washing, but even of food; their mothers and many other detainees have to feed them out of their meagre daily rations of rice. In camp No 1, chains of 1.5 or 3, or even 10 kilograms, are attached to the political detainees’ feet. Those who are ‘punished’ are put into dark underground cells. Those who are still strong enough have to dive into the sea in search of coral, or to climb up rocky mountains in search of nests of salangane.
The daily average death rate is from two to three; in particular in September 1957, it amounted to 20. In addition, there were daily from four to five hundred people seriously sick. As a result of this regime, from December 1956 to 1959, more than 3,000 former resistance members were executed or died from starvation, torture or sickness. In December 1959, 200 political detainees were massacred at one time.
‘The Hoa Vang re-education camp’ is a small camp in Quang Nam province. Established in April 1960, it is used for the detention of about 300 former resistance members, sent there on account of their being ‘illegal’ or ‘semi-legal citizens’, or arrested during mopping-up operations carried out by the regular army. Like others, the Hoa Vang camp is fenced in by barbed wire and surrounded by watch towers, but its distinctive feature is the existence of a kind of ‘no man’s land’ labelled ‘forbidden area’: Whoever enters there, for any reason whatever, is immediately shot dead or at least arrested.
It is in this camp that the prisoners are commonly subjected to the most atrocious and subtle tortures described above: ‘Confession’, ‘test of strength’, ‘exorcising’.
The death rate here is very high. In the first two months alone after the establishment of the camp, more than 30 deaths were recorded.
The network of ‘re-education centres’ and ‘concentration camps’ in general is developing. For instance in the 1961 budget, the appropriations for ‘re-education camps’ amount to 190,000,000 south Viet Nam piastres, thus showing an increase of 72,299,000 as compared with 1960; this increase alone is greater than the whole appropriations for the Ministry of the Economy, which account for only 66,216,000 piastres.
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