VIETNAM, NEWS ANALYSIS, APRIL 29, 2000.

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UNIFIED BUDDHIST CHURCH OF VIETNAM

THE SANGHA COUNCIL

Buddhist Calendar year 2543

2/VTT/VP

Nghia Hanh, 21 April 2000

To:

Mr. Le Kha Phieu, Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Vietnam

Mr. Tran Duc Luong, President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Mr Phan Van Khai, Prime Minister, Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Mr. Nong Duc Manh, President, Parliament of Vietnam

Dear Sirs,

For more than a month, the Party (Communist) and the State have begun celebrating the end of the war on 30 April 1975. ‘Great Spring Victory’, ‘Reunification of the Country’, ‘Independence and Peace’ will be the topics of celebration.

On behalf of the Sangha Council and the Joint Bi-Council Assembly of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, I am writing about matters that the Party and the State probably will not have the opportunity to raise during this 25^th Celebration.

THINK ABOUT THE DEAD AND CARE FOR THEIR FAMILIES

The two matters to which I hope you will pay attention concern the war dead and invalids, and the right to life with all basic citizen’s freedoms which have not been recognised.

According to official State statistics, during the war there were 3 million dead and 300 000 (Communist) troops missing in action whose bodies have not been found. In reality, the numbers are significantly higher, not counting millions of disabled persons, millions of families who lost their children in battles and who have not been supported, or adequately recompensed.

The above statistics have not accounted for the fate of innumerable Southern (Republic of Vietnam) troops who died or became disabled and who have not been recognised as citizens of the country even though the war ended long ago, even the bipolar global conflict had ceased. Not counted are the victims who died unjustly or who had been tortured during the Land Reform, whose numbers of 700 000 had been revealed by government cadres in the know. Not counted are the civilians who were massacred during the (1968) Tet Offensive, particularly at Hue. Not counted are more than 100 000 people who were executed in the reeducation camps and nearly a million who lost their lives on the high seas while sailing in search of freedom. So much calamity and sadness in an addition.

Those were the dead and the living in languor, and neglect.

THE ONLY CHOICE: ENTER A PRISON OR THE PARTY MACHINE

About the citizen’s right to life with all basic freedoms, I remember a statement by President Ho: ‘An independence in which the people do not have freedom, happiness, is meaningless.’ In truth, nowadays, 80% of the rural population and workers live in utmost poverty and hunger.

Facade prosperity can only be found in some big cities. This provides the decor aimed at tourists or Western diplomatic corps with a view to supplicate foreign economic aid. This kind of prosperity is prosperity of corruption, of hit and grab rather than of a stable and peaceful life of a welfare society.

To know the rise and fall of a nation, one needs only look at the life of a common man, a group or a religion. Presently in our country, groups or religions are not permitted to exist because article 4 of the Constitution prescribes the monopoly of government by the Communist Party. All forms of activities of groups and religions, except communism are prohibited.

Vietnamese in the 21^st Century only have two options: enter the prison or enter the Party machine.

Pity for one who enters the Party machine. One cannot exist according to one’s free characters. Have a mouth, and cannot talk. Have a head, and cannot think. Have a heart and cannot love your people and country following one’s inclinations.

If one enters a prison, one has freedom to think by oneself. One has freedom of speech, to oneself. However, that kind of freedom is freedom of movement in a catacomb for the living. Nobody else knows about one’s existence. One is a good for nothing to society, to humankind. Such freedom in which human dignity has been removed is no different from the freedom of the worms squirming in the soil.

QUESTION ABOUT VIETNAMESE CIVILISATION AND THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A HUMAN BEING

Dear Sirs,

I, an 83 year old Buddhist monk, have not been allowed to live and propagate the compassionate way of the Buddha among my people. Since under the regime of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese Communist government in the 1950s) to the present Socialist Republic of Vietnam, I have only known the smell of prisons.

What are the causes for a citizen, a religious person like me not to be able to live in freedom. And through my representation, a citizen established Church with 20 centuries of tradition in this nation, namely the United Buddhist Church of Vietnam, has not been permitted to conduct activities. Such activities as are determined in international conventions about civil and political rights established and guaranteed by the United Nations.

My question did not arise from personal grudges or complaints by a religious organisation. It is a gut wrenching question about the future of the Vietnamese civilisation and the life and death of every (Vietnamese) human being. As a victim and witness to history in the past 55 years, I want to see a country that changes while I am alive. I do not wish to leave this world with the image of a unchanging regime which maintains discrimination and repression of religion, of the freedoms of speech, of the press, of association and all other basic human rights.

OUT OF 10 FINGERS, CHOP FIVE FINGERS: KILL THE INTELLECTUALS, THE PROSPEROUS, THE LANDOWNERS, THE POWERFUL AND THE RELIGIOUS DURING THE VIETMINH PERIOD (1945-1954)

In 1950, when I lived in Zone 5 and President Ho launched the Land Reform, I once heard from cadres and loudspeakers calls for the people to kill five elements of the society: ‘Intellectuals, the prosperous, the landowners, the powerful and the crooked religious’. What remains if five fingers are chopped out of ten.

In 1951, Mr Nguyen Duy Trinh, Chairman of the Southern Resistance Administration Committee of Zone 5, representing the Central Government declared; ‘It’s time to terminate Buddhism’. Mr Trinh specifically nominated Buddhism. Subsequently, in 1952, the resistance government forced Buddhists to abandon Buddhist structures and subsume themselves in the Lien Viet, a peripheral organisation of the (Communist) Party. I objected to it, and was imprisoned in Quang Ngai. Our Save the Country Buddhist Association was dissolved. Only thanks to the Geneva ceasefire agreement of 1954 that I was released. The release paper did not have any inscription of a particular charge.

DISCRIMINATION AND REPRESSION OF BUDDHISM AFTER 30 APRIL 1975

After 30 April 1975 , on the ascension of the Revolutionary Government, everybody believed that all elements of the nation, all classes of people would have the stability and freedom to work in a spirit of reconciliation as stated in the Paris Accord (1973). But no, history repeats itself. The majority of the (Vietnamese) people who are Buddhist followers, and who form an organisation with national traditions, being the United Buddhist Church of Vietnam, are now the first victims of discrimination and repression. This happened despite our church’s consistent stand for: the people, peace, compassion and relief from suffering.

The policy of discrimination and repression manifested itself through the forcing of monks and nuns to return to laity, the forcing of them into new economic zones, into the army for fighting in Kampuchea or imprisonment in reeducation camps. Another measure was the confiscation from our Church, in Saigon and all provinces and cities in South Vietnam of all monasteries and residential buildings, all buildings for culture and education, social work, and economic activities, the Van Hanh university, the system of Bo De primary and secondary schools, the Youth for Social Work School, charities, kindergartens, orphanages, sutras and other publications.

In protest and in demand for freedom of religion, 12 monks and nuns self immolated at the Duoc Su temple on 2 November 1975.

On 20 September 1975, I wrote a letter, reference number 0278-VHDD/VP, on behalf of the Institute for the Propagation of the Dharma, to the Chairman of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (via General Tran Van Tra, chairman of the Military Administration Committee of Saigon-Gia Dinh). In the letter I requested immediate ceasing of all destruction of Buddha statues. I specifically raised three concrete cases of destruction of Buddha statues:

. at the Buu Long Temple at Soc Trang on 2 September 1975;

. by mines of the open air 9 m tall Avalokitesvara (Kuan Yin) statue at Phu Hai hill, Phan Thiet on 11 September 1975;

. by mines of the Avalokitesvara (Kuan Yin) statue at Bien Ho, Pleiku on 11 September 1975.

As the situation continued to get worse, on 17 March 1977, I wrote again on behalf of the Institute for the Propagation of the Dharma, to Prime Minister Pham Van Dong to denounce the policy of systematic repression of religion in the old South. I attached to the letter a document of 88 concrete cases of repression and of forced occupation of our Church’s offices in 29 provinces and cities: Phu Bon, Long Khanh, Khanh Hoa, Nha Trang, Da Nang, Quang Ngai, Binh Thuan, Soc Trang, Chuong Thien, Saigon, Thu Duc, Long Chau Tien, Kien Giang, Tuyen Duc, Gia Lai, Kontum, Pleiku, Ban Me Thuoc, Dinh Tuong, Phan Thiet, Binh Tuy, Hau Giang, Kien Phong, Thuan Hai, Dong Nai, Binh Chanh, Bien Hoa, Long An, Minh Hai.

By early 1977, nearly twenty statues of the Buddha and the Kuan Yin statues were destroyed by explosives, hammers, or thrown into rivers. These occurred in our Church’s provincial temples at Gia Lai, Kontum, Ban Me Thuoc, at Van Hoa temple, Kien Giang, Khanh Minh temple, Can Giuoc, Thien Ton temple, Minh Hai, Buddhist meditation centre in Nguyen Van Nhut hospital etc.

NOW HOW MUCH THE PEOPLE DESPISE

On seeing the repression of human rights in general and persecution of Buddhists in particular, following his return from the North to the South, the great patriarch Thich Don Hau (*) had to voice his exasperation in a reminiscence recording which we still have in custody. His statement was: ‘the solidarity, the love and respect of the people of the South (to the Communists) was maintained for only 10 days. After 10 days of ‘liberation’ the solidarity broke, the love turned into bitter hate, the respect fell into much despise.’

Despite such difficulties, the Institute for the Propagation of the Dharma continued to think about contributing to the reconstruction of the country after the war. We thought of the unification of the masses of Buddhists in both the North and South of Vietnam, as was before the Geneva Agreement divided the country. Unification is for the improvement of morality, the protection of peace for the country, the healing of the wounds of conflicts, and the elimination of social ills.

Our Institute requested patriarch Thich Don Hau to represent us at a meeting with Mr Nguyen Van Hieu, Minister for Culture. Mr Hieu stated that unification was very good, but not unification with reactionary Buddhists. When asked who the reactionary Buddhists were, Mr Hieu did not reply. Was it because Mr Hieu and the revolutionary government did not want North, Central and South Vietnamese Buddhist to unify in the Dharma, but only with politics.

Those who did not want to laicize Buddhism were immediately arrested, imprisoned and accused of wearing all kinds of hats. That was the situation in 1977 when the high and middle ranking leaders of the Institute of the Propagation of the Dharma, such as venerables Thien Minh, Quang Do, Tri Giac, Thong Hue and I were imprisoned at Phan Dang Luu prison, At the end of 1977, Right Venerable Thich Thien Minh was tortured to death in prison. Our Church’s request to take his body for funeral arrangements was refused.

Two years later, we were all brought to Court but still did not know what our charges were. That is because we were only allowed to listen to judgements about ourselves. We did not have the right to defend ourselves, nor the right to have defence lawyers as in civilised law abiding countries. Some of us were discharged, some given suspended sentence, some 2, 3, 7 years’ imprisonment.

NATIONAL BUDDHISM BECOMES BUDDHISM OF THE STATE

At the end of 1981, the Party (Communist) and the State staged a Buddhist organisation as a political tool, discarding the unification spirit peculiar to Vietnamese Buddhism. Since the Buddhism Enhancement Movement in the early part of the XXth century, through the last 70 years, our vow has been to work for the unification of the nation’s Buddhism.

Now the State moulded and propped up the State Buddhist Church against our wish. We therefore protested. The Church matters should be for Members of the Sangha, and lay Buddhist to decide. Why the Party had to involve itself in the organising and decision making in lieu of the Church's Sangha and the masses of Buddhist believers? The Party and State-owned media rely on a few known monks as window dressing to calm down the people and world opinion. Besides those who pose as members of Sangha, the rest are individuals under duress, bad influence, or who have to pretend innocents domestically just to pass checkpoints. Buddhist believers throughout the nation have to watch painfully the scene: a State established Church already dead but not buried! And the church of the people (Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam) already buried but still alive!

The Church is the assembly of those who share the same devotion to offer the Truth, the Good, the Beautiful and liberation from sufferings to human kind. It should not be the place to shout ‘long live …’ or ‘down with …’ all day. Therefore we refused the form and substance of a State established instrumental Church. And so, on 25 February 1982, I received Decision number 71/QDD-UB of the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, signed by Mr Nguyen Minh Dam, Deputy Director of Secret Police, and Mr Le Quang Chanh, on behalf of the Chairman of the People’s Committee, to expel me out of the city of Saigon. I was arrested and forcibly escorted to be under surveillance in the province of Nghia Binh from that time until now.

The Decision named my crime as "to take advantage of religion to create division within the people's solidarity (...), causing dangers to the security and order of the city". With what authority did the People’s Committee of the City decide to arrest and exile me, a Buddhist monk also a citizen, without any judgement by a court. Did acting in such manner give any respect to the legal system? At the same time as with me, Most Venerable Thich Quang Do was also arrested and forcibly exiled to be under surveillance to his native province of Thai Binh in North Vietnam.

PEOPLE KNOW, PEOPLE KEEP QUIET. PARTY KNOWS, PARTY IMPRISONS

In 1992, Patriarch Thich Don Hau passed away in the Linh Mu Pagoda at Hue. At the end of April that year, I requested permission to go to Hue to the mourning together with high and middle ranking members of the Sangha and lay Buddhists from the South, Central and North of Vietnam. At the mourning ceremony, in accordance with the will of the late Patriarch Thich Don Hau, I was appointed, by the Members of the Sangha there present, to the position of Acting Head of the Institute for the Propagation of the Dharma. I, together with the two Most Venerables Thich Quang Do, Thich Phap Tri, were thus appointed to lead the Church. Our tasks were to advocate for the return of the right to function of Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, and to organise the 8th Congress to supply human resource for the propagation of the Dharma for the benefit of sentient beings.

Having received the seal and credentials of the Church and the responsibility assigned by the Sangha, and upon my return to Quang Ngai, I wrote the "Application for the consideration of several matters" dated 25 June 1992 covering 9 requests sent to the Secretary General of the Party, the President of the National Assembly, the President of the State Council, the President of the Council of Ministers, the President of the Supreme Court and the President of the Fatherland Front.

Very strange indeed, my letters were not answered. I never receive a reply, including other letters I sent before these as well as many letters sent later on. The Party and the State always proclaim that the democracy in socialism is a million times more democratic than the democracies of the Western capitalist nations. Why do you pay no heed to the cries for help of the people? Does the propaganda slogan of the CPV and the State "people know, people act, people control" still have any meaning?

The indirect reply that we received was the two documents "Secret", number 125/TUDV of the Committee of Propaganda for the People and "Top Secret" number 106/PA 15-16 of the Secret Police Agency of the Ministry of Interior in 1993. These two documents gave directives to cadres of secret police and religious propaganda department to "chop off arms and legs" and using "the religious decrees, code of law" to isolate me and to fight against the Sangha of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. We were referred to in these documents by terms lacking courtesy and politics, such as "Reactionary elements of An Quang Buddhist Church"!

Reactionary or not reactionary is just the way the (Communist) Party divides up between friends and foes. In reality, all religions in general and Buddhism in particular, no one escapes the oppression, maximum restriction if not the repression of the legislation, decrees, directives on religions. Through the two millenniums of the history of Vietnam, during the sovereign and independent dynasties, Buddhism never had accepted such legislation on religion.

From Decree 297/CP, to Decree No. 69/HDBT of the Council of Ministers of 1991, to Decree 26/1999/NDDCP, from Directive No. 379/TTG, Directive No. 500 HD/TGCP to Decree 26 of the government Office of Religious Affairs of 16 June 1999, in the last 25 years all religions, all believers had to line up to listen to the State's teachings, through its Office of Religious Affairs, on matters that have nothing to do with religious belief, with enlightenment or with liberation from ignorance, sufferings. There is nothing that can be called freedom.

That is the situation and circumstances that the people in general, Buddhist monks and believers, in particular, have to suffer under repression and utter misery in the South in the last 25 years, and in the North in the last 45 years.

Restore the right to function of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, release all religious prisoners and abolish the Decree 31/CP

A dying bird, its most poignant cries uttered. An old monk, like I departing soon to the land of the Buddhas, untruth does not say: the Communist Party and the State cannot cover up forever their mistakes so as to perpetrate inhuman deeds. These have resulted in our people living in absolute poverty, religions repressed, intellectuals deprived of freedom of thought, journalists losing freedom of speech, artists and writers confiscated of their creativity, workers wrested of their freedom to join unions ...

It is time to stop the situation which impoverishes the people and weakens the nation, and wastes talented people and intellectuals.

With respect to Buddhism, we demand that:

. the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam must have its right to function restored in the current legislation, already stipulated and guaranteed by the Constitution, Universal Declaration on Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief;

. Most Venerables, Venerables, Buddhist monks, nuns and lay believers, upon their releases from incarceration, must have their residency restored, and have full civil rights and freedom to practise their religion or belief;

. Decree No. 31/CP be rescinded to end for good the illegal regime of administrative detention. That regime makes people who were released from prisons feel like they had been transferred from a small prison to a larger prison. This makes them live in constant fear of being arrested at any time for whatever reason; and

. members of the Sangha and Buddhist believers who are still imprisoned or administratively detained must be released from prisons or from the regime of administrative detention. If they are found to be guilty of offences, their cases must be considered by a court. They must have full rights to defence by lawyers of their choices, and in the presence of international media.

Furthermore, we would like to return "the reactionary hat", "the hat of saboteur", "the hat of accused opposition" back to those who put these hats on our heads. Buddhism is the religion practising Enlightenment and Compassion. Buddhism is the religion to build a humane and fraternal world. Buddhism does not oppose contemporary thoughts, because these thoughts will be passing through with the times. Buddhism uses the Right View to enlighten the prejudices and bad views.

SPIRITUAL RIGHTS FOR THE DEAD AND HUMAN RIGHTS FOR THE LIVING: A PROPOSAL

To commemorate the 25^th anniversary of the end of the war, I propose the Party and the State to do a unique feat which nobody dares to, except those of brave heart and strong mind. The feat is to realise three gestures of civilisation:

First, to cease definitively all aggression in thought and action, towards all elements of the people and religions, outside the Communist Party. This aggression had been for a long time in the form of class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat.

Second, to take the 30 April 1975 as the national ‘Day of Repentance’ and ‘Wish for Life’. Repentance towards the dead and wish for life to the living. Western democracies have made atonement daily for their errors through institutions of the freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of criticism such that the governments can correct themselves. A major Western religion like the Catholic Church recently has to have the Pope asking for forgiveness for the Church’s murders and violence towards humans and other religions.

Is it possible for the Party and the Socialist Republic (of Vietnam) to categorically state that it never commits any errors in the past 55 years? So many grievances from the two wars, during the Land Reform, in the Tet Mau Than (1968) general offensive at Hue, in new economic zones, and in the reeducation concentration camps. Whatever denials are made, the reality is that there are innumerable spirits of those who were unjustly killed. The Party and the State, have pity on those who died, think about their spiritual rights and repent yourselves. Make a session to pray for their spirits lest them have nowhere to go and seek revenge.

Spiritual rights for the dead, human rights for the living, that is the meaning of the festival for ‘Wish for Life’. In ancient times, the kings and emperors held every year a ceremony at the Nam Giao dais to pray for peace and stability for the people. Now in modern times, the State should use the law to guarantee the basic civil and political freedoms to all citizens, as a Prayer to Man.

Third, the State to:

. decree laws to search for the remains of those who died in battles, whether they are Northern troops or Southern soldiers. This is for the purpose of giving them decent burial and to make up to their families for their grievances;

. return freedom to those who have been imprisoned for their political views or religions;

. restore the honour to those who died wronged;

. offer adequate pensions to those who were disabled by war, irrespective of their political affiliations or views or whether they are from the North or South.

Only if those three gestures are made together with the respect for freedom of activities of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, can the war really be ended. Only then can the 25^th commemoration have the meaning of the commencement of a true national reconciliation.

I dearly expect that to happen.

 Yours sincerely

(Signature)

Bhiksu Thich Huyen Quang

Charge d'Affaires of the Sangha Council of the

Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam

Copies respectfully sent to:

- Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, Head of the Institute for the Propagation of the Dharma "for your information"

- 2nd Office, Institute for the Propagation of the Dharma, USA "for your information"

- International Buddhist Information Bureau, Paris "for dissemination"

- File records.

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Meanwhile on April 24, Saigon Public Security arrested two Buddhist monks, Ven. Thich Khong Tanh and Ven. Thich Quang Hue at the ferry station at Thu Thiem. About fifty Public Security officers surrounded the two monks, tied their hands and threw them onto a truck back to the local Public Security station. Ven. Thich Khong Tanh suffered minor bruises and felt painful all over his body.

He was charged with illegal residence and going out of the pagoda where he was living without permission of the Public Security authorities.

Many cases of harassment against the Buddhist clergy in South Vietnam were reported this week. Such harassment have been anticipated as the Communist rulers are tightening political security before the 25th Anniversary of the April 30.