DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | University of Iowa anti-war protests, 1970 | 1970-10-07 ""Iowa City People's Peace Treaty Committee"" Page 17

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University of Iowa anti-war protests, 1970

1970-10-07 ""Iowa City People's Peace Treaty Committee"" Page 17

(continued from page 13)
...open letter from saigon's jailed women

the trustees would come two or three says later to give medicine. When they arrived they would ask: " Is she dead?" In the morning the trustee would give medicine for three days, but in the afternoon when he came to inspect the cell, he would force the person to take all the medicine at once. Usually the patients which were carried away to the dispensary were paralyzed and in delirium. 
The "surface cave," later used as a storehouse and now used as a dispensary is thirteen feet long, eleven feet wide and ten feet high. The roof is of tin sheets, the walls are of stone with only a 24 inch wide entrance. The cave is surrounded with barbed wire and there is always heaped sacks hung all around to hide it. This dispensary is close to the outdoor toilets. The prisoners must endure both the smell coming from the excrement and the burning heat in the hot season from April til June at Con Son. 
The dispensary is like an airless cave, killing the women slowly. Each morning one would be heart-torn to see the paralyzed women crawling, out of the cave to wash their faces. Sometimes out of exhaustion, some women fell down and lay there because the trustees did not allow anyone to help and take car of them. 
Some women got appendicitis. But despite the doctor's proposing to send them back to Saigon for treatment the trustees made them suffer there. Whenever the women felt very painful and asked for the nurses trustee Man would answer: " It's siesta time" Or Sum would say: " You can die here, we don't care. The only thing we care about is security."
The nurses took care of the patients in a very neglectful manner. They used one needle for five patients and stole medicine reserved for prisoners. As far as food was concerned at the dispensary, the patients received no better rations than the regular prisoners. Despite the doctor's recommendation to allow the prisoners to buy sugar and milk, the managers Ve and Tran still ignored the patient until she collapsed. Then they would give the patient a can of milk. When the old blind woman asked to buy some sugar to mix in her rice soup. Nhan violently answered: " I don't care about you old age. I don't care about your being sick."
The women's life became more miserable because of the crude theft of the trustees. A month after our arrival at the Con Son, through repeated demands, they finally gave us some of the belongings that we brought along from Chi Hoa. Our clothes, medicine, food, all the belongings that our families had brought to us with their sweat and tears, the trustees had piled them all together in a stack. In the rain and sun they stank and looked like a pile of garbage in the city. Flies and bugs gathered around these belongings. 
In the eight months we were twice repressed with lime dust. The first time was on the fourth day of Tet, the most sacred day in the Vietnamese tradition. During these days we were not only not allowed to enjoy Tet, but also the trustees ordered by Ve and Nhan decided not to open the cell gates to give the women some freedom. They even found reasons for the trustees to beat the patients in the dispensary. When the patients were washing themselves, they hurried them and kicked the water over. They used the bars of the cell door to beat us without mercy. Some of us still bear wounds to the present day. Some vomited blood. Because of such scenes, all the women protested. They were immediately repressed with lime. During that Tet holiday, prisoners in other cells were also repressed for other reasons. 
The second time occurred on April 28, 1970. When the women cried out when they heard cries of protest coming from the men's tiger cages, Nham and Sum, shirtless, shouted: " I give orders to throw lime on them until they die." The trustees rushed towards us, throwing bags and buckets of lime upon us which had been set on the iron bars above. Buckets of water followed. We were choked and burned by the lime mixed with water. Many fainted, others vomited blood. One women was seriously injured when a block of hard lime fell upon her head. At the same time they went into the dispensary and threw lime onto patients four times until all of them collapsed. Despite that, they stuck the rest of the lime into the nose, mouth, and eyes of the patients so that some were blinded, others vomited and coughed out blood. After the repression, our bodies as well as our belonging were all covered with lime. Yet they did not allow us to wash ourselves and clean the cells. So for two months, we kept lying in the lime. We did not have a bit of water to cool ourselves. We must wash our clothes with urine, consequently we itched and were covered with wounds. Because of the intense heat, we only wore underclothes. At these times Ve and Tran and their American 'master' would go over the iron bars and watch us below like people watching animals at the zoo. 
We were punished for very absurd reasons such as chatting too loudly in the cell, or asking for drinking water, bringing water into the cell to wash ourselves after going to the bathroom, wearing underclothes because of the heat and lack of clothes. We were punished from one week to one month by not being allowed to wash out clothes, bodies and faces. Nhan and Sum often ordered the trustees to stir up the buckets of lime or open the cover so that the wind would blow gusts of lime along the way above the cells. If we protested, "don't you think it's enough to punish us? Do you still have to throw more lime?" Sum would threaten us: " Who said that? Watch out, my child!" All through eight months, we continued to hear dirty swearings, threats of Sum, Nan, Nhan... even the director, Ve would use dirty language when talking to us. 
The policy of using prisoners to rule other prisoners is a most evil method of the prison chief. Particularly Con Son, military culprits and commor 

[photo]
WOMEN'S DEMONSTRATORS IN LIBERATED AREA (LNS)

criminals are used to rule over other prisoners. To prevent the emotional weaknesses of trustees, the chief ordered that those who sympathize with political prisoners would receive 200 lashes, or go to the stone cave to chop wood or be shackled. Unable to suffer these physical punishments, a number of prisoners followed orders and beat other prisoners. 
On August 3, they returned 108 of us to the mainland including the seriously sick prisoners from the dispensary. On board the Con Son ship, many collapsed and vomited blood, They brought along 50 trustees to beat us. After some gunshots (because the women refused to be shackled) and after the repression many of us fainted and coughed blood. 
The beating of prisoners is very common in the jails of South Vietnam as well as the sending of women to Con Son Island for torture by the managers Tran and Ve. The harsh treatment, the stealing, and the continuous insecurity of the prisoners in the jails, especially at Con Son Island are more inhumane than under Hitler's regime.
Not only the healthy women prisoners, but also sick prisoners brought from Con Son to Chi Hoa, were beaten by the trustees under the order of Loi Nguyen Tan (Chi Hoa warden). Our bodies are covered with bruises because we dared speak out when they took one of us to another cell. 
After fifteen days back in Chi Hoa, we asked the manager-Committee to solve our main demands such as allowing contacts between the prisoners and their relatives and improving the prisoners' conditions. They promised to do these things, but afterwards left our demands unsolved. On August 8, Loi Nguyen Tan ordered the trustees to come into the cells and beat us with clubs, table legs, iron rods and iron wheels. Only when blood had streamed enough did he order his puppets to stop. After this repression, four of us were wounded, one seriously. 
Talking about the prison, one cannot forget Camp 5 of Cho Quan hospital. This is the central hospital of the South Vietnamese government to treat the serious cases sent by the various jails. However, it is the place where on can legally destroy the evidence of violent repression, beatings, assassinations by the interrogation agencies and the various prisons. They can easily say that the prisoner died of sickness. Quan, the cruel chief nurse, is nothing more than an authoritative policeman who has the right to refuse serious cases of illness sent to him from the island.
These are only the partial facts about the cruelty of Con Son and Chi Hoa prisons. 
Realizing that:
--- The denial of freedom of thought is against international law. 
---- The detention of prisoners without sentence or with expired sentence, or crippled and chronically sick prisoners is an illegal act.
--- The torture, beating, and illtreatment of prisoners is an act of blood-thirsty fascists.
--- The act of leaving the prisoners in thirst and hunger, not giving them adequate medicine, killing them slowly is an inhumane act. 
--- The disrespect of the prisoners' human rights, treating the prisoners as if they were animals, the vulgar swearings, and the punishments are violations of human rights.
--- The use of prisoners to rule other prisoners is a crude act of the thiefs.
--- The denial of relationship between the prisoner and his family between the prisoners and his fellows is an act against humane morale. 
We, the women prisoners, denounce the repression, the beatings, the killing and the violation of prisoners' dignity by Nguyen Van Ve, Nguyen Van Tran, Pham Ban Lieng, Pham Ngoc Tuan, Loi Nguyen Tan, and the others, the wardens of Chi Hoa and the slaughterhouse of Con Son including: Danh, Chin Khoung, Nguyen Ngo Nhan (camp chief at Con Son) Nguyen Ninh Chau, and all the blood-thirsty trustees. Ngi, Ba Chau, Sum, Van,Sang, No, Phat, Lap , Phu...
--- We strongly protest against the Ministry of Interior Police Headquarters, and the Directorate Corrections which have given orders to the managers of prisons to terrorize, repress, beat and shackle the prisoners and send them to Con Son prison. 
--- We ask the Committee for Prisoner's relations, Women's Committee for Human Rights, Saigon Student Union and all other organizations to denounce the cruel acts and crimes of these people in front of the people in the country and throughout the world. 
--- We ask that our demands be presented to the authoritative offices of South Vietnam to solve the following points:
1. Freedom of thought and ideals of prisoners must be respected.
2. The prisoners' lives must be guaranteed. Women prisoners' dignity should be respected . Prisoners should not be beaten, tortured, repressed, or shackled. 
3. Prisoners' conditions should be improved: food and drink and medicine should be adequately given to the prisoners. The cells should have more space and prisoners should be allowed to do reading publicly.
4. Women prisoners without trial, with expired sentence, crippled and sick prisoners should be released. 
5. The "criminals" causing bloodshed and their fellows should be thoroughly punished. 
6. Con Son prison system should be abolished
7. The 185 women prisoners presently in Con Con Prison should be immediately returned to the mainland. 
8. Packages and checks and other belongings stolen form the prisoners should be repaid. 
9. Family relations of the prisoners should be allowed regular time for visits and plenty of time for care should be given. 
We put all our faith in you and impatiently wait for your intervention to denounce the false democracy, the illegal beatings, terrorism, and the inhumane treatment of the authorities which has given such bad consequences to us. 
Chi Hoa September 20, 1970
A number of women returning from the Island. 
We enclose the names and signatures of 82 of us. The others are scattered all over in other jails and are not here to sign. 

17

Saving...

(continued from page 13) ...open letter from saigon's jailed women the trustees would come two or three says later to give medicine. When they arrived they would ask: " Is she dead?" In the morning the trustee would give medicine for three days, but in the afternoon when he came to inspect the cell, he would force the person to take all the medicine at once. Usually the patients which were carried away to the dispensary were paralyzed and in delirium. The "surface cave," later used as a storehouse and now used as a dispensary is thirteen feet long, eleven feet wide and ten feet high. The roof is of tin sheets, the walls are of stone with only a 24 inch wide entrance. The cave is surrounded with barbed wire and there is always heaped sacks hung all around to hide it. This dispensary is close to the outdoor toilets. The prisoners must endure both the smell coming from the excrement and the burning heat in the hot season from April til June at Con Son. The dispensary is like an airless cave, killing the women slowly. Each morning one would be heart-torn to see the paralyzed women crawling, out of the cave to wash their faces. Sometimes out of exhaustion, some women fell down and lay there because the trustees did not allow anyone to help and take car of them. Some women got appendicitis. But despite the doctor's proposing to send them back to Saigon for treatment the trustees made them suffer there. Whenever the women felt very painful and asked for the nurses trustee Man would answer: " It's siesta time" Or Sum would say: " You can die here, we don't care. The only thing we care about is security." The nurses took care of the patients in a very neglectful manner. They used one needle for five patients and stole medicine reserved for prisoners. As far as food was concerned at the dispensary, the patients received no better rations than the regular prisoners. Despite the doctor's recommendation to allow the prisoners to buy sugar and milk, the managers Ve and Tran still ignored the patient until she collapsed. Then they would give the patient a can of milk. When the old blind woman asked to buy some sugar to mix in her rice soup. Nhan violently answered: " I don't care about you old age. I don't care about your being sick." The women's life became more miserable because of the crude theft of the trustees. A month after our arrival at the Con Son, through repeated demands, they finally gave us some of the belongings that we brought along from Chi Hoa. Our clothes, medicine, food, all the belongings that our families had brought to us with their sweat and tears, the trustees had piled them all together in a stack. In the rain and sun they stank and looked like a pile of garbage in the city. Flies and bugs gathered around these belongings. In the eight months we were twice repressed with lime dust. The first time was on the fourth day of Tet, the most sacred day in the Vietnamese tradition. During these days we were not only not allowed to enjoy Tet, but also the trustees ordered by Ve and Nhan decided not to open the cell gates to give the women some freedom. They even found reasons for the trustees to beat the patients in the dispensary. When the patients were washing themselves, they hurried them and kicked the water over. They used the bars of the cell door to beat us without mercy. Some of us still bear wounds to the present day. Some vomited blood. Because of such scenes, all the women protested. They were immediately repressed with lime. During that Tet holiday, prisoners in other cells were also repressed for other reasons. The second time occurred on April 28, 1970. When the women cried out when they heard cries of protest coming from the men's tiger cages, Nham and Sum, shirtless, shouted: " I give orders to throw lime on them until they die." The trustees rushed towards us, throwing bags and buckets of lime upon us which had been set on the iron bars above. Buckets of water followed. We were choked and burned by the lime mixed with water. Many fainted, others vomited blood. One women was seriously injured when a block of hard lime fell upon her head. At the same time they went into the dispensary and threw lime onto patients four times until all of them collapsed. Despite that, they stuck the rest of the lime into the nose, mouth, and eyes of the patients so that some were blinded, others vomited and coughed out blood. After the repression, our bodies as well as our belonging were all covered with lime. Yet they did not allow us to wash ourselves and clean the cells. So for two months, we kept lying in the lime. We did not have a bit of water to cool ourselves. We must wash our clothes with urine, consequently we itched and were covered with wounds. Because of the intense heat, we only wore underclothes. At these times Ve and Tran and their American 'master' would go over the iron bars and watch us below like people watching animals at the zoo. We were punished for very absurd reasons such as chatting too loudly in the cell, or asking for drinking water, bringing water into the cell to wash ourselves after going to the bathroom, wearing underclothes because of the heat and lack of clothes. We were punished from one week to one month by not being allowed to wash out clothes, bodies and faces. Nhan and Sum often ordered the trustees to stir up the buckets of lime or open the cover so that the wind would blow gusts of lime along the way above the cells. If we protested, "don't you think it's enough to punish us? Do you still have to throw more lime?" Sum would threaten us: " Who said that? Watch out, my child!" All through eight months, we continued to hear dirty swearings, threats of Sum, Nan, Nhan... even the director, Ve would use dirty language when talking to us. The policy of using prisoners to rule other prisoners is a most evil method of the prison chief. Particularly Con Son, military culprits and commor [photo] WOMEN'S DEMONSTRATORS IN LIBERATED AREA (LNS) criminals are used to rule over other prisoners. To prevent the emotional weaknesses of trustees, the chief ordered that those who sympathize with political prisoners would receive 200 lashes, or go to the stone cave to chop wood or be shackled. Unable to suffer these physical punishments, a number of prisoners followed orders and beat other prisoners. On August 3, they returned 108 of us to the mainland including the seriously sick prisoners from the dispensary. On board the Con Son ship, many collapsed and vomited blood, They brought along 50 trustees to beat us. After some gunshots (because the women refused to be shackled) and after the repression many of us fainted and coughed blood. The beating of prisoners is very common in the jails of South Vietnam as well as the sending of women to Con Son Island for torture by the managers Tran and Ve. The harsh treatment, the stealing, and the continuous insecurity of the prisoners in the jails, especially at Con Son Island are more inhumane than under Hitler's regime. Not only the healthy women prisoners, but also sick prisoners brought from Con Son to Chi Hoa, were beaten by the trustees under the order of Loi Nguyen Tan (Chi Hoa warden). Our bodies are covered with bruises because we dared speak out when they took one of us to another cell. After fifteen days back in Chi Hoa, we asked the manager-Committee to solve our main demands such as allowing contacts between the prisoners and their relatives and improving the prisoners' conditions. They promised to do these things, but afterwards left our demands unsolved. On August 8, Loi Nguyen Tan ordered the trustees to come into the cells and beat us with clubs, table legs, iron rods and iron wheels. Only when blood had streamed enough did he order his puppets to stop. After this repression, four of us were wounded, one seriously. Talking about the prison, one cannot forget Camp 5 of Cho Quan hospital. This is the central hospital of the South Vietnamese government to treat the serious cases sent by the various jails. However, it is the place where on can legally destroy the evidence of violent repression, beatings, assassinations by the interrogation agencies and the various prisons. They can easily say that the prisoner died of sickness. Quan, the cruel chief nurse, is nothing more than an authoritative policeman who has the right to refuse serious cases of illness sent to him from the island. These are only the partial facts about the cruelty of Con Son and Chi Hoa prisons. Realizing that: --- The denial of freedom of thought is against international law. ---- The detention of prisoners without sentence or with expired sentence, or crippled and chronically sick prisoners is an illegal act. --- The torture, beating, and illtreatment of prisoners is an act of blood-thirsty fascists. --- The act of leaving the prisoners in thirst and hunger, not giving them adequate medicine, killing them slowly is an inhumane act. --- The disrespect of the prisoners' human rights, treating the prisoners as if they were animals, the vulgar swearings, and the punishments are violations of human rights. --- The use of prisoners to rule other prisoners is a crude act of the thiefs. --- The denial of relationship between the prisoner and his family between the prisoners and his fellows is an act against humane morale. We, the women prisoners, denounce the repression, the beatings, the killing and the violation of prisoners' dignity by Nguyen Van Ve, Nguyen Van Tran, Pham Ban Lieng, Pham Ngoc Tuan, Loi Nguyen Tan, and the others, the wardens of Chi Hoa and the slaughterhouse of Con Son including: Danh, Chin Khoung, Nguyen Ngo Nhan (camp chief at Con Son) Nguyen Ninh Chau, and all the blood-thirsty trustees. Ngi, Ba Chau, Sum, Van,Sang, No, Phat, Lap , Phu... --- We strongly protest against the Ministry of Interior Police Headquarters, and the Directorate Corrections which have given orders to the managers of prisons to terrorize, repress, beat and shackle the prisoners and send them to Con Son prison. --- We ask the Committee for Prisoner's relations, Women's Committee for Human Rights, Saigon Student Union and all other organizations to denounce the cruel acts and crimes of these people in front of the people in the country and throughout the world. --- We ask that our demands be presented to the authoritative offices of South Vietnam to solve the following points: 1. Freedom of thought and ideals of prisoners must be respected. 2. The prisoners' lives must be guaranteed. Women prisoners' dignity should be respected . Prisoners should not be beaten, tortured, repressed, or shackled. 3. Prisoners' conditions should be improved: food and drink and medicine should be adequately given to the prisoners. The cells should have more space and prisoners should be allowed to do reading publicly. 4. Women prisoners without trial, with expired sentence, crippled and sick prisoners should be released. 5. The "criminals" causing bloodshed and their fellows should be thoroughly punished. 6. Con Son prison system should be abolished 7. The 185 women prisoners presently in Con Con Prison should be immediately returned to the mainland. 8. Packages and checks and other belongings stolen form the prisoners should be repaid. 9. Family relations of the prisoners should be allowed regular time for visits and plenty of time for care should be given. We put all our faith in you and impatiently wait for your intervention to denounce the false democracy, the illegal beatings, terrorism, and the inhumane treatment of the authorities which has given such bad consequences to us. Chi Hoa September 20, 1970 A number of women returning from the Island. We enclose the names and signatures of 82 of us. The others are scattered all over in other jails and are not here to sign. 17