Oregon daily emerald., October 30, 1973, Page 5, Image 5

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Commentary
Obstacle to peace
Protest needed to end Thieu's prisons
By JOHN LANIER
Today, nine months after the sign
ing of the Vietnam Peace Agreement
in Paris, the refusal of the Saigon
administration to release hundreds of
thousands of political prisoners and
to guarantee democratic liberties has
emerged as a key obstacle to peace.
In fact, police repression and mass
arrests have been stepped up since
the cease-fire.
Estimates of the number of poli
tical prisoners held by the Thieu
regime vary from 100,000 to more
than 200,000. The Peace Agreement
calls for “utmost efforts” to release
these prisoners within 90 days of
its signing. Instead, Saigon has:
—released less than one percent
• 1,500) of the prisoners.
—arrested and detained 25,000 more
people.
—carried out over 100,000 police
raids, and questioned at least 3 million
people.
—reclassified political prisoners as
“common criminals” in order to avoid
releasing them According to one report
cited in “Indochina Bulletin,” 50,000
prisoners were reclassified in the first
two days after the signing of the
Agreement
—claimed that it holds no political
prisoners, only 5,081 “communist cri
minals."
Underlying these statistics is the
daily reality of the Saigon police
state which affects virtually everyone
living in the areas under its control.
American journalist Fred Branfman
spent seven weeks in Saigon recently,
investigating the prison and police
system. Here are some of his ob
servations, based on meetings with
ex-prisoners, Saigon government offi
cials, opposition deputies, and people
active in the prison reform movement:
"There is a massive system of
surveillance (in the Saigon zone of
control) which relies not only on
120,000 policemen but on hundreds
of thousands of informers. Every large
university classroom, for example,
will have several dozen paid informers.
“Every South Vietnamese citizen
has an ID card, which he must keep
in possession at all times, and every
family has a “Brown Book” which
lists all the people living in the
house. Every night after curfew, the,
police make sweeps throughout the
city, searching all the houses in an
area. If your Brown Book says that
7 people live in your house, and the
police find 6 or 8, you’d better be
able to explain why.
"The arrest procedure usually in
volves 20 policemen. After making
the arrest and searching the house,
they leave three policemen in the
house, who rotate in teams, staying
in the house anywhere from 2 weeks
to 2 months, checking to see who
comes to visit.
“Immediately after the arrest, syste
matic torture begins, aimed at forcing
the prisoner to sign a ‘confes ion,’
and even more importantly, to accuse
others.
“Most people don’t really receive a
trial—their dossiers are simply handed
over to the local ‘security committee,’
which meets once a month and per
functorily disposes of 20, 30 or 40
cases.
“The living conditions in jail are a
continuous round of beatings and lack
of food. The effects were readily seen
in those prisoners who were released.
PRG doctors who examined them
stated that 100 percent of them are
sick, mostly from tuberculosis and
diarrhea, and 99.5 percent are crippled
due to torture.
“A small number of prisoners have
been released surreptitiously by the
Thieu regime. These prisoners are
usually not allowed to go back to
their native areas, and not allowed
to work. Some have even been driven
to suicide.
“The most upsetting aspect of the
prison system,” says Branfman, “is
the role of the U.S. government. Not
only do our tax dollars fund it, but
it was actually organized by American
advisors, using American technology.”
U.S. aid is substantial: Since 1967,
a total of $131.7 million has been
spent on the Saigon police and prison
system, according to the Congressional
Record. Since 1968 alone, the size of
the police force, thanks to U.S.
dollars, has grown an incredible
70 percent (Time, Sept. 17, 1973).
Fifteen million dollars is budgeted for
police aid in the coming year, and much
additional funding is hidden in other
monies earmarked for the Thieu re
gime. At present, the U.S. supplies
90 percent of Thieu's entire budget and
all of his military establishment. If
this aid were to cease, economists
agree the Thieu government would
collapse immediately. There are still
about 10,000 U.S. “civilian” advisors,
many of them CIA, working with the
regime’s police, military, prison offi
cials and economic planners.
Another recent visitor to South Viet
nam, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of
Detroit, wrote the following in the
National Catholic Reporter:
“I can state unequivocally that there
are political prisoners in Saigon's jails,
and in jails throughout the provinces.
They are in jail not for any crime,
but simply because they are in po
litical opposition to the present govern
ment. The proof is overwhelming. And
it is clear that these prisoners are
subject to inhumane treatment, includ
ing deliberate and prolonged torture.
I do not make this statement lightly.”
lightly.”
The laws and decrees under which
these prisoners have been arrested
state:
“By this decree are outlawed private
persons, parties, leagues, associations
that commit acts of any form which
directly or indirectly aim at practising
Communism or pro-Com.nunist neutra
lism...Shall be considered pro-Commu
nist neutralist or neutralist any person
who commits acts of propaganda for
and incitement of neutralism, these
acts are assimilated to acts of jeo
pardizing public safety.”
Ana: ah ponce ana military lorces
are permitted to shoot and kill all
those who urge the people to
demonstrate:
“Shoot instantly any soldiers,
government officials or police who
desert or incite others to desert the
army.
“Detain those persons who are
neutralist and those who publically
side with the communists and are
active politically. They will be taken
before a ' military court as
soon as possible.
“Arrest and detain those persons
who incite the people to leave those
areas controlled by the government
in order to go into the communist
controlled zones or vice versa. If they
protest, they will be shot.”
Who are the people arrested under
these decrees? Answers Le Monde:
“They are political activists who have
been arrested by Thieu’s police in the
streets of have been thrown in prison
because they are pious Catholic or
students who have grown sick >of. dic
tatorship. They have dared claim
freedom for the people and an end
to massacres.”
The fate of Thieu’s political prisoners
is crucial to Vietnam’s progress. On
the one hand, their imprisonment pre
vents implementation of the Peace
Agreement. The prisoners include the
leadership of the neutralist “third
force” in South Vietnam. The Peace
Agreement calls for Thieu’s support
ers, PRG supporters and the “third
force" to form a National Council
of National Reconciliation and Concord
to determine South Vietnam’s political
future. This cannot be done so long
as one of those parties remains in
Thieu’s prisons. On the other hand,
the keeping of political prisoners serves
as a threat to the Vietnamese in
Thieu’s zone of control. Prisons which
can hold and torture Thieu’s oppo
nents indefinitely add tremendously to
the terror confronting Vietnamese who
want to utilize the Peace Agreement
to create a free and independent
Vietnam.
The Eugene Peace Action Committee
(EPAC) is organizing a demonstration
to be held in Eugene on Saturday,
Nov. 17, to demand the freeing of
Thieu’s political prisoners and an end
to all U.S. aid to Thieu. We will
meet on the closed-off portion of 13th
Ave. on the University campus at
1 p.m., and march to downtown Eu
gene for a rally and speakers. Si
milar demonstrations are planned for
November around the country.
We have learned from the Union
of Vietnamese in the U.S. that such
demonstrations have a positive effect
in Vietnam. The Thieu regime is
apprehensive and sensitive about world
protests about the prisoners. Interna
tional protests have freed several priso
ners, and the Saigon Committee to
Reform the Prison System told Branf
man that international actions have re
sulted in the improvement of living
conditions. We in EPAC believe such
expressions of public sentiment as
demonstrations, as well as petitions,
letters and telegrams, can also have
a positive effect in the Congress, where
the movement for ending all funding
for Thieu and the Lon Nol regime in
Cambodia is gaining momentum.
EPAC urges all concerned persons to
come and demonstrate on Nov. 17
and to join us in organizing this
demonstration and in our other acti
vities. EPAC meets each Tuesday
at 8 p.m. at the Newman Center,
1850 Emerald St.
Lanier is a member of the Eugene
Peace Action Committee.
Letters
Endorsement
In a few days the faculty will vote
for members of the Faculty Personnel
Committee and the Graduate Council.
The undersigned, together with a size
able caucus of faculty, support the follow
ing candidates because we consider them
to be independent, clear thinking and
receptive to fresh ideas about university
policies and functions.
FACULTY PERSONNEL COMMIT
TEE: Thomas Hovet, Benton Johnson,
June McFee, Fred Merrill, Earl Mour
sund, Benson Shaeffer, William Simpson,
Barre Toelken, Edward Whitelaw.
GRADUATE COUNCIL:
Liberal Arts: Randi Birn, Jane Gray,
Donald Taylor.
^ Professional Schools: Harold Owen.
Dave Curland
George Streisinger
Herbert Titus
No care, no hope
Ironically, those concerned here are not
the ones to read this letter, nevertheless...
I work at the Bookstore and have daily
contact with students, sometimes even
short conversations (it’s nice when you’re
not treated like a machine). I try to read
the Emerald, whenever time allows, to
learn about news items of the world and
the opinions of local people. Too many
times lately people have said to me,
“Don’t read any more, it’s not worth it...”
and this kind of apathy really saddens me.
With all the important happenings, good
and bad, these days, it is these people and
this kind of apathy that keep the Nixons in
power and the wars raging on. If people
could open their minds and try to educate
themselves, these pastimes (i.e. war, and
such) would perhaps not be so much a part
of the present and would belong solely to
the past. Wht can we hope for if people
simply don’t care?????
Natalie Narvid
Shoveled cookies
Mr. Steve Richkind has found that using
facts supported by bias is more productive
than using facts supported by a reliable
source.
Mr. Van S. Vanikow, a brother-in-kind of
Mr. Richkind’s rhetoric, is fond of Jack
Anderson and compared me with him. I
must thank him for the compliment, but I
can’t endorse it. Anderson can sit back
while people libel him. I can’t and I won’t.
Messrs. Richkind and Vanikow are fond
of portraying me as the bumbling jour
nalist of ill-repute. Let’s point to the facts
and not the statistical misrepresentations
they seem so fond of.
The Bookstore has built up an excess of
$200,000 over the years. This excess is
partly due to the failure of some members
of the co-op to collect their refunds and
also from the reimbursement of back
taxes when the co-op went non-profit. This
money is kept in the bank as two $100,000
time certificates. These certificates
collect 8.26 percent interest or $16,520 per
year.
If the board was to donate $50,000 to
charity now before waiting for the time to
expire in January the interest on the one
certificate would be forfeited. This would
leave only $50,000 principle on that cer
tificate.
If the board then got a $50,000 certificate
the rate of interest would only be about 5
percent. That is a projected loss of over
$14,000 in the next year and a half.
I find it hard to believe that the students
would not at some time in the future have
to pay for this deficit. But if Messrs.
Richkind and Vanikow don’t see that,
maybe they should take some elementary
accounting.
I am not a hard-hearted person down on
charity. Most of the charities involved are
very worthwhile. My only doubt is the
propriety of giving that large a sum at this
time. With the business world in a state of
turmoil, you must be rather conservative
in your dealings. You can’t go off half
cocked in this manner.
I also find it interesting that since your
salary was defeated you have not chosen to
discuss it. It seems that if we were to have
drawn up sides — yours would have lost.
Perhaps Mr. Richkind, you should stop
shoveling cookies into your mouth at board
meetings and pledge yourself to give full
cooperation to the new leadership of the
board.
You, sir, are undoubtedly an intelligent
person. However, I must caution you.
Don’t accuse anyone of harboring “a
completely uninformed” or “absurd”
opinion until you are damn sure of your
facts.
Dan Sheahon
Junior, Journalism