Note: The following is a translation from the French translation
of a letter written by Ven. Thich Quang Do, Secretary General of
the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. Ven. Quang Do was
prominent in the An Quang Buddhist peace movement in South
Vietnam before the war ended in 1975. After the war ended the
government proceeded to suppress Buddhism and arrested the most
prominent monks, including Ven. Quang Do. In 1978, he and his
colleage Ven. Thich Huyen Quang were nominated for the Nobel
Peace Prize by two Irish peace activists who had won the prize
the year before.
  Eglises d'Asie is a French biweekly of Missions Etrangeres de
Paris, its Vietnam editor is Fr. Jean Mais.
 - Steve Denney

Eglises d'Asie - No. 191 - 16 January 1995

Vietnam

Letter of Venerable Thich Quang Do to the Secretary General of
the Vietnamese Communist Party

(EDA editor's note: Four months before his arrest, Venerable
Thich Quang Do, the second ranking leader of the Unified Buddhist
Church, sent a letter to the secretary general of the communist
party. To this letter was attached an important forty-page expose
on the relations between Buddhism and the State. The Vietnamese
text was published by Tin Nha (Homeland News), Nov. 1994.
Translation by the editorial staff of Eglises d'Asie). 

                                        Saigon, 19 August 1994


Mr. Secretary General,

     I the undersigned Thich Quang Do, Buddhist monk, desire to
present to you the following facts. On 19 August 1945 (or the
12th day of the seventh month of the year of the Rooster),
exactly 49 years ago from today, my religious master, Venerable
Thich Duc Hai, in charge of Linh Quang pagoda, in the commune of
Thanh Sam, Ung Hoa district, Ha Dong province, was assassinated
by the communists in a meadow adjoining the communal house of Bat
village, two kilometers from his pagoda under the pretext that he
had betrayed his country. The one I call "Su Ba" in religion
(meaning the elder of my master), Venerable Thich Dai Hai, in
charge of Phap Van pagoda, Bac Ninh province, was arrested by the
Communists in 1946 and he died as a consequence of his arrest. He
was accused of belonging to a Vietnamese nationalist party. My
ancestor in religion (in a certain way my grandfather), Venerable
Thich Thanh Quyet, in charge of Tra Lu Trung pagoda, Xuan Truong
district, Nam Dinh province, was classified in the category of
the infamous to be brought to a people's trial when the
communists penetrated his place and declared that he had been
using the opium of religion to lure people into sleep. 
Terrified, my ancestor in religion hung himself in order to be
spared the humiliation of a people's trial.
     And then it was my turn. I was incarcerated in Phan Dang Luu
prison, Ba Chieu, Gia Dinh, from 6 April 1977 until 12 December
1978. Then, from 25 February 1982 I was exiled to the commune of
Vu Doai, Vu Thu district, Thai Binh province, for activities
"both religious and political". From 10 February 1982, my mother,
who had been exiled to the same place for what infraction I do
not know. She died tragically in the month of January 1985, of
malnutrition and of cold. I then found myself alone. I thought
that I myself was innocent, I could not keep on that way for an
unlimited duration in this exile which has been unjustly
inflicted on me. On 22 March 1992 (after ten years and 27 days of
exile), after I informed the Hanoi security authorities I set out
for Saigon and arrived there 25 March 1992. On 20 April, I
received an order from the services of the Security of the city
telling me I was to be expelled back to the north. I did not
comply, not for the love of the South or the fear of the North --
I can lead my religious life anywhere and I do not fear austerity
-- but because the law should be applied correctly. I am
innocent, in full possession of my civil rights. No one has the
right to expel me according to his whim as it happened in 1982.
If I am guilty than people can apply the law to me, then take me
to court to judge me; I will abide by the decision of the
tribunal. I am a conscientious citizen and I aspire only to live
under the law, according to the provisions of the law. My only
desire is to be treated that way. This would be a great fortune
for me. 
     Mr. Secretary General, if I have mentioned the traumatic
death of the two who are closest to me in this life as well as
the imprisonment inflicted on me during those years, it is only
in view of justifying my right to speak on behalf of the victims
of communism, as I did in the document entitled "Remarks", which
is attached to this letter. In this document I apologize to my
master and denounce the great errors of the Vietnamese Communist
Party toward our people in general and toward Buddhism in
particular. I assume entire responsibility for what I am saying,
I am ready to endure the consequences including the dramatic
death as of my ancestor of Su Ba, of my master in religion, of my
mother, in the manner of Quan Ky Tu who died in the hands of
Trinh Vuong. 
     Should I die, nobody would prevent me from expressing my own
profound conviction, namely that the communists will not survive
very much longer. This conviction was not borne in me today. It
appeared in my at the age of 18, precisely on 19 August 1945, at
ten in the morning, when I saw my master with his hands tied
behind his back with steel wire, two signs hanging over his neck,
one on his chest, the other on his back, carrying the
inscription: "Traitor to the Fatherland." He was at the center of
the communal house yard. On each side of him were gathered men
carrying batons, knives, sickle and rakes. In front of him, on
the veranda of the communal house was a group of persons, the
presumed "judges" of the people's court. They ordered my master
to kneel down on the ground and to bow his head while the court
declared him guilty. My master refused. Then one of the judges
descended from the veranda and came so close as to almost touch
him: "You are a traitor to our fatherland and you are still
obstinate in your attitude!" He punched him in the jaw. A sliver
of blood oozed out from his mouth and trickled down from his chin
to his chest, reddening the sign hanging over his chest. As soon
as the sentence was pronounced they took him to the meadow which
was located in front of the communal house. Blood continued to
drip down his chin, reddening his tunic and dropped on the
courtyard soil. When the group arrived at the meadow, my master
was forced to lie down on his side. A man shot him three times in
the temple of the head and the red blood surged out horizontally.
My master died rapidly. The blood, the image of my master dying
with his hands bound, the two bloody signs with the inscription
"traitor to the fatherland," the tunic soiled with blood, the two
feet smeared with blood, the blood scattered all over the green
meadow, so many images which now 49 years later are still
imprinted in my memory as clearly as the images of yesterday's
nightmare. 
     In my pain, with my tears rolling down from both my eyes as
I sat on the green grass of the meadow, I contemplated the body
of my master, and then I knew that Communism would not last very
long. The reason in advocating hatred, class struggle, the fight
pitting one against the other, the murder of one's neighbor. All
this is evil, and evil does not last; history has never ceased to
demonstrate this truth. The love of good and the hatred of evil
are inscribed profoundly in the psyche of most people. That which
people detest cannot subsist long. The 74 years of existence of
the soviet regime do not constitute a long period of time in
comparison, for example, to the 215 years of the reign of the Ly
dynasty of Vietnam, which according to professor Hoang Xuan Han,
has enjoyed the longest rule in the history of Vietnam. 
     Since 1975, another observation has imposed itself on me. If
one believes in the law of natural selection, all that which
constitutes a fulfillment of a natural need survives and even if
it is buried someone will unearth it. On the other hand that
which does not correspond with any human need always face self
destruction. After having truly lived under a communist regime, I
can affirm that this regime does not answer the needs of man.
Morally, it oppresses and paralyzes. Materially, it impoverishes
and starves. This is so true today, that they have been forced to
go to the school of capitalism, following the wake of the market
economy. Communism henceforth has no contents, it is only an
empty void. If the Communism of Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union has been scuttled, it is because it no longer
responded to any needs. No one but Communism itself is waging the
war, especially not Buddhism which on the contrary has never
ceased to be exposed to attacks, persecution and attempts to
destroy it. 
     According to the same law of natural selection, from a
certain point of view, Buddhism responds to certain human needs.
It is therefore difficult to make it disappear. The proof is in
what has happened to the pagodas of North Vietnam formerly
destroyed by the Communists, not the ones totally razed to the
ground for ricefields but the ones which still kept their old
foundations. The people have built straw houses over these
foundations, and sometimes in the better off communes, they have
erected brick buildings for a decent place of worship for the
Buddhist cults. The books of prayer in Vietnamese language have
been burned by the Communists who have considered them "decadent
literature." Today the faithful from the North go to the South in
order to buy these books, and then copy them by hand and pass
them on to other people for worship. This is the proof that the
people still need Buddhism, which is not the case of other cults:
I remember well people were forced to hang in their houses the
big portraits of communist leaders such as Karl Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Malenkov, Mao Tse Dung, Kim Il Sung.. but when I was
exiled to the North in 1982, I did not find any portraits of
these people, including those of party members. Kim Il Sung just
died and the Vietnamese Communist Party devoted a day of national
mourning for him last July 17 (...) Hundreds of thousands of
Vietnamese died from the effects of class struggle during the
agrarian reform in 1956 in the North. Not long afterwards, the
Communist Party corrected its policy (it recognized it killed by
mistake), but why has it not set up a national day of mourning
for those who died? Who will carry on the mourning for the
innumerable Vietnamese who have died at sea since 30 April 1975?
If the entire Vietnamese people are called on to observe a day of
mourning for those victims and not for Mr. Kim Il Sung of North
Korea. 
     Please receive, Mr. Secretary General, all my salutations. 
                         Thich Quang Do