Black April

Vietnamese refugees refer to the month that South Vietnam fell to the North as Black April. Today is the 33rd anniversary of the fall of Saigon, now called by its masters Ho Chi Minh City.

Let’s see what 33-years of Northern “liberation” has brought to Vietnamese there. From the first 14-days of April 2008:
 April 2: The UBCV’s International Buddhist Information Bureau (IBIB) denounced Vietnamese communist police who had raided several UBCV temples, namely Giac Hai in Lam Dong province and Phuoc Hue in Quang Tri province, in preparation for the upcoming government-hosted International Vesak Day.

 April 3: Venerable Thich Thien Minh, in Urgent Notice, No. 2 of the Former Political and Religious Prisoners Association, denounced Bac Lieu provincial officials who had used dirty tricks to harass, slander, blemish, and “publicly denounce” him in the mass media.

 April 4: The Viet Tan Party condemned, in its Press Release No. 15, the communist authorities for having illegally arrested its members Nguyen Tan Anh, Mai Huu Bao and Nguyen Thi Xuan Trang on March 4, 2008, when they arrived from the US for a visit to their party comrades, Dr. Nguyen Quoc Quan and Mr Somsak Khunmi, and collaborators Nguyen The Vu and Nguyen Viet Trung, who all are currently held at the B34 prison at 237 Nguyen Van Cu Street in the 1st district of Saigon.

 April 4: Mr. Do Nam Hai was again forced to have another interrogation concerning documents promoting democracy, stored in his computer that the police illegally confiscated on March 27, 2008.

 April 5: Viet Tan party members Nguyen Tan Anh, Mai Huu Bao, and Nguyen Thi Xuan Trang, released under international pressure, were immediately expelled from Vietnam.

 April 8: The UBCV’s IBIB denounced the attempt of the [State-sanctioned] Buddhist Church of Vietnam to take over Giac Hai Temple in Lam Dong province by expelling Venerable Thich Tri Khai from the temple. .

 April 9: A massive force of armed personnel and riot police forces was mobilized to ruthlessly quell a demonstration of the Khmer Krom people in An Giang province demanding the return of confiscated land.

 April 10: The Catholics of Thai Ha were threatened and harassed while they were peacefully praying for the return of the Church’s properties, in the wake of the government’s false accusations and propaganda concerning their peaceful demonstrations.

 April 11: Relatives of dissidents Nguyen Ngoc Quang, Pham Ba Hai, and Vu Hoang Hai denounced, in a RFA interview, the communist government which had illegally held these detainees for over 2 years without trial.

 April 13: A large contingent of police was sent to disrupt a meeting of democracy activists in Hanoi by threatening, slandering and assaulting the attendees; Mr. Le Thanh Tung was afterwards taken away together with a number of victims of injustice.

 April 14: Over 300 people of Ja-Rai ethnicity rallied at a demonstration in Lgia to village, Cho Se district, Gia Lai province, displaying the 3-red-stripes-on-a-yellow-field flag (of the former Republic of Vietnam) and demanding for the return of their land. Many were brutally crushed; others had to flee.