Radio Free Asia
Vietnam Update
March 31, 2000
Washington, D.C.-Radio Free Asia (RFA) has received a letter from Saigon by the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do. The document was written to the leadership of the Communist Party and government of Vietnam on the eve of Tet, the Lunar New Year. The celebrated monk calls on the CPV and the government to release political prisoners and reduce taxes, restore the freedom of the Unified Buddhist Church and to eliminate the death penalty.
According to the letter, the requests are put forth "so that Vietnam can catch up with the world now that we are in the year 2000." Throughout the history of Vietnam, it was a tradition for the Emperors to grant amnesty and lower taxes during Tet, the season of joy and reunion.
Below is an English translation of the letter, in its entirety, written by Thich Quang Do.
Saigon, January 15, 2000
TO:
Mr. Le Kha Phieu, Secretary General, Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)
Mr. Tran Duc Luong, President, Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV)
Mr. Phan Van Khai, Prime Minister, Government of the SRV
Mr. Nong Duc Manh, Chairman, SRV National Assembly
Dear Sirs,
At the beginning of 1946, I still recall, for the first time the Buddhists celebrated the anniversary of the Hung Vuong Ancestors [of Vietnam]. On this occasion, we sent this unanimous telegram to our compatriots then fighting in the Resistance in Southern Vietnam: "Best wishes and our expressions of support to all of you so that you can of one mind go forward mightily and carry the resistance to the end so as to wrest back independence for Vietnam, our country, as well as to realize our compassionate ideology of succor to the world so that all civilized nations on earth can see for themselves."
In April 1946, I still recall, the Vietnam Buddhist Association was formed for the purpose of rallying the Buddhists to the cause of compatriots all over the country in "fighting against three types of banditry: hunger, illiteracy, and foreign aggression."
I still recall also that on August 30, 1947, which corresponded to the fifteenth of the seventh lunar month [Buddhist All Souls Day], President Ho Chi Minh wrote a letter to the Buddhist Association of Vietnam saying among other things: "Buddhism can develop only in an independent Vietnam. The French colonialists had wanted to rob us of our country. They burned down Buddhist temples and statues of Buddhas, they persecuted the monks and nuns, and massacred Buddhist followers, all in the aim of destroying Buddhism [in Vietnam]. Buddha is Compassion itself, Succor to those in Suffering and Misery. To succor people from such a state, He sacrificed himself in the struggle to fight the demons and devils of this world."
My recollections are historical evidences that were recorded in the press at the time, most particularly on the journal Cuu Quoc ("National Salvation," organ of the Communist front known as Viet Minh - Translator's Note). In recalling these things, I had in mind three things that I would like to stress. Number one is the will and sincerity of the Buddhist masses in the struggle for national independence and for everybody's happiness. Number two is to stress the language and actions typical of the Buddhists, language that in our religion is called Right Speech and Right Knowledge [two of the steps in the so-called Eightfold Path of Buddhism towards salvation - Translator's Note], which are expressed through social action and national defense as seen in the fight against the three types of banditry: hunger, illiteracy and foreign aggression. Finally, number three is to refer to the situation of religions in general, and of Buddhism in particular, at a time when we still faced a terrible foreign aggression.
Of the three types of banditry in which the Buddhists were engaged together with the rest of the nation since 1945, only foreign aggression has been taken care of. As for hunger and illiteracy, they are still as bad as ever. Do not put the blame on the people or the Buddhists for retreating in front of these two types of bandits, the blame is squarely to be put on the shoulders of those leaders of our country who prevented other constituents of the nation from getting rid of hunger and illiteracy.
Even more serious is the fact that none of the predictions of President Ho Chi Minh, written on the Buddhist All Souls Day in 1947, ever materialized. The country is now independent but Buddhism saw no development. From the start in the North and since 1975 in the South, Buddhist places of worship have been taken over by the Party and Government, Buddha's statues destroyed, monks, nuns and lay Buddhists persecuted, exiled, massacred. A whole policy covering from behavior to legislation has been erected in order to destroy Buddhism to shreds. That is why for the last 25 years, all the movements for human rights and religious freedom launched by the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, under the leadership of our great Patriarch, the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, are meant to do nothing more than to realize what President Ho Chi Minh has stressed 53 years ago: "To succor people from suffering and misery, there is no choice but to sacrifice and struggle."
At this point I would like to correct a misunderstanding regarding the name of the "Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam," one that the [Communist] Party people and government officials are particularly prone to. The term "Unified" here does not merely mean the literal adding together of several [Buddhist] organizations and sects, or the coming together of regional and local chapters which were temporarily cut off from one another owing to political events. This is because, if taken in that sense, Vietnamese Buddhism has been unified for the last two thousand years. The term "Unified" which is found in the name "Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam," carries a meaning which is much more profound than that, one with extreme importance. This is because it is a philosophical concept that expresses the particular character of Vietnamese Buddhist developments, in fact a unique characteristic from both points of view, from the doctrinal point of enlightenment and from the point of view of practice in succoring the people from suffering. This is what differentiates Vietnamese Buddhism from other forms of Buddhism in the world.
On the doctrinal side, the unification meant here is the unification of both Northern and Southern practices in Buddhism, otherwise known as Mahayana and Theravada. Such unification has occurred for the first time only in the 1960's in Vietnam, thanks precisely to the courage and wisdom of the Vietnamese Buddhists. From the point of view of the nation and of society, the unification here is meant to eliminate all sorts of erroneous discrimination, a most non-Buddhist type of discrimination, which was born from a bipolar conception of the world: this was meant to bring about the unification of both the Law [the Buddhist Dharma] and Life [i.e. practical living in the world.- Translator's note], the working together of both monks and nuns on the one hand and the large masses of lay Buddhists on the other. Such unification is a giant step forward in both thought and action typical of the Vietnamese Buddhists. Without such unification, conflicts will continue, hatred will be piled on hatred, and the bipolar division of the world will go on, with incalculable suffering borne by the people of the world.
From such a vantage point, it can be seen that an epistemological misreading of the term Unified, which led to the forceful-by government action-elimination of the term and to the prevention of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam from carrying out its religious functions, is clearly to backtrack on the road to evolution of a church which has been around for 20 centuries, both from the point of view of thought and action in the world. At the same time it is a trampling on the religious freedom of the Vietnamese Buddhist masses. On the occasion of the Lunar New Year of the Dragon, I have three requests to make, which I hope you will pay attention to realizing:
Tet [the Lunar New Year] is the season of joy, of reunion of the entire people. In the humane tradition of our civilization, many dynasties have done this in the golden ages of Vietnamese history. I am referring to amnesties granted to prisoners and to the lowering of taxes. I am therefore appealing to the Party and Government to release all prisoners of conscience and political prisoners who are in jail for no other reasons than their holding different opinions [from those of the government] or for their peacefully expressing their beliefs or religion. In particular, freedom should be restored to the Patriarch Thich Huyen Quang, Acting Head of the Sangha Institute [i.e. the supreme organ in charge of leading the Unified Buddhist Church in religious and monastic matters.- Translator's note], who is now 83 and who has been under house arrest without a specific reason for the last 18 years.
Our country had laws and knew how to respect them very early in our history. When Ma Yuan came to invade our country [in 40 A.D.- Translator's note], in the very first century by the Western calendar, he reported back to the Han Emperor that "the Viet laws are different from Han laws on more than ten articles." The "National Criminal Law Code" of the Le Dynasty, which was instituted at the end of the 15th century, is praised by European and American legal experts as a progressive law code by even modern Western standards." Humane considerations and respect for talent have a very high place in the Le Criminal Code. Article 3, for instance, specifies eight instances which must be examined in order to lower the sentences given, to wit in particular, Consideration given to wise people, i.e. those who are known for their great virtues, or "Consideration given to capable persons," i.e. people with great talents. Article 16 specifies that those above 70 or under 15, as well as those who are crippled in some way, must have their sentences reduced if the sentence is anything from exile downwards or they can pay fines instead.
Compare that to the so-called "civilized world of the 21st century" in our country: people over 70 and under 15 are plentiful in our jails and reeducation camps. And in many instances, either people are in jail without undergoing a trial in court or they are given suspicious, even illegal sentences.
Furthermore, one cannot forget that 80 percent of our population are made up of peasants and farmers. These people are in extreme misery due to the collapsing economy and to the heavy imposition of taxes and duties. It is my earnest plea to you that on the occasion of Tet, you please reduce their taxes so people could benefit from it.
That is my first petition.
My second one relates to the fact that you, the Party and Government, please let the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam recover its freedom of religion so that it can legally operate. Besides the religious argument that it is a church founded by the people themselves in order to guide the religious life of the Buddhist masses, there are other reasons as well, the most compelling of which being that there is the urgent need to stop all superstitious practices and social evils as well as the ravaging moral degradation that is hurting us, especially the younger generations. The potential and actual efficacy of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam are historical realities, realities recognized nationally and internationally, and they can effectively contribute to the question of national reconstruction in such fields as culture, education, social services and economics.
Religion is a most sacred endeavor of mankind, and the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam is a moral foundation for our country, it is not simply a common association which one can establish one day and write off the next as if it were a temporary instrument of political expediency.
My third petition has to do with requesting the CPV and Government [of Vietnam] that they please do away with the death penalty, taking after the example of civilized countries in the world.
True enough, the rule of law requires sentences that would serve as warning and restraint. But the death penalty is not considered the best way to take care of social evils. The best policy is precisely to prevent them through education and the rule of virtuous officials. In the last few years, there has been an average of 60 to 100 death sentences given out each year. What is patently clear is that there has been no reduction in such calamitous social evils as corruption, drug addiction, aggravated robberies and murders because of such sentences. In that case, one must go to the root of things in order to take care of these evils.
And going to the roots means to appeal to morals and to educate the people. And morals is not a question of outward expression, such as the many so-called traditional festivals that one sees everyday nowadays-with incense smoke blurring everything and people dressed up in colorful costumes, which are meant more for attracting tourists while encouraging superstitious practices in an effort to render the people idiotic. Morality is a question of free development of long-held beliefs interfacing with modern aspects of contemporary civilization. Education is not something that can be sunken in selfish profit motives and in money-making, the very expression of an ideology that tramples on all human dignity.
Two thousand five hundred years ago, the Buddha taught, as recorded in many a scripture, that "misery is the mother of immorality and crime, such as the crime of robbery and murder." That was why He concentrated on teaching his followers how to have an economy, how to spend and how to save, how to create successful businesses and prosperity as a means to spread his Dharma and succor the people.
From the 1950's through the 1980's, the Party and Government relied on aid from the socialist bloc to survive. Now that the socialist bloc is gone, the Party and Government have to lean on the Western capitalist countries. There is nothing unusual about this. What is of concern, though, is that the masses have had to drag out and sacrifice for the last five decades without seeing a way out that would lead to a life of plenty, happiness and freedom. To sacrifice one's life and property to safeguard our national independence is something that our people under the Ly, Tran, and Le dynasties did not complain about, nay they even actively participate in it. But to sacrifice for a police state, under a regime that does not respect human rights and that uses terror to carry out its "class struggle," is not something that people can understand easily.
The present conditions of our land form an environment propitious to the growth of corruption, drug addiction, robberies and thievery, and murder. One can pronounce hundreds or even thousands of death sentences, one would still not be able to solve these evils or discourage the bad elements.
Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the United Nations, to which Vietnam has already signed, clearly stipulates: "Everyone has to right to live with the life he is endowed with. This is a right protected by the law. No one has the right to arbitrarily take the life of anyone else." It's unfortunate that Vietnam has not found it fit to sign on to the Protocol Number 2 which is attached to that Covenant and which became effective on July 11, 1991, in which Article 7 stipulates: "No one (in the countries signatory to the Protocol) will be sentenced to death. And each nation will do its best to eliminate the death sentence on its territory."
For that reason, I wish that you will soon come to the decision to eliminate the death sentence in our country. In the present circumstances of our nation, the death sentence carries within it the seeds of two dangerous evils, both inhuman in nature. No killing, no murder, is the very essence of Oriental ethics. That is why to keep the death sentence is not only impopular, it also goes against the traditional morality of our nation. Furthermore, in a country where there is no rule of law, where the division of power into three branches is not yet accepted, murky death sentences lead to the execution of innocent people or for the wrong reasons. The maintenance of the death sentence, in such a case, is a bad seed that will lead to multiplication of crimes.
Those are the frank opinions of an ascetic monk, I hope that you will pay attention and solve these issues, so that Vietnam can catch up with the world now that we are in the year 2000, living in a world that finally has gotten rid of its bipolarity-a situation in which enemies were found everywhere for one to eliminate and kill and massacre instead of seeing everyone as brothers all living in the four seas or as compatriots that one should be happy to see and greet and help.
Sincere greetings to all of you,
Head, Institute for the Propagation of the Dharma
The monk THICH QUANG DO