Re-education camps () were prison camps operated by the communist Việt Cộng and Socialist Republic of Vietnam following the end of the Vietnam War. In these camps, the government imprisoned at least 200,000–300,000 former military officers, government workers and supporters of the former government of South Vietnam. Other estimates put the number of inmates who passed through "re-education" as high as 500,000 to 1 million. The high end estimate of 1 million is often attributed to a mistranslated statement by Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, and is considered excessive by many scholars. Prisoners were incarcerated for periods ranging from weeks to 18 years.
Meaning of học tập cải tạo
The term re-education, with its pedagogical overtones, does not quite convey the quasi-mystical resonance of học tập cải tạo (學習改造) in Vietnamese. Cải ("to transform", from Sino-Vietnamese 改) and tạo ("to create", from Sino-Vietnamese 造) combine to literally mean an attempt at re-creation, and making over sinful or incomplete individuals.
Historical background
In South Vietnam, the government of Ngo Dinh Diem countered North Vietnamese subversion (including the assassination of over 450 South Vietnamese officials by Viet Cong in 1956) by detaining tens of thousands of suspected communists in "political re-education centers." Although it was somewhat successful at curtailing communist activity, Diem's re-education centers were a ruthless program that incarcerated many non-communists. The North Vietnamese government claimed that over 65,000 individuals were incarcerated and 2,148 individuals were killed in the process by November 1957
After the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese men, from former officers in the armed forces, to religious leaders, to employees of the Americans or the old government, were rounded up in re-education camps to "learn about the ways of the new government." They were never tried, judged or convicted of any crime. Many South Vietnamese men chose to flee on boats, but others did not flee. After hearing President Dương Văn Minh surrendered, some ARVN generals and officers, such as General Lê Văn Hưng (known for the Battle of An Lộc) and General Nguyễn Khoa Nam (the last major general of IV Corps who defended Can Tho and other Mekong provinces), chose to commit suicide rather than fleeing overseas or risk being sent to a re-education camp.
Those imprisoned in re-education camps from 1975 basically fell into two categories: those who collaborated with the Americans and its allies during the war, and those who were arrested in the years after 1975 for attempting to exercise such democratic freedoms as those mentioned in Article 11 of the 1973 Paris Agreements. (Possibly in violation of said agreements.)
Government view
Officially, the Vietnamese government does not consider the re-education camps to be prisons; instead it views them as places where individuals can be rehabilitated into society through education and socially constructive labor.
The Hanoi government defended re-education camps by labeling the prisoners as war criminals. A 1981 memorandum of the government to Amnesty International claimed that all those in the re-education camps were guilty of acts of national treason as defined in Article 3 of the 30 October 1967 Law on Counter-revolutionary Crimes (enacted for the government of North Vietnam), which specifies punishments ranging from 20 years to life in prison or the death penalty. However, it was instead allowing the prisoners to experience "re-education", which Vietnam says is the most "humanitarian" form of punishment for law breakers.
The new government announced that there would be three days of re-education for ARVN soldiers, ten days for low-ranking officers and officials, and one month for high-ranking ARVN officers and officials. Many teachers reported for re-education, assuming that they would have to undergo it sooner or later anyway. Sick people also reported for re-education, assured by the government that there would be doctors and medical facilities in the schools and that the patients would be well treated. However, the re-education camp lasted sometimes more than 10 years for some higher rank ARVN generals and officers.
Deaths from starvation and disease occurred frequently and bodies were often buried in graves on site which were later abandoned.