Word: toai
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Hieu and Toai's accusations reflect their complete disillusionment with Communism, a sharp turnaround from their earlier revolutionary actions. Toai in particular is bitter about the failure of the NLF ideals, and blames the Hanoi regime for co-opting the NLF and radicalizing its more moderate platform. He says he refused to serve on the NLF Finance Committee because he was chosen to draw up a plan to confiscate all private property in Vietnam, not an original NLF proposal. The idealistic people in the NLF sought to rely upon the power of Hanoi to overthrow the Saigon government, but once...
...Toai blames the NLF's naivete for allowing the North Vietnamese to take control. "The first thing the Hanoi Communists did was to unify all military forces under the command of North Vietnamese leaders, but the NLF was unprepared--they never believed that Hanoi would do this to them," he adds...
...idealists and intellectuals who resisted the Hanoi takeover were imprisoned or killed, Toai says. Nevertheless, he adds he still believes in the NLF's ideals before the North Vietnamese takeover. "The former leaders of the NLF were the true idealists and revolutionaries and they were betrayed by the North Vietnamese Communists, who were afraid of their popular support," Toai says. "The American people think the Hanoi Communists started a true revolution, but we have a duty to let them know this is only a pretended revolution...
...When Toai reached Paris in late 1977, he brought with him a document with what he asserted to be the signatures of 48 other political prisoners, many of them former NLF members, detailing the oppression in Vietnamese prisons and urging international condemnation of the Hanoi government. A number of groups in France and Canada, where Toai travelled before reaching the U.S., have contested the authenticity of the document, which Toai says he circulated secretly through Vietnamese prisons...
Whether or not Toai and Hieu speak for other political prisoners, they are passionately eager to spread their stories of political repression. And they pointedly direct their reproaches to Americans, who they believe must share the blame for Vietnam's sufferings. "I want the American government to condemn the human rights violations in Vietnam, but the American people want to forger Vietnam because they are ashamed," Toai says, adding "They are ashamed because they were wrong...