VIETNAM: The Other Prisoners

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Those who refused to renounce the Communists were carted off to the French-built Con Son, 140 miles south of Saigon in the South China Sea, for political reeducation. Of the 8,945 prisoners there, 6,467 are considered Communists. Due to a steady diet of beatings—as well as sand and pebbles in the rice—dysentery, tuberculosis and chronic stomach disorders were common. Water was limited to three swallows a day, forcing prisoners to drink urine. Those who pleaded-for more food were splashed with lye or poked with long bamboo poles.

Things have been especially bad since the ceasefire. When told of the Paris settlement, the prisoners cheered, only to be stopped by doses of lye and bamboo. "We had hoped to begin the New Year with happiness," said one. "But my New Year began when I was doused with excrement."

So far, the government response to these accounts has been one of complete denial. Government sources say the prisoners are impostors, hired to discredit them prior to President Thieu's trip to San Clemente. Some in the government seem genuinely to doubt that the men really exist. "How can these men be alive?" asked one knowledgeable and honest government security officer. "No one ever comes back from the Con Son tiger cages alive."