Grace Bui is a U.S. citizen, she has a Facebook account where she met
and befriended people in Viet Nam, including a few democracy activists
and some dissidents.
She traveled to Viet Nam for sightseeing and to visit her friends.
Everywhere she went she took photos and posted them on her Facebook, to
keep her friends updated about her journey. During her time in Saigon,
she said there was no problem at all.
But when Grace traveled to the North, she saw so many homeless people
sleeping on benches in Mai Xuan Thuong botanic garden, they were those
who had their lands and houses forcefully taken by the local government
to build high rise apartments to sell to overseas investors for big
money, she felt deeply for them and took several photos, trying to get
their stories told. Then she went to visit her activist friends, one of
them was very ill in the hospital. The police started to watch her and
follow her every move.
After she came to meet Ms Thuy Nga, a resilient woman who struggled
fearlessly to help the exported Vietnamese workers in Taiwan and to
advocate for human rights in Viet Nam, who also participated in many
anti-China protest marches, along with Ms. Jen, a US consulate
representative in Hanoi, she was immediately kidnapped afterwards,
detained for more than 11 hours for questioning and finally thrown on a
plane to be deported immediately to Seoul, South Korea. She was not even
allowed to go back to the hotel to retrieve her luggage and to get her
pet dog.
Why was that?
That was because the Communist Party in Viet Nam was so scared that when
Jen met Ms Thuy Nga with Grace being there, Grace would be able to
interpret and explain thoroughly, to help Jen understand more clearly of
all the dishonest, cunning and cruel things the Authority had done to
suppress Ms Thuy Nga. This meant Jen, and of course, the U.S. government
would know all about the human rights violations in Viet Nam, that the
mask that they have been so careful to wear on the outside to deceive
the world would slip, and so without any regards to the laws and
diplomacy, Ms Grace Bui was quickly and rudely deported from the
country!
At the same time, another Vietnamese American traveling with a group of
American volunteers doing charity work in Hanoi, also got expelled. Of
course, for the same reason that the government was too afraid that he
would be able to fully explain to the American delegates about the human
rights situation in Viet Nam, so he too was quickly sent back home to
the US.
It is much easier to deceive the foreigners without those in the know hanging around!
An Australian couple, friends of my family, came back from a holiday in
Viet Nam, told us that when they were sightseeing in Saigon there was no
problem at all, but when the couple went to the countryside, and wanted
to spend time in the house and homes of the village people to learn
more about their lives, the local officials immediately sent them back
to their hotel!!
What does the Communist government fear the most? Its that it can no longer fool anyone!
In the picture, Grace in on the left, Jen is in the middle and Thuy Nga on the right wearing white.
Ngoc Nhi Nguyen
0 comments:
Post a Comment