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Show Con Son Island prison Harkin on the tiger cages -conclusion By PATSY TRUXAW College Press Service (This is the conclusion of an interview in-terview with Roger Harkin, the man who discovered the "tiger cages" in South Vietnam's Con , talk to Dzu's wife, who's a very knowledgeable person in her own right. But they wouldn't do it. So what do you do? CPS: What's the state of non-communist non-communist opposition to the government? gov-ernment? Is it completely immobilized immob-ilized because of the military regime? re-gime? Harkins: Thank god for people like Mr. Loi, the one who drew me the map. He's one of five students stu-dents brave enough to sign a report re-port of the condition in the prison. There are an awful lot of brave neoole that are speaking for "Well, why are you there." and they say "I have to be. If I'm not in the army, I'm out on Con Son, you see." So, the majority of them are for peace. Then there's a whole group on the left, the VC-type. They are probably as numerous as those that are for Thieu. These are the two that are continually shooting at each other. The large mass of people right in the center feel that if given the chance, if the Thieu government was not in power, if it was not so repressive, that they could form a coalition government govern-ment that represented all views, and run the country. Son Island prison, and later disclosed dis-closed what he had found. The first part of the article was published pub-lished July 28.) CPS: Is it true that prisoners can be in the prison for two years without having a trial? Harkin: they're picked up under un-der suspicion. They throw them in prison for two years, and then, at the end of two years, two things happen: they're either reconsidered re-considered or they're freed. Now, if they're reconsidered they're thrown back in up to another two years. At the end of another two years they're either reconsidered or freed. How the hell long can this keep up? I talked to one guy in the prison, -apart from the guards. This was in the tiger cages and he said, "I'm 27 years old, and I've been here since I was 18. I was sentenced for five years. I had a trial, a military trial. But I don't know when they're going to let me out." Their Constitution has a due process clause, yet they violate it daily. The number two man that ran against Thieu last time, and as you know Thieu only got 35 percent per-cent of the votes last time. You know the majority of the people voted for peace because the majority ma-jority of the votes went to civilian candidates, not military candidates. candi-dates. But Thieu got 35 percent of the votes and Dzu got the next highest, around 18 percent. Dzu is now in prison. I tried to line up a meeting of Congressmen to peace, that are trying to work for it. But when you live under the thumb, under the constant threat that the Gestapo is going to come in at any minute and pick you up and shisk you away, and thats exactly what happens, they don't send you a nice letter saying you're going to be arrested, or they don't hold you in jail so your family can see you. They arrest you, and bang, you're in prison. You just don't see anybody anymore. any-more. It's a very fearful thing. So what do you do? The students over there meet surrepticiously. They meet in little cells; they meet in little groups. That's a hard like those two thousand tl.at demonstrated the first day we were there. It would have been bigger; except the government had said that they were going to arrest all those who demonstrated. demonstra-ted. A lot of them do come out anyway. In the U.S., you see, Its not so bad. You can go to a demonstra- tion and they're going to bust a j few heads or they're going to I throw you in jail, but still you've got due process in this country. They might be able to book you, but you're going to a lawyer, your rights are going to be pro-j pro-j tected, except for what the cops do to you. But over there you don't have that. You don't have the knowledge that you might get your head busted and you might get beat up. They wouldn't mind that. But the idea is that you might get taken away and never be seen again. That just does'nt happen in this country. So this is an oppressive thing. Those who speak for peace over there are braver than those who speak for peace in this country. And I have the feeling that they comprise the largest body of the Vietnamese people. You have the small people, the small Nam that does support us, those that are in the graft, those that are in the military, of course, officers. But I've talked to ARVN troops who said "I can't stand the ARVN army" and I say |