[3][4][5] 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.
[9] 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.
)[2][10] 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.
Soldiers, noncommissioned officers and rank-and-file personnel of the former South Vietnamese government were to undergo a three-day "reform study," which they would attend during the day and they would go home at night.
[12][2] Officers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces from the rank of second lieutenant to captain, along with low-ranking police officers and intelligence cadres, were ordered to report to various sites, bringing along "enough paper, pens, clothes, mosquito nets, personal effects, food or money to last ten days beginning from the day of their arrival."
[2] During the early phase of re-education, lasting from a few weeks to a few months, inmates were subjected to intensive political indoctrination in areas including the exploitation by American imperialism of workers in other countries, the glory of labor, the inevitable victory of Vietnam, led by the Communist Party, over the U.S., and the generosity of the new government toward the "rebels" (those who fought on the other side during the war).
Such labor was described by SRV spokesman Hoang Son as "absolutely necessary" for re-education because "under the former government, they (the prisoners) represented the upper strata of society and got rich under U.S. patronage.
Other work included cutting trees, planting corn and root crops, clearing the jungle, digging wells, latrines and garbage pits, and constructing barracks within the camp and fences around it.
This often pushed inmates to exhaustion and nervousness with each person and group striving to surpass or at least fulfill the norms set by camp authorities, or they would be classified as 'lazy' and ordered to do 'compensation work' on Sundays.
The poor health, combined with hard work, mandatory confessions and political indoctrination, made life very difficult and contributed to a high death rate.
[14] The camps sought to maintain strict control over the thoughts of the prisoners, and forbade prisoners from keeping and reading books or magazines of the former government, reminiscing in conversation about "imperialism and the puppet south," singing old patriotic songs about the former government, discussing political questions (outside of authorized discussions), and harboring "reactionary" thoughts or having "superstitious" beliefs.
[2] It was acknowledged by Hanoi that violence was in fact directed against prisoners, although it maintained that these were isolated cases and not indicative of general camp policy.
Violations of rules led to various forms of punishment, including being tied up in contorted positions, shackled in conex boxes or dark cells, forced to work extra hours or receiving reduced food rations.
The picture that emerges is one of severe hardship, where prisoners are kept on a starvation diet, overworked and harshly punished for minor infractions of camp rules.
We know of cases where prisoners have been beaten to death, confined to dark cells or in ditches dug around the perimeters of the camps and executed for attempting escape.
"It reminded me of the pictures I saw of Nazi camp inmates after World War II," said a physician we interviewed who witnessed the release of four prisoners who had been confined to a CONEX box for one month.
The policy announced that those still in the camps would stay there for an additional three more years, but they would be released early if they made "real progress, confess their crimes and score merits".