Vietnam's
Dong Tam Incident: the Curtain Falls And not in a good way
David
Brown
September 14, 2020
The verdicts have been
handed down in the Dong Tam Incident, a brief but bloody clash between police
and a persistently oppositional band of Vietnamese farmers. After a week of
testimony, cross-examination, apologies, and pleas for clemency, on September 14
the Hanoi City People's Court found all 29 defendants guilty in various ways of
resisting state authority. Two have been sentenced to death, another to life
imprisonment, and the rest to lesser terms.
The guilty verdict was no
surprise. This was a show trial ordained and orchestrated by the institutions
of the Vietnamese state. Prisoner after prisoner uttered virtually
identical confessions: "I apologize to the families of the police officers
who were lost; I thank our teachers in the prison who taught us how we erred; I
thank my lawyers but now no longer need his services; and finally, I ask for a
lighter sentence."
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