Dear Survivors

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On the shot fishermen: Waiting in vain for survivors

17:55' 20/01/2005 (GMT+7)

(VietNamNet) – Nguyen Van Hoan, owner of the boat in question, and 10 of the crew members escaped death on a dark night at sea before a barrage of bullets from Chinese vessels. The survivors have returned, but eight corpses and eight detained fishermen have not been released by China.

"They fired continuously, as if they wanted to destroy us!"

We met the surviving boat-owner Nguyen Van Hoan at the Lach Truong River Mouth. Hoan and crewman Pham Van Quan were wrapping up the boats. His haggard face and bristly chin conveyed an undiminished fear. Even after nearly a week, their terrified look was far from disappearing as they were telling their offshore life-and-death moment before the continuous shooting from the Chinese vessels.

On Hoan's boat, there were one dead and five injured crew members among many fortunate survivors. But he could not hide his deep anxiety over the boat on which his family and many villagers had relied for food and clothing. The boat was covered in over 400 bullet holes.

Hoan told us he had caught squid near the shore before and had recently bought his netting equipment for more than 2 months. During this time he had never confronted a foreign vessel. On January 6th, at 8 p.m., he weighed anchor and headed for the sea. At about 4-5 a.m., Hoan spotted a Chinese vessel making a shortcut across his net. Suddenly, one Chinese vessel started to chase Hoan's boat.

"We thought that was normal, but later had to run as they sped up their chase. Then they started shooting the first few rounds. We were so scared that we all dashed inside the boat, not knowing who was injured or dead then. The Chinese vessels fired numerous rounds continuously during the chase until after about three hours, at which time we checked and saw that Nguyen Van Tam was dead and five people were injured. They were Tan, Ve, Hoa, Hung, and Quoc. We returned to Lach Truong at about 23 o'clock on January 1st…"- Hoan retold the story.

Crewman Pham Van Quan, 28, was lucky enough to survive the "rain of bullets" that night. Although Quan had been seeking a living at sea since childhood and faced several fierce waves and typhoons, this was the first time he had had a true life-and-death experience, not from the ruthless ocean but from the Chinese vessels.

Quan said, "At that time, the Chinese vessel was only 50 meters apart from us. I and many others were on the deck when suddenly I heard a sound of gunshots, one after another. As if they wanted to destroy us! We immediately rushed down into the control panel. I could clearly hear the sound of shattering glass and that of bullets hitting metallic parts… The Chinese vessel fired as it chased the fishermen."

The 28-year-old fisherman looked older than his real age; the fear in his eyes did not seem to diminish as he retold the story. Quan showed me his hands heavily scratched by pieces of metal. Those were the hands, together with those of others, that operated the steering wheel axle in the control panel in the retreat to Hau Loc. The steering wheel, one of the essential parts of the boat, had been rendered useless due to a severed chain caused by the shootings.

Going with VietNamNet reporters to the Lach Truong River Mouth was Mr. Tran Quang Thiem, Chairman of the People's Committee of Hau Loc. Mr. Tran confirmed the incident, "On June 1st, fishermen from Hoa Loc went to the common fishing grounds shared by Vietnam and China. During the fishing activities, both sides got into a conflict, which led to these regrettable accidents. At present, one of Mr. Nguyen Phi Phuong's boats is being kept in China. To our knowledge, 8 people were dead and 8 are currently in China (two of which are injured)."

When will the village's suffering cease?

"At around 12 a.m. on August 1st, we got news that Nguyen Van Hoan's boat had been attacked by Chinese vessels, leaving one person dead and five injured. We have gathered and sent a first-aid team to the injured. Currently, one fisherman is receiving treatment in Hanoi, another at a provincial hospital, and three others at a district hospital. We have immediately reported to the authorities and will be arranging a funeral for Nguyen Van Tam… " – said Mr. Do Hong, Party-authorized Secretary of Hoa Loc Commune.

"The survivors should be allowed to return!"

For the past few days, Hoa Loc (Hau Loc) and Hoang Truong (Hoang Hoa) had been flooded with tears. Tears for sons, for fathers, for husbands, for friends relentlessly streamed down the Lach Truong River Mouth, which sees off all trips to the open sea and which welcomed the ill-fated “returnees” from the vast sea…

Of the nine poor, ragged fishermen who were shot dead seeking a living, only Nguyen Van Tam, though covered in traces of bullets, had his body in one piece. The over-ten-day-old corpses of the other 8, however, were still in China.

We went to Hoa Phu, Hoa Hai, Nam Huan, the fishing villages where one has seen the ocean and become a fisherman since their very birth. The villages were talking about the stories of the fishermen. Two Hoa Loc fishing boats had been in high spirits on their first day. One boat returned full of bullet traces, the other adrift elsewhere.

Hoa Loc locals could not forget the 8 fishermen and one boat still in captivity in China.
There was no news of them and their families were expecting their children, grandchildren, fathers, brothers … to be released safe and sound.

Nguyen Phi Phuong was in one of the waiting families. He borrowed 1.1 million dong from the government, added 100 million dong of his own and collected 250 million dong more as per the "Vuon khoi" project. On the night of June 1st, 16 fishermen from Hoa Loc and Hoang Truong bade farewell to their families, relatives, and the Lach Truong River Mouth and set off for the sea. A few days later, he was shocked to know that his boat had been shot and captured. Many people from Nguyen Van Hoan's boat recalled, after Hoan's boat had ran away to avoid damage, the Chinese vessels turned to Phuong's boat and fired continuously. Afterwards, the boat was captured; 8 were dead, and 8 arrested.



Since the devastating news his wife, Do Thi Vinh, had fainted many times, hurt less by the loss of properties than that of her son, Nguyen Manh Hung, on the captured boat. Hung's wife could not hold back her tears even before strangers like us. The baby had no idea where dad was captured and sobbed after the mother… "The survivors should be allowed to return…!" – Mrs. Vinh said. Mr. Phuong told us, "We've been fishing since we were very small. For years, we've been always notified by radio stations in case of offshore typhoons. But this time, everything went unexpectedly for no reason…!

Did the Chinese vessels use to surround the Hoa Loc boats?

"After the incident, we have reported to the local authorities. They have already visited the victims' families to inform and console them. At the same time, they will appeal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to put pressure on China to release the bodies in the earliest possible time. We will by all means calm the people down and give both material and moral support to the victims' families,” said Mr. Do Hong, People's Committee Secretary of Hoa Loc Commune.

Since the 8 fishermen had been dead for over 10 days, the unanimous resolution was to cremate the bodies and bring back the ashes. Mr. Hong said that the local authorities had gone on to request approving signatures from the families, who all agreed to receive the ashes of their loved ones.



Mr. Hong said, in 2003, a fishing boat from Hoa Loc was surrounded by several Chinese vessels, causing it to overturn. The crew had to plunge into the sea and fortunately was rescued by other boats from Hoa Loc. The surrounded boat sank into the water.

After these moments of grief and anguish, the fishermen from Hoa Loc, Hoang Truong had to pull themselves together in preparation for another trip to the open sea.
The sight of the wrecked boat gave Nguyen Van Hoan a sense of extreme poignancy, "We still have to go. Can't help going. We know no other means of living. Have to repair the boat…!"

The Le Vinh (translated by Toan Khanh Nguyen)
http://www.vietnamnet.vn/xahoi/doisong/2005/01/367379/

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Tears from the Lach Truong River Mouth

(translated by Toan Khanh Nguyen)
17/01/2005 (GMT+7)

(VietNamNet) - Hoa Phu villagers (Hoa Loc – Hau Loc – Thanh Hoa) are setting up the altar of deceased Tran Nghiep Hung. For three days since his father was reportedly shot to death at sea by foreign vessels, Manh had not eaten or drunk anything except frequently running to the shore to mourn him. Thuy, a younger girl, could not sense the pain. The Lach Truong River Mouth once again had witnessed another pain heavy with an oceanic taste.

The shot boat

This village has witnessed many tragedies at sea.	There are now only two orphans in Hung's house.	Bullet traces can be seen on the boat surface.
The bullets went through copper material.	For a living, they must go out to the ocean.	The sea brings valuables as well as disasters to fishermen.

Chinese ships "shot to kill" Vietnamese fishermen; survivor

Chinese ships deliberately shot to kill Vietnamese fishermen during attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin Jan. 8, said a survivor.

"They fiercely attacked us with the intention of killing the crew to steal the boat rather than just stealing our boat," crew member Pham Van Quan said while telling the nightmare tale of Chinese boat attacks which killed nine Vietnamese fishermen and injured seven others.

Quan is a crew member of the boat which managed to reach the shore after being attacked by Chinese ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. The boat returned to port Jan. 11 with one dead and five crew members injured.

However, another Vietnamese boat with a 16-member crew was not so lucky during the attack. Half of the crew were shot to death, while the rest, including two injured, were arrested by the Chinese. The boat is now being held illegally on China's Hainan Island .

Nguyen Van Hoan, owner of the returning boat, showed Thanh Nien reporters hundreds of bullet holes in his boat.

At the time of attacks, the Vietnamese boats were legally fishing in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Shockingly barbaric

With just a small 70-90 CV engine, the Vietnamese boats are unable to go fishing too far from land.

(Source: Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper)

"At 10 a.m. on Jan. 8, I received S.O.S. signals from a Vietnamese fishing boat and asked the crew to withdraw their nets to go and rescue the boat in danger," Mr. Hoan told the reporters while sobbing.

At that time, his boat was located at 19.16 degrees northern latitude and 107.06 degrees eastern longitude, he said.

"But I immediately found my boat surrounded by many vessels carrying Chinese flags. My crew made signs for the strange ships to stay away from the fishing nets but the ships kept coming closer to us.

"Then the Chinese ships opened fire on my boat in the barbaric attack. Nguyen Van Tam was shot through the heart and died instantly. Five other crew members were seriously injured," he lamented.

Notably, the Chinese quickly hid their flags while they were approaching and attacking the Vietnamese ship, crewman Quan recalled.

Mr. Hoan steered his ship towards land but the Chinese ships continued chasing him and firing for three hours.

"I was really shocked," said Nguyen Phi Phuong, owner of the boat detained on Hainan Island with eight bodies and eight crew members. His son Nguyen Manh Hung is among the detainees.

"In recent months, local boats have been attacked by Chinese fishing boats in the Gulf of Tonkin but this time I cannot image Chinese boats attacking my boat so savagely," Mr. Phuong told Thanh Nien reporters on Jan. 11.

Both of the boat owners asserted that their boats were always flying Vietnamese flags while fishing.

Mr. Phuong said he had carefully asked his son to always display the national flag before departing.

"My boat always carries the Vietnamese flag and follows regulations when fishing offshore," Mr. Hoan confirmed.

"Serious affair"

Tension and sadness pervaded the Hau Loc District of Thanh Hoa Province as the fate of the fishermen on the fishing vessel detained on Hainan Island is still unknown.

Most of the 8 fishermen detained on Hainan Island are from Central Vietnam s Thanh Hoa Province with only one from northern Quang Ninh Province.

All of the 9 killed fishermen were Thanh Hoa people.

The province's relevant agencies have launched a probe into the cause of the attacks and will contact Chinese agencies to bring the bodies and the fishermen detained on Hainan Island back to Vietnam soon.

Spokesman Le Dzung of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jan. 13 said the attacks were "a serious affair."

"Vietnam is asking China to implement active measures to stop and prevent these erroneous actions, and to investigate the case and strictly punish the murderers," he stressed.

Local authorities have arranged a funeral for Nguyen Van Tam, the dead member of Mr. Hoan's crew.

They also visited the injured fishermen and the families and relatives of those who are being detained in China.

Source: Reported by Cao Ngo & Ngoc Minh - Translated by T.H.
Date: 01/17/2005

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Pain still lingers for families of murdered fishermen

By Cao Ngo anh Ngoc Minh

Thanh Nien News

Nearly two weeks after Chinese coast guards cold-bloodedly murdered nine Vietnamese fishermen in the Gulf of Tonkin, grief and despair continue to dominate the hometowns of those who had lost loved ones.
On most days, the only expressions seen on the faces of locals in the districts of Hau Loc and Hoang Hoa in central Thanh Hoa province are unbearable despair.

Getting closure

One painful question lingers in many residents’ minds: when will the bodies of their innocent loved ones return home? Without the proper grief and funeral, residents will likely never have closure.

Nguyen Van Mao was luckier than most other victims’ families. For the past two weeks, he has had the chance to properly grieve before the altar of his son Nguyen Van Tam after burying him.

“It was his first fishing trip, I tried to discourage him from going, but he was determined anyways,” he said in tears.

“The night before he left, it got cold. He promised he would buy me a sweater after the trip, but…,” Mr. Mao broke off.

“Our family was very poor, therefore, Tam decided to drop out of school to work. All the neighbors said he was so gentle and hardworking.”

“Anyway, he has gone to our fathers now.”

Lost families

No one could hold back their tears when witnessing the sorrow of Ms. Chinh and her two grandchildren. The 80-year-old mother lost her son Tran Van Hung, while Manh, 12, and Thuy, 8, lost their father.

“Ever since Manh heard of his father’s death, he would tell Thuy to go to sea to mourn his father every afternoon,” said Ms. Chinh said in a sad voice.

“But she refuses to go. She just cries and says ‘I hate the sea’.”

In fact, Thuy started hating the sea after her mother’s death in 2002, said the grandmother.

In 2000, Mr. Hung, his wife and the two children moved to northern Quang Ninh province. But, tragedy struck the family two years later when Mr. Hung’s wife drowned while catching fish in the sea.

The father and children returned to their hometown to live with his mother. Since then, Mr. Hung worked hard everyday to feed his children. He did not want his children to live a poor life and wanted to compensate for the pain they endured for losing their mother, said Ms. Chinh.

But now, the two poor children will grow up without their father and mother.

There are more orphans after the incidents. Another victim Le Xuan Trong, who lived in Hoang Hoa district, left behind his 13-month-old daughter. His wife had died six months earlier in an accident.

Mr. Trong’s district was also the hometown to three other murdered fishermen.

All four had worked as fishermen to support their poor families. Despite living an impoverished life, the four fishermen were good citizens, said a district leader.

On Jan. 8, Chinese coast guard ships surrounded and opened fire on Vietnamese fishing boats in the Gulf of Tonkin, murdering nine fishermen and injuring seven others.

The Chinese coast guards also illegally arrested eight others on the Chinese island of Hainan.

The fishermen who survived the assault said Chinese coast guards attacked the boats with an aim to murder them.

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Latest Gulf of Tonkin Incident Reveals China's Imperialist Designs

Thi Q. Lam, Pacific News Service,
Commentary, Feb 14, 2005

Editor's Note: The killing of nine Vietnamese fishermen by the Chinese navy is a marker of China's aggressive designs on natural resources in the Eastern Sea.

SAN FRANCISCO--Vietnamese communities in the United States, Europe and Australia are protesting the Jan. 8 killing of Vietnamese fishermen by the Chinese navy. On that day, navy ships from the People's Republic of China shot and killed nine Vietnamese fishermen and injured seven others in the Vinh Bac Bo (Gulf of Tonkin). Eight fishermen were kidnapped.

According to Thanh Nien (Youth) newspaper in Ho Chi Minh City, the fishing boat owned by Phan Van Quan was able to escape after the attack, but one crewman was killed and five others critically wounded. Another ship from Hung Vuong Company incurred a much heavier attack -- eight crewmen were killed and two wounded. The Chinese detained all surviving crewmen as well as the ship.

Survivors of the Jan. 8 massacre reported that the incident took place in Vietnam's territorial waters, at or near the intersection of parallel 19.16 North and meridian 107.06 East. That's 10 miles west of the nearest border mark of the common fishing area between Vietnam and China.

In reaction to a weak protest from Hanoi issued five days after the incident, China called the killings an act of self-defense against "armed pirates" intending to capture Chinese fishing boats. The allegation is absurd; small wooden boats, even if they were armed, would never "attack" larger Chinese boats protected by naval vessels armed with machine guns and cannons. Reports from Western news agencies made no mention of any aggressive behavior from the Vietnamese fishermen. In the view of legal experts, the fact that the Chinese naval vessels penetrated Vietnam's territorial waters to kill and capture Vietnamese fishermen and seize their property constitutes a grave act of armed aggression.

The Jan. 8 killing is far from an isolated incident. According to Reuters, China detained 80 Vietnamese fishermen in the month of December. The Vietnamese coast guard reported a total of 1,107 illegal incursions by Chinese boats into Vietnam's waters during 2004.

The incident, in fact, can be added to a consistent pattern of Chinese expansionism in the Eastern Sea: conquest of the Paracel Islands in 1974; occupation of the Spratly archipelagoes in 1979; and annexation of 12,000 square meters of territorial waters in the Vinh Bac Bo conceded by Hanoi under the 2000 Vinh Bac Bo Pact.

Nguyen Van Canh, a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institute and an authority on Vietnam-China relations, notes that the common fishing area, as described in the 2000 fishing agreement between Vietnam and China, contains some of the richest natural gas fields in the Eastern Sea.

"In 2004, China brought drilling platform Katan 3 into Vietnam's territorial waters to explore oil and gas from Nov. 11 to Dec. 31," Nguyen says. "The site of the exploration was located 63 miles from the Vietnamese coastline and 67 miles from Hai Nam Island."

The 2000 Vinh Bac Bo Pact includes only a vaguely worded clause stipulating that "when gas is confirmed, the two sides will explore it together." Nguyen Dinh Sai, an engineer who has done extensive research on the Vinh Bac Bo, has written about a secret agreement between Vietnam and China that spells out in detail how the proceeds from gas production would be distributed between the two parties. From this we can infer that some kind of understanding between the two countries regarding the allocation of the proceeds from gas production must have been reached before the exploration operations can begin.

If true, the fishing rights issue may be only a cover, and the Jan. 8 massacre may be part of a well-concocted scheme to terrorize Vietnamese fishermen and to discourage them from venturing into Chinese gas exploration areas. <;br />
Protest by overseas Vietnamese communities is a good start because it will raise world awareness about China's nascent imperialism. But in the long run, only a strong and prosperous Vietnam, enjoying popular support and the support of the community of free and democratic nations, can preserve its territorial integrity.

On the geopolitical front, Japan should play a more active role in regional security, at a time when the United States has its hands full in Iraq and the Middle East. After all, Japan, like China, also needs oil from the Middle East, and it is in Japan's vital interests to safeguard the strategic sea lanes in the Eastern Sea. In Northeast Asia, the strategic balance could be made more effective if the U.S.-Japan security alliance were to be expanded to include South Korea, itself an emerging economic power backed by a well trained and highly motivated military. In Southeast Asia, on the other hand, the strengthening and rearmament of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) would effectively contribute to the security of the region.

Autocratic regimes know only the language of force. In the struggle against aggression and imperialism, power can only grow, as Mao Tse-tung once put it, "from the barrel of the gun."

PNS contributor Thi Q. Lam is author of the memoir "The 25-Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Vietnam War." He resides in Milpitas, Calif., where he teaches high school.

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