Honor Their Memory  

Anticommunism Action Team Remarks at
The Candlelight Vigil for Human Rights & Freedom in Vietnam
Falls Church, Virginia
August 18, 2018

Thank you for inviting me to speak.  My name is Chris Wright.  I run the Anticommunism Action Team.
Tonight, we are gathered to honor the memory of those who suffered and died at the hands of the Vietnamese communists.

We honor the memory of the brave soldiers – Vietnamese and American – who laid down their lives for freedom.

We honor the memory of the boat people. They fled communism and risked their lives at sea. Many did not make it. A man named Hien told me he was all excited because his sister managed to get on a boat and he expected her to turn up in the Philippines soon.  I asked him from time to time if he had heard from her and, finally, he looked down and shook his head ‘no’. She was one of the many lost at sea.  Another man, named Cao, told me how he hid under his boat while Thai pirates robbed and killed everyone else on board.

We honor the memory of the prisoners who perished in communist reeducation camps. One survivor told an audience he was beaten every day on the ribs and the soles of his feet. He coughed up blood and went down to 80 pounds. But the communists never broke his will.

We honor him and the others who still fight, for their courage.

We honor the protesters all around Vietnam who demonstrated against the communists earlier this summer, hundreds of whom were arrested.

We honor the nuns who refused to turn their convent over to the communists.

We honor the brave dissidents in Vietnam who stand up against the communists every day – dissidents like Mother Mushroom, and Tran Huynh Duy Thuc who just told the communists he would rather stay and fight in prison in Vietnam than be exiled to safety in another country.

We honor the nearly 100 other prisoners of conscience who languish in Vietnamese prisons.  They are tortured and denied medical treatment. One was hung upside down with a dirty sock in his mouth.

So many ruined lives. And for what?

So a tiny group of people – the communists – could run an entire country. They hold on to power only by denying the rest of the people free speech and other basic human rights.

So how do we honor those who died and those who continue to fight the communists today?

We stand and we fight alongside them. We give the communists no rest.  We demand freedom and basic human rights for the Vietnamese people.  We don’t stop until the communists are gone and the Vietnamese people can enjoy a normal life in a normal country, where their voice is heard.

Together, we are strong and, together, we will prevail.

Reposted with permission from Spider & The Fly