On the beach: Ben Doc, one of the few white-sand beaches on Con Dao, is a popular spot for former inmates when they visit the prison island. A few hours on this beach are almost enough to make them forget their former troubles. — VNS Photo Huu Vinh Changing face: Ben Dam now boasts a bustling fishing wharf. — VNA/VNS Photo Hoang Viet History lesson: A tourist guide dressed in traditional ao dai uses her loud-hailer to brief visitors on the bloody history of the Con Dao Prison. — VNS Photo Minh Tuan Grim reminder: A former tiger cage detainee remembers his old cell. — VNA/VNS File Photo

by Hoang Nam-Tran Am

Dang Hong Nhat looked quiet and thoughtful as she remembered her suffering on Con Dao (Polo Condore Island), infamous for its prisons which were called the "hell on earth" by the media during the American War.

"Those were the hardest times, but also the most glorious days in my involvement in the revolutionary cause," Nhat told Viet Nam News as she revisited the island together with other former fellow prisoners.

An indelible memory

Born in 1936, Nhat joined the revolution at an early age following her family tradition.

Her grandfather, mother and aunt were arrested in 1928 by French colonialists because the whole family had served in the Viet Nam Association of Revolutionary Young Comrades, a precursor of the Vietnamese Communist Party, she said.

She was arrested in February 1966 by the US-backed Sai Gon administration.

Sentenced to three years in prison, she was transferred to Con Dao in 1969.

"I and 341 women were transferred to Con Dao for the first time on November 29, 1969 because the struggle of women prisoners onshore had become more strongly organised," Nhat recalled.

The team was kept in "tiger cages," the most severe punishment, with each prisoner living in a space of 2sq.m, including a toilet.

The cages were often putrid and musty, and prisoners were treated like animals, not allowed to talk and were controlled and tortured, Nhat said.

During her 10 months in Con Dao, Nhat and her comrades’ meals consisted of rice with salted fish or rotten fried fish, without any vegetables. Warders also banned all of the women from taking a bath.

"Despite the ban not to talk in tiger cages, we communicated with each other, from one cage to another with everyday questions like ‘How are you?’ ‘Are you all right?’ Or we sang," she said.

The activities were not done for enjoyment, but as a struggle against the hard punishment of the jail system, and as a way of strengthening the will of prisoners.

The women prisoners in "tiger cages" during the 1969-70 period were among the bravest.

Two years later, on June 2, 1972, Nhat returned to Con Dao with 500 other women prisoners. Fortunately, she was one of five prisoners to be released in October 1972.

"The prisoners, the community’s leaders and even I wondered why the enemy decided to release only five people at that time. We thought they would kill us quietly but we didn’t have a choice," Nhat said.

Returning safely to the resistance base, Dang Hong Nhat knew that she was lucky to be among the first released and was thankful when the Paris Agreement ended the US’s military involvement in Viet Nam in 1973.

Now, the former Con Dao prisoner continues to contribute her labour to the motherland, acting as general secretary of the HCM City’s Sponsorship Association for Poor Patients.

Nhat and her association have helped thousands of poor patients to have access to medical treatment. Most recently, the association celebrated its 100,000th poor patient who received free eye surgery.

Emerging as Treasure Island

Nhat and other visitors to Con Dao Island today are surprised at the beauty and prosperity of the place once regarded by its inhabitants as "Hell on Earth".

Con Dao houses a mass grave of 22,000 Vietnamese patriots and revolutionaries, who were tortured to death since the 72sq.km island was turned into a large prison by the French colonialists in the middle of the 19th century.

Twenty-eight years have passed since Con Dao was liberated from the Sai Gon administration.

The former prison island is now a district in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province with a population of 5,000 people who come from different parts of the country.

The island is now known as a tourist attraction with an outdoor museum, a national park, and a white sand beach and fishing fleets.

Development efforts have been concentrated on infrastructure projects. The island’s economy has grown robustly since 1998 when the Ben Dam Fishing Port in Tay Nam Bay was put into operation.

The Ben Dam Port can accommodate hundreds of passenger boats, supply fishing vessels with fuel, ice and fresh water and includes a seafood processing facility.

"Con Dao Island has been bustling year round since the opening of Ben Dam Fishing Port," says one local official.

Other key works under way include road paving, an electricity plant, the Con Dao Cultural House, a 300-seat conference hall and a library stocked with 10,000 books.

Deputy Chairman of the Con Dao District People’s Committee Nguyen Hoang Tung said that in 2002, district authorities invested VND2.64 billion (US$160,000) in parks, town roads and improving street lighting and other aspects of the urban environment.

Telecommunications have also been improved: the island now has 795 fixed telephones and 207 mobile phones, averaging 23 telephones for every 100 people.

The investment effort is paying off. In the first quarter of this year, the private sector’s industrial output alone was worth VND5.03 billion, twice as much as the same period last year. Revenue at ice processing plants came to VND1.84 billion as a result of the sharp increase in the fishing catch.

Local tourist companies have invested in upgrading the island’s three beachside hotels in a bid to lure travellers to investigate the island’s beaches, reefs and forests, and Con Dao is becoming an increasingly popular destination for both domestic and foreign tourists.

The island’s beautiful landscapes and tranquility, combined with the historical sites of the detention camps from the days of the French rule, have attracted an increasing flow of tourists, with numbers growing from 12,000 to 20,000 in the past three years.

However, transport links to Con Dao remain poor, with passenger boats running only every two days and just three weekly helicopters.

Deputy Chairman Tung said travel demands are growing but are blocked by the poor condition of the island’s airfield, where the runway is deteriorating and can now accommodate only helicopters.

He said he hoped the local airfield would be upgraded and a flight from Tan Son Nhat-Con Dao would be reopened, providing the boost that will let the once-struggling island district truly take off.

Nguyen Thi Nga was 15 years old when the island was liberated. The eldest daughter of a warden of Camp One didn’t know that she had indirectly helped free prisoners from the island 28 years ago.

Legacy of the island

"My sister and I broke the news of the liberation of Sai Gon in the afternoon of April 30 to political prisoners in Camp One as we drove a bicycle to the warder’s house to ask my father for dinner," Nga recalled.

Nga was surprised the next morning when she saw the island in the hands of political prisoners.

"My father would take some political prisoners from his camp home to teach us how to read and write," said Nga, now a 44-year-old housewife."

Nga and her six sisters and brothers couldn’t go to school on the island where Sai Gon soldiers and warders and prioners made up the majority of the population. The communist prisoners had taught them to read and write.

"All members of my family have stayed here since liberation day," Nga said. "My father died in 1999 and my mother is a district’s Fatherland Front Committee employee who lives on a pension." All her siblings are employed by either tourism agents, schools or offices.

A few years after the liberation of southern Viet Nam, Nga was admitted to a teacher training college in HCM City, but she had to return to her family because of weak health.

Visiting Con Dao Island for the first time, IT expert Vo Thanh Tong, 33, and pharmacist Vu The Quang, 25, were impressed at their first visit to the notorious "Hell on Earth".

"Our generation is lucky not to suffer the losses and grievances of war. But to see and hear what revolutionaries had lived and fought for in the aptly named "Hell on Earth" we admire, respect and are proud of the tradition of the Vietnamese people," Tong said.

Images of "tiger cages" which bring to mind extreme savagery and cruelty, along with torture devices used through French and American-backed regimes leave visitors shocked.

"I’m moved at the confessions from a warden that they could melt all the iron and and steel in the detention camps, but couldn’t break the will of the prisoners," Tong added. — VNS