(Reprinted with permission from Pole et Tropiques (“Pole and Tropics”) of the June 1978 issue. Original Italian text was translated into French by Father Chevroulet and translated into English by Professor Bich Ngoc Nguyen and edited by Professor Justin McDaniel.)

I arrive in Nong Khai, a little town on the border of Thailand and Laos. It is 7:30 in the morning. The train stops after having gone along the bank of the Mekong for a couple of hundred meters. A line of monks on their morning alms rounds passes by along the edge of the tracks. A woman kneels down to offer rice to the disciples of Buddha. I observe the scene from the train window. Along the horizon, on the other side of the river, is Laos.

One can see houses that mark the road leading from Vientiane to Tha Deua, a small river port that for centuries has been a connection between Laos and Thailand. There is no sign of life on the opposite bank and none on the river itself. Alas, there seems to be no one left on that side.

Yesterday…

It’s been only two and a half years since I last crossed the river and there was still considerable traffic: a ferry, boats and river skiffs were going back and forth at a constant rhythm. Even then many were crossing to find refuge in Thailand, sensing the impending danger of the communist rise to power. Many were Chinese and Vietnamese who had had a taste of the new regime in their own countries and were not keen to renew the experience. Over the last twenty years a number of them have accumulated some money working in commerce or doing handicrafts, but for the most part they were simply poor workers surviving day-to-day.

… And Today

Today, on the contrary, there were no movement whatsoever of people or boats. The river flows down quietly, ignoring everyone on the banks whether they be Chinese, Burmese, Lao, Thai, Cambodian or Vietnamese. It is oblivious also of what it carries in its stream. But for me this flowing stream conjures up so many memories of towns and villages, people and events. I have gone alongside or crossed this river so many times over so many years, on almost all of its length, and in every possible direction; the river is a line of communication and contact that has now been transformed into an iron or bamboo curtain—an insurmountable wall—that nonetheless tempts many people to cross risking everything.

According to the testimony of many refugees, those who try to flee Laos, either in a skimpy skiff or by swimming, the Laotian communist police shoots pitilessly. Yet despite all that, in the last two years the refugees still counted in the hundreds of thousands. There are more than 80,000 in the special refugee camps in Thailand but many more succeeded in blending into the local population who belong to the same ethnic group. Tens of thousands of others managed to find asylum in the West, especially in France and the United States.

The first confidences

My sight is brought back to the line of alms-seeking monks. One of them smiles at me. Does he know me? I wonder. I respond with a vague sad smile and I descend from the train. The rickshaw drivers crowd around me, taking my baggage and grasping my hands, offering their service; they have so little work now that passengers are rare.

I pick a rickshaw and go towards the little town of Nong Khai. Little by little, my rickshaw peddler starts talking about himself, the difficulties of life, the small number of riders and the weather. Then he turned to the subject of the refugee camp not very far from the town: “There are some 23,000 of them in the camp but they have no work. And they keep coming, especially at night. Now, for the most part they ford the river. There are those who can not make it because of exhaustion and others because they were killed by the Lao police’s bullets.” He invites me to look at the Mekong: “Often there are corpses floating down the river.” I look but see nothing. I ask him why would people flee like that, risking their lives and abandoning everything. After a pause he says, “They don’t like the regime.” He did not add anything after that and I did not insist. Possibly a silent curtain has also fallen on this side of the river among strangers. It’s even possible that he is one of those numerous communist sympathizers in town who prefer not to be troubled by doubts as to the merits of the system.

After about half an hour we arrive at a meditation center, at the extreme north of town. I pay my driver and come to the front of the main building. The monks are in the midst of taking their breakfast.

One of them, as soon as he sees me, comes out smiling; he takes my hands in his, expressing his surprise and joy at seeing me. He is an old acquaintance. I had spoken with him often over the years in Laos when he had a more prestigious position.

He invites me to follow him and we sit down under the trees next to the little chapel where he stays. He offers me tea and starts to speak quietly—a true unsolicited interview!

*

“I couldn’t stand it anymore”

I love my people and my country. I had wanted to continue my life as a monk in Laos to spread the Good Doctrine and help the people find the Good Way. But I was unable to do so. It became impossible to propagate the Buddhist doctrine. One could not, for one thing, visit the various villages or go to other temples to preach. As for the people, they were impeded from practicing their religion. It became more and more difficult to observe the monastic rules that were taught to us by the Buddha and, even for us monks, simply finding something to eat became harder day after day.

I could not stand the situation and I looked for a way to escape. I was sick and, in Laos, there were no more doctors or medicine left. I had asked and obtained the necessary permits to go and seek a cure in Thailand. I arrived here on May 25, 1977, and I have never gone back.

To flee at the peril of one’s life

I was not the only one to leave the country. Each week there are hundreds of people coming over. There were very few people who could get a permit and cross the Mekong in a skiff without danger.

The majority had to flee at night after hiding for days in the forest and waiting for a propitious time. Many have tried to swim across, sometimes mothers with babies in their arms. Sometimes they aren’t successful and are carried away by the swift current. Others try to flee in a skiff without a motor or even a rowing paddle for fear of causing noise and attracting attention.

As soon as the police hears or suspects something, they shoot and there’s no way to count the dead anymore. Thus, some children reached the opposite banks without their parents and vice versa. Indeed, life is suffering, just as the Buddha has taught us.

The refugee camp

In my case, I arrived without difficulty and found asylum immediately in this monastery. Many others, though, found themselves interned in refugee camps where life is tough as there is no work, not much to eat, restrictions on one’s movement and an uncertain future. There are many camps along the Lao-Thai border, scattered here and there.

The Nong Khai camp has 23,000 refugees to some of whom I’m able bring help and consolation. Life is not very good there, but everyone is hopeful as they entertain the idea that they could get a better resettlement opportunity abroad or elsewhere in Thailand.

Other refugees are not so lucky. As they arrive in Thailand they are thrown in jail because it is not always easy to distinguish the real refugees from the communists who come to create disorder and plan subversion. That’s why many have to wait for weeks, even months, in jail before they can be admitted into refugee camps.

Others avoid the authorities and hide with relatives or friends until they can obtain the proper Thai documents.

Re-education camps

Many Lao would love to flee but they can’t because their movements are strictly controlled and watched. In Laos, one does not have freedom. Joy no longer shine on people’s faces though one must always proclaim that everything is fine. People no longer come together in celebration.

Instead, there are many indoctrination gatherings which everyone must attend, participate in and listen to. Only the Party line is taught which professes hatred and contempt. One must hate the Americans, first of all, then all strangers, the bourgeois, and finally all those who don’t think like them [the communists].

Many men have been sent to special re-education camps in the interior of the country. One doesn’t know what happens to them because none of them ever return. To be honest, in Luang Prabang there was one person who did come back—they sent his bones back in a box! It is a dreadful warning for those who want to show dissent in one way or another.

An impossible life

Their organization and surveillance make fleeing extremely difficult.

The adults are separated into groups of ten with each group headed by an overseer and an overseer’s assistant, who is required to give a weekly report on all their members to the Special Committee of the Party. Furthermore, in the nucleus of each group there is a spy imbedded in their midst, put there by the system to provide more detailed reports. In general, life became impossible.

In two years, the communists destroyed faith and trust among people. No one could trust each other; a wife couldn’t even trust her husband; and parents couldn’t trust their children. As a matter of fact, many gatherings were separated so that a husband could not know what his wife said and vice versa. The greatest danger come from the children for they do not realize the weight of their words or possible consequences. So, children are the ones the authorities are most solicitous towards. The authorities do not trust adults or the young ones who have known other living conditions that were much better than their current one.

Despite all these risks, however, many succeeded in fleeing; they preferred risking death than submit to such suffering. Thus, a Luang Prabang pater familias overwhelmed by the hunger of his children, the constant vexations, and hopelessness, he killed all his children and then himself. The Lao have a great capacity for suffering and smiling through it, but even for them there is a limit.

Buddhism hunted

Life is becoming difficult also for the Buddhist religion. Like the royalty, it no longer counts, despite the fact that Buddhism has an enormous importance in the eyes of the people.

In just two years, the situation has totally changed. In the official speeches and on the radio, religion is simply ignored even though in the past there was reference to it all the time. The religious festivals are no longer celebrated and the people cannot go to the temples because they are forced to work or simply because they are afraid of being denounced by the authorities. There are no longer official ceremonies with participation of those in authority. One doesn’t hear the sound of temple drums any more, which for centuries have reminded people of the need to think religious thoughts and/or live a religious life. In Luang Prabang, they even pierced the drum skins and, thus, the rhythm of days is no longer kept by the sound of these holy drums from Phou Si Temple as has been the habit for six centuries.

When the propaganda became more precise, especially in the indoctrination centers, the communists said that religion is no longer necessary. At the beginning, they mainly focused on Christianity. As a foreign religion, Christianity is said to be at the service of capitalists and American spies. Then, they started to say that Buddhism has also had its day; it is true that Buddhism taught people to do good but also to flee evil at the time when the society was ruled by the bourgeoisie. But now the Party would teach morality.

They are always sowing doubt, then hatred in people’s hearts. They teach that neither God, Buddha nor the spirits exist because nobody has ever seen them. They say that nothing exists except what can be seen and touched and that there is nothing after this life. And it is stupid to acquire merits for a future life. According to them, helping the monks is simply fostering parasites in society.

A monk’s suicide in protest

The number of monks has greatly diminished and there are no longer new ordinations. Many novices and monks leave the religious life since there is not much to eat and because of psychological pressures caused by the contempt for religion that the Party deliberately spreads among the populace.

The monks also must participate in the indoctrination sessions and contribute constant reports on the behavior of their brother monks. They insist that monks work, thus a good number have gone back to the rice fields or have taken up gardening.

Many, in good conscience, are not ready to accept the Party’s injunctions which force them to break their monastic rules. They prefer to go back to the lay life rather than be exposed to the danger of disrespecting their religion. Others have gone so far as to even take their own lives with the thought that life is no longer worth living. Thus, an old monk from the Phon Hong district, north of Vientiane, hanged himself rather than being forced to renounce his monastic precepts.

Nowadays the temples are empty for the stated reasons but temples are not closed on the order of the government.

The tactic of controlling and discrediting

In fact, for the moment, the government does not eliminate the Buddhist religion but it seeks to control and to discredit it. The ancient authorities and structures have all been changed. The Patriarch remains in his temple in Luang Prabang next to the Royal Palace now occupied by the reds, but he no longer exercises any authority even though he is officially an adviser to the new “religious” chiefs.

At the national level the communists have formed a Lao Buddhist National Unity Committee (Khana Phitta Sasana Samphan Pathet Lao). Its president is the monk Maha Kham Tan who collaborated with the communists since 1960.

At the regional level there is a Committee made up of seven monks and, finally, at the district level, one made up of three monks each. The role of these committees is only to turn every religious activity into an action in support of the Party. And the main method is the political education session.

The members of these diverse committees are appointed by the Party and remain in charge at the will of the chiefs. This process is entirely against the rules and the autonomous and democratic traditions of the Buddhist sangha (community of monks).

Temple schools?  Yes, but one learns the party line

The temple schools are for the most part closed; those that remain open do not fulfill their traditional roles.

The Abhidhamma schools that were adjoined to the meditation centers have been closed both in Luang Prabang and Vientiane. The Vientiane Higher Institute of Buddhist Studies is still open but has only about one-tenth of its students left as compared to two years ago. One no longer studies religion there but must study the Party line instead. The Director of the Institute has gone back to being a layman.

In the traditional centers, meditation is no longer possible because everyone must attend exhausting meetings where one is submitted to propaganda. To resist is out of the question even for monks. In the end, one ends up forced to accept everything from the propaganda machine.

Labeled as “collaborators” because one has defended Christians

Dialogue between and mutual support for different religions is considered unpatriotic.

We, Buddhist monks, have sought to defend the Christians, especially the Catholics, who were only a minority in the country when they were the object of propaganda attacks and repressive measures by the regime.

Our position immediately attracted false accusations of collaboration with foreigners. At first, people were absolutely certain that such accusations were baseless, but after hearing persistent, slanderous propaganda many started to doubt themselves overtime.

The way the regime governs is the same throughout the country with the exception of Vientiane, where it is less rigid for the communists who want to keep up appearances before the foreigners who are still there.

For them there is no law, no truth, no good other than what the Party wants or does.

One cannot appeal to the Constitution or to promises that they have made in the past. Even law students at Vientiane University have to keep their mouths shut, many of them having been sent to re-education camps.

Only one thing counts: The Party

There is no lack of public executions and they give maximum publicity to these executions to instill fear.

Other executions have taken place in a more summary fashion, but they are no less brutal. Just to give you an example: A woman did not attend a number of indoctrination sessions over several days because she had a sick child at home; her superiors, however, did not accept her explanations. So, finally they dragged her to a meeting and a comrade took her place to attend to the child. However, when the child started to cry because he was very sick, the comrade tried at first to calm him down and when he did not succeed, he took the child by his legs and in a rage knocked the child’s head against a house column killing him instantly. The communist was not condemned; it was declared that the mother was at fault.

One must address one another by sahai (comrade)!

The country’s traditions don’t count anymore and the communists show nothing but contempt for such traditions. They leave holy places and sacred books to the moths. One does not differentiate anymore between young and old, the government or the people, monks or laypersons; everyone must be addressed by and also call oneself sahai (comrade).

However, in reality, no such equality exists. They take whatever they like while people must suffer, obey and keep quiet or else to the re-education camp they go.

They alone have the right to teach and that is how they gradually destroy our culture and religion. But in a deeper sense, they destroy a person’s soul, intelligence, will and his heart.

In their propaganda the communists condemn the bourgeois, the enemies of the people, the corrupt and the profiteers, but they are just about as bad! Just like the corrupt old ones; they do not say no to money or the good life and they enjoy all the privileges.

In this way, corruption is no less prevalent than before. In order to obtain anything whatsoever, one must pay. The government itself organizes the opium export trade and, I know for a fact, that this year [1977], the Lao communist government exported 320 quintals of opium in order to secure precious western money and to corrupt the West.

*

In the shadow of the big tree next to the little meditation chapel, the conversation went on for several hours. Numerous times we had to pause because emotions overwhelmed the narrator. Often his eyes welled up with tears; at one point, in order to wipe off his tears, he had to retire to an adjoining room.

From time to time, someone would approach, he or she would make the ritual prostrations and start addressing the monk in a respectful manner. Two women dressed in white came and asked for a mat and two pillows for two destitute refugees who arrived during the night. A young man, a recent refugee and now a rickshaw driver, asked for help because his wife was about to give birth to a baby and he had no money. The monk gave him two shirts and a little money. Two other young ones came and offered their services. A woman, also a recent refugee, came to arrange for her eleven-year-old son’s entry into the religion.

During all this continuous coming and going, the novices boiled water from time to time and the monk prepared the tea and served it.

The hours went by fast and I had to go in order to join the Catholic mission in town. The monk wanted to come with me, so he asked the rickshaw driver to take us. And there we were, the monk in his saffron tunic and me in pants and a blue traveling shirt.

During the ride I asked him how he envisioned the future of Buddhism and religion in Laos. After a moment of silence he said: “Bo pen nyang, Khoun Pho.” (It doesn’t matter, Father.) What meaning to give to his expression, I don’t know. Possibly he meant: Let’s not worry about it, one must live right this moment. Possibly also he meant: Everything will be all right after this devastating wave… I did not press him further.

Slowly, with a great deal of effort, the young man pedaled on and got us from the temple to the church. Every passersby looked at us with curiosity and some surprise. It’s not common to see a monk and a layperson, especially a foreigner, ride together in a rickshaw. Isn’t it here, possibly, a symbolic gesture of our common quest based on an understanding of human suffering and especially the effort to overcome it?

“Should I keep this to myself?” “Oh no, you must talk.”

Before we went our ways, the monk thanked me for the “unplanned, but pleasant visit.” He permitted me to let his story be known in Italy, a country which he had an opportunity to visit a few years back.

People must know of these events before it’s too late… Please say in Italy that one must be on one’s guard. In our country, in Laos, they have made solemn promises: respect for liberty, human dignity and religion. They have even signed accords to that effect! But once they are on the saddle, they have turned to ridicule all that they have promised and those who had been naïve enough to believe in them. But what is worse is that they have destroyed our culture and now want to tear out our souls as well.

He discreetly asked me to find for him some assistance in support of the refugees. Then he left me, expressing the desire to be able to go to Europe again, especially to Italy, so he can say with all his strength what is heavy on his mind.

Photos:

Young Buddhist on the threshold of the temple. An old monk writes on a piece of manuscript, You bother us.  You must yield…
(Photo Delarue and Lalanne, o.m.i.)

Oh the majestic Mekong that used to be so lively with its ferry boat, ships and small skiffs--so many memories!
(Photo Father Lalanne, o.m.i.)

The giving of alms to the monks since time immemorial has been the one act that confers the most merit… But today, “It’s unworthy of the Revolution. You all go to the rice fields.”
(Photo Father Lalanne)

In Laos, young men come to temples to dedicate a few months or years of their lives to meditation and prayers.

Nowadays, attendance at indoctrination sessions is obligatory as to not be designated as society’s parasites.

It was in June [illegible] that the Buddhist patriarch of Laos, Somdech Phra Sangkhatai (?), came to Roma accompanied by many [illegible].  Officially received by the Vatican, he had met with many Italian communities. One recognizes, on the right, Father Zago, o.m.i., the author of this article.”
(Photo Nicoletti)

In Luang Prabang, they have even pierced our holy drums!

…The rhythm of our days used to be marked by the gong for centuries.  Nowadays our temples are empty.”
(Photo Father Lalanne, o.m.i.)

[Illegible lines] suffering, said the Buddha.
(Photo Father Lalanne, o.m.i.)

“Peace in Vietnam?” “Peace in Cambodia?” “Peace in Laos?”
(Photo G. Delaunay, o.m.i.)