I picked up a book a long time ago titled "Peace and Prisoners of War: A Sad Memoir of Vietnam War and Prisoner Exchange" and noticed that it was published by Kháng Chiến Publisher. Other works listed inside the book by the publisher seems to be Vietnamese literature, published after the Fall of Saigon, regarding Vietnamese culture or anti-communist literature , mostly in the 1980s in both English and Vietnamese.
Trying to search up the Publisher name on the internet gives me no good leads, neither does its address (P.O. Box 7826 San Jose, CA 95150-7826, USA). I'm guessing they went defunct?
What's the deal with this publisher? Are they publishing real stories from Vietnam about an underlying anti-communist movement or fake propaganda pieces? The memoir I have seems to have a new modern publisher in the US Naval Institute, so it appears to be credible as an authentic story, but I'm still curious about the publisher as a whole.
Given the name (Kháng Chiến, Resistance), the period (1980s) and the place (Little Saigon in San Jose, CA), it is almost certain that this publisher was an offshoot of the magazine Kháng Chiến, which was the propaganda arm of the National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam (Mặt Trận Quốc Gia Thống Nhất Giải Phóng Việt Nam). The Front, as it was usually called rather by the acronym NULF, was led by Hoàng Cơ Minh, a former vice-admiral who was a refugee in the US. It aimed at retaking Vietnam from the Communists through guerilla actions based in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. According to researcher François Guillemot, the Front borrowed from the symbols used during the war by the Communist National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Mặt trận Dân tộc Giải phóng Miền Nam Việt Nam), from the name of the movement to the appearance of its leader, whose initials were HCM initials and sported a goatee. Throughout the 1980s, the Front received widespread support from the refugee Vietnamese communities in the US and abroad and collected money from donations of the diaspora.
The propaganda arm of the Front was helmed by Nguyễn Xuân Nghĩa, a former student of economics and commerce in Paris. Nghĩa had an intriguing resume: he had returned to Vietnam in 1974 where he had been Deputy Ministry of Finance for the Republic of Vietnam until the fall of Saigon, and he had managed to get a new senior position in the new regime (Alpert, 2005), before leaving for the US in 1980. Now, as one of the leaders of the Front in San Jose, he helped the organisation gather popular support through its books and magazines (Kháng Chiến and the English language Vietnam Insight) - with headlines such as "With the strength of the people the day of liberation is not far off" (Guillemot, 2015, Nguyen Y Thien, 2018):
Publications became a means through which the Front propagated an image of itself as following in a historical legacy of anticommunist and nationalist resistance. The Front drew upon existing sources of cultural and political legitimacy to consolidate its influence in Vietnamese exile politics.
Kháng Chiến participated in inflating the military success of the Front, by "reporting false information about the inner resistance in Vietnam" (Guillemot, 2015). In 1986, an article of the Los Angeles Times portrayed the Front in a negative light, noting that "the only tangible result of refugee donations to the NULF is Khang Chien, the group’s newspaper, and a chain of Vietnamese noodle soup restaurants called Pho Hua." The journalist also interviewed Nguyễn Xuân Nghĩa with little results:
NULF spokesman Nguyen Xuan Nghia, a 41-year-old University of Paris graduate, admits that his army’s front line is hard to find on a map. “It could be inside or outside Vietnam,” he says, smiling. “The issue is not the location of our headquarters but how we can psychologically mobilize for war a people living in a peaceful country.”
What has the NULF built with its millions? Are there warehouses filled with war materiel or freighters under charter? Where is the clinic for the wounded? Is there a command center? “Meet me at the newspaper,” Nghia says, “and I’ll explain all.”
The office of Khang Chien turns out to be a modest guest house near the San Jose airport that is bare save for one couch, three folding chairs and a poster of the Perfume River meandering through Hue, the ancient Vietnamese capital. Visitors are welcomed with something less than enthusiasm. The front door opens after 10 minutes of pounding, and then by a man who bleats from behind a chain lock: “Go away, go away. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Minutes pass. Finally, an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme pulls to a stop amid a spray of gravel. Briefcase in hand, Nghia bounds toward the house, a sweater tied loosely around his neck. “Many of our members don’t like to talk to foreigners,” he says soothingly. “We relied on Americans before and look what happened,” he continues, making a conversation nook with the couch and wobbly chairs. “Ah, to be more like the Viet Cong. Then we’d be sure to win.”
Is this the newspaper office?
“Its location is secret.”
Is this empty house really all there is to see?
“Make your observation and draw your own conclusions,” he sighs.
The Front became increasingly controversial in the refugee diaspora due to accusations of misappropriation of funds, use of violence and mob-like tactics (I'm not going into the internecine struggles of the Vietnamese-American diaspora). Notably, the Front was accused of involvement in the murders (and attempted murders) of several Vietnamese-American journalists suspected of harbouring communist sympathies, or for being critical of the Front. The killers were never found. A Frontline documentary aired in 2015, Terror in Little Saigon, has relayed these accusations, but not conclusively. Nguyễn Xuân Nghĩa, interviewed in the documentary, did not admit to the Front's guilt in the killings, but nonetheless found that he had been misrepresented by the filmmakers.
Hoàng Cơ Minh was killed in 1987 near the Thai-Vietnamese border, and other attempts at toppling the regime foundered and ended up in trials and executions. The Front was rebooted as a new organization named Việt Tân, which is still active and no longer trying to topple the regime by military means (though it is considered as a terrorist organisation by Vietnam). Nguyễn Xuân Nghĩa remains a debated figure in the Vietnamese-American community (some still accuse him of having been a Communist plant). He's posting videos regularly on Facebook and YouTube.
To conclude on Kháng Chiến: it was a propaganda outlet for a paramilitary organization that aimed to topple the Communist regime in Vietnam. However, this does not mean that books published under its umbrella are worthless, particularly memoirs.
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