Thich Tri Thu:
Yes. I guess you already know
that President Ngo Dinh
Diem had a brother who was an archbishop and who, presumably,
wanted to turn Vietnam into another Vatican. Therefore, he announced to
the whole world that there were over four million Catholic converts in Vietnam. During the
anniversary of Buddha's
birthday there were foreign observers who came here to find out whether
what the archbishop said was true. But, to the contrary, on the
anniversary of Buddha's
birthday the entire population of
Hue as well as inhabitants elsewhere put up the Buddhist banners and lit their
lamps everywhere.
The archbishop was nervous and did not want people to
find out that he had been wrong in his statement so he ordered all the
banners and lamps to be taken down. He forbade all to put up banners and
lamps. But his order came out late on the eve of the anniversary and so
the entire Buddhist population
protested this. Faced with the reaction from the population, he then
decided to repress them. Tanks and armored vehicles were brought in and
seven persons were killed in the city of
Hue.
For this reason, the struggle
spread wider and wider. By August 12 he
declared martial law on the city and had all Buddhist monks and nuns arrested and jailed. But
those nuns and monks who escaped continued to protest by
self-immolation, demonstrations and rallies. And so, finally, on November 11
Diem fell. And it was
only with the fall of the Diem regime that I was released from jail.