A letter from one of Thieu's jails.

Letter to all Student Unions in the world from Huynh Tan Mam, President of the South VN National Students' Union, actually detained in Chi Hoa jail. (This letter has been secretly sneaked to the Foreign Relations Committee through the intermediary of the prisoners at Chi Hoa Jail.)

From Chi Hoa jail, the Saigon regime's prison, I am very happy to hear that many student bodies in the world organised movements in support of the South Vietnamese students' struggle for peace, for the realisation of the Paris agreements and against the bellicose politics of the Saigon regime.

As you know, we have been illegally detained and tortured by the government of Saigon, even now, 12 months after the signing of the Paris agreements. Till now no trial has been given. Despite our exhausted health, we are determined to continue our struggle for our freedom and the freedom of the people of South Vietnam.

In protest to the Thieu regime, the most dictatorial and harshest regime in the world, we can do nothing but non-violence means. The Thieu government takes abuse of our non-violence to barbarously repress us. As a result many of our friends are now in agony and they will surely die if the government does not release them and give them medical care.

A Buddhist monk in Tiger Cages of Con Son in 1970. He had since died from mis-treatment.

Even if we die, we believe that the Thieu government cannot continue to repress and destroy the Vietnamese people, cannot dominate the Vietnamese people by torture and imprisonment, cannot continue to violate systematically the Paris agreement.

We, the SVN students, are determined to rise up for our human rights, freedom, democracy and peace, to struggle for the realisation of the Paris agreements with the National Concord and Reconciliation, to protest the fascist repression of the Saigon government against the students and against the Vietnamese people.

We also believe that the Thieu regime will never succeed in repressing the people and the students of VN if it does not have the backing of the Nixon administration.

On behalf of the South VN National Student Union and all the Vietnamese students, we would like to convey our acknowledgement and admiration to all of your, the courageous, justice-and peace-loving New Zealand students, the most representative of the New Zealand today.

We, the students detained in many jails in the Saigon regime, are convinced if we overcome death, we will continue the struggle for democracy and peace of our nation. If we die, our friends will continue the struggle and take the path of the poor, the oppressed and all the people in South VN to freedom, democracy and peace.

The Vietnamese students will never forget your support.