PARIS – Mr. Vo Van Ai<\/b>, l\u2019 President of the Paris-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights<\/b> urged Malaysia today not to tear down a memorial set up by former Vietnamese Boat People on the island of Pulau Bidong. The Malaysian government gave orders to destroy the memorial after receiving complaints from the Vietnamese government. The move is aimed to \u201cpreserve good relations\u201d with Hanoi, according to Malaysian Foreign Ministry sources.<\/p>\n
In a letter to Malaysian Premier Abdullah Ahmad Badwi, Vo Van Ai urged Malaysia to preserve the memorial which commemorates the hundreds of thousands of boat people who died fleeing their homeland in makeshift crafts after the communist victory in Vietnam in 1975. \u201cThis is not a political memorial\u201d<\/i>, said Vo Van Ai. \u201cIt is an expression of thanks by former boat people to the government and the people of Malaysia, to the Malaysian Red Crescent Society and to all those who gave them refuge in their hour of need. It is a commemoration to all those who died in their flight for freedom. It is a gesture of remembrance by the refugees who stayed here on their journey to asylum\u201d<\/i>. <\/p>\n
The marble memorial was built at the request of former Vietnamese internees who are now resettled in the United States and Australia who visited the island in March 2005.<\/p>\n
Vo Van Ai was a founder member of the France-based campaign \u201dA Ship for Vietnam\u201d<\/i> launched in 1978. Supported by prominent French and international personalities e.g. Jean-Paul Sartre, Raymond Aron, Eugene Ionesco, Andr\u00e9 Glucksmann, Claudie Broyelle, Jean Lacouture, Leonid Plyush, Lionel Jospin, Michel Rocard, Bernard Kouchner, Miloslav Rostropovitch etc. the campaign raised funds to charter a rescue ship for Vietnamese boat people, the \u201cIle de Lumiere\u201d<\/i>, which operated off the Malaysian coasts and brought thousands to safety on the island of Pulau Bidong. <\/p>\n
At the height of the boat people\u2019s exodus in 1979, some 55 people arrived every hour<\/b> on the Malaysian shores. The United Nations estimated that at least half the people fleeing Vietnam were drowned or murdered by pirates on the South China seas. Between 1975 and 1991, a quarter of a million Vietnamese passed through the refugee camp on Pulau Bidong.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis monument is part of the Vietnamese people\u2019s memory. What happened in our history must be recorded, and Vietnam must come to terms with this\u201d<\/i>, said Vo Van Ai in his letter to the Malaysian Premier. \u201cThe Hanoi authorities should not use diplomatic pressure to try to erase the people\u2019s memory by destroying this memorial\u201d<\/i>, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS – Mr. Vo Van Ai, l\u2019 President of the Paris-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights urged Malaysia today not to tear down a memorial set up by former Vietnamese Boat People on the island of Pulau Bidong. The Malaysian government gave orders to destroy the memorial after receiving complaints from the Vietnamese government. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":375,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-vchr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/375"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}