In May, a brief communication from a source close to my family in Saigon informed me that they have just learned that my father, Tran Van Tuyen, whom they had not seen since he was sent to “reeducation” detention in June, 1975, died in confinement “in the North” on October 28, 1976.

This sad message from Vietnam coincides with news just released by Hanoi's embassy in Paris to Amnesty International and the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, stating that my father died of a “cerebral hemorrhage.” Curiously, when Pham Van Dong, prime minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, visited Paris in the spring of 1977, he told people making human rights inquiries about my father that he was still alive; and earlier this year Hanoi's propaganda machine released a barrage of attacks against my father.