April 30 Revisited: The Unresolved Question of Reconciliation

In the past few years, both the Vietnamese people and the Vietnamese government have increasingly called for “reconciliation,” especially around April 30, which marks the end of the Vietnam War on this day in 1975.

During an academic conference I attended in 2023 at the University of Oregon, one speaker referenced the then-Vietnamese ambassador to the United States, Nguyễn Quốc Dũng. According to the speaker, the ambassador argued that reconciliation should take place because Việt Nam and the United States had already moved on and reconciled—and therefore, the Vietnamese people should follow suit.

That conversation has stayed with me, and it continues to raise a fundamental question: as someone born after the Vietnam War ended, who exactly am I supposed to reconcile with? I did not fight in that war.

Does “reconciliation” mean between me and Vietnamese people living inside Việt Nam? Or does it mean reconciliation between me and the Communist Party of Vietnam? If it is the latter, then as long as the Communist Party remains the sole political force governing Việt Nam under an authoritarian system, I do not see any meaningful basis for such a discussion.

Phil Robertson, an expert on human rights in Southeast Asia, once noted that Việt Nam’s human rights record in the region is likely only better than Burma’s. In January 2026, I attempted to compile data on the arrests, trials, and prison sentences of prisoners of conscience in Việt Nam from 2015 to 2025. What I found appears to support that assessment.

Over this decade, the Vietnamese government has systematically relied on broadly defined national security laws—particularly provisions such as Article 117—to prosecute and imprison dissidents, journalists, and human rights defenders for peaceful expression. 

Article 117 of Việt Nam’s 2015 Penal Code criminalizes the creation, possession, or dissemination of information, materials, or propaganda deemed to oppose the state, with penalties ranging from several years’ imprisonment to long-term sentences. Việt Nam has applied this provision not only to dissidents but also to ordinary citizens without any formal affiliation, many of whom have simply spoken out on social media or participated in public protests.

I examined emblematic cases such as Nguyễn Văn Đài, whose repeated arrests and lengthy prison sentences show how the authorities often target individuals multiple times. This pattern suggests not isolated incidents but a sustained cycle of repression. 

In fact, the arrest of Nguyễn Văn Đài in December 2015, in my view, marked the beginning of a decade of worsening human rights conditions in Việt Nam.

What emerges is a system in which repression has become institutionalized. Courts, police, and legal frameworks operate in tandem to silence dissent while maintaining a façade of legality. The latest example of this assessment came just a few days ago. On April 28, 2026, Việt Nam sentenced a U.S. citizen, who is also the CEO of BoatPeople SOS (BPSOS), to 11 years in prison in absentia.

Over time, arrests, harsh prison sentences, and pervasive surveillance have produced a chilling effect on civil society—discouraging activism, weakening independent journalism, and enabling the state to consolidate its authority through legal means.

Having observed Việt Nam’s human rights landscape for more than a decade—while working alongside activists, defenders, and independent journalists—I cannot bring myself to “reconcile” with the Communist Party so long as it continues to treat suppression as its primary response to dissent.

Some argue that reconciliation should occur among people, not with the ruling party. But I consider this distinction unconvincing. As someone born after the war, I do not believe I carry an unresolved conflict with Vietnamese people—whether from the North or the South.

Moreover, in Việt Nam, when the government signals a desire for reconciliation, it is widely understood that the Communist Party itself is the actor behind that message. Only the party can initiate such a process. Today, with the general secretary also serving as state president, that consolidation of power further underscores how deeply intertwined the party is with the state and its political structure.

The legacy of the Vietnam War continues to shape these dynamics. Although the country formally reunited on July 2, 1976, divisions persist. Silent resentment—particularly among those from the South—has endured and traveled across borders with the Vietnamese diaspora, especially among those who fled the country and rebuilt their lives abroad.

This is why the yellow flag of the former Republic of Vietnam remains visible in overseas Vietnamese communities in the United States, Australia, and parts of Europe. It stands in contrast to the red flag of the current regime, which represents a one-party system that claims exclusive authority to govern the nation.

As long as these symbols remain unresolved, so too do the underlying historical grievances. The current regime continues to deny or minimize the re-education camps that detained hundreds of thousands of former South Vietnamese military personnel and civil servants after 1975. 

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, the Vietnamese government imprisoned former South Vietnamese soldiers, officials, and civilians under the guise of short-term political study, which in reality became years of indefinite imprisonment without trial. 

There were firsthand testimonies to describe the harsh conditions—forced labor, hunger, disease, and psychological coercion—where many detainees died or never returned home. Beyond punishment, these camps were a systematic tool to dismantle the former Southern elite and suppress dissent, revealing a broader postwar strategy of political control.

Thousands of disabled veterans from the South, who fought for the Republic of Vietnam, have received no recognition or support over the past half century because they were on the losing side of history.

Similarly, the government has never fully acknowledged the scale of the Vietnamese Boat People Exodus, during which millions fled Việt Nam in the two decades following April 30, 1975, with an estimated one million losing their lives at sea.

Beyond the physical harm and loss of life that Vietnamese people endured, the literature and culture of South Việt Nam also suffered profound devastation.

After April 30, 1975, the Communist takeover in Southern Việt Nam triggered a sweeping cultural purge marked by the burning and confiscation of books, the arrest and imprisonment of writers and intellectuals, and the dismantling of an independent publishing ecosystem. 

All publishing houses were nationalized under state control, effectively creating a monopoly that eliminated intellectual pluralism and subordinated cultural production to political ideology. Through these measures, the regime not only suppressed dissent but also fundamentally reshaped the cultural and intellectual landscape of the South, leaving long-lasting damage to freedom of expression and historical memory.

The Communist Party has continued its suppression even of people in northern Việt Nam in recent years. The Đồng Tâm Incident on Jan. 9, 2020, involved a loyal party member, Lê Đình Kình. Around 3,000 police officers stormed Đồng Tâm village, shot and killed Kình—an 84-year-old man—because of a land dispute the village had with the government. The party later classified Kình, his family, and the entire village as terrorists to justify its actions.

For the reasons mentioned above, I cannot engage in any meaningful discussion of reconciliation with the ruling party unless fundamental changes take place.

At a minimum, all prisoners of conscience must be released, and political pluralism must be allowed. Respect for human rights and the existence of more than one political party are not excessive demands—they are the basic foundations upon which any genuine reconciliation must rest.

Some may argue that these conditions make reconciliation more difficult. But given decades of systematic repression of human rights and independent media, I believe they are not obstacles—they are the bare minimum required for reconciliation to have any real meaning.