MINISTRY OF JUSTICE

HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY

GROUP PRESENTATION
SUBJECT:
SPEAKING SKILL

TOPIC:
“CON DAO PRISON – HELL ON EARTH”

CLASS: 4625 – N02

GROUP: 06
LECTURER: Nguyễn Thị Hường

Hà Nội, 2023
 GROUP PRESENTATION

Group: 06
Class: 4625 - N02
Subject: Speaking skill
Topic: “Con Dao Prison – Hell on Earth”
Lecturer: Nguyễn Thị Hường
Group members:

NO. STUDENT ID NAME

1 462556 Nguyễn Hoàng Yến

2 462557 Nguyễn Trí Cao

3 462564 Tiêu Hà Thu

4 462565 Nguyễn Bình Yên

5 462566 Nguyễn Xuân Hương

INTRODUCTION
 Con Dao Prison is one of the most brutal prisons in the world. This jailed
a lot of political cadres and patriotic Vietnamese who fought against French
colonialism and American imperialism. This prison used to be dubbed “the
living hell on earth”.
Con Dao Prison or Con Son Prison is located offshore Ba Ria - Vung Tau
province. Con Dao Prison is a complex of prisons on Con Dao Island. The
prison system was built by the French colonists to detain and torture political
prisoners who triggered the danger to the French colonial regime. This place
locked up Vietnamese patriots and many key political cadres who fought against
the colonial government. Con Dao Prison system used to detain and exile nearly
2,000 revolutionary fighters. The communists were brutally tortured by jailers,
but they were not deterred or discouraged. The prison system with shackles,
chains, and all the utmost brutal tortures was built in order to pull down the
blaze of revolutionary fighters. Currently, Con Dao Prison is listed as a special
national monument of Vietnam. The most famous place in the prison is the
“Tiger Cages” area. Nowadays, Con Dao is not just a historical site in Con Dao
all the time, but also an attraction in Con Dao appealing to many visitors from
all over the world. Coming here is to find the root, to remember the
revolutionary tradition of the forefather’s generation, and to express gratefulness
for the sacrifice of the country.
Visiting Con Dao Prison, all images of a severe prison with tiger cages,
byre, farms, Phu Hai Prison, Ma Thien Lanh Bridge, and the Limekiln
area...appear along with the brutality of colonialism and imperialism. Indeed,
when visiting these prisons, you might shudder when witnessing hot and stuffy
cells with the forms of slavery, the most grisly tools of torture applied to people
by people.
The Con Dao Prison System consists of 11 areas: Phu Hai Prison, Phu
Son Prison, Phu Tho Camp, Phu Tuong Camp, Tiger Cages, Barn, Phu An
Camp, Phu Binh Camp, Phu Hung Camp, and un-finished prison No.9. Con Dao
Prison system over two periods under the French colonialism and U.S
imperialism has 127 ward, 42 cells, and 504 “tiger cages”. Besides, there are
other prison grounds built to kill gradually prisoners as well as serve
comprehensively all fields in the life of colonialism and imperialism.

CONTENT
 Referring to Con Dao prison system, the entire world is terrified of
various forms of detention, imprisonment and brutal torture. The most notorious
place in Con Dao Prison Complex is the “Tiger Cage” area which is the harshest
solitary confinement in prison. Tiger cages includes French Tiger cages and
American ones.
I. French Tiger cages
1. Origins
Since 1862, the French had used Con Dao as a place to imprison
indigenous people who were anti-Government. In 1910, France began to build
the first solid prison on Con Son Island. In 1955, Major Aloise Blank handed
over Con Dao prison to the Saigon regime, ending nearly a century of barbaric
crimes of the French colonialists.

2. Description
Tiger cages were usually built in a secluded place, separated from other
prisons by many walls and located far away from the normal life outside. In a
cramped room, each prisoner was only given an area about two extended hand
lengths to lie down and live, the legs were cuffed to an iron rod and pulled up
high (both days and nights, when they were eating, drinking,  bathing…). The
Tiger Cage only had a small door which was closed all day, above it, there were
horizontal and vertical iron bars. There was also a small path above the cells for
the wardens to observe the prisoners.

3. Measurements
The tiger cage was built by the French in 1940, with a total area of 5,475
m², the prison area of 1,408 m, the sunlit rooms area of 1,873 m, and empty
space of  2,194 m². There were 120 solitary confinement rooms (divided into 2
zones, 60  rooms each).

4. Discovery
In the summer of 1970, when Tom Harkin, a staff member of the US
Congress was working in the house post office, other staff ther staff came up to
him and said: “Hey your boss wants to see you. They’re planning a
congressional to go visit Vietnam” and wanted to know if Tom would go along
as a staff person and Tom said sure. In preparation for this, Tom Harkin started
reading up more on South Vietnam, and he read the book named “Vietnam –
The unheard voices” by Don Luce. At that moment, he wanted to meet Don
Luce and wanted to find some of the student leaders who had written a repport
about Con Son prison. After meeting Don Luce, he was told about Cao Nguyen
Loi, a student leader. Cao Nguyen Loi and his brother had been involved in a
demonstration against the war and had been sent to the tiger cages, the house
that the French colonialist used to detained and tortured the most difficult
prisoners causing the most troubles for the South Vietnam. Cao Nguyen Loi was
let out of jail and was threatened that they would kill his brother if he revealed
the secrets of tiger cages. Loi came to see Don Luce, told him the scretary story
and drew him a map. When visited Con Dao prison with the US parlimentary
delegation, Don Luce and Tom Harkin followed the map Loi drew. They met
Colonel Nguyen Van Ve who took them to the first camp. They looked at their
map and found it did not correspond. They went to the second camp, did not
match their map, went to more camp and they went in, and Tom Harkin said:
“Aha, this is it”. He walked back between these walls and turned left, there is a
little door. He said congressman: “I found it. I found the out where the tiger
cages are”. They walked ahead, turned the corner and stood by this door.
Colonel Nguyen Van Ve saw him standing there by that door, he got very
excited: “Oh door permanently locked”. No sooner had he said that and Tom
Harkin heard this clunk. There was a guard on the other side of that door. The
guard obviously heard Colonel Ve’s voice and he was going to open the door.
The door swung open. Tom immediately ran through the door and in, and that is
where the tiger cages were. They walked down like a catwalk over prisoners.
Below them people crammed into these small spaces, were brutally torture. Tom
took his camera, started taking pictures and recorded the interview with
prisoners. When the committee returned to the US, Tom Harkin published his
photos of the Tiger Cages in LIFE magazin in July of 1970. Outrage over the
Tiger Cages sparked demonstrations around the world.

5. Types of torture
In the Tiger Cage, the prisoners were treated with extreme brutality. They
had meals twice a day, and water was only given twice along with them. For
meals, the prisoners were rationed to rice, salted fish and stock fish. Moreover,
prisoners had to "eat watery rice with rotten salted fish having maggots and
bitter and rotten stockfish. The dishes and chopsticks were kept in a dusty
bucket, which was licked by the dogs before the prisoners used  them for their
meals”. When bathing, one prisoner used his amount of water together with the
water of the other four prisoners in the cell. Therefore, each prisoner took turns
to bathe once every five days. The water must also be reused three or four times:
the "first time” water was used for bathing the head, the "second time"  water
was for hands and feet. As a result, the "last" water turned completely black.
"This water was further used for washing clothes". During the year, prisoners
were not allowed to eat vegetables, so their teeth were severely damaged. The
prisoners had to eat "la cau" (leaves that were given for prisoners to use when
they go to the toilet) or look for insects… which fell into the prison from
outside. As a result, the prisoner's health got worse rapidly.
In addition to starvation, prisoners of the Tiger Cage also received the
harshest physical tortures from wardens. “The warden will go along the corridor
above the cells to control and monitor the prisoners kept in the cell below,
which is the same as keeping animals. Standing on the iron bars, the guards were
always ready to use long sticks to beat the prisoners from above. On the top of
each cell, there was a bucket of water and a bucket of lime. When the prisoners
were thirsty, they poured the water down. If the prisoners were against them,
they  sprinkle lime powder on the prisoners which made their eyes hurt.”
Prisoners in the Tiger Cage never felt at ease. They were always
observed and controlled and beaten at any time. The warden bet them daily
from the morning till the evening. The prisoners were beaten when they went
to clean the toilet, had lunch. When the wardens got drunk, they tortured the
prisoners to relieve their stress. When they got promoted,  they beat the
prisoners to celebrate. When they were rebuked by their managers,  they beat
them for revenge. They caused the health of the prisoners to become worse by
beating them. If there was anyone with good health, they would torture the
prisoners with good health to make them exhausted and cause the ones who
were sick to die.

II. American Tiger cages

1. Origins
 After the French surrendered and pulled out of the region in 1954, Con
Dao prison belonged to the Republic of Vietnam. Then, in 1971,  the US and
the Republic of Vietnam built tiger cage, which is also known as Camp 7 or
Phu Binh camp. The American Tiger Cages were built at a cost of up to
400,000 USD, which was implemented by American companies. In 1970, the
US Navy Department signed a contract with the Companies of Raymond,
Morrison, Knutson - Brown  Root and Jones to build 384 new Tiger Cages,
smaller than the old ones. Ironically, the money to build these new Tiger
Cages comes from the program U.S. Food for Peace.

2. Measurements and description

The camp has a total area of 25,768 m². The cells area is 3,800 m2, the
dependent house is 673 m², the living house is 173 m², and the empty space is
22,369 m². Phu Binh camp has 384 solitary confinement rooms  (divided into
4 zones: AB-CD-EF-GH, each zone has 2 rows, and each row has  48 rooms).
All rooms are same. Each room has iron bars above, similar to French tiger
cages but have no gallery. Different from French architecture ( spacious and
has airy lobby), in The American Tiger Cages, the path between two rows of
cells is only about 1 meter, which is incredibly cramped.  The roof is covered
by fibro cement and very low so rooms become scorching by day. Besides,
there has no pedestal in the cells, the prisoners had to lie on the floor with
damp air by day and the smell of the soil rose at night. Each Tiger Cage is
about 1.5 x 2.7m cells and has no bed or toilet in it. Being imprisoned here,
prisoners only had space about two extended hand length to lie down and live,
the legs were cuffed to an iron rod and pulled up high (both days and nights,
when they were eating, drinking,  bathing…). In the hot season,  there were 8-
10 prisoners in each room, and in the cold season, there were only  1-2 people.
Prisoners had to urinate into wooden containers. All daily activities such as
eating, drinking, bathing and urinating were limited within that cell. The
health of prisoners got worse very quickly when they stayed in these solitary
confinement rooms”. 

3. Types of torture
This camp was the hell in prisoner’s mind. Every time they held the
struggle against the guards, they would be fined for dumping containers
where prisoners urinated in a few days or weeks or longer … All the dirty
thing of from 8 to 10 prisoners were involved their bodies in solitary rooms
of about 5m2. Moreover, at noon of the hot days with the heady smell
unclean, the guards opened the doors to check and closed strongly to create
deafening noises. These noises spread to 48 rooms in a row, with 8
consecutive rows and 384 times of intense input into the chest and the heads
of prisoners. This is really horrible form of psychological torture for
prisoners. Besides, the guards also used the natural factors to exile the
prisoners. Not to need whips, the prisoners died slowly by the American
architecture and that is why Phu Binh Camp was called the American tiger
cages. More cruelly, prisoners of the Tiger Cage also received harshest 
tortures. The force suppressing prisoners was the "nguoi tu trat tu" (which
means warden). They used brutal forms of torture such as using iron rods to
hit the prisoners' pressure points, using American F8 iron cuffs with sharp
teeth to shackle prisoners. Every time they moved, their legs were stabbed
by the sharp teeth of the cuffs, which made the prisoners in agony. For a
long time, the teeth cut deep into the prisoner's leg, which was a torture
whenever they turn their body to lie on one side or on their back. This was
also the place where the US  imperialists used the most malicious
conspiracy tricks compared to those in other camps. They poured dirty
water, lime powder, and starved the prisoners. The prisoners were shackled
individually or as a group... The Tiger Cage - like a place for “smelting”
people, became the terror of Con Dao prisoners. Therefore, the  prisoners
also called the Tiger Cages the real " sheaths of areca trees ". Because when
people were kept here, their skin color turned from bright to dark, the
enemy used the most brutal methods to force the prisoners to tell them the
secrets, which were against their conscience. 
    The Tiger Cage is considered a prison located inside another prison
because it is located between two prison rows, each row has its own gate, so
only normal cells can be seen. Here, the French and the U.S. authorities
detained main political prisoners who were resilient Communist soldiers.
Prisoners in the Tiger Cage never felt at ease. They were always observed and
controlled and beaten at any time. The warden bet them daily from the
morning till the evening. The prisoners were beaten when they went to clean
the toilet, had lunch. When the wardens got drunk, they tortured the prisoners
to relieve their stress. When they got promoted,  they bet the prisoners to
celebrate. When they were rebuked by their managers,  they bet them for
revenge. They caused the health of the prisoners to become worse by beating
them. If there was anyone with good health, they would torture the prisoners
with good health to make them exhausted and cause the ones who  were sick
to die. The barbaric beating of the wardens on the night of March 27,  1961, at
the Tiger Cage caused 5 people to die on the spot. They were Ngo Den, Pham
Thanh Trung, Hoang Chat, Nguyen Cong Toc, Cao Van Ngoc; Mr. Hoang
Son was dying and died the next day, Mr. Nguyen Van Dinh was severely
injured and died 16 days later. Mr. Huynh Van Khi had 11 ribs and 2 collar
bones broken; Mr. Phan Trong Binh had 2 ribs broken and 3 vertebrae
damaged. 
In short, Phu Binh Camp is one of the places prisoning communist
soldiers. In each prisoning zone, there are hundreds of prisoners shackled,
chained at the peak times. The guards used various forms of torture from
physical to the spirit to revolutionary soldiers. Today, each of prison wall,
prison cell, each of tree or rock in Phu Binh Camp is monuments witnessing
the barbarian crimes of colonialism, imperialism and their lackeys. However,
also in the island, the mettle of patriots, the fighting spirit and strengths of the
communist soldiers against the enemy have been shown off. It is the
unyielding spirit that has significantly contributed to bring the national
liberation revolution to win and asserted sovereignty and independence of the
country. Phu Binh Camp is not only a normal prison but becomes an
eyewitness for the independence.

CONCLUSION
Nowadays, the system of Con Dao Prison is no longer used for jail or
torture, it is open to visitors and recognized as a special and important national
historical site. With unforgivable evidence about the crime of the French and
American in the past, Con Dao Prison is the place where more and more visitors
come to explore and understand the patriotism of the Vietnamese people and the
brutality of colonialism and imperialism.
   BIÊN BẢN XÁC ĐỊNH MỨC ĐỘ THAM GIA VÀ KẾT QUẢ THAM
GIA LÀM BÀI TẬP NHÓM HỌC PHẦN TIẾNG ANH PHÁP LÝ CƠ
BẢN

Ngày: 12/04/2023 Địa điểm: Trường Đại học Luật Hà Nội

Nhóm: 06 Lớp: 4625 - N02
Tổng số sinh viên của nhóm:
+ Có mặt: 05
+ Vắng mặt: 0 Có lý do:...............Không lý do:..................
Tên bài tập: “Con Dao prison – Hell on Earth”
Xác định mức độ tham gia và kết quả tham gia của từng sinh viên trong việc
thực hiện bài tập nhóm.
Kết quả như sau:

Đánh giá Đánh giá

của SV của giáo viên
SV
STT Mã SV Họ và tên Điểm Điểm GV
ký tên
A B C (số) (chữ) ký
tên
1. 462556 Nguyễn Hoàng Yến X
2. 462557 Nguyễn Trí Cao X
3. 462564 Tiêu Hà Thu X
4. 462565 Nguyễn Bình Yên X
5. 462566 Nguyễn Xuân Hương X

- Kết quả điểm bài viết: Hà Nội, ngày 12 tháng 04 năm 20223
+ Giáo viên chấm thứ nhất:............................... Trưởng nhóm
+ Giáo viên chấm thứ hai:.................................
- Kết quả điểm thuyết trình:..............................
- Giáo viên cho thuyết trình:.............................
- Điểm kết luận cuối cùng
Giáo viên đánh giá cuối cùng:.......................... NGUYỄN HOÀNG YẾN