A destructive force

Saturday morning, 1st August 2009:
Trang, Virginie and two local members of the charity were accompanying a group of foreign visitors for a tour of Luong Tam. The guests were part of the Spanish Speaking Women's Association in Singapore. Marta Garcia, a member of the VVCF, had organized the group from Singapore. The deputy director of Princeton-in-Asia was also visiting Luong Tam that weekend. With ten persons traveling in a sampan, we decided not to take much with us, to prevent getting wet. First we visited the VVCF's newly built kindergarten. Then we went to the medical clinic. The aim was simply to gather information in order to organize a potential donation for the furnishing of the new kindergarten and to obtain necessary medical equipment and diagnostic tools for the medical clinic. Laura had earlier forwarded a request from the clinic's head to the SSWA and this was the reason they wanted to visit the place.

Upon arrival at the clinic, we were immediately stopped by a plainclothes policeman from Long My district, who demanded our passports. As only two of the women had their passports with them, the man inspected them for three hours and determined that they were not in order. As such, we were forced to have all our passports brought to the clinic immediately. The plainclothes policeman grabbed all the passports and went straight to the district's police headquarters in Long My. Laura, who had been ill, by now was also present at the clinic. She organized a large van and we headed to Long My, where we were held for another three hours, in what appeared to be a conference room, with all windows and curtains closed.

A man in uniform from the Immigration office appeared. He took Laura to another room. In front of Laura, he and the plainclothes policeman laid a series of unreasonable charges against us, claimed to keep us here for minor offenses such as not carrying our passports on our person at all times. Standing outside the room, some women were very distressed. One of them telephoned the Spanish Embassy. Despite request from the Embassy, the group was not released. The Chairman of the People's Committee of Long My also intervened with a telephone call to the policeman but his intervention produced no result. Feeling helpless, some other members of the VVCF were in tears.

It transpired that these officers were unhappy with the way the charity was collecting funds and running its business and demanded that Laura sign a paper declaring that her operations were illegal. Our release was conditional on the signing of this document, despite the fact that we had proof that all the charity's operations are legal. After being subjected to two hours of intimidation, Laura signed the document and secured the return of our passports and our release from the police building.

Right after our release, as we were standing in the street with the van's driver, Laura spoke to the Chairman of Long My district, who expresses his "huge regrets" to her and to the Spanish women.