‘CANADA OPENED ITS ARMS’
‘Boat people’ mark Vietnam flight
Duy Nguyen had used up his last hope of escaping Vietnam when he crammed onto a tiny boat with 34 other people for a harrowing, sixday journey to freedom.
Nguyen remembered those tense days as hundreds marched on Parliament Hill on Thursday on the inaugural Journey to Freedom Day, commemorating Canada’s acceptance of 60,000 Vietnamese “boat people” on the 40th anniversary of the day Saigon fell and Communist rule swept over Vietnam.
Nguyen had been unsuccessfully trying for three years to escape Vietnam and used up all his money — even what he had received from selling the wedding jewelry his mother had given him to finance the voyage — when “a miracle happened.”
“I think God took me out. After I ran out of everything and I lost my last hope, an opportunity came up. A boat owner that I knew as a friend sent me news that he was going to escape that morning and asked me to come join him,” said Nguyen, who ran to his friend’s boat and made his escape. “We were blessed and lucky that we didn’t come across the pirates or storms or any other disasters.”
It was a similar escape for KyAnh Do, who was just 17 years old when he risked his life to leave. His father was imprisoned in a re-education camp, and his parents believed it was better for him to potentially perish than to remain in Communist Vietnam, he said.
“It was terrifying, especially at night. There was absolutely no light, nothing. It was complete darkness and you didn’t know what’s going to happen, but deep down inside you knew that was the way to freedom, that was the way to escape Communism,” Do said.
Amid a sea of yellow and red flags of the former South Vietnam, more than 500 Vietnamese Canadians converged on Parliament Hill to thank Canada for its role in accepting Vietnamese refugees and to remember those who were not fortunate enough to escape.
The rally on Parliament Hill followed the passage of the Journey to Freedom Act last week, which created the day of commemoration.
Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney thanked the cheering and chanting crowd for reminding Canadians of the value of democracy and freedom.
“Today we commemorate a remarkable story of triumph over adversity, the story of the Vietnamese and Indochinese people who, beginning 40 years ago this week, lost their freedom, their homes, their security and stability and had to seek new lives, risking their families in order to flee on the high seas,” Kenney said. “We remember those who were lost, we remember those who never made it out, and we remember the Canadians who opened the doors of this country’s hospitality in 1979 and 1982 to over 60,000 refugees.”
Nguyen said he saw first hand the brutality of the Communist regime.
“I grew up during the war and I knew well about Communism and their cruel actions against their own people,” said Nguyen, who left Vietnam in 1980 but wasn’t accepted as a refugee in Canada until two years later. “I couldn’t find a way to live like a human being in Vietnam after the war ended, after South Vietnam was taken by the Communists in North Vietnam.”
Having a day to mark the plight of the Vietnamese people and Canada’s role in accepting refugees is crucial, Do said.
“Canada opened its arms and took me in when I was forced out of Vietnam. This is my home now. I call myself a Canadian and I am very proud of it,” said Do, a chartered accountant who is also president of Voice, an organization that advocates for stateless Vietnamese refugees in the Philippines.
“It is a reminder that Communism doesn’t work and many people risked their lives. It is a reminder of the tragedy that Communism brings to human beings.”