Ngoc Nhi Nguyen (Danlambao) - Grace Bui is a U.S. citizen, she has a Facebook account where she met and befriended people in Viet Nam, including a few democracy activists and some dissidents.
She traveled to Viet Nam for sightseeing and to visit her friends. Everywhere she went she took photos and posted them on her Facebook, to keep her friends updated about her journey. During her time in Saigon, she said there was no problem at all.
But when Grace traveled to the North, she saw so many homeless people sleeping on benches in Mai Xuan Thuong botanic garden, they were those who had their lands and houses forcefully taken by the local government to build high rise apartments to sell to overseas investors for big money, she felt deeply for them and took several photos, trying to get their stories told. Then she went to visit her activist friends, one of them was very ill in the hospital. The police started to watch her and follow her every move.
After she came to meet Ms Thuy Nga, a resilient woman who struggled fearlessly to help the exported Vietnamese workers in Taiwan and to advocate for human rights in Viet Nam, who also participated in many anti-China protest marches, along with Ms. Jen, a US consulate representative in Hanoi, she was immediately kidnapped afterwards, detained for more than 11 hours for questioning and finally thrown on a plane to be deported immediately to Seoul, South Korea. She was not even allowed to go back to the hotel to retrieve her luggage and to get her pet dog.
Why was that?
That was because the Communist Party in Viet Nam was so scared that when Jen met Ms Thuy Nga with Grace being there, Grace would be able to interpret and explain thoroughly, to help Jen understand more clearly of all the dishonest, cunning and cruel things the Authority had done to suppress Ms Thuy Nga. This meant Jen, and of course, the U.S. government would know all about the human rights violations in Viet Nam, that the mask that they have been so careful to wear on the outside to deceive the world would slip, and so without any regards to the laws and diplomacy, Ms Grace Bui was quickly and rudely deported from the country!
At the same time, another Vietnamese American traveling with a group of American volunteers doing charity work in Hanoi, also got expelled. Of course, for the same reason that the government was too afraid that he would be able to fully explain to the American delegates about the human rights situation in Viet Nam, so he too was quickly sent back home to the US.
It is much easier to deceive the foreigners without those in the know hanging around!
An Australian couple, friends of my family, came back from a holiday in Viet Nam, told us that when they were sightseeing in Saigon there was no problem at all, but when the couple went to the countryside, and wanted to spend time in the house and homes of the village people to learn more about their lives, the local officials immediately sent them back to their hotel!!
What does the Communist government fear the most? Its that it can no longer fool anyone!
In the picture, Grace in on the left, Jen is in the middle and Thuy Nga on the right wearing white.
