WORLD : Vietnamese in ‘Re-Education Camp’ Begin Journey to U.S.
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BANGKOK, Thailand — After many years of internment and waiting, the first group of former Vietnamese “re-education camp” inmates allowed to resettle in the United States arrived in the Thai capital today.
A total of 156 inmates and their families arrived on morning and afternoon charter flights from Ho Chi Minh City, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said. Many will go to California after a week in a Thai immigration facility.
Their arrival began the first major resettlement of the former inmates, some of whom were interned for more than a decade because they served the U.S.-backed South Vietnam government that Communist forces toppled in April, 1975.
“I cannot say how happy I am after all these years,” said Nguyen Cao Son, who taught at a South Vietnam military academy during the war.
He said he was held for nearly three years of re-education then jailed for three years for trying to flee the country by boat in the late 1970s.
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