STATE DEPARTMENT AIRGRAM RE: VIETNAM -TIGER CAGES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73B00296R000300050008-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 13, 2001
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: August 9, 1971
• Content Type: TELEGRAM

Original to be Filed in Decentfalized Files.
Enclosed is a letter to the Ambassador from Sir
Osmond Williams, Vice Chairman of Amnesty
International (British Section), dated August 4,
asking for comment on a report by Don Luce from
Saigon dated February 9 alleging that three new
tiger cages are being built on Con Son. Luce's
report is also enclosed.
DECLASSIFY UPON RECEIPT.
Enclosures:
LIMITEff OFFICIAL USE
SUBJECT : Viet Nam - Tiger Cages
z/fi)
REF London 73200
FORM
10-64DS-323
Dratt ea by:
POL:AGJames/j
Clearances: 1000 i
Drafting ate:
8/6/71
one No.:
114
For Deportment Use Only
r in _ Ej Out
Contents and ossi ication Approve
POL:WJGallowavl
State Dept. declassification & release instructions on file
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 ENCLOSURE NO. 1, LONDON A- X
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r
-1 section
4
Turnagain Lane
Farringdon Street, London E04
Tekphoru: 01.136 011113
Tslrpmnr: An woo London
His Excellency
The Honourable Walter H. Annenberg,
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary,
American Embassy,
Regents Part,
London N.W.1.
4 August 1971
~I have been authorized by my Committee to bring to your attention
a report received from a Mr. Don Luce, an American working for the
World Council of Churches, and to ask
a) whether the report is true and
b) if so, how it can be equated with the Standard Minimum Rules for
the Treatment of Prisoners, as adopted by the United Nations on
30 April 1955 (the last United Nations International Assembly on
this issue was of course held in' Kyoto 1970, when a large number
of Americans and some Vietnamese were present).
Amnesty International is a humanitarian organisation whose object
is to secure for every person the right freely to hold and to express
his convictions, and the obligation of every person to extend like
freedom to others; in pursuance of that, object to secure throughout the
world the provisions of Articles 5, 9, 18 and 19 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. Furthermore, irrespective of political
considerations, Amnesty International works for the release of persons
who in violation of the aforesaid provisions, are imprisoned, detained,
restricted or otherwise subjected to physical coercion or restraint by
reason of their political, religious, or otherwise conscientiously held
belief or by reason of their ethnic origin, colour or language provided
they have not used or advocated violence.
I would be grateful for your Excellency's observations concerning
the enclosed report.
Yours faithfully,
Sir Osmond Williams
Vice-Chairman
AYNIfY HAS COMVLTAT1Va arATV. WJTU
TNa uNrraD NATIOM (ICO/OCI, uNaaM,
AND WITH THa OOUNOtL OF 1VROPI ?rnwteem of the Prisoners of Comcience Fund:
Payne. Archbishop Robn4, ?, 3., Lard kh n".
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 by.
Saigon (Feb.9) , Copstruotion of three new blocks of isolation, cells is scheduled
to begin this moranI o$ the penal island of Con Son by an. American;tirm. Each of,
the three blocks W'i. contain 96 cells. The new construction will allow Con Son
officials to drastically. increase the number of prisoners hold under "tiger cage",
conditions, one American who is familiar with the project olaime.;
Development Support),-the American paramilitary eoonomic,aid,program here.
provided by MAC00RDS,(Military Assistance Command Civil Operations for Revolutionary
The now "tiger cages" will be built by the firm of Raymond, Morrison, Knudsen,
Brown,''Root and Jones (M-BRJ) under a $400,000 contract. The funds wiU be
RMK-BRJ priorities said. As such, it will raoeive priority in the routing of
The isolation compound will 'ae a "Top on Project", one person familiar with
r
supplies and'assignment'of persofnel. '\
.DON LUM ' l'
The Vietnamese authorities already have. one cell block under construction.
A January 7 memo describing the job to be done at Con Son states that the new
construction is to be "similar.to the isolation cell block.ourrently under con-
struotion as a solf-help project."
Prison labour will be used in the construction. Skilled prison labor will be
paid 200 piasters (72 cents) per week and.unskilled labor will receive 150 piasters
(55 cents) a week. There is some concern that the, prisoners will not be in good
enough physical condition to do a "ful day's work". Discussion is under way about
the possibility, of providing.epeoial extra rations for those who work on. the project.
Con Son prison was in the news last July when two American congressmen found
the "tiger cages" which had been kept secret fro years by the Vietnamese government.
The "tiger cages" Visited by Congressmen William Anderson and Augustus Hawkins
were built by prison labor in 1939 under the., direction of the French. ? f.
Congressman Anderson wrote to President Nixon following that visit: "The
Tiger Cage imprisonment of human beings and the savage mistreatment of these
prisoners are outrageous contradiotions.to the minimal standards of political
doconoy, we, as a free American people, should establish as a condition of our
aid 'end friendship to any nation."
The January 7 memo which dosoribes what the RMK-BRJ firm will build, etatess
a.Scope of Work, to the completion of three 0e4 Mocks, each partitioned into
96 isolation oe71oo an outer ooa-pound wsfl of conorote bloek; a barbed win
perimeter fence with security gatees kitohsn{ and diipenedrya"
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 Page 2, Enc. No. 2
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February 6 to provide living quarters for nine Americans, one French employee, l,r
eight Viotnamese specialists and cooks 'and helpers, '; Mr'.'+Ray Simmond' has been' III" 1d
named Project Superintendent.)
' A concerted effort has 'been made by, both R *c-'BRr7' and this, U.S government to
keep the project a secret. `+'' ,?'I , :1 r+ 0 ? r
P "Anyone who even takes a camera to Con Son will be terminated immediately,"
the RMK-BRJ project manager is reported to have'said.
The persons who provided the. information for this article have requested that
their names not be used. However, copies of five different momos on "Project
5623/70 Isolation Compound, Con Son" are in the pdssession'of this writer.
RMK-BRJ began?work in Viet Nam in 1962. Its projects have included agnntruction
of rogde, airports,?military compounds for the $outh Vietnamese government, radar
sites, etc. "It is,"'said one of its employees, "the largest construction consortium
in. the world.", It is best known in Viet Nam for the..loonstruotion at Cam Ranh Bay.
ME-BRJ headquarters are in San Bruno, California.
The July publicity surrounding the "tiger cages" led to the formation of a
special committee for the improvement of South Vietnamese prisons headed by
Professor Nguyen Van Trung, former dean of the Faculty of Letters at the University
of Saigon. The most important success of this committee's work and the Vietnamese
press campaign against prison brutality is that all 300 women who'were held in the
"tiger cages" at Con Son have been returned to the mainland,
.. However, the present condition of the male prisoners on the island is not
known. Several journalists have been refused visits. Forner. U.S. Congressman
Allard Lowenntein's request to go to Con Son was turned down by the Vietnamese
Ministry of Interior.`
The one Congressman, Philip Crane, who was allowed to go to the island
shortly after the Anderson/Hawkins trip claims to have found the Tiger Cages
"cleaner 'than the. average Vietnamese home."
In October, Vietnam's largest daily newspaper, Tin Bang (Morning News).
reported a riot involving.300 prisoners demanding better living conditions. As
a result of this uprising, Tin Sang wrote, 6000 prisoners:were'put'iato a mwd.mum
security 'area "no different from -the- Tiger 0agesi"
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if, 'i. +, I
end it.
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