BANGKOK, Thailand -- Vietnam said Sunday officials of the fallen South Vietnam government will be released from political re-education camps this month as part of a lunar New Year amnesty.
The prisoners, held since 1975, are expected to be eligible for emigration and have been placed by U.S immigration authorities atop a priority list for Vietnamese wishing to leave their homeland.
U.S. immigration officials in Vietnam to interview other Vietnamese wishing to emigrate are to leave the country Feb. 15, two days before lunar New Year's Day, or Tet.
'On the event of the coming lunar New Year festival ... the Council of Ministers has decided to set free, or commute the penalties of some convicts that have shown repentance and made substantial progress in the course of re-education,' Radio Hanoi said.
The official broadcast said the release would include 'many former officers and personnel of the Saigon administration' supported by the United States during the Vietnam War. Radio Hanoi did not say how many prisoners would be released or the precise date of their freedom.
Western analysts believe up to 1 million people who served in the South Vietnamese government or worked directly for the U.S. government or military were sent to political re-education camps after South Vietnam fell April 30, 1975.
Nguyen Co Thach, Hanoi's deputy premier and foreign minister, recently told visiting reporters that fewer than 1,000 political prisoners remain in the network of re-education camps and all would be released before 1989.
Those who want to emigrate will be allowed to leave Vietnam, Thach said.
The amnesty appeared to be another conciliatory signal to Washington. In recent months Hanoi has begun cooperating on the emigration of thousands of Amerasian children to the United States.
Vietnam, one of the poorest nations in the world, wants U.S. aid. Washington has refused, saying Vietnamese troops first must pull out of Cambodia and Hanoi must account for some 1,700 Americans listed as missing in action in Vietnam.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Ross Petzing said released former South Vietnamese government officials would be processed for resettlement in the United States would be examined on a 'case-by-case basis ... but I would not anticipate any delays in moving them through the system.'
'As quickly as they can be available for interviews, they would be moved out of Vietnam and to the United States,' he said. Additional trips by U.S. officials to interview those wishing to leave Vietnam will be held monthly for the rest of the year, Petzing said.
