After taking over South Vietnam, the Northern communists built an embankment around the Holy Land area to control the water levels. It blocked the water during the rainy season and diverted water during the dry season, in order to increase the cultivation with two crops: the winter crop and the spring crop. The success of this formula requires three conditions: manure, pesticide, and water. As water no longer flows in naturally, the peasants need pumping machines and motor oil. These are not easy to get in Vietnam, and they are under the control of the government. As a result, the inappropriate method of cultivation imposed by the communists on the Hoa Hao area has changed all the activities of the villagers. Not only do they suffer shortages of rice due to the blockage of the water source, they have also lost the catch of fish and shrimp, a source of sustenance with which nature had blessed this area. And their spiritual resources are also blocked: all forms of religious practice and worship are restrained if not banned. This is completely different from the old days, when religious festivities brought great joy and a spirit of concord to everyone in the village. At the time of what is called “the Great Festivities of May 18”, the entire village participated and the river was full of light-boats, the banks were decorated colorfully with flags and floats, and the sky was dazzling with fireworks. Over eleven provinces in the western part of Vietnam resounded with the recitation and chanting of the Oracles and Teachings of the Prophet, spreading his encouragement of religious practice and of training the mind to attain universal loving concord.
Today, the Hoa Hao Villagers are living under oppression and deprivation. Many faithful followers have been imprisoned or harmed. The Ancestral Temple has become isolated and gloomy. Not only the people in Hoa Hao Village, but those of the whole country --- the South, the Central region, and the North --- are suffering poverty and repression, groaning under the fist of tyranny that goes against the people's will. The people's will is Divine will; any regime that goes against the people's will shall undoubtedly be destroyed. This is what Prophet Huynh Phu So predicted:
“Do not belittle the people's will
Tyranny that kills humanism is doomed to fail.”
June 28, 1988
