The Dark Side of Phu Quoc : The Idyllic Torture Island

Subtlety just seems to confuse people and so the Vietnamese government has good-naturedly sought to make its war homages as literal and interactive as possible with the use of life-sized mannequins, no matter how dull or inappropriate the theme may be. They are placed in mundane situations, like the ones chilling on hammocks at Cu Chi, or the UN inspector models at the DMZ line which are being served tea by a gorgeous little Vietnamese paper mache model. And then there are those placed in situations that are just… unfortunate. Like the re-enactment of the My Lai massacre – where American GI’s are frozen in place, forever terrifying women and children – or the torture scenes at the little known, un-publicized prison museum on Phu Quoc Island.

Phu Quoc is a tiny, idyllic island at the very southern tip of Vietnam that takes about three hours to traverse over dirt roads. An airport was installed about two years ago, roughly the same time a small patch of road on the West Side of the island was paved and resorts were built, including the exclusive La Veranda, where honeymooning couples go to snuggle on the beach and get their tan on. The hotel’s brochure lists activities to do on the island, like “snorkeling, reef diving, waterfalls, hiking in virgin forests, shopping at the market…” at the very bottom of the list, on the back page is “Coconut Tree Prison.” Located at the far end of the island, the prison is not a very popular destination for La Veranda guests – the hotel employees gave me a strange look when I told them where I wanted to go and it cost me a whopping forty dollars for someone to take me there.

The actual prison memorial is like a live re-enactment of the Josef Goebbels Handbook, complete with (American) mannequins torturing (Vietnamese) mannequins and a set of instructions for each torment, no matter how self-explanatory it may seem, including:

1. To break Prisoners Tooth: Torturer puts tip of wood chunk on prisoners tooth. He strikes violently. Tooth breaks immediately.
2. To Drive Nails into prisoners body: The torturer drives nails of differing lengths (three to ten centimeters) into vulnerable organs of the prisoner: fingertips, backs of hand, instep, shoulder blades, knee and even skull.
3. To force prisoners to turn somersaults on iron bar: Jailer forces prisoner to take his clothes off and turn continuous somersaults on iron bar full of sharp pointed holes. All his body is peeled off.
4. To Boil prisoner: torturer covers prisoner with jute bag and throws him into cauldron of water on the boil. Prisoner dies with his skin peeled off.
5. To BROIL prisoner: Prisoner is tied to two long iron bars, 80 centimeters off the ground. Torturer broils prisoner on slow fire. Like broiling a mullet.

Outside the show and tell memorial are the metal barracks where prisoners were kept and where US mannequins bury a Vietnamese mannequin alive while other mannequins stand around, smoking plastic cigarettes and presumably chatting.

An hour later, back at La Veranda, the tourists, blissfully unaware of the island’s past, were covered in sun tan oil and swimming in the ocean. A couple basking on the beach got into a fight.

“You ignore me!” the wife hissed to her husband, who’d been ogling other women in bikinis, adding, “You torture me! I hate you!”