ANAPI has an in-house newsletter entitled “Maolen Info” which contains information concerning the association and its members.

The editor is the deputy general secretary

Its title is derived from the Vietnamese word ‘maolen’ (quick). In Vietnam guards would punctuate their orders with this word but the prisoners misunderstood this word. Indeed they heard ‘maolen’ which also exists in Vietnamese but has an entirely different meaning; When we realised our mistake we decided to keep the word as a title to our newsletter.

The newsletter was created to capture the attention of our members, to support the hope that their captivity would one day be acknowledged and to inform them of what was being done to achieve this aim. At the time few believed that we would actually succeed.

President Mariani trusted Roger Cornet enough to give him full and sole responsibility for the newsletter without any precise indications on what it should contain. His only mission was to fulfil the members’ expectations.

Roger Cornet decided that the newsletter’s contents would be devoid of any polemics and that ANAPI members would be given access to the newsletter in order to communicate anything of general interest of to help locate comrades with whom they had lost touch.

At first Maolen Info was published irregularly because of the need to inform readers very quickly when something important happened regarding the recognition of former Vietminh prisoners’ rights.

The first issue of the newsletter was a single page containing type-written text. It was published on March 29 1988. The third issue, which was published on June 1989 had eight pages and was already the same format as today’s. In October 1990 it was decided that the newsletter would be a quarterly. Number 50 was published on January 1 1990.

Since law n° 89-1013 was passed and former Vietminh prisoners have been given a full status, Maolen-Info contents have become more linked to current matters and the number of pages has grown from 16 to 20 because of an increasing number of articles.
The newsletter generally contains a leader written by our national president, as well as the following columns (the list is neither complete nor selective)
Changes in the organization chart, important news, decisions taken by the national board, dates for ceremonies, information on national congresses, when our social service “reception and support” is open, changes in membership, new addresses, decorated members, regional branches communiqués, obituary, sometimes a birth column, information about missing people in the interest of families, practical advice on pensions, book advertising and travels to Vietnam advertising, sometimes accounts if the Indochina war if they are related to captivity or deemed to be useful for raising public awareness etc…

MAOLEN INFO is sent free of charge to ANAPI members at the regional presidents’ behest.