INSTABILITY
By Van Nguyen
The fight for powers by underhand
means between top leaders in the Politburo persisted in secret. It became
increasingly tense at the outset of the Congress of the People’s Army of
October 13, 1986. The prestige of General Vo Nguyen Giap, the hero of Dien Bien
Phu victory and his two close colleagues, General Chu Huy Man, commander-in-chief
of the People’s Army and General Van Tien Dung, the general commander of Ho Chi
Minh Campaign in the spring of 1975, was immersed in disfavor. Political
maneuvers closed in on the military leaders after the doubtful deaths of three
other outstanding generals, Hoang Van Thai, Le Trong Tan, and Dinh Duc Thien. Out
of a hidden scheme instigated by Le Duc Tho, top leaders in the Politburo, Pham
Van Dong, Pham Hung, and Vo Chi Cong, Party Secretary-general Truong Cinhh was
forced to resign from position.
In the
opening session of the internal Congress of the Communist Party on December 15,
1986, Nguyen Van Linh, the Committee Party secretary of Ho Chi Minh City was
chosen Party Secretary-general for renovation by a unanimous vote. With the
ascension of Nguyen Van Linh to powers, the Communist Party of Vietnam hastened
a move from command economy to market economy. As a consequence of burning failures of
successive economic reforms for a decade-long People’s democracy, instability
in the economic, social, and political life were still very much with the people
of Vietnam, however.
The Peasantry in the North
In Thai Binh
Province, well-known “the granary of rice North Vietnam,” people still labored under
“doi moi” (renovation).
There was no change in the life of the peasantry. A three-generation family still lived under the
same ancestral thatched-roof cottage. They had no other means for production
but bare hands and rudimentary farm implements. Agricultural communes and
cooperatives were dissolved, but everything was under the control of the
commune.
Previously, under the agricultural communes and
cooperatives system, the peasants worked for the agricultural cooperative and
were paid for the labor they contributed to it. In principle, the better
you contribute to it, the more interest you get from it. Contrarily, the
peasants, in reality, were cleaned out shamelessly. A cooperative farmhand was
given only 6 kilograms of rice over a month, nothing else but rice. He had no
sick-leave. If he wanted a day off, a portion of his rice ration would be taken
off. If he was absent from work, he would be interrogated and punished. His
rice ration could be cut on charge absence from work without a reason. He
committed the serious crime of sabotage against the policy for socialist production.
The peasant labored as ever. He worked twelve months a year including communal
works such as digging canals and damming a river. He was nevertheless paid for
eight and a half months. The compensation was meager. A cooperative farm hand
could only have nearly 50 kilogram s of rice for the whole six-month rice
season. In times of drought and flood, the peasant went hungry without a doubt.
Renovation came but brought about even more evils. Taxes
and fees accumulated. Peasants in the agricultural provinces like Thai Binh lived
in penury. Crops yield could only afford even for three or four months yearly. Parents
left homes for townships and cities to work on hire. Kids stayed home and took
care of family matters. Misery plagued the countryside. In the winter, kids didn’t even have shorts
to resist the bitter cold. Every time, a visitor from the South came back to
the home village, he or she usually brought with him or her bundles of old
clothes collected from relatives and friends in the South and gave them to
those poor children. An old piece of clothes was then worth several kilograms
of rice. (Interview with Nguyen Thi Diep. VHRW. Novembe992)
In the beginning, the peasant seems to rejoice at the
new policy, but he soon realizes that he is exploited even more cruelly than he
had been. He is now reluctant and feels disheartened, being aware of the
reality that he has to face new difficulties. As ever, the right to private
ownership is a taboo subject. Land is state-administered. The peasant could
rent it on contract. A family of 6 members, for example, could rent 7 “sao”
(700m2). Under this new contract system, the peasant stands on his own,
cultivating his fields and taking care of his crop. On the average, in a good
season, a peasant cultivating 7 “sao” (700m2) can earn get 420 kilograms of
rice. Under the commune cooperatives system, he is given 240 kilograms of rice.
Under the new system, he can get the double amount. But, the situation isn't
better. The peasant has to pay for everything, from seeds to manure. Before
renovation, he works for the cooperative; he can be afforded commodities on
state subsidies. Now, he has to buy them on market prices, which are often ten
times higher. Before renovation, schooling for children was tuition-free. He
doesn't even know if he will ever be courageous enough to continue working on
the fields. Many peasants can't afford their children's tuition fees, which
often cost almost all the crop of the family. They keep them home to work for
the family. They need to survive first.
Renovation
depicts another somber picture. Begging in 1988, the agricultural cooperatives system
was abolished as the first move towards the market economy. A good story tells, as he believes that good
times have come, a college student majoring in agriculture drops out of school,
nurturing the idea that he possibly takes advantage of the new system to make
good money. He goes back to his home village asking his parents to borrow money
from relatives for him to rent a tractor. He hopes that once he has had the
plough-machine at hand, every peasant in the region will ask him to plough the
field—just for the sake of convenience. That will save time, labor, and money
for the laborer. He will be there to gather money. To his distress, the
peasants can’t afford to hire him. They are penniless. Moreover, they are
accustomed to rudimentary mode of production. They still miserably depend on
buffalo-drawn harrows and ploughs, and hand farming implements for
cultivation. (Thien Nhan, VNHRW, 7
(March 1992)).
The
Peasantry in the Center
A peasant in Mo
Duc District, Quang Ngai Province, told how he survived before and after the new
agrarian reform: “After1986, the agricultural cooperatives system is abolished.
Misery is still pervasive. The peasants and common people are in the same boat:
They are equally miserable. The absolute majority of the people in his district
are peasants. Before 1986, they worked for the agricultural commune but could
not afford foods for their families. Three-fourths of the crop yield went to
the state--practically local cadres and authorities. After 1986, the situation
isn’t better. Adopting the path of market economy, the local authorities
allocated 800 square meters of land to everyone who was 18 years old and older.
On the average, the crop yield--the peasants usually grow rice--per rice season
varied from 60 to 80 kgs per 800 square meters. Subtracting the expenses for
the care of the land, there was only half of the crop yield left. The peasants
nevertheless had to pay for all kinds of additional state contributions, from social relief services to military obligations --not to mention
the tuition fees for their children. In addition, they had “the right" to pay the
rent for the land they were allocated and taxes to the State. There was
virtually nothing left after they had done all their "citizens' obligations"—from
national defense to social welfare fees contributions.
Propaganda is always instrumental to the policy of the
State’. The Vietnamese people know that the Vietnamese Communist Party lies to
them. It says the people are the "master
of the country" but, in reality, they are only the slaves.
They are like old and weak buffaloes laboring for the benefits of the state
cadres and Communist party members. The people are "the master of the country"
but the State is the true organizer that administers their lives and
properties. The Vietnamese Communist Party is the true master who reserves the
rights to the "leadership"
of the people! Those plain lies camouflage hidden schemes that are contrary to
reason and common sense. (Van Chuong, Interview with Dinh Phu: 11 VNHRW (July
1993)).
Warnings and threats are used as a means to an end to
control not only the people but also party members and officials in the
officialdom. They serve as the shields to cover up errors and mistakes. State
policies are right, only the executors are at fault. To execute political
intimidation, the Communist administration activates campaigns of propaganda to
rectify their cadres' faux pas and
corrupt practices. Those campaigns, in reality, are aimed not only to eliminate
corrupt officials but also to monitor opposition from the masses to abort it right
in the germinal stage. The repressive operations in the Center are a case in
evidence. While the campaigns went on secretly in the provinces of Phu Khanh
and Binh Tri Thien, they are carried out with hard measures in Thanh Hoa Province.
Having failed to intimidate the peasants in the village of Ngoc Tho, district
of Trieu Son, the local authorities suppressed with violence the villagers'
opposition. Thirty district and province security policemen, armed with
submachine guns and flanked by police-dogs, were given orders to assault the
unarmed villagers (Thien Chuong, VNHRW: 1992: 4).
The
Peasantry in the Mekong Delta
The demonstrations by the
peasantry took place in many places in the provinces of the Mekong Delta during
1987-1988. The incidents were unknown to the West due to State mass media
censorship and the "Internal
policy." The developments were
confirmed by well-informed sources in Ho Chi Minh City--high-ranking officials
on mission in Paris and refugees from the provinces concerned. The first
demonstration occurred at Mo Cay, a district in the province of Ben Tre, a
hundred kilometers south of Ho Chi Minh City. The district was well-known for
its “Dong Khoi” (general uprising) on December 20, 1960, the date that well
marked the precursory step toward "the War for the Liberation of South
Vietnam." Two other demonstrations, also organized by the peasantry, took
place after that, in April and May 1988. The second demonstration was directed
by veteran fighters of the Front for Liberation of South Vietnam, and it was
the bloodiest one. Armed with hatches, knives, and hoes, the protesters
occupied the fields of the commune cooperatives. Their demands were the return
of their private properties, direct evaluation of land policies, and the lowering
of taxation on farming. Police forces were sent in to repress the
demonstrations. Many peasants were seriously wounded. Among them was Ho Sinh, a
veteran cadre, who was incarcerated later.
The peasantry also organized
two demonstrations in Ho Chi Minacity, which occurred on August 12, 1988 and
November 9-10. 1988. According to the AFP, approximately 1.000 people
participated in the protest. Hanoi had to satisfy some demands. Each
cooperative member was then allocated a piece of land for his own use. One
might think that would be a signal for the return to the old mode of individual
land production in the South as previously. However, the land ever belongs to “the
people” as prescribed by the constitutional law (Article 17 of the 1992 Constitution).
The agrarian taxation is lowered. The lease term, according to the law on land,
passed by the National Assembly on July 15, 1993, is fixed for 20 years for the
rice-field and 50 years for the land used for multiphase growing. The lease is
restorable. Each household has the right to exploit three hectares of
rice-field at most. These half-way measures, however, did not satisfy the
peasantry's legitimate demands. They wish to be given back the rights to
private ownership and direct evaluation of the land.
The provision 17 of 1992
Constitution and the new law on land, in truth, dispossess the ownership of
private property circumscribed by a lease.
Someday it will be manipulated by the government for certain some
reason, transforming the peasants into the true "State farmers."
Deprived of his land legally and only allowed by the government for cultivation,
the peasant and his family only survive at the mercy of the State. They suffer
almost the same fate as their peers in the North did during the bloody agrarian
reforms in 1955-1956. Even though lowered, the taxation remained high. The
yield of crops was not sufficient enough to relieve them from making ends meet due
to heavy costs of farming. Worse still, despite good harvests, quite a few
peasants went bankrupt because the selling price of rice in the market
(averaging from 750 dong per kilogram (with one dollar equals 10,000 dong) was still
low. It is equal to or lowers than the cost of production. The peasant was no
longer interested in implementing the yield of land simply the land did not
belong to him. The limit of three hectares per household discouraged the old
middle-category cultivators who had possessed more than three hectares. As a
consequence, in the Mekong Delta where the population was sparse and labor
force was in want, the peasants abandoned farming. (Lam Thanh Liem 1993, 4-5)
