RHETORICAND REALITY

RHETORICAND REALITY

By Van Nguyen

Van Duc recounts in his memoirs “Vuot Qua Con So Hai” (Let’s Overcome Fear) that “after 1975, Vietnam, in the eyes of quite a few people, was a military power in Southeast Asia. It enjoyed the respect of many countries. Some neighboring countries even stood in fear of it. Although it was a small and underdeveloped country, Vietnam heroically defeated the United States, the mighty empire that had acted freely as it pleased all over the five continents ever since the end of  World War II. No one would ever think that a small satellite country of the Soviet Bloc could throw down this mightiest opponent in an unequal match! The prestigious Communist Party of Vietnam had never been so admired. The appellation Vietnam was identified with the loftiest ideals, the conscience of the world the pinnacle of human intelligence. Such a prestige caused, at the same time, fear among its neighboring countries in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia and Thailand, where the seeds of communism had been sown and taken root for a long time. Prime Minister Pham Van Dong's declarations during his visits to Southeast Asian countries engendered even more unease and anxiety among the leaders of these countries. The military invasion into Kampuchea, the search-and-destroy operations against the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh, and the installation of the Heng Samrin and the military  clique as an Instrument the liberation in Kampuchea had made the world suspicious of a territory expansion.  It was well agog at Vietnam's vile scheme.

   One may recall an event as it just happened yesterday. The giant Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, with his black eyeglasses and strings of flowers around his neck offered by young Kampuchean ladies, haughtily overshadowed his Kampuchean entourage when he presided over the first press conference in Phnom Penh. (The ladies of the old regime in Saigon who served as entertainers at the reception that day whispered to one another that Uncle Dong was so frail that he could not walk. He had been reluctantly supported by attendants on both sides as he came to the conference!)

    

Being panic-stricken, the world hastened to isolate Vietnam, pressure on it, cut off foreign aids to it and imposed a trade embargo against it.  Some countries even lent a hand to the Pol Pot-Yeng Sary clique, the gang of murderers thirsty of blood that had killed millions of their countrymen. The world had charged them with crimes of genocide. Communist China, which had been weakened by the Culture Revolution disaster and suffered economic depression all through the tragic days under the Gang of Four, flexed its muscles and threatened to give its former brother country a lesson. It came to no question when the elder brother country sustained a great defeat! It could only be dexterous in using sticks and stones to settle internal conflicts and excel in practicing human-wave attacks in battles and confrontations. Nevertheless, it failed to encroach on its brother country's territory.

 Economic depression and military great losses by the war in Kampuchea put Vietnam at risk the one-time elder brother country had then all its advantages in its hands. Colossal lines of army divisions flanked by armored vehicles, tanks, and cannons of all sizes overwhelmed the borders!  Vietnam had to rely on full support from the powerful eldest brother Soviet brother that took side with it, in hesitantly sending troops to the Russian-Chinese borders to challenge the People Republic of China’s Army. The Soviet superpower’s army would flatly crush Communist China  Red Army if it would not dolefully withdraw its troops from the China-Vietnam border provinces.  

    

 To everyone's knowledge, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam ceased to be a military power when the battles ended on the China-Vietnam frontiers in 1979. It even slid down pitilessly when the war began in the western provinces of the country and then escalated in Kampuchea. Popular resistance in this country developed and spread. The economy deteriorated after campaigns for confiscation of private properties. A myriad of men, women, and children escaped the fatherland in rush of freedom. It was a great loss for the country when thousands of professionals, experts, and technicians left the country for a new life. Vietnam, in the eyes of the world, was no longer an enjoyable place to live. Misfortunes never come singly. The countries that were unsympathetic to Vietnam were more than willing to resettle an unlimited number of boat people

 Cadres boasted about Vietnam's boundless potential wealth, land mines, and sea resources. They incessantly repeated Ho Chi Minh's prophecies about a prospective wealthy and mighty Vietnam: "After we have defeated the American imperialists, we'll build up Vietnam into a nation which will be tenfold wealthier and mightier than it has ever been before." However, every Vietnamese felt ashamed of his or her country's cripple economy when it was ranked among the few poorest countries in the world! Until this day, not only is it still economically dependent on foreign investment, it is also backward in every domain of the political, social, intellectual, and spiritual life. Methods of administration of the economy are in infancy; the laws are untrue, and the rules and regulations are executed in an inconsistent manner. Reports on the economic achievements, for instance, are unreliable. They often vary depending on whether they are advantageous or disadvantageous to the political regime. In 1989, reports from the People's Council of Thanh Hoa Province said that the province had good harvests. Local newspapers, in contrast, disclosed that the people of the province were facing a great famine! Still, the population suffered heavy damages caused by natural disaster.  (Achievements are flamboyant (!), but the famine is a reality).

  It is to our popular belief that the more children we may have the more wealth we may gain. The growth in population in our country is tremendously rising, creating anxiety. We should not be fearful as our natural resources are bountiful.  Nevertheless, without scientific knowledge and modern technology, we hardly extract and make proper use of them. In the 1920's, our scholars of the Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc (Tuition-free School of Tonkin) brought up with the practical ideals that to realize a 10-year economic plan we need to grow trees, and if we wish to achieve a 100-year national policy, we need to cultivate men. The Vietnamese youths are well known for intelligence and diligence.  With a sound, fair, and democratic policy of national education only could Vietnam take off and catch up with modern countries in the world.

   

  The most serious setback in the Communist administration is, perhaps, the mismanagement of the economic infrastructure and the squandering of “war booties.” Those war booties, according to some estimates, valued at 4 billion U.S. dollars, equivalent to the amount of money the Vietnamese signatory at the Paris Treaty in 1973 demanded for the compensation as amends for war damages. Only a few years after the “liberation,” could the people in the South could not help from complaining about the deplorable conditions of road communications. Almost all the inter-provincial roads built by the old administration became timeworn. Many of them were downgrading to an alarming degree. Old-age bridges connecting the highways crumbled one after another due to constant heavy traffic. The roads in the countryside were almost impassable to vehicles. In the Mo Cay District, for instance, roads that were dug up by bush-fighters for guerrilla tactics remained intact. The road from Ham Long District to Thanh Phu District was entirely impassable to vehicles and was only used for buffalo carts and pedestrians. The modern Bien Hoa bridge and highways, constructed by the American Johnson and Drake Pipe Co., suffered  damages. On the inauguration day, when the constructions were open to public traffic, the Communist propaganda hissed the rumor that the Bien Hoa highway would be used as an airstrip for American jet planes. Until the war ended in 1975, never had the people in the South seen an American plane landing its troops on it, however. Ever since 1975, the highway networks from the demilitarized zone--Ben Hai to the Ca Mau Cape--with bridges connecting rivers and canals, have become increasingly superannuated but have never been maintained or repaired. During the war, the Engineering Corps of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces was mostly in charge of the construction, maintenance, and repair of roads, highways, and bridges, from the lowland to the highland of the Republic territory. It was served by a contingent of experts, engineers, and technicians who were well trained in civil and military schools of engineering in the country and abroad. After the takeover of the South of North Vietnamese troops, these men of expertise and abilities were summoned to reeducation. Many of them were only released recently. It was a true waste of expertise!

  

   The waste of means for transportation, road and bridge construction materials and equipment, was another setback in the administration. Thousands of jeeps, trucks, and bulldozers, were found lying exposed to the scorching sun and heavy rainfall. An engineering officer of the old regime related that, during the time he was detained at the old Fifth Engineering Group Headquarters near Saigon, he happened to find dozens of tractors and trucks left unused in the old hangars of the headquarters. Many of them were all brand new; some were in good conditions, and others only needed some minor repair. Later, they were all found unused and turned into dumps of old scrap iron. Their tires were taken off and used as materials to make troop sandals! Poor gatherers of waste materials also happened to find dozens of drilling machines used in road and bridge construction buried in deep muddy gutters. The troopers of the “liberation army” found that these machines were so monstrous that is quite monstrous, and that were kept in mothballs. Their containers were made for use as water tanks in the kitchen. The drilling machines, which seem to be unusable, were thrown into the nearby gutters for the sake of convenience! An officer of a new battalion who came to station at the headquarters a few years later reported the matter to a senior officer. To his amazement, his superior said without a sigh: "Well, that doesn't matter, comrade! After reunification, we'll build up our country into a nation that will be tenfold wealthier and mightier than it has been." In a way, the latter really learned by heart Uncle Ho's prophecy about a bright prospective Vietnam! In 1984, an officer who worked at the Prime Minister's Office in the North told the following story.

  When extracting rock from a mountain for road repair, the People’s Army could not afford to get US-made boring drills, which are made of platinum, which are both powerful and endurable, by it could not find one. It had to use low-quality Soviet-made boring machines, instead. It was estimated that a single drill cost 1,000,000 dong! Expensive American commodities and equipment of all kinds during the Vietnam War were stored in warehouses at Long Binh, Bien Hoa Province. They were left abandoned there for years. Poor gatherers of waste materials could also find, deep in the ground, tons of precious commodities, sand bags, nylon bags, and even brand new typewriters, which the one time American military authorities had to bury for the storage of new materials and equipment. (Van Duc, VNHRW, 19 (1993:6-7) )