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University of Iowa anti-war protests, 1970

1970-10-07 ""Iowa City People's Peace Treaty Committee"" Page 18

The Vietnamization of Saigon Politics cynthia fredrick

Two days after the abortive pirate rais on the Son Tay P.O.W camp, a brief item appeared on page sixteen of the Christian Science Monitor concerning the response of a local South Vietnamese press to the incident. According to the Monitor, this response had been "unexpectedly cool". In fact, " in the thirty or so main newspapers representing diverse viewpoints there was virtually no support for the bombing, even in a leading and normally hawkish government newspaper."
Two weeks later, various establishment papers reported that violent anti-American riots had broken out in the once peaceful coastal town of Qui Nhon, in Central Vietnam. following the fatal shooting on December 7 of a twelve-year-old Vietnamese schoolboy by a G.I. According to Alvin Schuster of the New York Times (December 14), local students carried the bloody body through the city streets in a "macabre procession" which lasted nine hours. They then joined a crowd of some 3,000 outraged Vietnamese, who (despite attempts of the police to quell the unrest with generous doses of teargas) "stoned some Americans, burned army jeeps, damaged several trucks, shouted anti-American slogans, and sacked Jimmy's Bar."
On December 20, the Boston Sunday Globe reported that a group of students in the Delta town of Can Tho had staged a confrontation with Thieu himself during his visit to the university there. Their message to the President was summed up in a note which "accused foreign troops of placing little value on the lives of Vietnamese or or of  South Vietnam's sovereignty," and not only demanded that "foreign soldiers end robbing and killing and absolutely respect Vietnam's sovereignty," but that "the government make public its attitude concerning foreign troops who slay Vietnamese here."
The news is being reported. It must be gleamed with a fine-toothed comb from overwhelming stream of reports on weekly casualties and kill ratios, downed aircraft, and military skirmishes. It is distorted, over-simplified, and fragmented. But it is there. Granted, incidents such as those recently occurring in Saigon. Qui Nhon and Can Tho may seem to be of only minor importance, for they are depicted by the U.S. press as a series of unrelated, localized happenings instigated by small groups of disaffected individuals. In fact, they represent only the tip of the iceberg - and iceberg which is rapidly surfacing in the narrow waters of South Vietnamese urban politics. Nor does this iceberg consist simply of isolated manifestations of long repressed anti-American sentiment among the intensely nationalistic Vietnamese. It also reflects concerns of much more profound and highly political nature - and for this reason, despite the tropical heat of South Vietnam, may ultimately decide the fate not only of the military triumvirate in power in the capital, but also of the American presence in that war ravaged country. 

For the casual observer -- and frequently, for the concerned scholar as well --- until the present time, any attempt to understand the intricate and mysterious forces operating within the spectrum of Saigon politics has demanded a formidable effort. Indeed, during the past fifteen years "politics" in the southern city represented little more than an apparently unending series of confused, intense inter-factional conflicts and maneuvers initiated by a handful of jaded elitist bourgeois personalities -- men openly reluctant to identify themselves with any meaningful program of action, who frantically vied for power and prestige under circumstances which consistently denied them either.
With the escalation of the war, the situation became even more complicated. For, in addition to the old-time Saigon polticos, many of whom were affiliated with at least one of the multifarious, traditionally 'nationalist' (i.e. anti Communist) forces (the Dai Viet VNQDD "parties" the Cao Dai or Hoa Hao sects; the northern, southern or "independent" Catholics; the An Quang, Vien Hoa Doa or Xa Loi Buddhists; or a variety of regional economic groupings, such as the wealthy Delta landowners), a whole new political "class" surfaced: military officers, businessmen and profiteers, pro American "professionals" and "administrators." Nor did the American sponsored attempts at "nation-building" have any noticeable effect on the seemingly inherent propensity of the Saigon "groupescules" to reduce themselves to the smallest common denominator: one leader, one supporter, and one "party" newspaper. Indeed the "national elections" of 1967 not only witnessed a still great fragmentation of the already splintered factions, but resulted in some of the least representative interest groups gaining control to both and legislative and executive branches. 
This November, I returned to Saigon (where I spent eleven months in 1966-1967 doing research for a thesis) for a brief visit. Before arriving in the South, I heard various reports about important changes occurring in the country - more precisely, in cities themselves. In fact, several well-informed Vietnamese whom I met en route to Asia regarded these changes as suggesting an entirely new phase in the struggle of the South Vietnamese people for "peace, independence, democracy, freedom and national reconciliation."Still I remained skeptical. For on the basis of my own observations and on what I had recently read in the U.S. press about political developments in the capital. I seriously doubted the possibility of "Saigon politics" ever representing a relevant concern. 
What I found in Saigon exceeded all expectations. 
Three years ago, the city was an island of peace, and ideal vantage point for "observing" the way from afar. Standing on a rooftop on a clear night, you could see the fighting in the distance - while business went on "as usual" in the streets below. Today, much of the action has shifted to these same streets. During the past several months, armed struggle has broken out. Much more important, however, is the ongoing and rapidly escalating political struggle in the city. For the Vietnamese are fighting a People's War, the kind of war in which as much emphasis is placed on political actions as on the military aspects of the conflict. Indeed, although virtually unpublicised in the U.S., there has been a radical transformation of urban Vietnamese public opinion about the war.Students, workers, veterans, women, respected politicians, and religious leaders (including Roman Catholics, who were formerly strongly anti-Communist and enthusiastic supporters of the war) have all taken a public stand in favor of hoa binh -- peace. Moreover, for the first time, they have linked this peace with demands for 1) the withdrawal of "foreign" (ie. American) troops from the South and 2) with the ouster of the Thieu-Ky-Khiem regime. The war has come home, and the "silent majority" of South Vietnamese is speaking out, loudly.
Many factors have contributed to this overt manifestation of popular discontent -- the heavy physical and moral costs of the fighting (hundreds of thousands of recently "urbanized" Vietnamese -- ie., refugees, have crowded into cities; some 50,000 persons, many of them homeless youngsters, sleep on the streets of Saigon every night); the rapidly deteriorating economic situation (between June, 1966 and February , 1970, the cost of living in Saigon rose by 300 percent); the militarization of Vietnamese society (more than two million men are now under arms in the South); and, ironically, "Vietnamization" itself. For as the American presence in the capital decreases, long pent up opposition to the Thieu regime has mounted. And, in response. The Saigon authorities are forced to rely on increased response. The Saigon authorities are forced to rely on increased repression in order to counteract the threat: between one and two hundred thousand political prisoners (no one knows the exact figure) are now being held under intolerable conditions in "interrogation centers" and jails. 
South Vietnam's urban centers have been the scene of anti-war activity in the past. The Buddhist "Struggle Movement" of 1965, with it supposedly "constitutional" demands, was obviously a thinly-vieled protest against the war and its attendant suffering. Unable to broaden their base, however, the Buddhists were quashed. Even after the Tet offensive, overt opposition to the war remained sporadic, and the regime had little trouble isolating their principal antagonists.
But since early 1970, a new trend has developed. Initially centered on rather specific, often personal grievances, it has evolved into a concerted movement for peace that had so far proved impossible to exorcise. A few of the more dramatic events reflecting this trend were dealt with briefly by the Western press. But such sketchy accounts conveyed little of the urgency and significance of the actual situation in the cities. Once again, the American public has been kept in the dark by a news blackout, and information which would have exposed the political bankruptcy of U.S. policy in Vietnam has gone mysteriously unpublished. 
Events were set in motion by the students. Last February, they renewed their demands for the "autonomy of the university" --- ie, that the police stop meddling with student activities in university buildings. Thieu responded by launching a "preemptive strike" against the student leaders arresting and seriously torturing several of them. The student body then set off a new wave of protests and demanded the immediate release of their comrades. But their statements also took on a much broader significance. In a letter to Thieu and his advisors, they declared that " if only you care to get our of your ivory tower where you live in high luxury, you will see the discontent and anguish of our compatriots and their afflicted laments." A university boycott was organized, and demonstrators poured into the streets. Hard on their heels followed a new group: a pathetic mass of war invalids, who protested bitterly about the government's refusal to help them find housing and jobs. While they roamed the city looking for empty plots of land for squatting, the students continued making news. In the National Assembly building, (the Saigon Opera during the colonial period), they tried to stage a hunger strike and played cat and mouse with the police. 
The invasion of Cambodia sparked a new series of protests: the struggle again escalated Student demands grew from what had been some rather timid legal constitutional points to a condemnation of the Lon Nol regime and its brutal massacre of Vietnamese in Cambodia. The Cambodian Embassy in Saigon (empty for the past two years) was "liberated" by the students, and militant peace banners appeared with increasing frequency during the mass protest marches. The disabled vets not only joined in the Congress to initiate an anti-corruption drive against the administration. Some independent minded Senators did act on this issue, with considerable success and wide press coverage. 
Then, on May 31. the An Quang Buddhists called for a forty eight hour hunger strike to launch a new peace campaign. While government troops surrounded the pagoda in Saigon, a twenty four year old Buddhist nun immolated herself as a "torch for peace" in Thieu's home town in Central Vietnam. Her dramatic gesture was repeated in July by two bonzes; the funeral of the second. Thich Thien Lai, was transformed into a massive peace march by students, workers, professors, Catholic priests, and congressmen chanting "We die for peace, not for war." Early 


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The Vietnamization of Saigon Politics cynthia fredrick Two days after the abortive pirate rais on the Son Tay P.O.W camp, a brief item appeared on page sixteen of the Christian Science Monitor concerning the response of a local South Vietnamese press to the incident. According to the Monitor, this response had been "unexpectedly cool". In fact, " in the thirty or so main newspapers representing diverse viewpoints there was virtually no support for the bombing, even in a leading and normally hawkish government newspaper." Two weeks later, various establishment papers reported that violent anti-American riots had broken out in the once peaceful coastal town of Qui Nhon, in Central Vietnam. following the fatal shooting on December 7 of a twelve-year-old Vietnamese schoolboy by a G.I. According to Alvin Schuster of the New York Times (December 14), local students carried the bloody body through the city streets in a "macabre procession" which lasted nine hours. They then joined a crowd of some 3,000 outraged Vietnamese, who (despite attempts of the police to quell the unrest with generous doses of teargas) "stoned some Americans, burned army jeeps, damaged several trucks, shouted anti-American slogans, and sacked Jimmy's Bar." On December 20, the Boston Sunday Globe reported that a group of students in the Delta town of Can Tho had staged a confrontation with Thieu himself during his visit to the university there. Their message to the President was summed up in a note which "accused foreign troops of placing little value on the lives of Vietnamese or or of South Vietnam's sovereignty," and not only demanded that "foreign soldiers end robbing and killing and absolutely respect Vietnam's sovereignty," but that "the government make public its attitude concerning foreign troops who slay Vietnamese here." The news is being reported. It must be gleamed with a fine-toothed comb from overwhelming stream of reports on weekly casualties and kill ratios, downed aircraft, and military skirmishes. It is distorted, over-simplified, and fragmented. But it is there. Granted, incidents such as those recently occurring in Saigon. Qui Nhon and Can Tho may seem to be of only minor importance, for they are depicted by the U.S. press as a series of unrelated, localized happenings instigated by small groups of disaffected individuals. In fact, they represent only the tip of the iceberg - and iceberg which is rapidly surfacing in the narrow waters of South Vietnamese urban politics. Nor does this iceberg consist simply of isolated manifestations of long repressed anti-American sentiment among the intensely nationalistic Vietnamese. It also reflects concerns of much more profound and highly political nature - and for this reason, despite the tropical heat of South Vietnam, may ultimately decide the fate not only of the military triumvirate in power in the capital, but also of the American presence in that war ravaged country. For the casual observer -- and frequently, for the concerned scholar as well --- until the present time, any attempt to understand the intricate and mysterious forces operating within the spectrum of Saigon politics has demanded a formidable effort. Indeed, during the past fifteen years "politics" in the southern city represented little more than an apparently unending series of confused, intense inter-factional conflicts and maneuvers initiated by a handful of jaded elitist bourgeois personalities -- men openly reluctant to identify themselves with any meaningful program of action, who frantically vied for power and prestige under circumstances which consistently denied them either. With the escalation of the war, the situation became even more complicated. For, in addition to the old-time Saigon polticos, many of whom were affiliated with at least one of the multifarious, traditionally 'nationalist' (i.e. anti Communist) forces (the Dai Viet VNQDD "parties" the Cao Dai or Hoa Hao sects; the northern, southern or "independent" Catholics; the An Quang, Vien Hoa Doa or Xa Loi Buddhists; or a variety of regional economic groupings, such as the wealthy Delta landowners), a whole new political "class" surfaced: military officers, businessmen and profiteers, pro American "professionals" and "administrators." Nor did the American sponsored attempts at "nation-building" have any noticeable effect on the seemingly inherent propensity of the Saigon "groupescules" to reduce themselves to the smallest common denominator: one leader, one supporter, and one "party" newspaper. Indeed the "national elections" of 1967 not only witnessed a still great fragmentation of the already splintered factions, but resulted in some of the least representative interest groups gaining control to both and legislative and executive branches. This November, I returned to Saigon (where I spent eleven months in 1966-1967 doing research for a thesis) for a brief visit. Before arriving in the South, I heard various reports about important changes occurring in the country - more precisely, in cities themselves. In fact, several well-informed Vietnamese whom I met en route to Asia regarded these changes as suggesting an entirely new phase in the struggle of the South Vietnamese people for "peace, independence, democracy, freedom and national reconciliation."Still I remained skeptical. For on the basis of my own observations and on what I had recently read in the U.S. press about political developments in the capital. I seriously doubted the possibility of "Saigon politics" ever representing a relevant concern. What I found in Saigon exceeded all expectations. Three years ago, the city was an island of peace, and ideal vantage point for "observing" the way from afar. Standing on a rooftop on a clear night, you could see the fighting in the distance - while business went on "as usual" in the streets below. Today, much of the action has shifted to these same streets. During the past several months, armed struggle has broken out. Much more important, however, is the ongoing and rapidly escalating political struggle in the city. For the Vietnamese are fighting a People's War, the kind of war in which as much emphasis is placed on political actions as on the military aspects of the conflict. Indeed, although virtually unpublicised in the U.S., there has been a radical transformation of urban Vietnamese public opinion about the war.Students, workers, veterans, women, respected politicians, and religious leaders (including Roman Catholics, who were formerly strongly anti-Communist and enthusiastic supporters of the war) have all taken a public stand in favor of hoa binh -- peace. Moreover, for the first time, they have linked this peace with demands for 1) the withdrawal of "foreign" (ie. American) troops from the South and 2) with the ouster of the Thieu-Ky-Khiem regime. The war has come home, and the "silent majority" of South Vietnamese is speaking out, loudly. Many factors have contributed to this overt manifestation of popular discontent -- the heavy physical and moral costs of the fighting (hundreds of thousands of recently "urbanized" Vietnamese -- ie., refugees, have crowded into cities; some 50,000 persons, many of them homeless youngsters, sleep on the streets of Saigon every night); the rapidly deteriorating economic situation (between June, 1966 and February , 1970, the cost of living in Saigon rose by 300 percent); the militarization of Vietnamese society (more than two million men are now under arms in the South); and, ironically, "Vietnamization" itself. For as the American presence in the capital decreases, long pent up opposition to the Thieu regime has mounted. And, in response. The Saigon authorities are forced to rely on increased response. The Saigon authorities are forced to rely on increased repression in order to counteract the threat: between one and two hundred thousand political prisoners (no one knows the exact figure) are now being held under intolerable conditions in "interrogation centers" and jails. South Vietnam's urban centers have been the scene of anti-war activity in the past. The Buddhist "Struggle Movement" of 1965, with it supposedly "constitutional" demands, was obviously a thinly-vieled protest against the war and its attendant suffering. Unable to broaden their base, however, the Buddhists were quashed. Even after the Tet offensive, overt opposition to the war remained sporadic, and the regime had little trouble isolating their principal antagonists. But since early 1970, a new trend has developed. Initially centered on rather specific, often personal grievances, it has evolved into a concerted movement for peace that had so far proved impossible to exorcise. A few of the more dramatic events reflecting this trend were dealt with briefly by the Western press. But such sketchy accounts conveyed little of the urgency and significance of the actual situation in the cities. Once again, the American public has been kept in the dark by a news blackout, and information which would have exposed the political bankruptcy of U.S. policy in Vietnam has gone mysteriously unpublished. Events were set in motion by the students. Last February, they renewed their demands for the "autonomy of the university" --- ie, that the police stop meddling with student activities in university buildings. Thieu responded by launching a "preemptive strike" against the student leaders arresting and seriously torturing several of them. The student body then set off a new wave of protests and demanded the immediate release of their comrades. But their statements also took on a much broader significance. In a letter to Thieu and his advisors, they declared that " if only you care to get our of your ivory tower where you live in high luxury, you will see the discontent and anguish of our compatriots and their afflicted laments." A university boycott was organized, and demonstrators poured into the streets. Hard on their heels followed a new group: a pathetic mass of war invalids, who protested bitterly about the government's refusal to help them find housing and jobs. While they roamed the city looking for empty plots of land for squatting, the students continued making news. In the National Assembly building, (the Saigon Opera during the colonial period), they tried to stage a hunger strike and played cat and mouse with the police. The invasion of Cambodia sparked a new series of protests: the struggle again escalated Student demands grew from what had been some rather timid legal constitutional points to a condemnation of the Lon Nol regime and its brutal massacre of Vietnamese in Cambodia. The Cambodian Embassy in Saigon (empty for the past two years) was "liberated" by the students, and militant peace banners appeared with increasing frequency during the mass protest marches. The disabled vets not only joined in the Congress to initiate an anti-corruption drive against the administration. Some independent minded Senators did act on this issue, with considerable success and wide press coverage. Then, on May 31. the An Quang Buddhists called for a forty eight hour hunger strike to launch a new peace campaign. While government troops surrounded the pagoda in Saigon, a twenty four year old Buddhist nun immolated herself as a "torch for peace" in Thieu's home town in Central Vietnam. Her dramatic gesture was repeated in July by two bonzes; the funeral of the second. Thich Thien Lai, was transformed into a massive peace march by students, workers, professors, Catholic priests, and congressmen chanting "We die for peace, not for war." Early [hand drawing] VIET NAM LOVE IT AND LEAVE 18