The south Viet Nam ruling circles advocate the following: “After the elimination of the Viet Cong from a village (and this elimination will be radiating) to reorganize its administration, chiefly in the field of security in order to consolidate it, and to make the return of the Viet Cong impossible” (1).
This policy was carried out in the mopped-up regions under the form of removal of villages and concentration of their inhabitants into so-called ‘zones of prosperity’.
According to the Cach Mang Quoc Gia and Viet Nam Press, the official news agency of the south Viet Nam administration, the ‘zones of prosperity’ are to be set up either on or near roads or waterways, or near air fields already or about to be built; they are to occupy such a position as to offer facilities for the maintenance of security in the whole zone, and even the surrounding areas. This goes to show the authorities’ intention to establish them first of all at places suitable for military intervention when needed.
Each zone is to group at least 200 families. With regard to the laying-out of a zone, Tang Van Chi, former delegate of the Government in East Nam Bo, stated: “The zones of prosperity are set out in squares or rectangles just as on a chessboard… The different blocks have been built checkerwise, and are connected together easily and swiftly”. The whole zone is to be fenced in with barbed wire and a canal; in addition watch towers of the army or the civil guard are to be set up in some places.
In each zone, besides so-called ‘housing quarters’ for the peasants, there are different official buildings, occupied chiefly by the Administration and the Security:
- Security and police services;
- ‘Cong Dan Vu’ office;
- Military police office;
- Civil guard barracks;
- Militia post;
- Local administration office (commune or district depending on place).
The peasants herded into ‘zones of prosperity’ are obliged to go to work and to come back at fixed hours. There is only one door for entrance and exit, guarded by troops or civil guards. At night, all movement within, into, or out of, the zone is strictly prohibited. The south Viet Nam ruling circles have been making propaganda allegations to the effect that the ‘zones of prosperity’ are ‘agrovilles’ and will become ‘urban cities’. They have claimed that their establishment would bring about happiness to the peasants. As a matter of fact, those are merely deceitful allegations aimed at hiding the true nature of this policy of removal of villages and concentration of the people. Each ‘zone of prosperity’ is merely a disguised concentration camp, otherwise:
a) Why are the people forced to settle down there under threat of arrest, torture, and in many cases, death with destruction of houses and crops?
b) Why are they obliged to live in a compound fenced in with barbed wire and ditches under the watch of soldiers and civil guards?
c) why are they deprived of all freedom in their agricultural work and compelled to go to work and to come back at fixed hours? And why the ban at night not only on going out to the fields, but also on free movements inside the zone?
It is not fortuitous that Relman Morin, the Associated Press correspondent, wrote:
“These zones look like the kibbuts in Israel and the concentration camps in Malaya.”
Brure Russel, the Reuter correspondent in Saigon, voiced the following opinion:
“To some extent, the zones of prosperity are an imitation of the ‘new towns’ built in Malaya in the emergency period.”
And P. Chauvet, in an article carried by Le Journal d’Extrême Orient, a Saigon newspaper published in French, labelled the ‘zones of prosperity’ ‘sisters of the Malayan fortified village and the administrative sections of Algeria’.
Who are to be herded into ‘zones of prosperity’? As is known to everybody, these ‘zones’ have been established in areas where broad strata of the people participated in the Resistance war against the colonialist aggressors. Therefore, they are precisely camouflaged concentration camps for the detention of former resistance members and their relatives and friends.
Since such is their true nature which cannot be hidden by deceitful propaganda, the south Viet Nam authorities have been obliged to resort to force to ‘build’ them, and to herd the people there.
In the main, the work to be done includes digging of protecting ditches, building of foundations, roads, houses, watch towers…
Its volume is far from negligible. According to documents published by the south Viet Nam administration, the establishment of the Vi Thanh-Hoa Luu ‘zone of prosperity’ (Can Tho province) required the digging of deep ditches, the construction of numerous roads with a total length of over 70 kilometres, the removal of 2,600,000 cubic metres of earth and the construction of about one hundred houses. The whole work was to be completed in 50 days with rudimentary means so as to make it possible for the ‘model zone’ to be inaugurated within the prescribed time-limits.
To build the ‘zones of prosperity’, the authorities imposed unpaid work on the inhabitants who were obliged in addition to bring their own tools. While some people were living near the construction site, others had to come on foot from a distance of 30 or 40 kilometres. To do this unpaid work, the inhabitants were obliged to give up their own business, even when harvest was in full swing. Those who could not come owing to sickness, to the death of a relative, or to any other urgent reason, had to pay a certain sum to the authorities. Civil servants and businessmen in towns and cities were also compelled to make ‘subscriptions’ amounting to one day’s pay, or drawn from their daily profits... The above-mentioned facts clearly explain why the south Viet Nam authorities were compelled to use the regular army and local forces to impose unpaid work on the people with a view to building ‘zones of prosperity’.
But after the completion of the work, it was not easy to bring the peasants there even by force. The Cach Mang Quoc Gia recognized that this task was not only difficult, but also most complicated and delicate. It wrote:
“The greatest difficulty is to remove the people from a place where they have lived for years, where they have their houses and gardens, and where they easily earn their living. In such circumstances whatever the reason given may be: security, facilities for the children’s studies, medical facilities in case of illness..., they are inclined to regard the removal as something against their will.” (2)
Robert Franklin wrote in the British paper The Scotchman:
“The completion of a ‘zone of prosperity’ breaks the state of dispersion of the people who settle down there. But in this way peasants are obliged to walk over 10 miles a day to go to their fields, bringing with them farming implements and draught animals.
“That is why they are in the majority in disagreement with the programme of establishment of ‘zones of prosperity’, even the persons compelled to do unpaid work to build up the ‘new towns’ disagree; most of them were required to do unpaid work for entire weeks to build ‘zones of prosperity’ where they would not settle down.” (3)
Once again, the south Viet Nam administration had to resort to force to compel the people in former resistance regions to settle in the ‘zones of prosperity’. It put into action the regular army, the militia, the civil guard, the commandos, the security, the ‘Cong Dan Vu’ with a view to launching mopping-up operations. Whoever refused to comply with the orders of the authorities was killed. To make it impossible for the peasants to remain on the spot, instructions were given to destroy, demolish or burn down houses, to fell trees in the gardens, to destroy crops in the fields, to set alight, or to plunder all stocks of paddy which were discovered... Torture and massacre to demoralize the peasants, then destruction to deprive them of all means to earn a living, were the measures commonly applied by the south Viet Nam administration to compel the families of former resistance members to settle and ‘enjoy happiness’ in the ‘zones of prosperity’.
The aims pursued in the establishment of the concentration camps dubbed ‘zones of prosperity’, the shootings, tortures, intimidating measures and tricks used to herd the people there have aroused a mounting wave of protest. Owing to this opposition from the people, the south Viet Nam ruling circles have been able to establish only 29 ‘zones of prosperity’ instead of 80 as planned; unable to carry out their scheme everywhere, they have been compelled to reduce its scale in many places and to proceed with the setting-up of so-called ‘hamlets of prosperity’.
In fact the so-called ‘reorganization of the administration’ was merely the merging of villages to facilitate the control by the authorities and to herd the people in former resistance regions into new-type concentration camps.
(1) Cach Mang Quoc Gia (Saigon), March 6, 1959 issue.
(2) Cach Mang Quoc Gia, November 11, 1959 issue.
(3) The Scotchman, June 22, 1960 issue.
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