by Laura Lam
Because Buddhism appears formless, it is much more difficult for a political regime to suppress or destroy it. Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu once referred to Buddhist monks as “those miserable unarmed bonzes”. Yet those bonzes were seen as powerful and Ngo Dinh Nhu had to use military forces to crush them, which led many monks and nuns to make public protests against the regime. Some even burnt themselves to death in a desperate call for peace and reconciliation.
* * *
The Strategic Hamlets – a tragic experience for those of us who were forced to endure it – were the brainchild of Diem’s two top American advisors, Professor Wesley Fishel of Michigan State University, and Colonel Edward Lansdale, the CIA’s man in the field. Years before, in the immediate aftermath of Dien Bien Phu and even as the Diem regime was assuming power, Lansdale and his men began operating in the North, encouraging Vietnamese Catholics and the Catholic forces abandoned by the French to “flee” to the South. Lansdale and his local supporters took advantage of the Vietnamese belief in astrology by organizing the printing of the “Sach Lich Nien Giam 1955”, a popular astrology yearbook. In this edition, all of the predictions carried the same message, “the bleak future of North Viet Nam.”
Following the distribution of this and similar leaflets, “refugee” registration went up to 860,000, of which 700,000 were converted Catholics. The remaining were soldiers left behind by the colonial army and their immediate family members. They would be given special privileges by the Diem regime during their resettlement in the South. Lansdale initiated a campaign of terror against the remaining opposition. He sent several hundred anti-Viet Minh political activists to Clark Air Field in the Philippines for training, then infiltrated them into the Vietnamese countryside, North and South, to conduct sabotage operations and murder prominent members of the Viet Minh. Among his schemes was a plan to sabotage the railroad system of the North by means of hundreds of mines that resembled charcoal balls used to fuel locomotives. He had secretly transported these mines from Sai Gon to Ha Noi.
These campaigns of terror failed to destroy the rural opposition to the regime. If anything, they consolidated the sometimes uneasy alliance of political and religious groups that joined forces to form the National Liberation Front in late 1960. In the Mekong Delta, efforts to combat the NLF’s hold on the villages had the opposite effect. So, some five years later, the ARVN regime and its CIA masterminds introduced the Strategic Hamlets.
* * *
It was a cool morning in May 1961. I was fishing in a village stream with Dzung. I had not been able to go fishing for a long time but that day my mother offered to look after my two brothers. I was happy to get out of the house. The sky was clear of morning mist but the grass was still wet from heavy rain the previous night. Sitting on the bank, each of us was wearing a conical hat – in case it might rain again.
We sat patiently, waiting for a catch. The peace and the quiet of our surroundings were broken only by the sound of the current rippling over the stones along the creek, the occasional jumping of a fish and the chirping of birds in the trees. All of a sudden, from afar, we saw movements. A long column of people was heading rapidly in our direction, led by a man in civilian clothes holding a loudspeaker. Behind him marched about two dozens ARVN soldiers carrying rifles. Dzung and I put our heads down, stared at the ground, pretending not to notice. How could we dare to look at government soldiers? We could feel the vibration of their stamping feet on the dirt road as they went by and we could smell their guns. I started to tremble. So did Dzung.
We lifted our fishing rods and picked up the baskets, wanting to get home as quickly as possible. We were too afraid to go in front of the soldiers so we followed them, not daring to speak, keeping a goodly distance between the last soldier and us.
A voice burst out of the loudspeaker, “Attention! Attention! All countrymen must move into the Strategic Hamlet within three days!”
Dzung and I could see my mother in the distance, standing in the doorway, holding my two brothers in her arms, her eyes were searching for us. The soldiers stopped in front of the house, and we too stopped, transfixed. We couldn’t hear what they were saying to my mother, but she appeared shocked. The soldiers continued on their way and she spotted us. She called out, instructing us to put our fishing gear away. Then, once she judged that the soldiers and the man with the loudspeaker had gone beyond the riverbank where my grandmother’s house was situated, she hurried us off in that direction. There, we found Uncle Muoi, Uncle Phan, their wives and several of the children, crowded into the living room in a state of bewilderment. Uncle Muoi, face twisted in anger, was deep in conversation with Uncle Phan. They were arguing about moving into the Strategic Hamlet – whatever and wherever that was. My grandmother and Uncle Phan kept saying that we had to obey the authorities but Uncle Muoi and his wife insisted we stay where we were. Later my aunts, Di Nam and Di Tu, arrived with their husbands. They took Uncle Muoi’s side.
Uncle Muoi said, “We will fight! All of us will fight! We’re not going to give in to this stupid government!”
“That’s a dangerous decision, Muoi,” Uncle Phan answered calmly. “We’re going to have to think about it very carefully and look at all the alternatives.”
Uncle Muoi didn’t want to hear this and walked away.
“How can we abandon our houses, the rice paddies…the land… the graves…?” This was Aunt Di Tu speaking. She broke down in tears. My mother also started to cry, but too restless to sit still, she got up and walked away to the kitchen hut. Mo Muoi, who looked even more distressed, followed my mother. I heard Aunt Di Nam say to my grandmother, “Exactly one hundred square metres, that’s what each household will be given, regardless of how many people in the house.”
The new fortified village, it turned out, was about five hundred metres from Constance Garrison. Di Nam was right, small or large family, it didn’t matter; each would get the same allocation of land. There would be no financial assistance from the government. People would either use the same materials from their existing houses, or gather new woods and palm leaves from the surrounding jungles to build new ones.
The three-day deadline of the soldiers’ ultimatum went by. A few families traveled to the new location with their construction materials and personal belongings. Uncle Muoi, meanwhile, went to the rice field to work as usual. Every morning before sunrise my mother and I took my two little brothers to my grandmother’s house, and we stayed there for an entire day. She said that it was better for the whole clan to be united in case the soldiers returned to harass us.
On the fourth day, a series of gunshots broke out in the middle of the morning. My grandmother shouted, “Down to the shelter, children! Hurry up!”
In no time, we were standing in the underground shelter, all except Uncle Muoi, who stood leaning against one of the windows up above, gazing in the direction of the gunfire. Then we heard the tramp of heavy footsteps approaching and knew that armed troops had arrived. Holding our breath, we listened to the panicked voices of Uncle Phan’s wife and the neighbours, but soon the shouting voices of the men prevailed over them – angry voices we didn’t recognize. The adults inside the shelter hesitated – my grandmother, my mother, and Mo Muoi – unable to decide whether we should stay where we were or get out. They waited for Uncle Muoi’s instructions.
Finally Uncle Muoi came to the edge of the shelter and called down quietly to us, “You all can come out. Take your time now.”
He reached out his arms and lifted my grandmother and the children out. We followed him to the front yard.
On one side of the yard – next to the poon tree – stood Uncle Phan’s family and all the immediate neighbours. On the opposite side were a dozen soldiers, each holding a rifle firmly and staring at the group. Our hamlet chief was standing in the middle between the two groups. Before he started speaking, Aunts Di Nam and Di Tu arrived with their husbands and children, followed by several more families. They came to stand with us next to the poon tree.
&n
bsp; “Fellow residents! This is the last call! You all must go to the Strategic Hamlet! To protect your own lives and those of your children, you must go. There is simply no other choice.”
Many residents lowered their eyes and stared at the ground; several bowed their heads; a few gazed at the soldiers in deep shock. Uncle Muoi stepped forward. “To protect our lives and the lives of our children, you must let us remain where we are. Our lives are full of hardships already and we cannot afford to abandon everything we have and simply move away …”
The soldiers stared at Uncle Muoi in disbelief, and the hamlet chief, irritated, interrupted him, “This is the government’s order and you should not challenge it. It may cost you your life!”
“Tell your government that we challenge them!” Uncle Muoi retorted, giving as good as he got. “Our answer is no, we are not going to …”
A soldier stepped forward, his rifle raised, ready to use it. Uncle Phan quickly stepped in front, shielding Uncle Muoi, and Mo Muoi reached for her husband and pulled him toward the rear of our group. My mother took his other arm, and the two women struggled to hold him. But they couldn’t quiet him.
“Justice has to be done,” he cried out, “and I’m not afraid.”
Uncle Phan immediately raised his arms then bowed to the soldiers. “Please, please ignore what he’s saying! He’s overwrought. We will talk things over among ourselves. I beg you all to give us some more time…”
Mrs Lua, our elderly neighbour, stepped out and joined Uncle Phan. She said calmly to the soldiers, “We all will be grateful to you, young men! Please let us live. I am sure you have families like ours, and you understand.”
They hesitated, and the hamlet chief took a few steps back. Uncle Phan, Mrs Lua, and now my grandmother bowed to the soldiers and begged for more time. Their sergeant stepped forward.
“Those who continue to resist will be arrested. Your houses will be burned to the ground. You have until tomorrow morning to make up your minds. Tomorrow morning is your deadline!”
The sergeant signalled the hamlet chief to move on, and as the soldiers left, a voice called out from the throng of villagers, “Justice is one sided, and freedom means repression.”
Around mid morning the following day, Uncle Phan and his wife were tearing down their house’s roof and walls when they saw fire burning along a row of houses. They could see people rushing out into the road and the rice fields. They ran to look for Aunts Di Nam and Di Tu, but when they came near the scene of burning they saw the same group of soldiers we had met the day before. Uncle Phan and his wife wanted to avoid being seen by them again, so they hurried back and continued dismantling their house. Later that day we learned that the soldiers had set fire to the houses with grenades.
At my grandmother’s house, Mo Muoi was still packing some personal belongings. My cousins and I stayed with grandmother. We formed a ring around her on the wooden divan. She was sobbing. Uncle Phan and his wife came over and started taking apart the palm leaf walls. About an hour later, my grandmother and the rest of us were still sitting in the same place – on the wooden divan – directly under a cloudy sky.
Uncle Phan, his wife, and Mo Muoi continued tearing down my grandmother’s house. Then Uncle Muoi told my mother it was our turn. We went home. Uncle Muoi and my mother began taking our house apart while I looked after my two brothers. The palm leaf walls were removed and Uncle Muoi climbed onto the roof and began disconnecting the wooden columns supporting the house. He said, “We must save as much as we can. Columns like these are hard to find.”
My brothers and I were squatting at the foot of the gardenia tree in the front yard, gazing up at what remained of the roof under drizzling rain. Uncle Muoi’s face wore the saddest expression. He sat on the roof beams by himself, trying to hold back his own tears. I watched him and wept.
When he came down to shake loose the columns from the foundation his despondent eyes were still bloodshot. We were wet and shivering and my mother went to a large bamboo basket and dug out two towels which she handed them to me. I wrapped one around each of my brothers. Uncle Muoi picked up a section of the palm leaf wall and made a tent for us at one corner of the house. We crouched under it together, listening to Uncle Muoi telling our mother about his recent trip to Ca Mau. Mo Muoi had relatives and friends there.
The very first Strategic Hamlet had been built in the Ca Mau peninsula. It is the Southern tip of Viet Nam, mostly surrounded by the Jungle of Hell. At the beginning of the Diem regime, nearly all the villages in the Mekong Delta had pledged their support to the Nationalists. The introduction of the Strategic Hamlets only reinforced the peasants’ resentment toward the government. When the project in Ca Mau began peasants were ordered by a Catholic official to work around the clock on the construction of churches. When the churches were completed the peasants were ordered to dismantle their houses and move. They refused, and as happened in Truong An, ARVN troops were sent in to intimidate them.
Within a matter of days, the people of Ca Mau moved into the Rach Gia forests. Forest Villages (Lang Rung) began to mushroom there. The government sent troops to raid the Forest Villages. A series of massacres followed, after which thousands carried the dead bodies back into Ca Mau in open protest. The government declared the residents of the Forest Villages “Viet Cong” and “Viet Cong Sympathizers”.
Two years earlier the government had created Agrovilles, known to the Vietnamese as Khu Tru Mat. They were not as prison-like as the Strategic Hamlets but had a roughly similar purpose, which was to deprive the Nationalist forces of easy contact with local people.
The very first Agrovilles project had been designed and implemented in Thanh Chau. Before its construction, the transportation ministry where my father worked created new channels and also filled up existing land. Thousands of workers were conscripted without pay – it was their “duty to the homeland,” they were told – first to tear down existing concrete buildings and clear the debris away, then to build the Agroville, sufficient to accommodate the six thousand residents of the town and its nearby village. Diem was indifferent to the fact that the rice fields were left untended while the project was built. He wanted all the work to be completed within fifty-five days, and it was. Diem himself came to Thanh Chau for the inaugural ceremony.
The following poem was circulated in secret in my home district:
Whoever returns to Long My and Thanh Chau
Will certainly see a total destruction, a heart-rending sight
Tombs and graves were dug up and scooped out mercilessly
Houses suddenly became vacant,
And all have been destroyed
Rice fields and fruit farms are now deserted
A dying and grieving village scene
Every where people are weeping and lamenting
The Americans and the Ngo dynasty are tearing our life apart
Our deep resentment will go with the wind to heaven
The night before we abandoned our village my mother took us to my grandmother’s house. There was nothing left but the bare foundation. Uncle Muoi had used several sections of the palm leaf walls to create a big tent for us in the banana garden, supported by the banana trunks. It was raining and cold and Mo Muoi built a fire to keep us warm through the night. None of the adults could sleep, and the children did not fall asleep until the early hours. My grandmother was in tears most of the evening and the children all circled around her, inside the damp, white mosquito net. Chewing betel leaves and areca nuts, she talked about her long-dead parents and the colonial distribution of land in the early days, how they had suffered at the hands of those Vietnamese who had collaborated with the French. She was still grieving over that loss and felt bitter that she could not hold onto even a tiny piece of land in the destitute village. Its value was nothing compared to what her parents had owned but it was all she had. She hated foreigners – first the French, and now the Americans, who had come to impoverish our lives. She told us a story of Governor-General Paul Doumer a
nd his land re-distribution in the Colony. This was a history but it was his scheme that had ruined her family.
She described, “Before that white monster visited the delta in 1901, he had already developed quite a reputation. He was clever, scheming, ruthless, and dictatorial. But he attracted a very large crowd the day he arrived in our province – people just came from everywhere, even the peasants with torn clothes and tattered straw hats. They were curious to have a view of this powerful foreigner.”
Instead of taking over the Governor’s mansion, which had been reserved for him, Doumer was invited and agreed to stay at the provincial chief’s villa. For his first public appearance Doumer wore plain clothing – four-pocket shirt and simple tailored trousers, all in white, designed for the tropical climate. On the other hand, the local dignitaries who greeted and accompanied him – particularly the socalled Major Landlords, appeared in their finest silk gowns, heads under elaborate parasols held by servants, feet covered with highly ornate shoes. These haute bourgeois were very proud of themselves and their new wealth.
To show maximum respect for the Governor-General, the provincial chief had arranged for a well-known orchestra from Sai Gon as entertainment, followed by a famous dance troupe. The finest cuisine of all the region’s delicacies was offered throughout his visit. Before leaving the delta, Doumer rewarded the provincial chief with two thousand acres of land in Thanh Chau.
The local people started to wonder when they learned about the gift of land. Whose land would be taken over to allow such a reward? No one dared make it a public issue, for the risk of retaliation was too high. My grandmother told us, “This new provincial chief had come from Ha Noi and he knew nothing about this region. But he had been chosen intentionally; the French wanted someone loyal to them and not to the local people.” Over time, the provincial chief continued to acquire more and more land for himself and his family. She recited a poem to us that expressed the reaction of the victims: