by Laura Lam
And shoot down without caring
where…
“We must find a way to discourage them,” Dai asked. “Do you have any idea how we can prevent them from coming low enough to shoot at people? ”
After much discussion, we came up with a solution. We strapped several bamboo poles together, end to end, then wrapped dried hay around the topmost pole to make it look bulky. We then stuck them into the ground wherever there was open space. It worked! Every time helicopters arrived, they were kept from flying lower because of the vast number of our bamboo contraptions pointing at the sky.
Young children in every family contributed to the cause by raising bees for combat. Dozens and dozens of giant beehives were hidden in village trees and connected by fine nylon strings, forming a “beehive chain” along each village road. Every child who participated in the scheme had a string from the chain connected to his or her house or to a hidden location. Between my grandmother’s and Mrs Lua’s houses were several large trees and shrubs. Dzung and I monitored the beehives there. We had the strings tied to my grandmother’s old sampan moored at the side of her house.
At the beginning of a raid by government troops, Dzung and I were to pull the strings to release the bees, then quickly withdraw into the house from the sampan. The army of bees would go into battle by themselves and we would sit quietly and watch. The children had a representative who worked with a village informant, and often he would know in advance if a raid was about to occur. As soon as government troops approached our area, we would get ourselves ready to receive the signal of “Ra tran!” “Battle begins!”
It was a great day when we first got the message. We waited anxiously by the sampan, others waited in their own hiding places, all of us holding our breath until a platoon of soldiers – about thirty in all – had reached a key spot on the road near the trees. Then came the signal – “Ra tran!” – and the children quickly pulled the strings to release the army of bees!
Hundreds of buzzing bees escaped from the bursting hives and landed on the soldiers’ heads! Shocked at the sudden attack, the soldiers ducked and tried to cover their faces with their hands. But it was too late. The soldiers were stung all over. They beat angrily at the bees with their rifle barrels while trying to run away but their violent behaviour only provoked the bees further. One soldier lost control. He lifted his rifle and fired repeatedly at the bees. Doang! Doang! Doang! B-z-z-z! B-z-z-z! B-z-z-z! Doang! Doang! B-z-z! B-z-z! Angry soldiers! Angry bees!
Black smoke filled the air. The soldiers’ faces and necks were red and swollen. They staggered about like drunken men. A few plunged into the river, carrying their rifles with them. Others fled, only to encounter many more vicious bees along the same road. Meanwhile, we children watched with amazement until the screaming voices gradually diminished and the bodies and guns finally went out of sight.
* * *
The National Front for the Liberation of South Viet Nam (Mat Tran Dan Toc Giai Phong Mien Nam), better known as the National Liberation Front had been formed on 20 December 1960. Nguyen Huu Tho, a French-educated lawyer, was chosen to be its leader. Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, a long time political activist, was put in charge of foreign affairs. The NLF began to absorb and unify various groups working against the Sai Gon government, the biggest being the Nationalist fighters themselves but also including a number of religious groups that came under attack by the Diem regime.
The dividing line between the Communists and the NLF was not always clear, given the particularly nationalist nature of the brand of Communism developed by Ho Chi Minh, but the division did exist. Because of this, and because Nguyen Huu Tho was avowedly a non-Communist, the NLF attracted into its membership a large number of the Vietnamese intelligentsia looking for a base from which to take a stance against the external domination and control of their country. The NLF also attracted many who had served in the ARVN but who had become disenchanted with the American-backed regime. During Diem’s last years, the NLF grew in numbers and strength and by the time his regime collapsed, they had established a strong presence in nearly all rural communities of South Viet Nam.
My grandmother was very proud of all those who fought in our family, telling us children that they had gone to serve the motherland. The four brothers of my friend Lien also joined the NLF. It was impossible to stay neutral and if, during daylight hours, the remaining civilians in the village pretended obeisance to the Sai Gon regime, the night belonged to the Nationalists. Meanwhile, a good two-thirds of our male youth had become members of the NLF while the rest – Catholics or newly converted Catholics for the most part – joined the ARVN. “Convert yourself to Catholic and have rice to eat,” was one prevailing slogan. It carried a warning too: “If you refuse to be converted you will go hungry.”
Toward the end of 1962, the Diem regime mounted a new campaign called “The Rural Pacification Movement” (Binh Dinh Nong Thon). As part of an attempt to “pacify” the delta, four more garrisons were built in Truong An. These were “branches” of the re-built Constance Garrison. Constance had a maximum capacity of one hundred men while each of the smaller garrisons could accommodate up to thirty men.
The Rural Pacification Movement called for a return to the Strategic Hamlets, but throughout the Mekong Delta, angry villagers rebelled, this time with their own counter-campaign, “The Movement Against Rural Pacification” (Chong Binh Dinh Nong Thon). More bloody confrontations ensued between villagers and government troops. Thousands of peasants in the Mekong Delta perished.
For Truong An village – still under Uncle Nam’s rule – the government failed to move us into the Strategic Hamlets for the second time, as in late 1962 Constance Garrison suffered a major attack, this time by a powerful NLF force – the guerrilla army of Truong An being augmented by a formidable battalion from Can Tho. Uncle Nam sent four helicopters to Truong An to aid the ARVN force. Two were shot down and the remaining two quickly flew away. The entire ARVN force of Constance Garrison was completely wiped out. The small garrisons also lost most of their men.
* * *
Five months into the Year of the Cat, 1963, a series of events triggered the downfall of the Diem regime. The first of these was the 2,527 th birthday of the Buddha. In Hue, the old imperial capital, the residents, most of whom were Buddhist, raised the Buddhist flag at their temples and also in front of their houses – this practice had been carried on for many centuries. The week before, the Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc, Diem’s elder brother, had celebrated the 25th anniversary of his own ordination and many Catholic flags and banners had been displayed all over Hue. Thuc had wanted the flags and banners to stay on after the Catholic celebration. He had also made a request to the mayor of Hue to forbid the flying of Buddhist flags during the Buddhist celebration the following week.
Now several thousand Buddhists gathered near the Hue radio station, where the Venerable Thich Tri Quang addressed them, talking about the difficult times for the Buddhists. As soon as Thuc heard about this, he ordered the police to take down all the Buddhist flags – their presence interfered with the Catholic flags. The residents of Hue became angry and started fighting with the police. Thuc demanded that troops be sent to the radio station. Members of the Special Forces (the secret police) arrived with five armoured cars. They fired into the Buddhist crowd, killing eight and injuring five. Seven of the victims were children. The following day the Diem regime announced that the incident was “another Viet Cong massacre”.
Then, on 11 June, the Venerable Thich Quang Duc went to an intersection of two busy streets in Sai Gon where he sat down in the lotus position. His saffron robe had been soaked with gasoline and he set fire to himself. His last plea to the Diem regime, before he burned himself to death, was to show understanding and compassion for other religions in the country. Hearing this, Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu – Diem’s sister-in-law and officially his ‘political advisor’ – pronounced, “Let them burn themselves, and we will applaud!”
Two months later, the same M
adame Nhu’s Special Forces, armed with rifles, submachine guns and tear gas arrived at the Xa Loi Temple – the main Buddhist sanctuary in Sai Gon. Madame Nhu herself wore a military uniform and rode in her Mercedes alongside the armed troops. She ordered the attack. In all, thirty monks were killed, four hundred arrested, and hundreds of people rounded up in neighbouring streets. Before destroying the contents of the temple, the soldiers took out the Buddha’s precious stone eyes from the largest ancient statue in the sanctuary. Madame Nhu and her troops then moved on to attack the An Quang Temple and the Sai Gon Theraveda Temple both on the same day.
The public became increasingly outraged. The next day, more than four thousand university and high school students took to the streets of Sai Gon with banners, denouncing the government. Government troops opened fire on the students. One of the student leaders, Quach Thi Trang, who was fifteen years old, was gunned down. Her white ao dai was soaked in blood as she lay dying. Surrounded by armed troops, hundreds of students were taken into detention. They endured interrogations and torture at the hands of the secret police.
Quach Thi Trang instantly became a heroine. The mourning public made a white bust of her and placed it on a pillar near the Ben Thanh Central Market in Sai Gon. It was the symbol of their struggles and suffering under the universally despised Diem regime.
On 1 November 1963, General Duong Van Minh (Big Minh) led his ARVN troops and surrounded the Presidential Palace, ready for a coup. Diem’s bodyguards telephoned various army commanders for help but not a single one arrived. Diem made a desperate plea to the American ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge, but all Lodge could offer was temporary shelter for Diem while arranging for him to leave the country. Lodge added that he and the ARVN generals had already made their deal. Enraged and disappointed, Diem decided to handle the crisis alone.
Diem and Nhu went into hiding at a Catholic church in Cho Lon. The following morning, one of Diem’s bodyguards finally got hold of General Tran Thien Khiem, who had saved Diem from a coup exactly three years earlier. Diem told Khiem on the phone that during negotiations with the dissident generals he had already agreed to leave the country. Khiem told Diem he would arrange two beds at the Joint General Staff Headquarters for him and Nhu, and in the meantime he would send a car to collect them at the church. Khiem added that from the Joint General Staff Headquarters Diem and Nhu could leave for the United States the next day.
Several other generals, however, had their own plan, and in the debate over Khiem’s, one of them argued, “When we pull out weeds, we must remove all the roots. We can’t listen to Khiem.” So it was that, at four in the afternoon, the armored M-113 Khiem had sent to collect Diem and Nhu from the church arrived at the Joint General Staff Headquarters – with the bodies of Diem and Nhu lying dead on the floor of the vehicle, covered in blood. The following day, all the ARVN commanders and provincial chiefs telephoned the new Military Revolutionary Council to congratulate them on a successful coup. One of the callers, whom we also heard on a live radio broadcast, was Uncle Nam. ***
Interestingly, six months later, on 30 June 1964, US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge “explained” to the American public in a piece in the New York Times that, “The overthrow… of Diem was purely a Vietnamese affair. We never participated in the planning. We never gave any advice. We had nothing whatever to do with it.” President John Kennedy had been assassinated on 22 November 1963. The Americans, now under the leadership of President Lyndon Johnson, were sending more and more troops to Viet Nam. By this time, my family and I had already left Truong An and moved to Sai Gon. My maternal relatives in the village reported that every time the American-backed regime tried to move the peasants back into fortified villages, severe fighting broke out again. In the meantime, under the advice of the Americans, the “Open Arms” (Chieu Hoi) policy was conducted throughout the South to persuade members of the NLF to change sides. This campaign failed too, as did its successor, the “Rally, or Angel of Death” (Chieu Hoi, hay Tu Than), implying that any “Viet Cong” who refused to switch sides would find death waiting for him.
In Truong An, ARVN troops forced the villagers at gunpoint back into the Strategic Hamlet shortly after my family moved to Sai Gon. All their efforts failed. The residents refused to be herded again and many were labelled as Viet Cong or Viet Cong sympathizers. Then American B-52 aircraft, loaded with bombs, arrived, and massive destruction followed. This still didn’t deter the villagers, who were determined to stay and risk death. Parallel with this – to prevent the Viet Cong from hiding – a chemical defoliant known as Agent Orange was sprayed freely by American troops over the village, rice fields and the surrounding jungles. Those who had refused to move were blown to pieces. Others became horribly tainted by the chemical. With nothing left, the survivors now made their way back to the Strategic Hamlet.
To prevent people from returning to their “old” village, search and destroy missions, air raids and artillery firing continued for two more years, until nearly all village roads were blown up and demolished. Clear water from rivers, lakes, creeks, and streams became contaminated and poisoned. Rice fields, fruit trees, and forests were ruined indiscriminately. Farm animals and wild life suffered as much as village people.
With highly advanced weapons of mass destruction and extreme brutality, the combined US-ARVN forces finally won their battle and the peasants once more were confined inside the fortified villages. But the Americans and the regime could never stamp out the NLF. They failed totally to win the hearts of the Vietnamese people. They would achieve the exact opposite.
TO SAI GON
She grieved to go
They grieved to stay
Tears stained the steps
As parting broke their hearts
Anonymous
In 1961, when Uncle Nam was put in charge of my home province, I was too young to understand the complex war situation. I thought of his important new role and the suffering of people in my village, and wondered what he would do for us – all of us, the village people. Would our lives be saved by Nam?
Much later, I learned from my father that what he had done was completely contrary to what I had hoped. Nam – my Uncle Nam – with his great skill in artillery, would instruct his men to fire relentlessly at Truong An village from Thanh Chau during his years as our provincial chief.
Shortly after accepting this new post, Nam made an expedition to Constance Garrison on a small gun-ship. He’d heard of a well-organized gambling ring inside the Garrison and of ARVN soldiers staying up through the night, drinking heavily. He ordered his troops to arrest the entire ARVN force of Constance. They were all taken to a prison in Can Tho because the prison system in Tay Do was not yet ready to accommodate the inmates. Nam immediately replaced the ARVN force of Constance with one hundred highly trained men. But all of them would be killed in the following year’s battle, while the gambling soldiers survived!
When Nam came to Truong An, he never met us nor did he acknowledge our existence as his relatives. No one knew of our connection with him. He was our provincial head – a deadly enemy of the NLF and of the village in general. If people had known, things might have been very different for us. As my father told me later, “Your mother and you would have been interrogated and possibly even killed by the Viet Cong.”
Nam did see my father shortly after his trip to Truong An and urged him to move us to Sai Gon. He feared for our lives if we continued to stay in the village. In Truong An there was no way he could protect us.
When my father mentioned the conversation during a later visit and Nam’s concern for our safety, my mother retorted, “Who needs him to protect us?” She again told my father that she would rather die with her relatives than leave them behind while she took care of us. And we – thank you very much – could take care of ourselves!
Such was the end of my father’s attempt to move us. But he was forced to lie to Nam in early 1962 by saying that he had already moved us away from Truong An and that we were living in a town in
Long My. This was to prevent Nam from putting further pressure on him.
My father had lived in Sai Gon since 1956. He came back to see us several times a year but from 1961 his trips to the village were less frequent. This was because most of his work for the transportation ministry was no longer in the delta region. Waiting desperately for his infrequent visits, I sometimes feared he would abandon us altogether. My mother seemed to have accepted the situation. She continued to be deeply imbued in country ways and in her wish to be surrounded by relatives.
In the spring of 1963, my mother abruptly changed her mind. It happened so fast that all our relatives and friends were astonished by the news. Furthermore, my mother was pregnant at the time.
That morning – the one she made a decision that would greatly change our lives – dawned dry and warm. We ate a simple breakfast of rice and fish soup and fresh fruit after which my mother picked up her palm leaf hat and bamboo basket. She told me to look after my two brothers, as she was going out to buy some sweet potatoes. A potato merchant came to our village about once a month from Vinh Vien. He always moored his sampan at the side of a canal, some distance away from our house.
When my mother came back, her expression was one of anxiety and anger. I was puzzled but didn’t dare ask questions. She dumped the basket of sweet potatoes on the kitchen floor and told me we were going to see my grandmother. On the way there, I stopped off at Uncle Phan’s house to visit Dzung, and he and I went out fishing.
The minute my mother arrived at my grandmother’s, she announced, “I saw the sweet potato man this morning. He is also a fortune teller. He said my husband has a concubine in Sai Gon. I knew it! I knew it all along! I’m packing tonight. The children and I are leaving for Sai Gon tomorrow.”
My grandmother didn’t understand why we had to leave so quickly, but my mother’s mind was made up. One thing that preoccupied her was what to do with the house.