(EDITOR’S NOTE: Charles Black, Enquirer military writer, has been recuperating from a pongee stick wound in Saigon, but reported that he has now joined the
By CHARLES BLACK
Enquirer Military Writer
SAIGON, South Viet Nam - It
is hard to find a correspondent interested in the military side of the
Vietnamese conflict these days. They
are all hurrying off to Hue or Da Nang to watch political
demonstrations or
covering Buddhist and student meetings in Saigon.
There is always much more avid interest among the correspondents in things of this nature in Viet Nam, although by this time the journalists should have been sated with coups, counter-coups and threatened coups.
Each time an era of
political unrest sweeps the strangely un-war-torn city areas of Viet
Nam, there
are the usual predictions of doom for the U.S. hopes of peace without
Viet Cong
in this country.
There are many political
crises ahead for this country because of its religious factions -
Buddhist,
Catholic and other sects - and the venal attitude of a segment of the
Vietnamese urban population. There are
many frustrations still waiting for Americans attempting to aid this
country by
fighting or other means. There is an
undercurrent of resentment among Americans here, for example, because
of an
attitude on the part of some demonstrating minorities which decries the
inconvenience of having Americans in great numbers in Saigon.
“Some of these people, the
young student demonstrators and the intellectuals here in Saigon, for
example,
seem to want us to fight their war, keep the aid and money coming, but
to stay
out of town and not inconvenience them.
Out in the villages where I work, people seem to have quite a
different
attitude. It is just the kind of thing
that would do the Viet Cong the most good, now, for the kooks you can
find in
any city to wave enough placards to give people in the U.S. the idea
that the
population is against us. It isn’t so,
but it can be made to look like it is with a few hundred demonstrators
and a lot
of publicity,” one officer told me.
The demonstrators here in
Saigon never seem to be for anything, just against things.
The demonstrators in the north lost a
popular figure in a recent political tiff between their corps commander
and
Premier Ky, and they introduced anti-American themes into their
outbursts
because it is an effective way of getting at the man in Saigon. Vietnamese are nationalists and they are
supersensitive to the idea of any outside country controlling their
government. They have the resentment any
group has which
is forced to rely on a helping hand for existence.
That is a trait of human orneriness which has never been fully
thought through but which is a fact, and they can always hurt a
politician by
making him sound as if he is “controlled” by American influence.
It is the peculiar mark of
the vicious minority’s philosophy behind this facet of the current
demonstrations, of course, which makes use of such a theme. It coincides exactly with one of the avowed
strategies of the Communists, to split the Americans from the
Vietnamese people
and to cause resentment and hostilities between them.
There well may be a new head
man in government here. There may be
even more dramatic political developments, but I haven’t met anybody
qualified
to make any predictions at the time I am writing this, March 25,
despite almost
any television or new correspondent’s willingness to claim the title of
oracle.
If Ky stays on top, it would
seem to be fairly temporary, and it would seem to be only if some kind
of
elections are held and a representative form of government hacked out. Rather, these things would have to be
attempted. In the welter of
selfishness, veniality, corruption and short-sighted idiocy which seems
to
taint a part of the power system in Viet Nam, it isn’t likely that an
election
could produce any kind of logical sense.
The only organized political
party in the country is the National Liberation Front.
The Buddhists, despite the fact that they
can turn out crowds on critical street intersections, have never
advocated
anything constructive in the way of
political development and the leaders of that religion, in fact,
deny
that they are even interested in politics.
While they advocate
elections, the demonstrators don’t even seem to have come up with any
real
suggestions on how to give representation to the people caught up in
the war
out in the terror-ridden provinces. The
Montagnard tribes up in the mountains just aren’t ever mentioned as a
problem
in conversations among the urbanites.
Ky might be able to keep on
running things during the confusion attending organization of an
elected
government of civilians or he might not last that long, but I
personally don’t
believe it will be the end of the fight against the Viet Cong here if
Saigon
has a new name on top. Few of the
soldiers in Viet Nam think so, either.
They just regard the entire situation as a gloomy and
frustrating
affair, like other gloomy and frustrating affairs which have attended
this war
for so long, and get on with their jobs.
The Viet Cong will benefit from any such political unrest, of course. In the past, such times meant that government operations practically ceased while the warlords involved played out their politics. Now the American end of the fight continues to be pushed and there has been continued government action in the Mekong Delta area where American units aren’t yet operating, so the Viet Cong haven’t had the usual respite given by times of domestic discontent.
One thing is very obvious,
however, and that is a major drive on by Buddhist groups and political
figures
in the north part of the country, backed by dissidents always available
in
Saigon, to bring the downfall of the present government.
The old Vietnamese game of
power politics is being played out again and the military effort to
quell the
war so that pacification plans can be put into action is suffering. It is not suffering as much now as it did in
the past because of the American strength in the country, but six
months of
patience on the part of the ones pushing the present discontent would
have
meant much to the final welfare of their country.
It might be well be remember
that 70 per cent of the people in Viet Nam live outside of the cities
and are
farmers and fishermen. Many of this
majority of the population don’t even enter into the thinking of the
ones out
demonstrating in Da Nang or Hue or Saigon when they call for
representative
government. This 70 per cent of the
population is the real population of Viet Nam and it is this 70 per
cent which
is in the midst of the war, not the city crowds or the organized little
cliques.
The people in the villages must be freed from Communist terror, brought back from the no-man’s land in which they exist, and enabled to take part in national politics before Viet Nam governments will ever be stable, no matter what happens in the present commotion.
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