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Part of Subversion in the Mekong Delta

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Viet Nam: Past and Prospect

Subversion in the Mekong Delta
This is the third of a series to pick up the body 20 yards :fl.seated if they allow their
of four articles reviewing the away from his post. The re- sons to become government
soldiers.
war in Viet Nam during 1965 quest was refused.
The Viet Cong forbid landand assessing the prospects in
The platoon was ordered to
1966.
bury the corpse inside the owners to hire local labor, and

SA DEC, South
Viet Nam.
Officially, the Mekong Delta
south of Saigon-where no
American combat units have
yet been based-is one of the
spots where the Vietnamese
government is progressing
well. The simple tranquillity of
fishing boats passing through
canals, the hectic automobile
traffic on the roads, the unbroken routine of peasant life
would seem to confirm the official version.
But those who live in the
v1lla,ges say the Viet Cong
have seized virtual control of
this rich rice bowl.
The process is not one of
violent battles, but the Invisible strangulation and isolation of government authority.
It Is a process of subversion
which might be called termite
warfaire. Government authority has been squeezed into
small rings of villages around
provincial and district capitals, and into isolated outposts along the main roads
and canals.
At Sa Dec is the headquarters of the Vietnamese 9th Infantry Division. Six miles
away is the village complex
of Nha Man. Two of its ,three
villages are already controlled
by the Communists. The third
village, Tan Nhuan Dong, is
protected by one company of
about 100 paramilitary troops.
An additional platoon is assigned to each of two smaller
outposts-Ba Thien, one mile
away, and Nga Ba, two miles
off.

ENCIRCLED
The company at Tan
Nhuan Dong lives in an old,
French fort. Its job is to protect the vil1age and a bridge
which stretches ac,ross a river
flanked by several operating
rice mills and brick factories .
The two outposts are enciTcled by Viet Cong guer rillas. Last month they were
totally isolated from the local
population. To bring 1n supplies and support for these
two posts, the government has
to use 10 armored boats. On
every voyage the boats and
their complement of troops
draw Communist sniper fire.
The platoons in each of the
two small posts theoretically
send out small, regular patrols to gather intelligence.
They are calledt the "ears and
eyes of the !regular forces ."
But recently, a local villager
described them as "blind men
in a. jail." For it Is raire that
a member of either platoon
dares leave his compound,
even to fetch water from the
river 20 yards away.
Last week, one defender
crossed the outpost's barbedwire fence for water. He was
wounded by a sniper and fell
on the river bank. No one
dared rescue him. He died
and his body was left on the
same spot for three days. The
commander
asked
headquarters for reinforcements,

post, but again the men refused to pick up the body. On
repeated orders, they eventually brought in the corpse,
but the outpost had no
shovels, so they used knives to
dig the grave. They had no
lumber or nails, so they ripped
wood from the walls of their
outpost to make the coffin. After the grotesque bw·ial,
morale was so low the company commander decided to
transfer the platoon. The 100man company ordered to relieve them refused to obey
their transfer order and most
of them defected to the Communists rather than man the
Nga Ba outpost. Most returned
after the province district
chiefs were forced to visit the
company of deserters, but the
order to man the outpost was
rescinded.

terrorize potential workersdrying up t!he labor force
from both ends. Once-wealthy
landed proprietors must plant
and harvest their own ricebackbreaki:rug work.

VISITS HALTED
Within the last month, the
Viet Cong have withdrawn
permission to local Tesidents
to visit friends or relatives in
government controlled, areas.
Even the father of one of the
senior generals at the Vietnamese a,r my headquarters in
Saigon-who previously had
been allowed by the Viet Cong
to visit !his son-now is forbidden to leave the Viet Cong
area.
But the Viet Cong efforts
are not all just erosive. They
have established efficient-

ISOLATION
The influence of the Communists goes, however, far beyond the terror built with
snipers' bullets.
Last month, the Viet Cong
ordered peasants and business
men working or living within
a half-mile of the Nga Ba
outpost to move away. The
word went out: No one was
allowed to move inside the
half-mile limit. Rather than
sail on the river 20 yards from
the outpost, villagers' sampans
were assigned to small canals.
One rice miller moved his
mill brick-by-brick, machineby-machine, to a new spot
nearer government authority.
One villager's reaction: "The
Viet Cong were very nice to
give him the permission to
move his rice mill. Otherwise,
he would have starved to
death. No one would have
brought rice to him to be
polished within the half-mile
radius of the post."
In monthly propaganda
meetings wit{l. the villagers,
Viet Cong political agents
claim "the Americans are waging an all-out war against the
Vietnamese people. The people
have to make a clear-cut
choice between their friends
and their enemies. Those who
want to fight with the Americans can go to the government-controlled area. Those
who want to fight against the
Americans can stay with us.
There is no third choice."
In Sa Dec, refugee villagers
prefer to Jive in their sampans moored along the riverfront. They have refused to
live in refugee housing provided by the government.
Many of the wealthier landowners already have been
forced to flee to governmentcontrolled zones, producing
the effect of an economic
purge of the airea by the
Communists. Their abandoned lands, especially fruit
groves along the canals, have
been boobytrapped and mined
by Red guerrillas. The Viet
Cong have warned landowners_)J
that their lands will be COl),;,I j

though unofficial and terroristie-taxation, Often using
children as collectors, they
force millers, small factory
owners and business men to
pay regular levies.
Peasants must turn over to
the Reds 40 per cent of the
rice they grow above their own
family's consumption. Any
fish of grain grown in the Red,
controlled area which is sent
into government territory is
taxed by the Viet Cong-as 1f
they maintained a n1lltional
border.
So under the noses of government officials and a major
a1rmy force, the · Communists
have established their own
government in the Mekong
Delta. It has almost eroded!
away the authority of the
anti-Communist Saigon regime, and, perhaps more signdflcantly, has taken majoc
steps toward replacing it with
an authority of their own.

j

The next, and final, article

in the series will examine the
problems of rooting out Viet
Cong control of villages in the
mountain areas, and the role
played by the U. S. Marines.