Anti-Americanism: Common Cause in Vietnam

...After Nguyen Khanh assumed power, the Americans began to interfere rudely into South Vietnam's internal affairs...

...War is always cruel...

...The Vietnamese, both men and women, working for U.S...

...Due wrote this article for The Progressive at our invitation...

...Anti-Americanism: Common Cause in Vietnam NGO CONG DUC A Saigon Editor Reports Ngo Cong Due, editor and publisher of Tin Sang, largest of the thirty newspapers published in Saigon, is a crusading critic of the Thieu-Ky regime in South Vietnam, so much so that his daily has been ordered to suspend publication as many as eight times over several years...

...The Phu Cat airfield in Qui Nhon is a typical case of this: Thousands of people were given only $1.50 for each tomb moved to another place...

...But the effect is greatly exaggerated, and if we make a comparison between the propaganda machines of both sides, South Vietnam's can be said to be a hundred times stronger than the purported enemy's...

...Khanh, the "hero" of the coup, was just a puppet in the hands of the Americans and U.S...

...In 1965, the Buddhist force, which had closely cooperated with the Americans in the coup overthrowing the Diem regime, organized a series of anti-Saigon government demonstrations and charged the United States with having placed a repressive yoke on the Vietnamese people...

...Only these terms can express fully and clearly what the Vietnamese people wish to say, and the Saigon government cannot now stop them from spreading the truth among the population...

...At first, the Vietnamese press dared not reveal these facts for fear that their newspapers might be closed down...

...It is so strong that many of the Vietnamese people, despite the fact that they have witnessed so many of their comrades daily sacrificed in vain and seen their freedom and democracy eroded on so many fronts, try to cling to the fast fading belief that they are fighting and sacrificing for the cause of freedom and democracy...

...the care of their forefathers' tombs is considered not only a common duty but also a sacred obligation...

...At that time, the Vietnamese followed the Voice of America (VOA) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and regarded them as their own voices...

...But how many other My Lai cases have occurred...

...A former intimate priest-adviser to the late President Diem once told us: "Between two things harmful to the nation, Communists and Americans, we should oppose the Americans first...

...A number of Americans have acted in connivance with Vietnamese officials to cheat the Vietnamese people...

...A girl of about twelve years of age stepped out from her home Wonder Why Uncle Doesn't Come In Out of the Rain when a military vehicle loaded with American soldiers was driving past...

...The American civilians in Saigon have been told by the U.S...

...The coloration of the Vietnam war had changed from a crusade for freedom into one in which the dark schemes of the Americans were designed to wear away the country of Vietnam rather than seek a genuine political defeat over Communism...

...Sometimes the ARVN operational forces have captured a quantity of "Cornell rice" in American-made bags but disguised under another kind of label...

...incursion into South Vietnam without invitation of the Saigon authorities, but rather only at the request of American officials...

...It is a crime, as in the case of the My Lai massacre...

...Defense Secretary Robert MacNamara was the next to exalt Nguyen Khanh, describing him as the number one leader of Vietnam —this in the face of the contempt the Vietnamese felt for Khanh...

...Tin Sang, the daily which I edit and publish, dared to reveal the truth and was closed down eight times over two or so years...

...The American troops, too, have seized from the Vietcong drugs which had been previously turned over by the Americans to the ARVN...

...The change originated partly from the overall American policy in Vietnam and partly from many individual conflicts between the two peoples...

...A GI in the vehicle reached out his arm in an effort to lift up the child by grasping her hair...

...We do not know the exact amount the U.S Government has earmarked for the compensation of those expropriated lands, but one thing certain is that the Vietnamese proprietors have not been compensated adequately...

...The My Lai massacre has aroused American opinion over crimes committed by the American soldiers...

...The last time it was because of criticism of the use of chemical products for defoliation, which make pregnant women give birth to monsters...

...However, this ideal faded after 1965 because the Vietnamese people had by then recognized the purpose of the American plan to pour considerable quantities of troops into South Vietnam and drop tons of bombs over North Vietnam, which in our view is a part of the Vietnam nation...

...Even so, a number of Catholic clergy noted for their staunch anti-Communist stand maintained an overt attitude of opposition toward the Americans...

...Even here in Vietnam we have seen the potential of another America from the one which dominates our lives...

...Embassy in Saigon...

...It is undeniable that the other side does spread propaganda designed to sow resentment between the Vietnamese and the American peoples...

...The presence of the Americans is considered to be a main factor of the deterioration of Vietnamese society and the decline of the traditional Vietnamese spiritual values...

...It is little wonder that such terms as "neo-colonialist" or "American imperialists" recently have appeared overtly in the Vietnamese newspapers...

...That is possible...

...Angered by shocking acts of the American soldiers in the cities and villages, the Vietnamese soldiers have but one thing in mind: liquidate these evil Americans so as to win the people's confidence...

...In July, 1966, a fierce demonstration was conducted by the Buddhists, youths, and students against the Nguyen Cao Ky regime, and the protest, "Yankee Go Home," was seen painted for the first time in front of the U.S...

...Moreover, the recoveries of big quantities of rice from the Communists revealed that it is the South Vietnam city merchants, not the peo- "The presence of the Americans is considered to be a main factor of the deterioration of Vietnamese society . • ." pie in the rural areas, who have supplied that rice to the Communists...

...A Vietcong guerrilla cadre does not need dense brush to hide himself...

...Despite the brute force which seems to dominate the warlike faction in the United States, the peace movement in America has enabled the Vietnamese people to distinguish between the war crimes of the American military and the policies and activities of the American people themselves...

...Americans are reported to rape girls unto death, as recently announced in Mam Tan...

...allies joined the U.S...

...The truth lies elsewhere...

...In their education and in native proverbs examples abound of gratitude toward parents, teachers, friends, and benefactors...

...That is quite correct, because anti-Americanism has now become the common line of the majority of Vietnamese...

...International Voluntary Service ( I V S ) , in studying the social needs of South Vietnam...

...But the Vietnamese people had no sooner enjoyed the prospect of a brighter future than a U.S.-aided coup in early 1964 brought Nguyen Khanh to power...

...firms or agencies feel ashamed about being employed by the Americans...

...A bomb misdropped on a village is a war accident, but a group of American soldiers come to search a village who take out women and children for killing is no longer an accident of war...

...Other vehicles also became the targets for the stone-throwing game...

...I also believe that when that day comes, the ideals expressed by the youth of America—and other peace and progressive forces there— will write a new chapter that will end the crimes directed at the Vietnamese people by the American war machine and bring about a brighter future for both the American and the Vietnamese people...

...I am convinced, and I know this position is widespread in Vietnam, that a quick end to the war is urgently necessary...

...Recently some American soldiers riding on a military vehicle stoned the car of a Vietnamese Catholic priest who is also a professor at the Saigon University Faculty of Letters...

...Troops of U.S...

...And if any unfavorable developments cause complaints among the population, whether it be additional troop recruitments from among the Vietnamese or devaluation of the piaster, blame is nearly always widely attributed to the Americans...

...Vietnamese youths and high school and university students cooperated with the Americans, especially with members of the U.S...

...Perhaps a careful study of the true nature of the present war, especially the Americans' attitude toward the Vietnamese people in their daily lives, will help explain why the Vietnamese have developed an anti-American attitude which is likely to become stronger day by day...

...The anti-American movement has been spreading ever since...

...Americans hardly notice that the Vietnamese people's attitude toward them has gradually changed...

...Before and during the 1963-65 period, the Vietnamese were still convinced that the Americans were truly devoted to building a peaceful, prosperous, non-Communist South Vietnam...

...Such "American games" occur almost daily on Vietnamese highways...

...I cannot forget, for example, those American youths in the International Voluntary Service who, imbued with those ideals we long associated with America, came here to fight alongside the Vietnamese youths in a war against poverty, disease, and illiteracy...

...In the midst of all our suffering, we have not given up hope...

...Some Americans have concluded that the Vietnamese are ungrateful or that they have been deceived by the enemy propaganda machine...

...The Catholics, however, did not oppose the Americans so strongly as the Buddhists, partly because they thought that by sticking to their "anti-Communist" label they would retain the freedom of faith evidenced by the United States...

...Reverend Father Tran Huu Thanh, another anti-Communist priest who had once been the leader of the Can Lao Nhan Vi movement, claimed that "the American materialist civilization is much more terrible than Communist materialism...

...soldiers "a band of hooligans...

...Later, thanks to vanguard revelations by some American newsmen who were echoed by the Vietnamese press, the people came to be aware of the crimes being committed by Americans and their Vietnamese confederates...

...Perhaps the hot climate has excited a few young American soldiers to commit such bestial actions...

...Some stones broke the windshield, and the priest almost lost control of the car...

...Don't let the cause of fighting the Americans to save the country be 'monopolized by the Communists," some Vietnamese statesmen have boldly declared...

...The fact is that the Vietnamese people deeply resent the war and just wish the Americans would leave the country, for they think that the war will go on as long as the Americans continue to stay here...

...activities in South Vietnam...

...The Vietnamese are traditionally a "loyal" people, and in their culture much emphasis has been placed on the term "gratitude...

...library in Hue was burned by local students...

...Too many abuses have occurred between Vietnamese female employes and the Americans...

...Derogatory terms for the Saigon regime such as "puppet" and "lackey," which had been heard previously only from Hanoi and the Vietcong, now became widespread among the so-called "nationalist masses" of the South Vietnamese...

...This has forced local inhabitants to organize meetings to demand the ousting of American soldiers from the province...

...T H E EDITORS Saigon TlyTANY AMERICANS wonder why they have received so many complaints and such strong criticism from the South Vietnamese people instead of the warm thanks and gratitude they expected after they began to pour so much money and contribute so many lives to assist the Vietnamese...

...Evidence of this is that many American military convoys have been ambushed on the road segment linking Qui Nhon with An Khe, better known as National Route 19, despite the fact that the trees on both sides of the road had been completely defoliated...

...Despite willful concealment by the United States, the Vietnamese became aware that the Americans had played a key role in the coup, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) became at that time a derogatory term which represented all the hidden criminal U.S...

...We believe that the imperialist policies of the United States—which masquerade under labels like freedom, democracy, and self-determination—will in time be reversed, but it must be soon if there is to be anything worth salvaging...

...Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker calling these U.S...

...This may come as a great surprise to Americans in the States, but it is the simple truth, as one can readily determine by diligent inquiry among the Vietnamese...

...It is noteworthy that the Vietnamese people highly respect their ancestors...

...A Vietnamese elder who had witnessed scenes of atrocities of the French expeditionary confided to me: "I've seen some French drunkards running after Vietnamese girls but I never saw them joking in such a bestial way...

...Due, as anti-Communist as he is anti-regime, is a deputy of the National Assembly...

...Do they aim at eliminating Communist guerrilla cadres by destroying the Vietnamese people's crops to prevent such food falling to the Communists...

...Since then, the Vietnamese people have looked at their American friends with increasingly doubting eyes...

...In the last months of 1963 the Americans won much sympathy from the South Vietnamese people because the United States then chose to disassociate itself from a dictatorial Diem regime and appeared to join the oppressed masses...

...The South Vietnamese were by then conscious that they themselves were merely "chessmen" in this tragic battle, and soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) served only as shields for the U.S...

...The Americans appeared then as heroes struggling for the cause of freedom and democracy, intending to bring about justice and prosperity for the Vietnamese people...

...At first the victims were told that they would receive appropriate compensation, but they found that the money they received was far from enough to cover even one per cent of the damages they suffered...

...But here too many crimes are not a result of the war but are committed by bestial American elements...

...Today, no informed Vietnamese women dare to associate with Americans even though such meetings are merely for the sake of courtesy...

...Ironically, the Vietnamese combatants who appeared to fight, side-by-side, with their American comrades on the battlefield, now turn out to be enemies of the Americans in the cities, because the Vietnamese soldiers had once been victims of the American soldiers' and officials' contempt...

...I, in the capacity of a Deputy of the National Assembly of the Republic of Vietnam, solemnly confirm that the above stated facts are true, and further that both the American and South Vietnamese authorities are constantly seeking, more unsuccessfully recently, to cover them up...

...he can do that with a single mound of earth...

...But the fact itself represents "the cause" for which American youths have been sent to this area of the world...

...Government we think that they would yield reverse results...

...Anti-American terms became only too familiar to the Vietnamese masses and had a strong effect on their thinking...

...military and political establishment...

...If, on one hand, we can overlook some shootings of innocent Vietnamese civilians during military operations— because the Americans can hardly tell the difference between a Communist and a nationalist by appearance— we cannot tolerate, on the other hand, the Americans' unconscious amusements in which innocent Vietnamese people are the victims...

...General Paul Harkins was then considered as his patron...

...Embassy not to go out alone at night...

...Army...

...I personally happened to witness a tragic scene...

...The Summer Workcamp project attracted thousands of Vietnamese youths eager to build homes for needy people side by side with their American friends...

...Then there is the issue of defoliation...

...Do the Americans think defoliation will diminish the threat of the guerrillas to wage war...

...Today no pro-American newspapers are to be found among the South Vietnamese press...

...I learned later that the child was in agony for three days in a hospital because all her hair and head skin were stripped off by that American soldier...

...At the same time, a U.S...

...The forming of successive military regimes in the years that followed proved how true this estimate was and is...

...The child was almost drawn into the car...

...We cannot understand the real intention of the Americans in their defoliation sorties...

...Few Vietnamese were by now to be found who still believed that the Americans came to Vietnam for the cause of freedom, democracy, and prosperity of the Vietnamese, and even the Catholic refugees from North Vietnam, considered the staunchest anti-Communist elements, came to share the general misgivings...

...Not a small number of Vietnamese have resented the Americans moving their ancestors' tombs to make space for the construction of American air bases or 6ther military installations...

...If both are the objectives of the U.S...

...In Qui Nhon, for example, where many U.S...

...A Roman Catholic, he comes from a well-to-do South Vietnamese family and is related to the Archbishop of Saigon...

...Furious, the priest sent a letter of protest to U.S...

...They all carry anti- American articles, and even the newspapers evidencing an extreme anti- Communist stand also strongly criticize the Americans...

...soldiers are stationed, all passenger cars are mounted with a strong iron net in front of a car's windshield to protect the drivers and passengers from stone or empty can attacks by American soldiers...

...The sum is far insufficient to pay the real price of the land requisitioned...

...They are the reverse of the type which has been dubbed "the ugly American," and is now represented by the hawks who dominate the U.S...