COLONIAL CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST
Clair, Louis
Colonial Chickens Come Home To Roost By LOUIS CLAIR "Although it had appeared that the Japanese, following their surrender last month, have encouraged the independence movement, Allied...
...These were the means employed by the French against the Indo-Chinese national movement...
...The Indo-Chinese coal miners extract coal at three to 4 francs for a 10-hour day—French coal miners got more than 10 times as much for a 40-hour week...
...The French administration has announced a number of reforms for the time when it will again be safely installed in Indo-China...
...No wonder that French capitalists urgently request that they again be allowed to take up their "civilizatory mission...
...And thus, recent large-scale riots broke out in Saigon, capital of Southern Indo-China...
...The following revealing appeal from Hanoi has been completely suppressed here: HANOI TELEGRAPH SERVICE, Sept...
...In fact, the whole country was autocratically governed by a Governor-General appointed from Paris, sole intermediary between the French government and the colony...
...They were ordered to disperse...
...Associated Press, Sept...
...Indo-China has a population of 22 million natives who are ruled by 45,000 Europeans...
...Here is a typical incident: In September, 1930, a terrible famine reigned in large parts of Indo-China...
...Thus British troops, a few French and a handful ef Americans find themselves in the peculiar position of teaming up with remaining Japanese forces to quell the disturbances...
...Our object is to let the French people know what the effect of the arrival of the forces of Gen...
...We don't fear the Chinese or the British," explained the professor, "because they intend to withdraw—but the French intend to stay...
...Later a treaty might be made permitting French technicians, industrialists, and others to work in Indo-China on the same basis as other foreigners...
...When, some years ago, a young Indo-Chinese wrote the words "Annamese Republic first year" in Chinese characters in the corner of an official poster, he was sentenced to nine years of hard labor...
...The Annamites waged a disorganized campaign, shooting from rooftops and other places of concealment...
...The "health and vitality" of the Indo-Chinese was apparently less important to the French— after all, there are 20 million of them...
...Indo-China exported 1,821,400 tons of anthracite coal, most of this mined by one single company which in a couple of years nearly tripled its working capital...
...This is why there was no French army in China at the moment of Japan's defeat, and the French, therefore, asked the British and Chinese for help in the re-conquest of their empire...
...Indeed, the Indo-Chinese have all reasons to be weary of French promises...
...But, as a New York Times editorial recently pointed out, "the slogans of freedom used during the war have naturally had an effect upon subject populations in the Orient...
...When the Japanese army collapsed, Indo-Chinese nationalists set up a new administration based on the nationalist Annamite party, Viet Nam, whose sympathies are anti-French and pro-Chinese...
...We therefore lodge a most emphatic protest against such smoke-screening of French aggression, and express the earnest hope that you will intervene on the basis of full respect for the independence of the Viet Nam Republic...
...In North Africa too the French had promised all the benefits of democracy, but so far nothing basic has changed, and in the recent food riots which the French misnamed "an uprising," uncounted thousands of Arabs were mowed down by American Lend-Lease planes in the service of the French colonial administration...
...The French colonial administration considered that nothing could be worse than a loosening of its grip on the natives, and thus made all sorts of deals with the Japanese...
...His powers were more absolute than those of any king...
...We will resist the French...
...But those really responsible for the movement are the French themselves —the chickens have come home to roost...
...But in the North of the country the nationalists are much more solidly entrenched...
...Paul Giaccobi, French minister of colonies, in a recent statement blamed France's troubles in Indo China on foreign support of the nationalist movements...
...27, "to Prime Minister Attlee from the Foreign Minister of the Viet Nam Republic": "The release of French prisoners of war with arms and ammunition, which led to the French attack against Saigon, and the arrests of members of the People's Committee constitute a grave violation of our national rights, and an offense to our national dignity, as well as the non-fulfilment of the mission entrusted to the Commander of the British forces in South Indo-China by the United Nations, a failure to abide by the Atlantic Charter, and an unneutral attitude on the part of the British disarmament forces...
...IN 1924, a new penal code was promulgated, according to which "every injurious criticism of the acts of the French administration...
...there was even one part that was theoretically represented in the French parliament by a regular deputy—but this deputy was elected by an electoral college of a few thousand, mostly Europeans and a few Quislings, since only a handful of natives have ever been granted French citizenship...
...LEST the wave of unrest now sweeping over Indo-China spread to Burma and Malaya, British and some American troops are now fighting popular uprisings in Indo-China to re-install French administration...
...It now makes solemn promises to mend the errors of its ways—once back...
...But it would indeed be the duty of all those who believe that the rights of man are not for domestic consumption only to make their voices heard in support of a people that has bravely taken up the fight for its independence...
...The Chinese were to occupy the north and the British the south...
...Unfortunately, he is wrong...
...is punished with imprisonment from 3 months to 3 years...
...In 1939, the average wage of natives for unskilled work was 20 cents a day...
...The "subject populations" of Asia are not ready to accept weakly again their European overlords...
...The Vichy French, under Admiral Decoux as Governor-General, for years collaborated in trade with the Japanese...
...A distinguished French journalist, Andre Viollis, who visited Indo-China just after having published a book violently attacking the British regime in India, had to admit regretfully that conditions in Indo-China were incomparably worse...
...There is not a single university...
...THAT Japanese troops under the command of their regular officers are now employed to put down the Saigon revolt is a fitting climax...
...Indo-China is rich in natural wealth...
...Viet Nam, the Indo-Chinese resistance movement," he said, "demanded total withdrawal of French troops and officials...
...Naturally, unions are outlawed...
...No, Indo-China 1930...
...Tran Due Thac, vice-president of the Indo-Chinese General Delegation, stated in an interview in Paris: "Only France menaces the independence of Indo-China...
...It is to make Indo-China safe for the French that Japanese troops are now being used by Allied commanders...
...The average peasant or worker must give one to two months of his miserable salary to the tax collector...
...Since they occupied Indo-China toward the end of the last century, the French have succeeded in breaking up an old culture and have replaced the former Indo-Chinese elite by a servile clique of native Quislings...
...Three thousand men escaped to China, the rest were either killed or interned...
...The Japanese, rather satisfied with this arrangement, seized certain military installations and moved troops into Indo-China, but still maintained the French administration...
...Thus, some parts of Indo-China were direct French colonies, others were governed by the puppet "Emperor" of Annam...
...Indo-Chinese native leaders who had attempted to organize resistance against the Japanese since the early days of the war, were oppressed by the French...
...The country was fast becoming one of the great rubber exporters of the world: exports in 1939 amounted to 68,900 tons, nearly all of it going to France...
...Berlin 1940...
...What is the record of France in Indo-China...
...The French regime of Indo-China was the most oppressive of all Far Eastern regimes...
...During the days of March, the French only offered a rather perfunctory resistance...
...This nationalist government is installed in Hanoi, in the north of the country, and is now cooperating with the Chinese occupation authorities...
...THE French now claim that the native nationalist movement which opposes their return, the Viet Nam, is inspired by German and Japanese agents...
...After Hiroshima—Saigon...
...They have heard too many of them already...
...He has to pay in cash and since in most cases the peasants produce very little for the market, they have to sell all their belongings in times of famine in order to meet the demands of the tax collector...
...Freedom of association never existed, all assembly of more than 20 persons was strictly forbidden, no legal party allowed, the press rigidly controlled, not a word being printed which had not first been passed by the censor...
...But the Indo-Chinese are weary of these promises...
...Small wonder that we evoke only a cynical smile from the peoples of Asia when we mention democracy or the Atlantic Charter...
...The streets of Hanoi are decorated with signs reading: "Down with French imperialism," "Death to French domination," "Welcome Allies," and "Long Live the United Nations Commission...
...They will not passively wait until the French will re-establish their regime...
...After the 1930 wave of unrest, nationalists were thrown into unsanitary prisons by the thousands, where they died like flies...
...In one of these jails, 200 out of 500 prisoners died within 18 months...
...It is only now that French troops are beginning to arrive...
...These riots were apparently a leaderless affair...
...A spokesman for the nationalists, Prof...
...All this wealth is controlled by a handful of huge French companies...
...True, they have built good roads so that French goods can easily penetrate into the country and Indo-Chinese raw materials can be taken out—and every time Indo-China is mentioned, they point to these roads with pride, as Mussolini pointed to the Italian trains running on time...
...As John Gun-ther once remarked: "The French are great partitionists...
...It is from their ranks that sprang most of the leaders of Indo-Chinese nationalism...
...The taxes imposed on the wretched natives are exorbitant...
...Actually the Japanese are still the most powerful forces here,' one officer said...
...Leclerc is going to be...
...The press has printed ludicrous stories from French sources about German espionage specialists who allegedly organized the Viet Nam...
...Indo-Chinese students have to study in France where they learn about Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, but when they return home they soon discover that their new ideas are subversive, that they are definitely not for import...
...Their method of administration is to divide and subdivide...
...Indo-China is one of the greatest rice exporters of the world (1,672,900 tons in 1939...
...There was no unified administration...
...Allied troops drafted in this war for freedom now serve to impose the white man's domination over the millions of colonial Asiatic people—and the Japanese now come in handy as auxiliary police troops to implement this worthy endeavor...
...IN the south, the British attempted to put the French back into power immediately...
...They know very well that once the French are solidly entrenched again, there is no hope for really basic reforms...
...It seems that the revolt has been quelled in Saigon itself but continues in the outskirts and in the North...
...They were beaten into unconsciousness, all modern torture measures were employed: beating of the plants of the feet, electrical instruments applied to the sexual organs, breaking of limbs, etc...
...Colonial Chickens Come Home To Roost By LOUIS CLAIR "Although it had appeared that the Japanese, following their surrender last month, have encouraged the independence movement, Allied correspondents were told that the armed Japanese troops in French Indo-China are guarding Allied property...
...Indo-China has an illiteracy rate of 89 per cent...
...Of the two million children of school age, only about 315,-000 get any schooling at all in private or government schools...
...Only on March 9 of this year, after their Burma defeat, did the Japanese proclaim the independence of most of Indo-China, thus clearly intending to plant a time bomb which would explode after their defeat...
...Five to six thousand natives marched to the governor's palace to protest against high taxes...
...Result: 15 more dead—a "regrettable incident...
...Total exports in 1939 were valued at more than $86,000,000—most of it going to France and almost all of it handled by French firms...
...When they didn't comply, they were strafed and bombed by French planes: 100 to 120 killed—the others ran away...
...While the.sale of opium is strictly forbidden in France because this "undermines the health and the vitality of the population," there are no such restrictions in Indo-China, where in fact opium was smoked and sold quite freely...
...When in the evening the villagers came to bury their dead, the authorities took this for a new manifestation and again sent out planes...
Vol. 9 • October 1945 • No. 43
