South Vietnam

It has been a difficult past week or so for me thinking about how much suffering death causes in its aftermath. The topic has been coming up far too often lately...

My Grandmother (father's mom) died a week ago. It was hard for me because she is someone I hadn't made a priority to see recently and really wanted to take time to visit when I got home. I feel like I deserted her the past few years and now I can't tell her how much she meant to me anymore. It was even harder, though, to find the words to comfort my dad. He lost his sister only a couple of months ago and it is really hard for him to be so far away from his family (my parents are in AZ but our family is mostly in WI). I just feel so far away from my family and that there is not much I can do for them while they are going through hard things like this.

Then yesterday on a public bus trip we passed a motorcycle accident right after it happened and saw the two men involved dieing in the road. Unfortunately helmets are not widely worn and the roads are so congested that it will take 30 mins to an hour before an ambulance will even arrive and when it does the equipment it carries is very minimal compared to our standards. In fact, I was talking to a Vietnamese doctor and he said that the equipment they learn on is not as advanced as our ambiances carry. The day before that we saw another man who was thrown off his motorbike lying untouched and unmoving in the road... we were on our way to the Demilitarized Zone and some other Vietnam War sites; moments after we passed him there was a huge cemetery where soldiers were buried during the war. It was a pretty sobering day seeing sites where so many people have suffered.

Yesterday on the bus I started weeping after seeing the two men. I just think about the pain my family has gone through loosing people close to them, about my friend having to find the strength to go about her job after loosing people she has grown close to and fearing that what the next time could bring, and about the suffering the 'men in the roads' families will go through when they hear the news and how much all these deaths affect so many lives. I also thought of the Vietnam war and the current Iraq war and all the people on both sides who are loosing their lives.

And then about the unrest in all the regions we have been to so far...

The war over Kashmir: In 1846 India's British rulers sold Kashmir to a Maharajah. Then, after India's independence from British rule in 1947 the individual states were divided into India and East and West Pakistan. Because of strategic value of Kashmir it became under attack from all sides. Pakistan started attacking Kashmir and the Maharajah's army was overran. The Maharajah appealed to India for help but India would not send troops until the Maharajah signed a document of accession to the Indian Union, which included a clause that said the Kashmiri people were allowed to vote on which side they would like to be a part of. Next the Indian Prime Minister brought the conflict to the UN and a ceasefire was signed and Pakistan was given 1/3 of Kashmir and India the remaining land but fighting didn't stop. The Indian government contends that the Maharajah signed the document but the Pakistan government don't believe the Maharajah actually signed it.

Now both India and Pakistan claim the entirety of Kashmir and three separate wars have been fought between the two countries over the land, not including the localized fighting which ebbs and flows constantly. The number of deaths and lives affected is innumerable. And after all of this, unfortunately, the situation will only become more intense as the two countries acquire nuclear weapons.

The unrest in Southern Thailand: In Thailand's deep south on the border of Malaysia lie the four southern provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani, Songhkla and Yala. These southern provinces were once a part of the ancient Kingdom of Pattani, a semi-autonomous Islamic Malay region. Thailand acquired the region in 1902 but still to this day the people living there have far more in common with neighboring Malaysia (speaking a Malay dialect and adhering to the Islamic faith). These differences (and the fact that a large percentage of the population is in poverty) has lead Muslim separatists to begin an insurgence in the 1970's and has sparked many clashes on an off since. In the last 15 years many Thai leaders (including officers, teachers, and Buddhist monks) have been the target of violence in the region. Concern has also been voiced by the degree of force used by Thai security forces in retaliation. With such strong methods used in response to recent events it seems like the violence will only grow in the region. We will spend our last week along Thailand's beaches (word has it our families won't let us home if we don't spend some time on the beautiful beaches in this part of the world), however because of the current situation we will not travel this far south though we hear it is a beautiful part of the country.

The people fleeing fighting in Burma: The country of Burma has been under military rule since 1962. In 1990 free elections were held for the first time in 30 years and Aung San Suu Kyi was democratically elected the head of Burma with an overwhelming majority (82% of parliamentary seats) after fighting for decades to bring democracy to Burma. However the military regime refused to step down. Of the past 17 years of her life she has spent 11 under house arrest with no contact to the outside world. She even won the Nobel Peace prise while under house arrest. The military junta denies many of the basic freedoms to its citizens including the freedom of speech, association, and press. It also employs torture and political imprisonment. Some of the worst abuses (persecution, torture, extrajudicial executions, widespread rape and forced labor) are directed at Burma's numerous ethnic minority groups. As a result many of these people have fled to neighboring countries (Thailand, Bangladesh, India, and Malaysia) for refuge. The number in refugees camps (to the best I can add up) is around 250,000 excluding the number of refugees living illegally in these countries as well. Driving past the refugee camps in Thailand it is sobering to see how permanent the camps appear to be and as we gazed across the border we wondered when these people would be able to return to their homes.

The people struggling with foreign rule in Tibet: Since the Chinese Government started taking over Tibetan land in 1950 it is estimated that 1.2 million (a contested number), out of a total of 2.8 million, Tibetans have died from "the Great Leap Forward", violence, or other indirect causes. The official toll of deaths recorded for the whole of China for the years of the Great Leap Forward is 14 million, but experts say the number is closer to between 20 and 43 million. In 1959 the Tibetan Government, including its head the 14th Dalai Lhama (who has also since won a Nobel Peace Price for his methods of dealing with the Chinese government), fled to India over the Himalaya mountain range where about 120,000 refugees has followed in his footsteps over the last 50 years.

The Chinese government continues to suppress the Tibetan people through denying them basic rights. While I have no doubt most of the injustices against Tibetans is hidden from tourists we have scene multiple methods the Chinese authorities have used to intimidate the local people. Their religious institutions are heavily watched and their culture and history systematically eroded by the authorities (such as destroying historical artifacts that would go against the history China has fabricated for Tibet). The saddest part is how wide spread the Chinese influences are now. Even small towns in Tibet have heavy military influence and Chinese block-architecture buildings and the Chinese flag hangs from the Potala Place (the center for the Tibetan government and the home of the Dalai Lhama). All of the monasteries we visited were ruined and now being rebuilt, however the quality we saw was disgustingly low in some areas. The are incentives for Han Chinese to move into Tibet are high and as a result the Tibetans are being increasingly overshadowed. As the Chinese become more of a majority in Tibet it will become even more difficult for the Tibetans to realize freedom. In our experience, Dharamsala and Northern India is a better location to experience Tibet's incredible history and religion.

Our war in Vietnam: Between 110 BC and 1975 Vietnam was a hot potato being tossed between various foreign powers. From China to France to Japan until Japan granted Vietnam nominal independence towards the end of World War II. In 1954, the Geneva Accords dictated a temporary partition of Vietnam, which was to be unified after a national election in 1956. The agreement stipulated that the artificial line (termed the Demilitarized Zone) was in no way to be interpreted as a political or territorial boundary, however the president of Southern Vietnam (Diem) refused to hold the elections based on the justification that the elections in the communist-run North were illegitimate. The US supported this opinion, calling into question their commitment to democracy in the region. Funny enough, the U.S. supported government of South Vietnam justified its refusal to comply with the Geneva Accords by virtue of the fact the US had not signed them.

US backed Diem was an unlikely candidate for the first president of South Vietnam as he was a devout Roman Catholic and had a pretty sever case of paranoia and didn't care much for socializing. In 1955, he (against US advice) started launching military operations against religious sects (Cao Dai and Buddhist) in an effort to get rid of political opposition. With all that said Diem's next step was to rig the elections so he received 98.2% of the votes. After his "win" he declared the new "Republic of Vietnam". Upon this announcement the US started providing military aid to the region. The US developed their policy based on what was termed the Domino Theory. This idea argued that if South Vietnam fell to the communist forces that the rest of Southeast Asia would surely be to follow until eventually communists were knocking on Hawaii's door. This idea became the motive for the American involvement in Southern Vietnam.

As a result of Diem's oppression against a large majority of the population a insurgency began to brew in the late 1950's. Soon after the North issued a resolution authorizing an armed struggle in the South. The US reacted by sending money, equipment and men to South Vietnam in order to resist the communists. Even with the large amount of aid from the US the South's army remained of low-quality being plagued with bad leadership, corruption and political interference. So... the US sent more troops while in Vietnam the frequency of guerrilla attacks rose and the insurgency gained momentum.

The US government began to loose faith in the Diem regime and its ability to defeat the Communists and started encouraging a coup. In 1963 President Diem was overthrown and executed after the US promised its support of such a move. However, the coup didn't stop the increase in guerrilla activity and Kennedy again increased the number of US troops to 16,000. After Kennedy was assassinated (3 weeks after Diem was), Johnson escalated the bombing of North Vietnam with the intention of destroying North Vietnam's air defenses as well as transportation and industrial infrastructure. In turn, instead of a conventional war the US was confronted with small-unit guerrilla warfare. This allowed the North Vietnamese to control the pace of the war through engaging in battle only when they believed they had a decisive advantage. The US responded by... you guessed it... dramatically increasing their troops to more than 553,000, well that and spraying large areas of land with herbicides. The chemicals destroyed the landscape, ruined ecosystems, caused multiple diseases including sever birth defects, and poisoned the food and water from the areas sprayed. Trees are only now starting to grow and people are finally able to resettle the land. In Saigon, people born with birth defects begging or selling lottery tickets (the other day we saw a blind woman making a living by selling lottery tickets in the street... that's one strong person) are, unfortunately, far to a common of a site.

Main while Mguyen Van Thieu became the president of South Vietnam ending the long series of military juntas that were sparked after Diem's assassination. After a huge offensive battle from North Vietnam and the surfacing of some over exaggeration by US officials the war became very unpopular in the US and the decision to start to withdraw troops was made. The Paris Peace Accords to end the war and restore peace in Vietnam was signed in January of 1973 and officially ended US's involvement in the war. A cease-fire was also declared but the North Vietnamese forces were allowed to remain in South Vietnam territory they had seized. By the end of April of that year the Southern army had completely collapsed and on the 27th 100,000 North Vietnamese encircled Saigon. Hysterical crowds pleaded to be evacuated from the country on limited helicopter seats. Emergency aid from the US was asked for but the American public opinion had long soured on the conflict and additional help was not sent.

In the end, the war claimed between 2 and 5.7 million Southeast Asian lives (I never mentioned how much of the war carried over into Laos and Cambodia), a large number of whom were citizens. The US toll was another 57,000 to 59,000 people.

I do have to say though that I am constantly amazed by how normal life seems in all of these regions. Even in Vietnam, where a war took place only 30 years ago and many of the villages have only been able to re-establish themselves in the last 10 years, it would have been hard to tell that life hadn't been going on like this forever if we didn't have a guide to point out the sites. It also astounds me at how welcoming people here are towards westerns after being "owned" by the French and bombed out by us in the lifetime of many adults still living today... they seem to hold no grudges which I would imagine to be quite a feat. In some places we have visited the destruction just seems so normal that it is eerie and scary that people could get used to such a terrible thing. I am sorry to talk so much about all that. I am sure it is the last thing you would want to dwell on. It has just been on my mind a lot lately.

The massacre in Cambodia: I will leave this terrible story for a future e-mail after I have had the opportunity to travel the country and partly because my brain is turning to mush and I am beginning to questions my accuracy.

And that is just where we have been. So many people around the world die everyday because of human ideology, hatred, or ignorance. There are so many people already dieing form natural causes and human error, I just wish there was a better way. Sometimes I think it is hopeless and that the world is doomed to be in a constant state of conflict forever...

Other than all that terrible news we are doing well. I got some crazy foot rash that has left me with huge itchy welts but they are starting to go away now. I don't know why everything happens to me and Jason just skips along ;). We are currently in Hoi An which is an old port town. We read that it had a lot of beautiful old buildings but really compared to other places we have been its not preserved so well and the town feels like it is only tourists so that is not so nice but the food is really great so we have been splurging a little bit on dinners ($2-3 each on one meal!). I have even tried fish, well crab. I have also been forced to eat pork a couple of times so I think traveling is making me less picky ;). From here we head to the Mekong Delta for a few days on our way to Cambodia! It's getting closer!

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Now we find ourselves in Hue. We've spent the last couple days touring the old dynastic capital of Vietnam and went on a tour of the old Vietnam War Demilitarized Zone today. We visited a tunnel complex used by an entire villlage for the duration of the war as well as Khe Sanh combat base and other overgrown sights. Apart from the tunnels, the other sights were overgrown and hard to distinguish, which I suppose is an extremely good thing. The tunnels were absolutely incredible, however. The complex was about 3 kilometers (just under two miles) in length and included meeting rooms, living quarters, etc. Seventeen (17) babies were born underground before the end of the war. Absolutely incredible! My head still hearts from the sight as well as the fact that everything is "Vietnamese size" and I hit my head on all of the crossbeams. Khe Sanh was also sobering simply because of the history; it's tough to imagine what it must have been like b/c now it's a bustling border town. 500 Americans and 10,000 North Vietnamese soldiers died over the course of a 75 day siege (not included civilians caught in the middle). Places like that should feel different, but life has just kept on moving. We're trying to get our heads around the Vietnam War and its legacy here in Vietnam right now, so you'll have to wait for any opinions or pearls of wisdom. :) Right now it's being added to the list of heart wrenching historical atrocities we've come across in our travels (the Indian Partition, Secret War in Laos, Chinese revolutions, Cultural Revolution in Tibet, etc) and it's tough to know just how to feel. One thing is for certain though, there are too many similarities to the news snippets we're getting from Iraq. Life is taken far too cheaply.

Jason


Hoi An and My Son:



Central Highlands:



Saigon:



Mekong Delta: