Hwang Sok-Yong - The Shadow of Arms

“People should be paid for their labor, and a land reform of sweeping breadth must be accomplished in the pacification zones. However, based on our experience, once the government forces move into a new pacification zone, the pattern has been that the farmers see their land seized by new landlords, vile opportunists with relatives or friends in the military or other speculators with military connections. The Vietnamese are people who follow the teachings of Confucius. Unlike Western people, we attach more importance to seeing rightness put into practice than to the fulfillment of material desires. The Liberation Front focuses its concern on the corruption endemic on our society. . ”

“Chief, couldn’t you use some other expression?”

Pham Quyen interrupted in the nick of time, for he was conscious of the first lieutenant who was busily taking down all of the remarks of the proceedings. The contents of the conference would be reported later, and Pham Quyen did not relish being questioned by the Da Nang internal security agency later. Of course, as Liam’s right-hand man, and with Liam having a direct family line to the president, they would not dare do anything to Pham, but all the same he wanted to avoid any mutual unpleasantness.

Sitting next to the Americans was an interpreter they had hired who was translating for them every word spoken. The chief of the agricultural section mopped his brow with a handkerchief and continued. As far as Pham Quyen knew, he had been a sincere and outstanding student in his younger days. He was from Quang Ngai. Though he had graduated from the officer candidate school, he was scarcely cut out for the military. He had once worked for USOM, where he impressed his superiors, so they had sent him to the Philippines for further education. There was no doubt he had superior knowledge and skills in agriculture, but to Pham Quyen he was a stubborn idealist. He did not fit the reality in Vietnam, and now it seemed he had almost gone crazy over this phoenix hamlet project. For some time Pham Quyen had been thinking that the man was showing signs of becoming dangerous.

“I suppose I could speak more circumspectly, but I believe we must be ready even to quote the expressions of the enemy, if necessary to accomplish our mission successfully. The Way of Ho Chi Minh includes plenty of ethical and ascetic elements. These are the features that make it possible for them to approach the traditional Vietnamese manner of thinking, as I said before. The North Vietnamese leaders made no wild promises, nor did they allow bribes to distort their plans. They only showed the blood, sweat, and pain of toil, and implanted an image of leadership with a bold and spartan manner.

“In the first place, through the phase of political struggle, they consolidated their foundations for the so-called internal class struggle. And before they launched the land reform, they had orchestrated a movement for reducing farm rents. Through the rural party cells, their cadres got acquainted with the poor peasants who farmed land they did not own, asking their permission to live with them. Next, they practiced what they called the ‘three cooperations’: they worked without pay with the farmers, they ate together and slept in the same beds, and when the men got married, often a female agent came in and slept with the farmer’s wife.

“They usually stayed at least three months, gaining the trust of the peasants because they worked without demanding pay. Depending on the season, they helped the farmers out with all kinds of agricultural labor, tilling, sowing, weeding, and harvesting, and they even cleaned the house and cared for the children, engaging in constant discussion with the man of the house. They tried to understand all the minute details of the farmer’s existence and especially when they heard of troubles and hard times, they showed great concern and sympathy.

“Soon the farmers came to trust them instinctively and bared their hearts to them. In the end the agents enter deep into the farmer’s soul and drag out his hatred for the landlord who is, in effect, their own personal foe. Through this process the farmers become ready for the class struggle. The agents call these farmers ‘roots’ and the process ‘sprouting roots.’ All their social reforms were made with the roots sprouting in the hearts of the people themselves.

“Therefore, our phoenix hamlet project likewise must start from the actual living conditions of the farmers. If it is done from the standpoint of military conveniences, it will certainly fail. To have a sanctuary from terror and hunger is not enough, they need to be able to choose their own leaders and also to denounce those leaders when their trust has been betrayed. At the outset, the Developmental Revolution Committee should have set up structures at the township level, the administrative front line, as well as at the level of autonomous villages, through elections in which the residents themselves can vote.

“That we were not mere puppets is certain, but then our government did not exactly have the stature of an independent nation. The Americans criticized us for lacking a highly developed government structure, but they should realize this is a situation in which people in Saigon still find it natural to refer to the American ambassador as the ‘Governor General.’ We were a colony until the French armed forces were defeated and withdrew, and even if there are no longer any interventions by the French, we’re now going through a war with the colonial elements still intact in many ways. Today, without the economic support of America, we can’t carry on the war for a single day.”

“Just a minute, that’s only natural. America has the responsibility to protect Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia from communism. Isn’t the American army the shield of the whole Free World?”

The division commander interrupted the impassioned remarks of the chief of the agricultural section. Then the AID mission chief spoke with a gentle smile.

“Well, I find the criticisms of the section chief very useful. The insight to look straight into a problem is also quite important for the success of our pacification settlement project.”

That idiot, Pham Quyen thought worriedly, he does not realize that even when individually the Americans seem lenient toward criticisms and infinitely sincere in accepting them, the American organizations will drive the millions of teeth in their saw blades home and American corporations will leave not a single screw loose when their interests are at stake.

Pham Quyen had been entertaining a plan to seek endorsement of a bold expansion of his own mandate. If the atmosphere of the meeting continued to unfold along the same lines, he would seize the moment to propose more autonomous execution of the project plan. Autonomy! What a seductive and beautiful word! It would mean laying his hands on power reaching from distribution to consumption of the full range of goods. For instance, if the task is one necessitating a payment in good old green US dollars, in the name of autonomy you can have a briefcase full of clean, crisp freshly printed mainland US dollars brought straight from the window at the Chase Manhattan Bank in Saigon to the provincial government office. The ultra-sincere chief of the agriculture section, his face flushed by the encouragement he had received by the AID mission representative, resumed his lecture with renewed emphasis.

“The support we’re receiving at present has too many strings attached. These conditions, indeed, can aggravate corruption in the course of utilization of the support. We have the chief of the education section here today, and we all know that a large quantity of milk is being received for the grammar school children. In this case, for example, the price for the milk is supposed to be paid in dollars from our allotments of hard currency aid, but milk procurement has become very complicated because of two factors. First, due to the contract arranged by the US government, the milk is shipped from the east coast of the US instead of the west coast. That makes the transportation expense extremely high. What makes it even more intriguing is that we can easily buy the same quality milk from Singapore at about half the price.