PEOPLE

The Boat People
transport war arranged for them and some of their possessions. Food
and a small amount of money was provided for the trip. On arrival,
local authorities werc supposed to provide tach family with certain
essentials: land, f m roois, seeds, fertilizers, building materials and
six months' rice. Once in the zones, families were ro buy basic suppl~es
on credit at state-run stores, paying for them after tht fimt harvest.
The NEZS were not simply a way of cutting an intolerably high
level of urban unemployment, boosting agricullural output and
making Vietnam more self-sufficient, They were part of s process
of resmcturing society dong socialist lines. They served to dispmt
people from potential centre1 of dissent and resistance formerly
under the mnaol of the old rkgitne, Once in an NEZ, southtmm
could expect to lx mixed with mlcrs from the north, Northern
adres could shepherd the ideologically unccnain southern flock.
'Re-education', which was intended to reform through 'study,
practice and latar', is as convovcrsial a subject as NEZS. It bepn
on a large ale
in June 1975, when memkrs of the defeated armed
forces were ordered to register. Numbers involved were huge. The
regular force - army, navy, air force and marina - as well as the
regional and popular forces, totalled about 1.2 million men, They
were commanded by 40 000 to 50 000 officers, Paramilitary forces
added another 1.2 million men to the tally; the national police
another 125 000. Many of thest military personnel had shed their
unifum and weapons, donned mufti and merged into civilian life
rather than surrmdcr to the communistsa However, a left-wing
French journalist who w ~s in Saigon after the takeover and had dose
links with the new rulers reported that they had captured one of five
American computers. In its memory bank was a 'Who's Who' that
included informatiori on the politid affiliations of members of the
disbandd army Computer cards for the police and civil service
were also repd
to have bnn recovered. In addition to the military
and police, there were about 300 000 civil servants, politicians, and
others closely associated with the previous rtgimc who were eligible
for reeducation.
lie authorities outlined their approach to the subject in these
terms: Political courses huve been organized to help the persons concerned
to see more clearly the crimes and schemm of the Americans
I
and the traitm, as well as the duties of Viemamere citizens in the
new stage of national reconstruction md socialist itmction, and
to mend their ways in order to find a place for themelvee in the
new society. Thm broad categories of 'the persons concerned' w m
established. In the first were ordinary soldiers, ~ws, and lowranking
mberr of the administration and poiitid organizations
of the previous government. They completed on-the-spot courses in
less than a week. Secondly, there were the more senior funaionarics
and officers, up to the rank of captain. They remained in rp.
education ccnm for anything from ten days to a y w and werc then
liable to sdminisaativr surveillance for dx to twelve month* Then
,
thcrc were the 'difficult' mw from the second categoiy. Thew were
held longer and merged with inmates of camps set up for thosc who
had htld important political, military and policc posts.
Evasiun was consider~ble. In Saigon for cxsmpie, official figures ,
suggest that in one disvict 5000 out of 25 000 military did not regis-
'
ter. Also, although the authorities promised to err on the ~idc of
leniency, so that thmc who were found to have made real ptogrcss ,
would be authorized to return to their homa and to recover their
civil rights earlier than the rtgul~tion time, many detainees hsve ail1
not been released. Most are believed to be military and police officers.
With them are m unknown number of ex-civil servants, politicians
and lml officials. In 1976 Vietnam's ambassador in Paris
claimed 'only 50000' people w m still being htld, In April 1977 a
senior mmunlst official teporttd that 96 per cent of those formerly
associnttd with the defunct Sdgon government had b m
'cnfranchiscd'.
For many, re-cduation was a simple stepping stone to rcinttgration
in society and recovery of civil righu, but for others it was a
tougher transition to probationary or second-class citizenship md
for some (the 'stubhm' cases) it was bleak detention. The US state
department in December 1978 estimated that Vietnam held from
lH3 000 to 200 000 politiaal prisoners. Whatever the actual number,
they are ~pparentiy kept in two types of camp - those for long-term
incarceration and thae from which releases we progressively made.
Most are believed to be in the latter. They live under conditions that
can be survived by people in robust physical health but would certainly
bc damaging if not fatal to the ill and weak, They have to