Vietnamese Students, War and Peace

( The author, a member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars, recently returned from a trip to Southeast Asia. She and Michael Morrow of Dispatch News Service were expelled from Saigon after attending the founding meeting of the Popular Front for the Defense of Peace. A post-doctoral student at Harvard last year, she is now teaching at Tufts and the Cambridge-Goddard Graduate School for Social Change. )

COMPARED to their American counterparts, South Vietnamese students hold a privileged place in society. Their status may be explained in part by a traditional respect for knowledge and for those dedicated to transmitting and enriching Vietnam's impressive literary heritage. More recently, however, it seems due to the students' determination to take a stand on the inevitable issue of War- and peace.

This November, I returned to Saigon (where I lived in 1966-1967) for a brief visit- briefer than planned, as it turned out, since I was expelled six days later. Before arriving there, I'd heard many conflicting reports about important changes occurring in the country. What I found exceeded all expectations. Public opinion about the War has been radically transformed. Although virtually unpublicized in the U.S., the events of the past nine months reflect a new and vigorous opposition both to the fighting and to the Thieu-Ky regime triumvirate.

Significantly, this opposition is no longer centered primarily in the countryside, but has surfaced in the urban areas as well. In fact, Saigon- long an ideal vantage point for "observing" the War from afar- is now the scene of an intensive political struggle. Workers, women, veterans, respectable politicians, religious leaders (including Roman Catholics, formerly among the most anti-Communist, enthusiastic supporters of the War), and of course students, have all taken a public stand in favor of hoa binh - peace. Moreover, for the first time, they have linked this peace with demands for: 1) withdrawal of "foreign" (i.e., American) troops from the South, and 2) the ouster of the military trio in Saigon.

Many factors have contributed to this overt manifestation of popular discontent- the heavy physical and moral costs of the fighting (over a quarter of the population is confined to refugee camps); the rapidly deteriorating economic situation (between June 1966 and February 1970, the cost of living in Saigon rose by 300 percent); the miniaturization of Vietnamese society (more than two million men are now under arms in the South); and, ironically, "Vietnamization" itself. For as the American presence in Saigon decreases, long pent-up opposition to the Thieu regime has mounted. And in response, the Saigon government is forced to rely on increased repression in order to counteract this threat: between one and two hundred thousand political prisoners (no one knows the exact figure) are now being held under intolerable conditions in "interrogation centers" and jails.

NOT that South Vietnam's urban centers haven't witnessed anti-war activity in the past. Even after the 1968 Tet offensive, however, public opposition to the fighting remained weak and sporadic; the regime had little trouble silencing its antagonists. Then, early in 1970, a new trend developed. Initially centered on rather specific, often personal grievances, it has evolved into a concerted movement for peace that has so far proved impossible to exorcise. A few of the more dramatic events reflecting this trend were dealt with briefly by the U.S. press. But such fragmentary accounts conveyed little of the urgency and significance of the actual situation in the cities. Once again, the American public has been kept in the dark of a news black-out, and information which would have exposed the political bankruptcy of U.S. policy in Vietnam has gone mysteriously unpublished.

Events were set in motion by the students. In March, Thieu carried out a "pre-emptive strike" against student leaders, who had recently renewed demands for "university autonomy" (i.e., that the Saigon authorities stop meddling with student activities in university buildings). Several were arrested and severely tortured. The student body responded with another wave of protests. Demonstrators poured into the streets. Then, the invasion of Cambodia sparked an escalation of the struggle; the students, demanding that the government condemn the Lon Nol regime's pogroms of Vietnamese in Cambodia, "liberated" the empty Cambodian embassy in Saigon. Militant peace banners ("We want peace, not solutions") appeared with increasing frequency during the mass protest marches.

About this time, student concerns underwent an important change. While broadening their own demands, they also threw their weight behind other oppressed groups in South Vietnam: a pathetic mass of war veterans, who burst upon the Saigon scene to protest bitterly about the government's refusal to help them find housing and jobs; the An Quang Buddhists, who tried launching a nation-wide peace campaign at the end of May; and some 100,000 striking workers, who demonstrated during the month of June.

By the same token, student grievances were taken up by groups outside the university. When Thieu's police renewed their attacks against student leaders at the end of August, parents, women's groups, lawyers, congressmen, religious leaders, teachers, and even university rectors publicly demanded an end to police brutality and repression. Early in September, a high Saigon court actually refused to try the students because "evidences of guilt are not clear enough." And when the detained students initiated a hunger strike "to the death," a group of mothers (two of them in their seventies) fasted in solidarity with students throughout the country.

ALTHOUGH the government finally released the principal student leaders on October 5 (as many as a thousand activists are reportedly still being held), this move did little to quell the dissent. For the students, together with a wide range of broadly-based interest groups, focused their attention on a grievance which they all have in common: the War. On October 11, the Student Committee for Human Rights- together with the Committee of Women's Action for the Right to Live, the National Movement for Self-Determination, and the High School Teachers Organization- organized a conference of more than 1000 delegates to discuss the possibility of forming a mass-based peace front.

Three weeks later, on November 7, the principal spokesmen of these groups met again in a pagoda near Saigon to pledge their support for the new movement- the Popular Front for the Defense of Peace (PFDP). They do not advocate just any "peace," and least of all a Nixonian "peace," but an "independent peace," drawn up by Vietnamese for Vietnamese. In fact, the PFDP's position as expressed in their ten-point manifesto is even stronger than that of the NLF/PRG.

For rather than demanding a negotiated withdrawal of American troops, they have called for the departure of all U.S. forces as a necessary prerequisite to ending the war. On the basis of the political prestige of several of the PFDP's founders (many of whom actively opposed the arrival of American combat troops in the South in 1965- and who, until recently, were serving prison terms because of this opposition), as well as the representativeness of its membership, attuned observers in Saigon consider its establishment to be the potentially most important political development since the Tet offensive.

Today, as many as 200 Saigon students meet daily in their shabby, make-shift headquarters in Chlon (a Saigon suburb) to plan their strategy for peace. Many of them also sleep there, fearing interception by the police on their way home- as has happened in the past. Neighborhood women provide food; the local families, anticipating an imminent police bust, have organized into "defense groups." The students greatly appreciate this support- which they regard as proof of popular sympathy with their cause.

But they do not take it for granted. Indeed, an important part of their peace drive is concerned with broadening their contact with the masses- another example of the concrete changes within their movement in recent months. They have established links with various trade unions as well as with the peasants by means of a "speaking with the people" campaign. Groups of students travel to the countryside, where they conduct house-to-house surveys and listen to villagers' grievances against the Saigon government. Recently, peasant delegations have been returning the visits, coming to Saigon to ask the students' help in publicizing their ill-treatment by government officials and U.S. troops. Students are also conducting investigations of American and South Korean war crimes.

AS THE vanguard of the peace movement, the students have relied heavily on one of the most powerful tools at their disposal: Vietnamese culture. By focusing public attention on things Vietnamese, they have openly challenged the tremendous American influence on their society, and at the same time are forging a spirit of unified struggle among the Vietnamese against a common enemy. This cultural renaissance has taken many forms. During the week I spent in Saigon, the Saigon Student Union organized two "cultural events": an "art exhibition" consisting largely of pictures of the My Lai massacre and of Saigon police beating down student demonstrators; and a "soiree" of very political song, dance, and theatre- mostly a recollection of past struggles by the Vietnamese to rid their country of foreign invaders, and clearly directed to the present situation.

Young women, who three years ago were abandoning their flowing ao dai and silky hair for Western miniskirts and curls, once again dress in the traditional national tunics and wear their hair long. Student leaders, even if they speak good English or French, prefer talking to foreigners in Vietnamese- correcting their translators when necessary. Even the high school students have joined in the fracas. As early as August, they announced a campaign to "abolish corrupted culture" (i.e., American influence) by "boycotting every kind of sex-appeal magazines poisoning the soul of Vietnamese youth," and threatening to "burn all the sex magazines in the bookshops all over the streets of Saigon."

Student activists readily admit they are a minority of the university population, which numbers some 30,000 in Saigon alone. But they insist that they can remain out of prison and continue the struggle only because of crucial support from less militant classmates- support which has been readily demonstrated in recent months. Moreover, many of the current leaders are themselves recent converts to the cause.

Nevertheless, the young university leaders have no illusions about the enormous risks they are running. For they are challenging men whose power and influence depend on prolonged fighting. Sooner or later, Thieu, with American logistical support, will attempt to suppress dissension by physically liquidating its leadership. Still, the student peace advocates insist that regardless of any short-term success by the government in repressing their movement, new people will come to the foreground. Ultimately, they assure you, an independent peace will and must come.