Saigon: Moving the People Out

BANMETHUOT, Vietnam (DNSI) - The forcible relocation of more than 45,000 Montagnards in the Central Highlands to large concentration centers is continuing as planned, despite sharp differences of opinion among the United States civil operations personnel in Vietnam.

The relocation campaign, called "Gathering the People" by Region II Commanding General Ngo Dzu, has been opposed from the start by some U. S. officials in Saigon and in the field who fear that concentrating thousands of Montagnards near main roads threatens the economic self-sufficiency of Montagnard communities.

The U. S. War Victims Directorate in Saigon has officially opposed such relocations as contrary to the interests of the people. But Ambassador William Colby, Chief of Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) in Vietnam, has given his approval to the move, and it is now being rushed to completion with U. S. logistical and relief assistance.

(Senator Edward 'Kennedy (D.-Mass.), Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Refugees, expressed deep concern at this report of the massive movement of Montagnards. In response to a Dispatch query in Washington, Kennedy said, "As I've said many times, policies aimed at the strategic movement of people in Vietnam has long been discredited and it distresses me to hear new reports of this bankrupt policy.")

The Deputy Senior Province Advisor in Darlac Province, O. Ammon Bartley, in an interview called one resettlement center, Buon Kli B, a "model relocation" and said the problem of land for relocating Motangnards had been solved.

General Dzu ordered all Province Chiefs in Region II late last summer to eliminate all Montagnard hamlets rated C and D (contested and Viet Cong controlled hamlets) by relocating them near lines of communication. Senior U. S. officials in the provinces defend the relocation on the grounds that it will deny the population and resources of Montagnard hamlets to the Viet Cong.

(In Washington a State Department spokesman verified that the Montagnards were "removed by the Vietnamese military for security reasons.")

But officials whose primary concern is the welfare of the Montagnards say their interests are not being taken into account. "The people carrying out this move talk about security as though it were only military security," says one official in social welfare work. "The Montagnards are more concerned about economic security."

U. S. officials in Saigon and in the provinces say that when General Dzu ordered the move last summer, he ignored established regulations requiring the submission of detailed plans both for the movement and for the economic and social welfare of the relocated population. Without prior planning, these sources say, Dzu began the move during the Autumn harvest season, leaving relocated hamlets without their rice supply for the remainder of the year. He stopped the relocation until the end of the harvest only in October after Deputy Director of CORDS for Region II, Edward T. Long, wrote a personal letter to Dzu requesting the postponement.

In Darlac Province, the lack of planning resulted in heavy losses of livestock, rice, and other valuable possessions in the process of moving to the relocation sites, according to one official who has interviewed the relocated Montagnards. Only a fraction of the water buffalo, cattle and other animals could be brought with the people, because of the hurried moves by truck and U. S. Chinook helicopters. Virtually all the hardwood furniture found in Montagnard long-houses had to be left behind. Cattle and ceremonial gongs were stolen by ARVN troops and later sold in a nearby Vietnamese market town.

Since arriving in Buon Kli B relocation site, the Montagnards have lost virtually all of the remaining livestock. Only one cow was visible during a walking tour of Buon Wing A. one of the four hamlets at the site, and it appeared to be sick. When asked where their livestock was, people answered that they had all died.

But the most urgent problem of the Montagnards relocation centers in Darlac is the shortage of land. Montagnards find themselves competing with Vietnamese as well as with each other for the limited supply of accessible land. In several areas in the province recently relocated Montagnard hamlets have found that Vietnamese farmers have moved in to cultivate much of the nearby land.

At the same time, Vietnamese are continuing to encroach on land previously abandoned by relocated Montagnards. U. S. officials here point out that the same developments occurred after previous Montagnard relocations in the province.

At Buon Drai Si, near Route 14 north of Banmethuot, 3,200 Montagnards relocated in May 1970 were promised by the District Chief that they would be able to farm all the land west of the Ea De River. But Vietnamese immediately began farming the land. At Buon Nie Ea Sah, where 2800 people were relocated in December 1969 and January 1970, farmers from the nearby Vietnamese village of Halan have continued to push west of the relocation sites to occupy the land promised to the Montagnards.

People in Buon Nie Ea Sah say that the Province Chief met with the village Chiefs of Halan and Nie Ea Sah last September and promised the Montagnards all the land on their side of Route 14, but the Vietnamese refused to leave the land, and nothing has been heard from the Province Chief since then.

South of Manmethout at Buon M'Bre, U. S. engineers cleared substantial land for Montagnards who resettled last October. But when they arrived at Buon M'bre, Vietnamese had already begun to move onto their land.

At Buon Kli B, with nearly 7000 people - the largest resettlement site in Darlac Province - population pressure and advancing Vietnamese farmers leave the Montagnards with only a fraction of the land required to sustain themselves. Before the move, Vietnamese province officials planned to allot only two-tenths of a hectare to each family. But U. S. social welfare advisers estimate that a minimum of two hectares is needed to sustain a Montagnard family.

ONE THOUSAND hectares of cleared land near the resettlement site is already being farmed by 100 Vietnamese farmers with tractors. The Vietnamese district chief has said that the Vietnamese will have to evacuate this land in 1972, but the Montagnards need land for the planting season which is about to begin.

The land squeeze is forcing relocated Montagnards to choose between cultivating parcels of land too small to support them, trying to walk long distances to find more land, or looking for employment elsewhere. At Buon Nie Ea Sar, a local resident said that the people have an average of one-half to one hectare per family, and that most families were not getting enough to eat. At Buon Kli B, Montagnard farmers report having to walk as far as ten kilometers to find land.

Others have lost hope of being able to support themselves as farmers and have sought employment on French-owned tea plantations near Banmethuot, Both U. S. and Montagnard observers think it is only a matter of time before the Montagnards clustered near Route 14 begin to work for the Vietnamese farmers in Halan and further south. Already, Montagnards from Buon Ale A and B near Banmethuot are picked up by truck every morning to work for Vietnamese farmers in the area.

One educated Montagnard remarked bitterly that the relocation centers in Darlac surrounded by Vietnamese-occupied land "look like Indian reservations." He suspects that Vietnamese policy is aimed at making rural proletariat out of relocated Montagnards, noting that in Lam Dong Province as well, Vietnamese relocated Montagnards near a tea plantation. "They will have to sell their labor in order to survive," he said. "It will be a kind of slavery."

U. S. Land Reform officials have been particularly critical of the relocation, which they fear will nullify a Vietnamese government program intended to protect Montagnard hamlet land against encroachments by Vietnamese. The purpose of the "hamlet identification program" is to define the "living area" of each Montagnard hamlet, and thus make it legally inviolable.

(A dispute between Montagnards and Mrs. Nguyen Ky over claims to 3,700 acres in another Central Highland province was reported by A. P. in January. Mrs. Ky says the land is "public domain" while the Montagnards argue they should regain the land after it is retaken from the Viet Cong.)

The Vietnamese Directorate General of Land Affairs has now approved the principle that Montagnard hamlets which are relocated may choose to have legal title to their old hamlet land. However, U. S. officials think this right may be meaningless if Montagnards are forced to remain in relocation centers for years while Vietnamese continue cultivating their former land. "Why should we be so wishful as to think the Vietnamese will get off the land they are on now, even if the Montagnards have a legal title?" says one concerned official.

Asked about the possibility of Montagnards reclaiming their former lands in the future, Henry Sandri, Deputy Director of the Office of Development Operations at CORDS Regional Headquarters in Nhatrang, replied, "They can file a claim anytime, but security will determine whether and when they can go back." But he confessed that he did not understand why Vietnamese farmers were farming in areas which Montagnards had been forced to leave for reasons of security.

Deputy Senior Adviser Bartley says that relocated Montagnards in Darlac "are reacting to the move as though it is permanent. The longer they stay there the less they will want to go back to the old buons." But a Montagnard leader in Banmethuot vehemently disagrees. "All of them want to go back," he says. "There they had very good land. Here they can't do anything."

( Copyright 1971 Dispatch News Service International )