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PEOPLE CALL IT "CROCODILE TEARS"
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In the last few months since January 2000, the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) and its government have been showing special efforts to grant significant assistance to mothers of their war dead. Many Vietnamese call the action "crocodile tears." And they have reasons to say so.
July 27 is the 53rd Anniversary of War Invalids and Fallen Combatants Day, which was promulgated by Ho Chi Minh government on July 27, 1947. This year, on the occasion of the anniversary, the VCP central and many local governments were holding ceremonies, meetings, paying visits to the so-called Heroic Mothers to honor the old poor mothers whose sons had sacrificed their lives while fighting as communist soldiers.
Usually on the day, Hanoi's war invalids and war dead are honored and presented with gifts along with the dead warriors' wives, children and parents, depending on the decision of each local government. This year, the "heroic mothers" have been targeted separately and groups of the selected old mothers were treated with pompous welcoming ceremonies and banquets.
As early as on June 16, Mr. Pham The Duyet, Politburo permanent member received a delegation of "heroic mothers" and revolutionary veterans from the central province of Quang Binh during their visit to Hanoi on June 16 at the Party Central Committee’s Headquarters.
On June 23, Hanoi Prime Minister Phan Van Khai received a delegation of "heroic mothers" and Communist veterans from Nha Be District, Saigon at his government office. On June 27, he welcomed a group of "heroic mothers and armed forces heroines" from Hue-Thua Thien. On June 29, Khai welcomed a delegation of "heroic mothers" and Communist veterans from the 4th District, Saigon. On July 6, he gave reception to two groups of "heroic mothers" from Nam Dinh and Phu Yen provinces.
All receptions were at Khai's government office and all groups were received during their organized trips visiting Hanoi. Khai promised to all of them that the VCP and its government "will continue to have more practical policies to assist them in their spiritual and daily life."
Other VCP leaders also took turn to honor the "heroic mothers." Communist State President Tran Duc Luong welcomed a delegation of the mothers from Quang Nam province, on July 12.
Looking back to the last 25 years since the Communist regime took control of the whole country, people have seen how the VCP and its government are taking care of their war dead, war invalids and their families.
After April 30, 1975, the National Liberation Front and its political tool, the Revolutionary Provisional Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, both were created and controlled by Hanoi, were quickly removed from the central stage. Most of the NLF warriors were since lightly treated in propaganda publications when the NLF and its provisionary government were formally disbanded after mid-1976.
Hanoi was facing an unsolvable dilemma. In the war, the Communist Party promised too much to its guerrillas. Communist propaganda drew a lot of young South Vietnamese peasants who had little education but bitter grudge against the nationalist authorities. The motivation had been their strong wishes to gain high positions that they weren't able to attain in a non-Communist society. Only a very small number of them were really motivated by patriotism.
Since assuming control over all Vietnam, the VCP hasn't had enough good positions in the party branches and government offices to be awarded to their living war heroes, faithful party members. Only a part of jobs available in each agency or unit could be given to the former warriors who had little formal education, whereas the list of war heroes and devoted party members was a mile long.
For about 10 years after the country was reunified under the Communist regime, Communist warriors were neglected, besides retirement pension that they called "chicken feed." Famous figures that had once been key characters in many worldwide propaganda plots of Hanoi fell into oblivion. The regime also took little care of its "martyrs" families.
Dissatisfaction ran wild among those poor veterans and families until VCP General Secretary Nguyen Van Linh and his men were in power.
Local governments were ordered to grant assistance to their forgotten comrades. There were "gratitude housing" projects in districts and provinces, to provide small houses to disabled veterans, war dead families. However, as central and local government budgets have always been in deficit, the projects have failed to come up to expectations.
The "heroic mothers" were last remembered by the Communist leaders. The VCP has faced unsolvable complaints from the old ladies whose sons, in many cases the only son of a family were killed in war. But for years, they were living alone in bad shape without any help. Among the old mothers, there are many who had harbored, protected or given hiding places to Communist cadres and soldiers during the war, but were soon forgotten, even suffered rude, ungrateful treatment by the Communist authorities.
The reception of the old women by top VCP leaders is equivalent to a reluctant admission of errors. How do the top leaders feel deep inside their hearts is unknown. But their actions towards their own men who died and others who underwent hardships to consolidate the party's ruling power and the leaders' seats came so late that people compare them to "crocodile tears."
In the last 25 years, the VCP and its government hasn't really been concerned with their missing soldiers. They have their reasons.
Most of their war dead were left rotten on battlefields in deep jungle areas. Those who were killed around their enemy defense lines or outposts were buried in mass graves. In both cases, almost all of the Communist dead soldiers bore nothing for identification, except in rare cases, palm-size notebooks with names and maybe poems and diary were recovered and kept as souvenirs by the SVN, American, Australian or South Korean soldiers. So even if the relatives know exactly where are the mass graves, they can have no way to identify the remains.
Letters sent to the Communist dead soldiers' families seldom located the specific grave sites because the North Vietnam army didn't keep track of the soldiers individual records. Death certificates were issued after the soldiers hadn't come back after many years or just from information provided by their fellow fighting men who witnessed their deaths.
Even marked graves in Communist "martyrs' cemeteries" are not trustworthy. Many times the relatives found two or more graves with headstones bearing the name of one dead person. Therefore, people don't think that ones resting in the graves are those whose names inscribed on the headstones.
So frustrated, the missing soldiers' families couldn't rely on the assistance of the Hanoi government. So they are relying on a mythic way to search for their remains: they turn to the psychics. Many people believe that some psychics could locate a grave and determined the accurate identity of the remains. It is said that a psychic could do so by using the sixth sense to affirm if kinship exists between the dead person in the grave and his relatives present at the site. Some psychics have become famous and earned big money in the last few years.
In fact, it can be estimated that most of the 1.1 million Communist soldiers killed in the war as confirmed by the Communist Army Command in 1997, should have been classified as MIAs. That must be much higher than the 300,000 claimed by Hanoi. Hanoi selected this number because it's not large enough to cause undesirable effect on the people psychology, but enough to solicit money from the Americans.
In the Vietnam War, the Communist leaders paid no concern about the lives of its soldiers. Human losses would not bother them. That was one of the crucial factors that helped them win the war. But they will have to pay for the victory with so much blood of their people.
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