]]]
Official sources in Hanoi on October 3 reported that fast floods and heavy
rains have destroyed parts of the Truong Son Highway. This highway is under
construction along the Truong Son (Long Mountains) Range. The Communist
government of Vietnam named it Ho Chi Minh Highway.
A
strategic communications route system from the North to the South crossing the
mountainous West side of the Truong Son has been one of the biggest dreams
haunting the top Vietnam Communist Party leaders for many decades. Right after the Communist troops overthrew
South Vietnam government on April 30, 1975, the late VCP General Secretary Le
Duan said in his message to the Vietnamese people that the new regime would
construct a modern highway in parallel with a broad-gauged railroad running
along the Truong Son and connecting Hanoi with Saigon.
Previously,
the French colonialist pre-1945 government and later, the Republic Vietnam
under Ngo Dinh Diem, all had shared the same dream. It is necessary to have
another route from the North to the South besides the existing Highway 1 along
the coastal areas in Central Vietnam. Such highway would be the second backbone
for strategic and economic communication in case of war or natural disaster
that could cut up the coastal roads, although the second highway could even be
blocked by the unpredictable mood of the weather.
The
succeeding Communist leaders have not given up, either. In the late half of the
1990s, the Truong Son Highway project was brought to life again. The cost of
the project was estimated at 3 to 5 billion dollars. Had it been financed as
planned, the 4-lane concrete highway would have had completed a few years ago.
But Hanoi failed to persuade international financial institutions to provide
monetary aids and loans to carry out such the large-scale plan that promises
only little economic productivity.
At
the end of 1999, Communist rulers in Hanoi decided to build the highway. It
would be a two-lane road to be constructed with a budget of nearly 370 million
dollars. Disregarding advice against the project, Hanoi authorities in Hanoi
started the construction on April 5, 2000, which was expected to complete in
four years. The dreamed railroad has not been heard of any more.
There
have been many problems that keep the construction from going on as scheduled.
The Hanoi's Lao Dong (Labor) Newspaper on October 3, 2002, disclosed the facts
that in September 2002, the autumn rains caused landslides that washed away
many lengths of the newly leveled road. Many of these lengths are in the border
territory of Quang Nam Province, Central Vietnam.
Tran
Ngo, deputy director of the construction company number 5 in charge of a
portion of the highway said that heavy rain had damaged 39 km of the highway at
27 places, where many sections of the road were completely disappeared.
According to him, it would be very difficult to repair the remaining part
because of the permanent threats imposed by the fickle weather on the Truong
Son.
He
stressed that it was at those steep slopes without reinforcement, the road was
destroyed by huge slides. However, if all steep taluses along the highway are
reinforced, the total budget for the highway will not be at US$ 370 million,
but at approximately US$ 700 million.
In
another article, the Lao Dong in the Oct-10 issue predicts: "to have
this highway built for the duration, the construction budget must be double the
current investment value of the whole project." During this rainy season, the construction
is at a nearly complete standstill.
A
tribesman from a nearby hamlet commented that if excessive deforestation was
going on at the present furious rate, the whole highway would hardly exist in
the near future.
The
Lao Dong, a state-controlled newspaper, had to admit, "The HCM Highway
is running along the Truong Son. But the long-range planning was made without
consideration of possible landslides. That is really strange."
Basically,
the state-owned media are not permitted to publish any secret wrongdoing
committed by a party or a government officials and offices. But they are
allowed to report scandals, stories, crimes and any event that already have
been known to the public, or when the party leaders decide that the event will
be impossible to conceal from the public in the immediate future. This time, failures on the Truong Son Highway
are not concealable.
All
constructions in Vietnam today are often confronting with many problems. First
of all is thievery. Anything could be stolen and sold to people outside (bolts
and nuts, bricks, cement, tools, spare parts, wire...). Materials lacking of quantity and quality
caused fissures in some constructions and led to collapse of some others. The
hydroelectric plant at the Tri An Falls is an example.
Secondly,
it is the poor performance of engineers and technicians. A large number of them
have been poorly trained. The have completed high school and university only by
the favor of the privileged families assistance policy. "The policy"
grants children of the Communist faithful, disabled and war dead the required
scores to pass examinations for degrees and diplomas disregarding the results
of their studies. At work, they are given good leading jobs. So most of the
talents are improperly employed.
Thousands
of workers serving the construction of Truong Son Highway have been toiling
away over the highway for the last 15 months with insufficient healthcare. Most
of them are members of the Vanguard Youth, an association of "compulsory
volunteers" serving as wages earners to provide manual works to
construction sites and transporting military supplies to the front line combat
units in war.
The
Truong Son Highway is built on the existing National Highway 14. Until 1945,
French colonialists had completed HW 14 from HW 13 in Binh Duong province (near
Saigon) to Dak Pek, north of Kontum province. It was then asphalted partly from
Binh Duong to Ban Me Thuot. The
political prisoners who were members of revolutionary parties, nationalist and
Communist, incarcerated in Dakto and Kontum prison camps before 1945, were
working as forced labor, constructing parts of the highway.
Hundreds
of prisoners died by exhaustion, torture, malnutrition and sickness. Other
hundred of the ethnic group Sedang were killed in a fight when a thousand of
them with spears and machetes attacked the French platoon guarding the construction
site. When the French were out of ammunition, Sedang warriors overran the post
and killed all the French soldiers in revenge for their Sedang men who had been
executed by the French on the previous day.
In
1959, the late President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam ordered the
construction of the section from Dak Pek to Ben Giang and through Ashau Valley
to Khe Sanh, but the government had to call it off after a year because of the
Communist attacks.
Making
the decision to build the highway, the Communist leaders seem to be interested
in the Truong Son Highway construction primarily for military purpose. They
have underestimated the huge destructive force of the rainy season on the
Truong Son areas. A cheap construction in the area of high humidity and heavy
rains couldn't last long.
There
are no statistics on how Vietnamese poor taxpayers' money have been wasted
similarly by the Communist leaders' ruling incapability. But it must be rather
large.
The
birds are brave in fighting for their interests. They are talented in singing
after eating full. But they are incapable of evaluating a complicate situation
and envisaging plans for tomorrow.
NOTE:
The Ho Chi Minh Highway, or Truong Son Highway, has no relation with the
wartime Ho Chi Minh Trail as some may have mistaken. Please take a look at our
News Analysis on November 4, 2000, "HCM
Trail and the New Highway."
***