【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.for nine years following 1945 we denied the people of vietnam the right of independence. for nine years we vigorously supported the french in their abortive effort to recolonize vietnam. before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the french war costs. even before the french were defeated at dien bien phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. we encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.after the french were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would e again through the geneva agreement. but instead there came the united states, determined that ho should not unify the temporarily spanided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, premier diem. the peasants watched and cringed as diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the north. the peasants watched as all this was presided over by united states39。 influence and then by increasing numbers of united states troops who came to help quell the insurgency that diem39。s methods had aroused. when diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.the only change came from america, as we increased our troop mitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. all the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow vietnamese, the real enemy. they move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. they know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.so they go, primarily women and children and the aged. they watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. they must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. they wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from american firepower for one vietconginflicted injury. so far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. they wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. they see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. they see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.what do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? what do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of europe? where are the roots of the independent vietnam we claim to be building? is it among these voiceless ones?we have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. we have destroyed their land and their crops. we have cooperated in the crushing of the nation39。s only nonmunist revolutionary political force, the unified buddhist church. we have supported the enemies of the peasants of saigon. we have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. *soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. the peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new vietnam on such grounds as these. could we blame them for such thoughts? we must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. these, too, are our brothers.perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies.* what of the national liberation front, that strangely anonymous group we call vc or munists? what must they think of the united states of america when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of diem, which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the south? what do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? how can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of aggression from the north as if there were nothing more essential to the war? how can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. surely we must see that our own puterized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.how do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twentyfive percent munist, and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? what must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of vietnam, and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have a part? they ask how we can speak of free elections when the saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. and they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them, the only party in real touch with the peasants. they question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. their questi