Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Tran Thi Tuyet, 1981

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Transcript

Uprising in the agrovilles

SR 2086/1

TRAN THI TUYET

Beep tone

Roll 86 of Vietnam Project

629 Take 1

Interview with Tran Thi Tuyet, 43.

Interviewer:

Please tell us about the agrovilles, what life was like in there.

Tran Thi Tuyet:

When the war ended and peace came back again, life was quite easy. The

population put up truck gardens, orchards, and paddy fields. Life was

quite easy. Life from 1954 to 1956 and even 1957 was relatively easy.

But when the Diem's agroville program was carried out, then in the

village of An Hiep an area of several dozens hectares was carved out in

order to build an agroville. This area included orchards, paddy fields,

houses and graves belonging to the inhabitants of the village.

In order to build the agroville, the resident population had to be

moved to another area. Then all the orchards were destroyed and the

graves bulldozed.

The inhabitants of the villages in the surrounding area were then

forced to work on the construction of the agroville. Therefore, they

rounded the population of An Binh Tay where I was living up every day

and herded them to the village of An Hiep to do corv饠labor.

A policeman named Duong was a very brutal one. Every day he rounded

people up, herded them away, and dismantled the houses to clear the

ground for the construction of the agroville. Therefore, the life of

the general population was extremely hard and difficult at that time.

Young men were press-ganged into the army, middle aged people were

forced to do corv饠labor and to build the agrovilles, houses were

destroyed and graves were bulldozed. Therefore, life was in utter

confusion. The population suffered terribly. The outrage of the

inhabitant of An hiep and the villages in the Ba Tri area was to the

extreme.

Therefore, at one time the people staged an uprising. They beat on the

drums and the wooden gongs and struggled to be able to go back to their

former villages in order to produce again. They demanded that their

former orchards and paddy fields be returned to them so that they could

produce and earn a living again.

During the uprising, there were young people who could not suppress

their anger and so they, on their own, fetched knives and killed the

policeman named Duong. They said that if the policeman named Duong was

allowed to live, they would not be allowed to go back to their former

places again. So they killed him in order to be able to go back to

their former villages and to avoid having to do corv饠labor for the

regime.

Therefore, during the uprising, when the population heard the sounds of

the drums and the gongs and the news that the liberation or

revolutionary forces were coming in order to help them in the uprising

and to help change their lives and bring back a life of comfort and

happiness to the population, every inhabitant became so eager that he

just went out there and helped destroy the agroville, the strategic

hamlet, so as to be able to return to their former places.

For all these reasons, the people were quite confident in and quite

supportive of the revolution. Hence, during the first phrase of the

uprising, the popular movement was very forceful. This was because

everybody was very angry.

Everyone had been forced to do corv饠labor, everyone had been

relocated into the strategic hamlet and everyone had been forced to

leave their homes. Therefore, the people had become very outraged. And

so when there was an order for uprising, people just participated

wholeheartedly.

This was especially because the policy of concentrating the population

into the agroville and press ganging the young men into the army had

created disruptions in the lives of the population. The uprising would

then liberate the population, allowing them freedom to go back to their

former villages to lead normal lives and to produce again. The idea

that they would not be driven out of their homes again and that their

graveyards would not be bulldozed again and that life would be normal

again made people extremely eager.

Therefore, during the first few nights of the uprising, whenever the

people heard the sounds of the drums and the gongs they automatically,

without having to be prodded by anybody at all, went out there to

participate. And those who had blood debts with the people - now, the

young and healthy people, without anybody telling them to do so, would

take up knives and chased after the despotic policemen so as to be able

to go back to their former patches of land again. So this was what

things were like in the agrovilles during the uprising.

630 Take 1

Clapstick

Interviewer:

Please describe to us again the dismantling of the agroville in 1960.

Tran Thi Tuyet:

About the dismantling of the agroville, when the population received

orders for the uprising and heard the drums and the gongs, they just

rushed out there to destroy the agroville in the hope of getting to go

back to their former places. I myself also participated in the beating

of the drums and the gongs.

The young men, and especially the self defense forces of the regime

itself, got extremely mad when they got relocated here. The said that

if they did not kill this policeman named Duong then they would remain

shut up in the agroville forever. Therefore, they took up knives and

killed this policeman.

The young women also participated by beating the drums and the gongs.

And this was what I did. While the young men killed the policeman named

Duong, a number of other agroville authorities were also taken before

the people and had their crimes of the previous years in concentrating

the population into the agroville and in subjecting the people to all

kinds of hardship and suffering pointed out to them. We asked them to

admit their crimes before the villagers.

Now, there was this peasant and a young man, whose names I just can't

remember at this point, who chopped this policeman Duong in revenge.

Other villagers participated in the uprising by beating the drums and

the gongs and pointing at the faces of the other policemen, the

director of the agroville and the despotic soldiers, saying: "It was

because of you people that we have had to suffer during the last few

years. It was because of you that we had to abandon our house, our

gardens, our paddy fields and our graves. It was because of you that we

have had to suffer poverty and hunger."

When the population did this, the local despots and the director of the

agroville became very humbled and asked that their crimes be forgiven.

I myself at that time participated by beating the drums and the gongs

and by pulling downs the signs and slogans which they posted on the

walls of every house.

In every house there was a slogan saying "We vow to annihilate the Viet

Cong." This meant that people were made to vow that they would not

support the Communists. There were also portraits of Diem everywhere.

At that time, in the agroville, the inhabitants automatically pulled

down all the signs and slogans and burnt up the agroville in order to

be able to go back to their native villages. This was what it was like

during the uprising.

631 Take 1

Clapstick

Interviewer:

Now, at the time you helped destroy the agroville, who did you think

was responsible for the agroville? Did you think that it was just Diem

himself who did this?

Tran Thi Tuyet:

At that time I thought that it was because of Diem. But I also thought

that the Americans were behind the policy. It was the American policy

to have the agrovilles constructed, but it was Diem himself who was

responsible for carrying out the policy.

But the people who carried out the repression against us in the local

area were the secret police, the regular police, the hamlet chiefs and

the agroville directors. Therefore, although the general population

understood who were responsible for the policy, they also knew that the

people who affected them directly were the local despots: the soldiers,

the guards, the village chief, the policeman Duong, and the agroville

security forces. Therefore, the people also hated those who affected

them directly.

Widespread support for the National Liberation Front

Interviewer:

The Liberation Front was founded then, in 1960. Did you have any

thought on the Front at that time?

Tran Thi Tuyet:

The Revolutionary Front, you mean?

Interviewer:

That's correct.

Tran Thi Tuyet:

At that time, the Front was just founded. I was then in the agroville

and I realized that the only way not to remain locked up forever in the

agrovilles, the strategic hamlets and the New Life hamlets was to

follow the Front.

I thought that only with the birth of the Front would the press-ganging

of the young people into the army and the turning over of the graves

end. Without the birth of the Front to help organize uprisings in order

to bring in a new life then the inhabitants of An Hiep and An Binh Tay

and other villages in this general area would suffer forever.

Therefore, in my opinion, the only out was to follow the revolution, to

follow the Front. Only this will give peace and life again. Otherwise,

we would end up dead under the US/Diem regime.

My husband was press-ganged into the army, my family forced into the

agroville and I myself forced to work for them every day. There was

hardly a day when we could rest. The graves of our ancestors were

turned over and dug up.

Therefore, when I heard about the uprising I was overjoyed. Everybody

was happy, so happy that they could not sleep. We waited for the

Liberation forces to come to us eagerly day and night to help us wipe

out all the repression and suffering and to return us to the kind of

life which we enjoyed right after peace came.

Life then was plentiful. We had abundant orchards, full rice bins, and

a lot of pigs and chicken. Life was really plentiful and comfortable.

But with the presence of the agrovilles, life became extremely harsh

and difficult.

We had to abandon our houses, our paddy fields, and the graves - the

graves were bulldozed and turned over. The above was my thought when

the Front came into being.

Transcript

Transcript

Series: Vietnam: A Television History

Raw Footage: Interview with Tran Thi Tuyet, 1981

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-3b5w66972w

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Description

Credits: Interviewee2: Tran, Thi Tuyet
Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: c2368f325f3eea83223cc28466d80b70dc88b680 (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:13:08:07

Citations: Chicago: “Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Tran Thi Tuyet, 1981,” 1981-03-11, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed December 25, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-3b5w66972w.; MLA: “Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Tran Thi Tuyet, 1981.” 1981-03-11. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. December 25, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-3b5w66972w>.; APA: Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Tran Thi Tuyet, 1981. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-3b5w66972w