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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Student's Newspaper. Volume 31, Number 7. April 23 1968

No Pacts With Burglars or Enemies

page 5

No Pacts With Burglars or Enemies

Nguyen Van Giong, 3, was killed by a steel pellet bomb last year. Mrs. Cook took this photograph while in Hanoi.

Nguyen Van Giong, 3, was killed by a steel pellet bomb last year. Mrs. Cook took this photograph while in Hanoi.

If a burglar robs your house you don't negotiate with the burglar and say "You take the ground floor and we'll keep the upstairs." Nor do you say "We'll keep the house and you can have the orchard."

This is how the attitude of the North Vietnamese people was summarised by Mrs. Freda Cooke when interviewed at the recent Peace Power and Politics in Asia Conference in Wellington.

Mrs. Cooke has recently returned from Hanoi where she was on the staff of the Institute of Foreign Languages. "I was working at the correspondence school in Wellington in 1960 on a temporary basis when I learned they wanted an English teacher at Hanoi as they were getting involved in all sorts of international affairs" said Mrs. Cooke. "I had always been keen on the independence of former colonies and I was very interested in North Vietnam.

"My work was mainly the teaching of English to Vietnamese teachers." she said.

Asked about the bombing of the North, Mrs. Cook said "In Hanoi there is still a great deal still standing—the major part of the city in fact—but outside Hanoi and Haiphong practically every other town is totally destroyed.

"I think bombing really upsets people only in the early stages. It never really in the long run does anything with most people but enrage them.

"Soon after the bombing began in 1965 they began to evacuate small children and primary schools. They advised parents to send their children to stay with grandparents in the country. Most families have relatives in the country as it is only recently that the people, who are about 95% peasants, began to live in the large cities.

"At that early stage there was no real evacuation of working adults. This began gradually. At first they thought the bombing wasn't going to continue.

"Apart from the concrete tube shelters let into the footpaths, with little lids for the airraids, there are bomb-shelters in schools, shops, and some of the bigger houses. Some of the new shelters are being dug to a depth of seven metres, and I used to visit a hospital with room for two operating theatres underground."

On the bombing of the dykes Mrs. Cooke said. "This was an abominable act, and the result was the same as for any major flood, with people and cattle drowned, and crops flooded. To try to lessen the effects of this the people have built double-dykes and extra channels and reservoirs.

"Rice is still rationed of course, and certain foods are very short, especially meat. They can get mostly fish, shrimps, snails and frogs which they collect in the flooded paddies, and these are very nutritious.

"As well as this there is a store in Hanoi called 'The International Store' which has tinned food and so on for people who are able to pay for it. There are lines like Soviet Kamchatka crab and Chinese Milk, but many of the Vietnamese don't like tinned food very much anyway.

"The spirit of the people is very good. It's not as if they are passively waiting to be bombed. They have already shot down 2.800 enemy planes. There are also thousands of young people who have joined youth brigades to do repairs within a few hours. They might be given a section of road to keep clear of holes, and they have piles of raw materials piled up at the side.

"In August of last year the NLF put out a programme suggesting the different groups in the South who they would join with for an alternative government," said Mrs. Cooke on the political aspects of the war. "This would not really be a socialist government; the main thing is independence for South Vietnam. Their immediate programme does not include reunification, but does plan for a general election in the south.

"They regard many of the Vietnamese in the south as traitors because they called on the Americans. When the Americans leave I think they will have to take Ky and Thieu with them.

Of the North Vietnamese people who, in her own words, she has come to love and respect, Mrs. Cooke said "They feel sure they are going to have victory however long it takes. They say "We drove the Chinese out of our country after a thousand years. We were the only ones who kept out the Mongols of Kublai Khan. We drove out the French and Japanese and we will not be held by the Americans."

Mrs. Freda CookePhoto: Robert W. Joiner.

Mrs. Freda Cooke
Photo: Robert W. Joiner.