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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 37, No. 11. May 29, 1974

Crutches—only for Thieu

Crutches—only for Thieu

Too hasty a withdrawl at this time could result in turning Vietnam into a blood bath!

Too hasty a withdrawl at this time could result in turning Vietnam into a blood bath!

Aid to South Vietnam

New Zealand's political interests in Indo China are evidenced by committal of troops to help prop up the Thieu regime and its predecessors, our stubborn refusal to recognise the PRG as an administration in South Vietnam equal with the Thieu government and by the selective nature of our aid to the various countries of Indo China.

The government maintains that humanitarian considerations guide their aid programme in the region, however our medical and "civilian" assistance cannot be considered in isolation from the decision to commit New Zealand troops to the war. The change of government saw an apparent change of policy. Has there been however any substantial shift in the objectives of aid to Thieu since November 1972?

If we take the aid programme for 1973/1972 to Vietnam some interesting facts emerge. The emphasis of the programme is clearly on health:
Surgical team, Qui Nhon $145,000
Construction of Nurses Home. Qui Nhon $ 70,000
Design of Children's Ward, Qui Nhon $10,000
Reconstruction of Bong Son Hospital, Qui Nhon $100,000
Construction of Public Health Centre, Saigon $130,000
Design of National Institute of Public Health, Saigon $25,000
Radiography Advisor, Saigon $10,000
Telecommunications Adviser, Saigon $15,000
Provision of Marine Police Boat Hulls $60,000
Gift of Wheelchairs $15,000
Provision of Water Ambulances $25,000
Equipment for Dental Nursing School, Saigon $5,000

However let us at present look at the realities of the Thieu government and their health system.

Dr John Champlin, an American physician who spent over three years working in Vietnam, testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on June 11, 1973, on the health situation in South Vietnam following the ceasefire. He found that, in spite of the desperate needs of the people, health care had never been a high priority of the Thieu regime or of its American patrons:

"In the summer of 1971, I still did not understand why desperate mothers carrying child polio victims were flooding our surgical screening clinics. A trip to the Bong Son Hospital in Binh Dinh province on the Central Coast helped provide the answer.

Hospital Administrators there informed me that several cases of Poliomyelitis had been diagnosed locally, but they had been unable to obtain polio vaccine from the authorities in Qui Nonh, the province capital. On my return to Qui Nonh, the province medical chief told me simply that polio vaccine was not available. Later a Thieu government official in Saigon said that their supply of vaccine, donated by the Canadians, could not be distributed to outlying districts (Bong Son is on Highway 1, the main North South Highway) because the vaccine spoils without refrigeration and refrigeration was not possible in the countryside.

Meanwhile, ice cold beer was being delivered by Helicopter to US combat troops in the field and research laboratories in North Vietnam had long ago discovered a method for producing a trivalent vaccine that does not require refrigeration. Polio became a rare disease in the North 12 years ago. In the South, anachronistic diseases like polio continue to be rationalised as inevitable in a poor country at war."4

The health system is as corrupt as the other aspects of the Thieu administration. Private patients in South Vietnam are page 9 charged about $(US)1.30 for an office visit, exclusive of treatment costs. That is 1% of the annual percapita income of $(US)130.

There has been a steady decrease in the money spent by the Thieu government on health. It reached a peak in 1968 and by 1972 had dropped to 1.8% of the total budget. This is one of the lowest health budgets in the world and in a country with the greatest need. The World Health Organisation suggests a peace-time budget of 10%. The government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam spends 15% on health care for its people.

It is clear that our assistance in the health field in Vietnam is not part of a general programme to improve health services in South Vietnam. "What then is the effect of the aid?

The government of the Thieu regime receives 80% of its total finances from the government of the United Slates. The Thieu regime is totally dependent on the United States. The objective of aid to South Vietnam is the survival of that government, not the survival of a few victims of the war and of Theiu's negligence.

You will note from the 1973/1974 figures that the New Zealand government is spending $100,000 on the reconstruction of Bong Son Hospital. That institution was destroyed in 1972. The Saigon Government and the news media in New Zealand claimed this as an example of the barbarity of the Viet Cong (sic), that the Liberation Front had deliberately sacked the hospital.

In late June of 1973 a Major Rea (at the time of the destruction of Bong Son) head of the Combined Medical Services team in the hospital, made a statement to the Auckland Star making it quite clear that the hospital was destroyed at the hands of Saigon government forces.

The money that we are spending this year on Bong Son would provide fifty portable medical and surgical kits that are the basic village unit in the health programme of the PRG. Thousands of New Zealanders have contributed to the purchase of some of these units in the certain knowledge that they will be used in a general campaign to improve the health of the people in areas administered by the PRG.

The provision of medical assistance by the New Zealand government to South Vietnam is not necessarily a praise-worthy thing. They have made a decision to support one side. They claim humanitarian motivation but-give assistance to one protagonist in the conflict. This is largely in the field of health, an area of endeavour where the recipient is criminal in his neglect. The other administrations of Vietnam that place a high priority on health care are excluded from New Zealand's official conscience.

Our humanity also extends to the provision of equipment and assistance to the Saigon Police. This year will see the expenditure of $60,000 on police boats.

Claiming that the project was "inherited by the present government", and that the government would probably have not entered into the project of its own volition, the Labour Government is still left in the embarrassing situation of being less progressive on this matter than the US Congress who have forbidden US aid to police or prisons in South Vietnam. Mr Walding said that to renegue on the agreement to provide that assistance would have possibly led to a suspicion of New Zealand's veracity in Asia.

We must already be doubted in many quarters. Labour was elected in a pledge to give humanitarian assistance to the Indo Chinese peoples. No direct assistance has been given to either the DRV or the PRG. Mr Walding has expressed the hope that they will have a bilaterial programme in North Vietnam but that, "North Vietnam has not been able or willing to respond to our and other countries' desire to assist the reconstruction and development of their economy."

This is hardly surprising, Government has not established links with the DRV in Hanoi, we believe that no contact has been made with the DRV Embassy in Canberra and when the government offered $3,000 in assistance to the DRV it insisted that it be administered by a multi-lateral agency.

I leave the subject of Vietnam with this thought. Mr Walding maintains that the Police boats will be used for "routine civilian work". What is meant by that is anybody's guess. However this law was posted by the Thieu government in 1972:

Excerpts from the January 22, 1973 Edicts:
1)All Police are permitted to shoot to kill all those who urge the people to demonstrate and those who cause disorders to incite people to follow communism.
4)Shoot instantly any soldiers, government officials or police who desert or incite other persons to desert.
6)Arrest and detain those persons who incite the people to create disorder and confusion, or to leave those areas controlled by the government in order to go into Communist controlled areas or vice versa. If they protest, they will be shot.5

4 Records of 1973 House of Hearings, Mutual Development Act, Pages 394-5. Quoted in Documenting the Post War War — American Friends Service Committee, 1973.

5 After the Signing of the Peace Agreements, Narmic/Vietnam Resource Centre.