An Insider's Story. Religious Agencies in Viet-Nam
Hostetter, Doug
For three years a volunteer with Viet-Nam Christian Service, Doug Hostetter now works as Resource Coordinator for Asia and Peace at the United Methodist Office .for the United Nations....
...Chu-hoi in Vietnamese means "returnee," and these are supposedly Viet-Cong who have rallied to the Saigon government side...
...wealth was a frequent by-product...
...The early emperors welcomed the missionaries, as they brought new ideas, new objects, new technology...
...He had everything well organized, diagrammed and laid out on paper...
...With regard to the acceptance of government money, the source said most such agencies "will accept funds from anyone who wishes to give" as long as "no strings are attached," that is, as long as how the new "refugee resettlement areas" were going to have their basic needs met by the government, and the voluntary agencies would be able to go in and make whatever improvements they wanted...
...So don't forget to watch it...
...student delegation that brought back the People's Peace Treaty...
...And I said, "But I thought you were a Christian...
...Here was a village that was very much in need, it was shelled randomly by U.S...
...This policy is also recognized among the U.S...
...It was always assumed that anyone with a white face was on "our" side...
...He seemed a very interesting man...
...it's not even being done by official U.S...
...If you want to cut through the red tape, if you want to go in and work in brand-new areas with brand-new people under optimum conditions, here's the big chance...
...Second, there was a possibility that I would die from U.S...
...They were not at all willing to dissociate themselves from these...
...Once again, Western Christians feel there's5 something inherently pagan about minor chords...
...He claimed to be writing a book on the Bruu tribal people...
...LWR followed suit a year later...
...that they couldn't understand the Buddhists...
...They had Vietnamese servants in a small servants' quarters behind...
...forces, the U.S...
...One churchman, the Bishop of Adran, was not only a leading proponent of bringing in the French but actually became one of the leading French generals...
...DH: Right...
...We had arranged to get all this money to buy 10,000 gifts for the children, we had arranged to have a military band come for Christmas, and all we wanted these pastors to do was get up after the band played and give a few sermons on the meaning of Christmas before the province chief talked...
...Community development" programs, as the reader will doubelessly be aware, have little relation either to community or development...
...The missionaries made a real attempt to understand the culture as well as the language, and the history of the people...
...Atlee Beechy, a strong pacifist and a politically astute man...
...When the rice is gone, adapt your religion to feed your kids...
...But when I got to the bottom of it, I found there were three kinds of security they were talking about...
...In Saigon, I visited the grave of one of the first Catholic bishops, which was just like any other Vietnamese grave...
...But things did happen...
...It was a political attempt to regain our sovereignty...
...NACLA: Have Vietnamese Christians come to see the Western cultural baggage as essential to their religion...
...Government policy, as voiced by officials of both the Vietnamese and U.S...
...A Catholic priest would come with a proposal to MAC-V (Military Advisory Command-Vietnam), which had all kinds of slush funds for certain "self-help" projects, PL480*commodities and all sorts of other things...
...It was stopped only when there were protests against it within VNCS...
...Because of the access the Vietnamese priests and ministers had to the chaplains, they were the ones who were able to build orphanages and schools, which they did...
...These are the people that live beside me...
...He got permission from the local NLF authorities for me to come out to set up a sewing project in the village...
...They also could not be required to work through the U.S...
...Their cooperation is even more important now to the U.S...
...Another aspect, which was exposed by Michael Novak and Don Luce, was the use of CRS commodities, with full knowledge of the U.S...
...For instance, the pastor who had an NLF congregation immediately realized that this was not the kind of thing that he could participate in with integrity...
...Another thing is the role the military chaplain* played...
...At this stage it was a fairly good-sized village, securely under the "other side...
...The military chaplain is a very important person in the U.S...
...He goes on, "Do you want to know why VietNam is suffering...
...The Catholics were of course given food while the rest went hungry...
...goods at the PX...
...I learned a lot while I was there, but from the beginning I was sure that 1 was not a part of the U.S...
...Cambodia is a very important area in the post-cease-fire struggle...
...They have been sending medical supplies to a number of the hospitals in the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam and in the Provisional Revolutional Government (PRG) areas in the south, as well as Cambodia and Laos...
...DH: I know that it seems impossible, but the conclusion which I come to is, by and large, that most of the people at the field level are unaware of their cultural and political prejudices and the way in which they themselves are being used...
...He said, "We're keeping a list of all these people who have not cooperated, and none of them will ever be helped again...
...Despite VNCS guidelines to the contrary, things always worked out that way...
...It tightened up later on as more and more voluntary agencies came in and the U.S...
...DH: I worked for Viet-Nam Christian Service (VNCS), a program which was sponsored by three organizations while I was there-the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), Lutheran World Relief (LWR) and Church World Service (CWS).* In 1956, soon after the signing of the Geneva accords, the MCC had started a small program in Viet-Nam specializing in medical work...
...Interestingly enough, the military paper currency, which was used in Viet-Nam by all the GI's, does not have "In God We Trust" written on it, so he could not have gotten that notion from looking at the U.S...
...Eventually, VNCS said I had to go...
...You will see him in a spectacular parade on National Route 1, between MAC-V and the stadium...
...So, given this situation, they of course could not work in NLF territory...
...intervention took on massive proportions...
...With the Buddhist students, the structure of command and hierarchy was very amorphous...
...It's very interesting-I came very naively to Viet-Nam but there were some things that struck me immediately as being false...
...As some Christians would say, "The Lord closed the door...
...They generally didn't have their own interpreter...
...DRV Film Strip...
...voluntary agencies with programs overseas...
...Can you say something about the organization you worked with and about your own work...
...NACLA: What is your over-all opinion of the voluntary agencies in Viet-Nam...
...DH: I came to Viet-Nam as a pacifist determined from the beginning not to be part of the U.S...
...If the area is being taken over by "the enemy," the first ones to be evacuated are the missionaries and the relief workers...
...But there were a few isolated cases, both in VNCS and IVS (International Voluntary Services), where there were people on a local level who did in fact dissociate themselves from the larger war effort, and did programs which helped the people to establish independence and strength as people, not as a part of the Saigon government...
...The chain of command technically was very separate but there were a lot of these intertwining interests...
...There was a Vietnamese Protestant pastor there who wanted me to come out and help him...
...This was back when I had just gotten to Viet-Nam-- was very naive...
...If the head MAC-V colonel comes and eats Sunday dinner with you, you sit down and you talk about what the people are talking about...
...they had students living and sleeping in their home, and I did not get the feeling of any kind of race or class prejudice against the Bruu...
...The control of the people, which was not accomplished by the U.S...
...And they refused to cooperate-they were probably a bunch of commies...
...The rationale is always security...
...Catholics are people we know and trust...
...Areas not controlled by the U.S...
...military and government-civilian apparatus played before...
...They also frequently provide direct people-to-people relationships in circumstances where government programs could not operate easily...
...Worse than this was the Vietnamese Protestant uniform...
...Western art, music and architecture are inherently good, and God, of course, is associated with this...
...This was not something that was at the top of the missionaries' minds, but it was kind of at the bottom of their minds and people were aware of it at a low level...
...The parade will include a band, guards in colorful uniforms, floats and funny-looking clowns...
...The 40-odd member groups provide support for its staff of 15 and much of its program through membership fees ranging as high as $10,000 per year-for Catholic Relif Services, the largest of the member groups...
...He told *Curious about the meaning of "voluntary agency," we spoke to the staff mem- ber of an organization under U.S...
...They were just graduating their first class of nurses, and I was helping one of the Vietnamese pastors get the room ready for the graduation ceremony...
...who acted as the civic action/psychological warfare office r." That's one example of the way in which there is a nice hand-in-glove relationship between the Christian clergy and the U.S...
...NACLA: Are all Vietnamese Protestants that pro-United States...
...forces...
...But I remember asking him, "Aren't you afraid of the VC...
...NACLA: How do VNCS and similar programs get coordinated for government interests...
...The priest had just built a new new two-story Catholic high school, and when the NLF took over the village-which they frequently did while I was there-they went up to the woman who lived in the poorest little bamboo house in front of that school and asked her about the school...
...This adage is the source of the phrase "rice Christian...
...Throughout all these contacts there would be the usual, casual exchange of information...
...military effort in any way, shape or form...
...government contract to service agencies of this genre...
...government at least to make a show of withdrawing its military presence from Viet-Nam...
...If you are going to allow yourself to be coopted by one side, you know, it will be impossible to work with the other-that's just a reality...
...First of all, the Buddhists never had everything spelled out in black and white on papers with nice diagrams and graphs...
...officer in MAC-V decided that it would be a good idea to have a Christmas parade, just like back in Eugene, Oregon...
...government for those goods and their free transportationCWS, MCC and LWR commodities were shipped free of charge to Viet-Nam compliments of the U.S...
...Within the North American psyche there is a very deep desire to help in a positive, creative way...
...Here you have one orphanage sponsored by four or five different organizations, each of which thought that it was the sole sponsor and.total supporter...
...military--VNCS categorically refused to give any interviews...
...So all of the young Protestant pastors got together with a few of the young Catholic priests (those that were living in "fringe" areas) and said, "We will not cooperate...
...They decided that they had to arrange for giving out gifts some other way...
...Then as an old man, as you become a bit more mystical and inclined toward the ways of your ancestors...
...The children are taken from the age of four or live into Sunday schooltype groups where they receive intensive training...
...He understood that it was basically a political operation and also that it wouldn't work...
...It was very hard for me as a Westerner to understand how things happened...
...I remember that not far from the village* where I lived, Tam-Ky, there were some mass graves...
...3 and 4) and one of the Navy groups were all supporting it with the chaplain setting this up...
...acting as the civic action-psychological warfare officer...
...only Protestantism is not as strong in Viet-Nam...
...They would bring in hundreds of "refugees" at a time...
...intervention are the only volunteers left...
...and Saigon forces you begin to adopt some of their attitudes...
...They always had access to MAC-V and could buy U.S...
...you should return to their religion...
...People who refused to come or ran away were shot on the spot...
...So I was technically working for the Mennonites, receiving my $25 a month from MCC, but it was all under VNCS.* One of the early Mennonite administrators of VNCS was Dr...
...Usually schools of that kind are basically supported by the money which the peasants give, yet are only open to people who can pay tuition...
...How is this possible...
...There we were...
...The U.S...
...NACLA: Was there an attitude of anti-communism in VNCS...
...I said, "Yeah, I'd like to," and he said, "Well, it's because Viet-Nam is a Buddhist nation, because they worship their ancestors, burn incense and go to pagodas...
...goals and the U.S.-supported governments...
...architectural intervention in the South...
...But about the 17th century they began to realize what was happening...
...NACLA: Can you tell us something about the role the religious voluntary agencies have been playing since the cease-fire was signed, and are likely to play in the future...
...The leadership of the organization was dependent on them for transportation, supplies, postal services, PX privileges...
...NACLA: Tin Lanh, the evangelical Protestant church of Viet-Nam, is related to a U.S...
...There were numerous other things, very subtle ways of VNCS and the Saigon government working together...
...But this conflict hit the U.S...
...At one time when I was there, the woman looked out in the yard and saw two Vietnamese children playing on the swings that belonged to her children in the back yard, and became utterly furious and went racing out and chased them out of her yard...
...Creighton Abrams, and Evangelist Billy Graham celebrated Christmas in Viet-Nam, 1968...
...They lived in a house that was the same size and style as the Bruu around them, a bit larger but basically the same kind...
...So, of course he can't be dealt with...
...Here was a Vietnamese Protestant pastor bringing in a "To Quoc Tren Het " sign and putting it at the front of the room...
...Early in the Catholic mission experience, there came a time when the Pope said, "No, this has got to stop...
...What they did actually was take good "Christian," Western hymns and translate the words into Vietnamese...
...DH: No, not specifically...
...We're not sure whether we're going to be able to transport all your commodities...
...Khe-Sanh was the small camp that was later turned into a huge Marine base up near the DMZ, about seven miles below the DMZ and five miles from Laos, in the northwest corner of South Viet-Nam...
...Oftentimes they would have special officer friends who'd get food from the mess hallyou could get great steaks this way--and they'd help you with refrigerators and freezers and the like...
...Because she gave a good report on that school, it's still standing today...
...the staffs of the former generally receive professional salaries of $10,000 per year and more, with numerous tax benefits and overseas "hardship" pay...
...Taoists or Confucianists...
...I think it has only one or two people in all of Cambodia...
...I knew of one case in which there was a blatant attempt to use the missionary as a cover for a CIA operation...
...3 7. This short piece gives helpful insights on CWS and other agencies in their work with Cuban counter-revolutionaries and emigres...
...To ask whether VNCS as an organization could have worked in NLF areas: Here's an organization, some of whose members actually wanted to cooperate with the U.S...
...When the story hit, I was *ACVAFS provides a "meeting place and common ground for U.S...
...government people...
...There are also two large dogs in the compound to keep out strangers...
...DakTo or somewhere else in the highlands...
...They reveal the American Council of Voluntary Agencies and the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid (part of USAID) as mediators of the close bond which exists between the public and "private voluntary" sectors of the state apparatus...
...I applied to come over here and work in psy-war (psychological warfare), and here they shifted me over to this fucking artillery platoon...
...Sometimes he stayed with the women, other times with the province chief, while he was writing his book...
...For more on this federal agency, see items mentioned in note on p. 4 above...
...Despite these assurances by the NLF, the VNCS leadership refused to let me go...
...NACLA: You have made some very pointed criticisms of the activities of VNCS, but apparently you were able to avoid being caught up in their politics,and were even a thorn in their side...
...NACLA: And to have some basis of communication with other Vietnamese...
...governments...
...he's hurting our program up there...
...On the other hand, if your experience comes from living with people in the countryside who have been bombed and driven from their farms by the U.S...
...These two Wycliffe missionaries (whichwere the only ones I got to know really well in Viet-Nam, as they were the only ones working in my area) did not have some of the racial and class problems with the people they worked with that most of the C&MA missionaries did, but they were politically very naive in their relations with other North Americans...
...He would always ask the tribal people whether the NLF had been in their areas or in their villages and when they had last seen them and this kind of thing, and then immediately report it to the CIA officials...
...As a middle-aged family person you should move into Buddhism...
...Protestant and Catholic churches in Viet-Nam were all built with Roman and Gothic architecture...
...Their answer was, "No, we just can't afford to have a conflict...
...The melody is the same, so they "know" it's Christian...
...he is interested in talking about your family and the weather and what's going on in the village and all sorts of ;irrelevant things, and he isn't coming out and saying exactly what he wants...
...From this point onward I became a kind of antagonist within the VNCS structure, trying to keep an eye on some of the things we were doing and critique some aspects of the program...
...Instead of picking up on the issues--even the separation of church and state or the fact that we weren't a part of the U.S...
...The last emperor of VietNam, Tu Due, was probably the one who saw the light, who saw the real danger within Catholicism, not as a religion but as an ideology that was both a whole system of thought and a political allegiance, and he struck out against it in defense...
...Anywhere in South Viet-Nam it's a white shirt, lapel suit and tie, and this is in a country where temperatures go up to 130 F. You could tell a Vietnamese Protestant pastor anywhere in the countryside by his suit and tie...
...But what Viet-Nam needs more than anything else is to have their own integrity, their own leadership and their own programs...
...Of the five, only Dr...
...I would reply, "Look, if we're a Christian organization and we're doing what we're supposed to do, and they're a military organization and they're doing what they're supposed to do, there's bound to be some conflict, or one of us is not doing our job...
...They come in, and they're put in special chu-hoi camps for awhile, where they get special10 privileges, but also they are watched by the government until they became sanitized and propagandized...
...there was a chain of command...
...They categorically denied me permission to even go out and look at the situation-despite the fact that this countered everything that was in our theological statement about what we were doing...
...Had the old woman given that kind of report, the school would have been blown up that night...
...The largest open lawn in the city is in the missionary compound...
...The team arrived in Saigon on Monday, October 18, and immediately embarked on a heavy schedule of consultation with the various parties concerned: U.S...
...Accordingly, in conversations between the U.S...
...foreign policy, and U.S...
...military vehicles...
...pagan" communists-though it was never spelled out...
...They still have the basic North American ideology and can help "persuade" the Vietnamese and Cambodian people, lining them up behind the U.S...
...military intentions in the world...
...DH: Since I've been back in the United States many people who've heard that I was in Viet-Nam have asked for my advice before leaving to work there...
...First, they weren't quite sure they trusted the NLF...
...voluntary agencies...
...He says...
...Both of them were running orphanages for a hustle and getting very wealthy from it, and both of them were kowtowing to the local military people...
...And if that's the way you believe, well, then of course there's no problem working closely with this government to "help" the Vietnamese people...
...One of the things that I remember distinctly is coming to Da-Nang, and being welcomed with open arms into the missionary compound, always, any time of day or night, because I was white and North American and Christian...
...When I had a party for the kids and the priest came, he was always placed at the head table, given special deferential treatment and, I assure you, he was the real center of the room...
...Now, one very interesting thing that I discovered is that the Catholic Church made a transition during its involvement in Viet-Nam...
...Viet-Nam Christian Service started out essentially as a Mennonite organization...
...The head pastor's orphanage also had support from the Christian Children's Fund and World Vision, and I think he *The Military Chaplaincy...
...These are civilian military cadres who remain in their homes and operate within the local regions against NLF forces, and part of their salaries were paid in CRS commodities...
...Not only did the pastor overlap and have many people sponsor it, he also had another orphanage in Chu-Lai, about 20 miles away...
...Embassy and USOM, Vietnamese ministers and officials, U.S...
...In my village he was one of the two people that spoke good English...
...People are by and large unaware of the way in which they are manipulated...
...hi) d1uo, lnui (con" which means...
...The team was given every opportunity during its week in Vietnam to observe the wide range of political, military, economic and social considerations entering into the refugee situation...
...Its report reflects its own unanimous judgment, based on the facts of the situation and the judgments of those dealing with the problem in the field...
...Special Forces (Green Berets) up there...
...DH: Not entirely...
...government wanted done...
...They are leaving it all to be done by voluntary agencies, which are very excited and happy about this, because now they can get direct U.S...
...There were other ways of serving U.S...
...Well, this is basically what the French realized...
...In order to get someone who could work in our administrative system, we literally had to change their whole philosophy, which meant also to change their religion...
...This is very hard for someone to understand who really wants to help...
...Their relationship with the Vietnamese was very paternalistic...
...I thought Christians were different...
...MAI has been active in Viet-Nam for the past two years...
...But what the embassy and USAID officials could and did do was put pressure on the VNCS administration in Saigon...
...I would travel to these areas and of course, 1 could stay in the military facilities...
...NACLA: Can you recall ways and situations in which religion or religious organizations were used by the U.S...
...The ones in Da-Nang lived a completely different style of life from the people who lived around them, and they could never have afforded to live without locks and dogs and barbed wire...
...DH: The Vietnamese have another saying that goes...
...They said, "No, no, you haven't done anything wrong, it's simply that we cannot have a conflict with the military...
...Of the various denominations participating, only the Southern Baptists have no difficulty filling their quota...
...When the Swiss Red Cross started giving innoculations in some of the villages that were not controlled by the U.S...
...He came in and said, "Viet-Nam is suffering very, very much...
...And finally, there was a distinct possibility that if I got caught out there-if for example the CIA or the Saigon government discovered that I had traveled into "enemy territory"-the entire VNCS program might be in jeopardy...
...But it began to build and build throughout my period of time in Viet-Nam...
...military forces or those of our allies...
...The Wycliffe missionaries among the Bruu, however, lived a simple life...
...He blew his stack...
...Without exception, I have strongly recommended to all of them that now is not a time when a North American can assist the Vietnamese people...
...The NLF on the local level very much got their reading from the people on the way new programs affected them...
...What's more, they were wearing saffron or brown robes...
...What was the upshot of all this...
...The government can make it very easy or quite difficult for you to work in any area...
...Right: U.S...
...This is partly true because over the last several years there has been a self-selection process at work...
...currency which was floating around in Viet-Nam on the black market...
...1-10...
...Now Christmas is not exactly a national holiday in Viet-Nam, which is basically a Buddhist country...
...Liberated village greets the NLF...
...DH: Legally, the military had no way to put pressure on me to get out of Viet-Nam...
...They can take government supplies and funding and work in the areas where the U.S...
...the stuff that was written in the 17th and 18th century...
...Conversion to Catholicism became a very pragmatic thing...
...He won't give you a straight answer, won't give you a plain 'yes' or 'no...
...The French only trusted the Catholics, and if you converted...
...And, it's very interesting, in almost every situation he was also the G-5 or "civic action" officer...
...troops travel together...
...You will be happy to learn that your children are expecting to greet Santa Claus, who will visit Tam Ky December 23, 1968...
...The leaflet had a big picture of Santa Claus along with descriptions of the gifts that you'd get if you attended...
...This is very deep within the churches...
...This not only made them indebted to the U.S...
...He said, "Yes, of course I know what it means...
...So they checked out where he was coming from, and discovered that the place where he stayed in Hue was the "embassy house...
...bombing while I was there, which would not only be tragic-it would also be very embarrassing...
...Oh, there was religious persecution," I said...
...Given the class composition of their governing boards and their ideological alignment with the forces controlling the U.S...
...CARE...
...U.S...
...Just bring them together and everybody's happier-that's the idea.** Well, I got to Tam-Ky and started trying to do this...
...The Saigon forces would drop leaflets all over the countryside saying you will get so much money if you come in, and so much more if you bring in a hand grenade or a rifle, or if you show them where an arms cache is or whatever...
...denomination called the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA...
...The Catholic Church in Viet-Nam takes its mission very seriously and Vietnamese who are brought up Catholic as a result of their "good" Catholic education, are not Easterners...
...So the missionaries were ordered by their superiors not to allow him to stay with himapparently, the Wycliffe organization was aware of the risks open collaboration entailed, and knew its people in the field would be vulnerable to reprisals...
...I was technically in no way connected with the whole U.S...
...This literally meant, "If you are hungry, convert to Catholicism and work for the French...
...DH: Essentially, while all the U.S...
...bombing or artillery while I was out there, which would not only be tragic, but it would also be very embarrassing...
...What would you say today to someone thinking of going to work for this or any other similar agency in VietNam or Southeast Asia...
...Everything Christian was very, very different from what you would find in a Buddhist pagoda, Confucian temple or Taoist shrine in the countryside...
...This is already being demonstrated by special military "civic action" units in training (and the team met several of these in action) whose assignment Is to seek out and care for refugees and others in need...
...The Buddhists were very, very different...
...MAC-V made it practically impossible for them to work...
...The women also were completely accepting, but apparently their superiors back in Hue or Da-Nang were concerned about this young anthropologist who always was given special treatment by the green Berets as he traveled through...
...Another overtly political thing which the VNCS and all the voluntary agencies do is to operate only within the areas controlled by the U.S...
...This source defines "voluntary agency" as an organization whose funding springs "from the spontaneous, voluntary giving of generous citizens in behalf of a certain cause," as distinct from a tax-supported entity...
...A good example of this, if a little tangential, is the way in which they decided what to do with the Catholic high school in the village where I was...
...What it comes down to is a religious battle in which the U.S...
...VNCS directors were always decorated by the Saigon government...
...The Catholic group was very well organized along hierarchical lines...
...Are the religious organizations, which you have been describing, after all of this still unaware they are being used as political pawns...
...NACLA: You've talked about Wycliffe and the C&MA...
...It was nearly always the chaplain who dealt with the Vietnamese population...
...He would do a survey, finding out who were the Catholics...
...But the pastor then placed little Saigon government flags on wires along the pathway to the building where the graduation service was to take place...
...Government agencies and for a meeting with the Vice President, prior to flying to Vietnam on the Government-sponsored mission...
...They feel that they have a responsibility to run the programs, and most of these people never look at the larger political questions...
...He went on, "America is a very rich and prosperous nation because they trust in God...
...NACLA: What role has Western religion played in the ideological and political penetration and domination of Viet-Nam...
...When an area where people are living is threatened by "the enemy," the missionaries and VNCS people have to withdraw...
...I said, "Well, I'm making friends with a lot of people, and just trying to help the people out...
...13 I was at a meeting of the Committee on Southeast Asia of the American Council of Voluntary Agencies in Foreign Service* last June 19 here in New York, when Donald L. Goodwin, Director of USAID's Office of Technical Development, spoke about programs in Viet-Nam...
...Don't be late...
...Some of the missionaries were imprisoned and of course, the French army was then brought in to rescue them or to avenge the death of still other missionaries...
...But, as Church World Service got more involved in it, they brought many people who were not pacifists, some of who were actually ex-military people who had served in Viet-Nam and came back, and some who were expressly anti-communist...
...good Americans" trying to "help out" the churches in Viet-Nam, trying to "do them a favor...
...He would go to meet the military colonel, dressed in a black cassock, the same as priests in this country...
...And he was, of course...
...Is this the usual Catholic school that takes the money from the poor peasants and educates the sons and daughters of the rich...
...And when some North American sponsor would come to visit the one at Tam-Ky, he'd have all the orphans from Chu-Lai brought up to Tam-Ky...
...forces for political or military advantage...
...But people do not often look to see how the cup is given, under what circumstances, and whether in fact the cup is given only to certain people who happen to live in certain areas...
...He never got very specific about the book...
...I really wanted to do that kind of work...
...Photo by 1...
...We cannot risk people's lives by going into these insecure areas...
...It was, on the surface, a victory...
...effort than during the fighting...
...These people are my friends...
...The music in the Protestant church was also totally Western, you know, good old Handel and Bach...
...voluntary agencies, not just VNCS, regard themselves as humanitarian, "good will" organizations, they are being used politically by a government that's only too happy to turn them to its own purposes...
...which is family-oriented...
...This seems like a contradiction to most Americans but it's a fact...
...and didn't understand many of the things that were going on...
...The minute that a person or an agency deviated from these efforts and refused to be part of the "American team," they got in very hot water...
...They kept saying, "You've got to get this guy out of I-Corps...
...Subsequently, at the request of President Johnson, transmitted by Vice President Humphrey, this team of voluntary agency representatives assembled in Washington, D.C., on Friday, October 15, for briefings by appropriate U.S...
...He suggested that the best way to do this was through the churches...
...They really felt this way...
...Westerners in general, the French as well as North Americans, have never been able to comprehend Eastern thought...
...Ior in Viet-Nam to be Christian means to be Western.4 NACLA: Did the teachers and the priests consciously think of it this way...
...As they get older, they graduate into other groups and then there's the Scouts when they get to the high school age...
...I fought it the whole way...
...The self-preservation of the program, the distrust of the NLF, and the national "security concerns" all worked together to channel people and programs into doing exactly what the U.S...
...Douglas Hostetter: It goes back to about the 16th century when the French and the Portuguese were financing or helping to finance missionary trips to Annam (later renamed Viet-Nam...
...During the three years I was in Viet-Nam there were five directors, none of whom spoke the language, and only one or two of whom had any understanding of the history and culture of Viet-Nam...
...government would cut through all the red tape, so it could be a nothing is implied which is "ethically in conflict" with what the agencies can support...
...Can you tell us something about the C&MA missionaries from the United States who work with Tin Lanh...
...gods and the U.S...
...The sign finally came down because of my rather persistent arguing...
...If a Catholic priest doesn't speak good English, he will have a smart young Catholic boy along with him who speaks just...
...He said, "Afraid of the VC...
...That was the first time that it all hit me...
...and Vietnamese military, voluntary agency representatives with programs there, the press, and others...
...by all means see the very spectacular parade in Tam-Ky...
...The anti-war movement has forced the U.S...
...Essentially, what this was saying was that to be Vietnamese is to be "evil" in some way or other...
...But if you talked to them very much, their statements all indicated this...
...He was staying in the local CIA headquarters...
...What it comes down to is a religious battle in which the U.S...
...Psychological Warfare One of the first times I was really hit by what was happening was after I'd been in Viet-Nam only about three months...
...The Vietnamese language is subtle: it has no clear- cut word for "yes" or "no," and Americans who are used to giving straight orders and getting a yes-or-no answer are completely baffled...
...I was there on a civilian passport and I had a Vietnamese residence permit-what they call a "brown book...
...We may have to discontinue...
...Chaplains are ordained ministers who enter the services at the rank of Cap- tain and function as part of the chain of command...
...I knew some of the Protestant pastors quite well, and because I lived in a Catholic high school for over a year, I got to know some of the Catholics also...
...DH: Religion was specifically used in certain situations by the U.S...
...VNCS in turn kept putting pressure on me, asking me what I was doing...
...In January 1973, they re-established their own program, completely withdrawing from the joint agency...
...Once the other two organizations arrived on the scene, they asked the Mennonites to administer a *CWS is the agency with the largest annual budget in U.S Proltstantism, a large portion of which is provided by PL 480 commodities...
...They granted me safe passage out and back whenever I wanted to go...
...troops travel together...
...They would make statements like, "If the Americans leave, the church will be wiped out in VietNam," and, "The North is atheistic and godless and communist...
...Because of this selection process, it is still possible to send out volunteers who "want to help" and are totally unaware of the political function they perform...
...Vietnamese culture is inherently bad-that's the essential idea...
...Government officials were interested in making money and getting rich, so I soon shifted from working with the government to While the Mennonites initially directed the VNCS program, they later asked to be relieved of this task, thus expressing their displeasure at the increasing number of non-pacifists involved in the expanding program...
...The missionaries spoke very good Vietnamese, but they had no understanding of the history or the culture, and no desire to learn, either...
...I think that in Cambodia we are seeing a new style, which may be a prototype of the way in which the U.S...
...All of these representatives from the voluntary agencies were taking out their notepads and getting this down...
...The difference between the ways in which they operated was phenomenal...
...PL 480...
...MAC-V would bring in gifts for all the children and we would have a large Marine band brought up from the big Marine Air Base at Chu-Lai...
...This also works very well into the new "low profile" which the Nixon-Kissinger doctrine has tried to establish for the U.S...
...Government representation, should visitiVietnam to evaluate the refugee situation and report their findings...
...Saigon: Grale of earurly Catholic bishop, in the Vietnamese sitle...
...I discovered, one time when I visited Saigon, that VNCS had a feeding program at a chu-hoi center...
...People came over to talk to him, but he was not placed at the head table...
...As the situation shifts from a basically military to a political battle, "for the hearts and minds of the people," voluntary agencies still have legitimacy, and cannot be outlawed by the courts...
...AID for the Domestic Economy," NACLA's Latin America & Empire Report, VI, 2 (February 1972).a C&MA representative around Plei-Ku...
...he's untrustworthy...
...It was very clear after I got to Viet-Nam, got situated and looked around, that all the voluntary agencies-"naive" as they were-were tolerated, supported, cajoled and encouraged simply because they were helping with the government's psychological warfare efforts...
...We've got to come back to the true faith...
...Above: Vietnamese-style Catholic architecture in Hanoi dates fliom 18th century...
...this was accepted, and there has never been a religious war in Viet-Nam...
...But Christmas is definitely a North American institution, and it was decided that we would have a large Christmas Day parade...
...People who "One of the reasons we changed the personnel policy guidelines is so people like you don't get into VNCS any longer...
...But the villagers say that as a young man you should become a Confucianist, to understand the ways of life and the politics of how to operate, so that you can move into administration and political work...
...But it was not won with any help from VNCS...
...They would build a section of houses in Saigon, for example, and they would have a big celebration...
...Army, and really did not want to be a part of all that in any way...
...But, getting back to the CIA problem...
...They were finally turned over to all the hamlet chiefs, who sold them instead of giving them to the local people...
...and tried to restrict the number of missionaries...
...DH: Three religions are very basic to and very much a part of Viet-Nam: Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism...
...Furthermore, they cabled me three times stating that absolutely under no circumstances could I talk to any reporters unless I received explicit permission from their Saigon headquarters before doing it...
...One was Catholic and the other was Buddhist...
...The thing which Viet-Nam needs more than anything else is to be left alone by North Americans, U.S...
...This was right after I got to Viet-Nam, and I didn't get very suspicious...
...The voluntary agencies serve pockets of need and special categories that tend to be neglected in the mass government programs...
...specifically, CARE, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and World Vision International have increased their programs quite significantly...
...Some of the missionaries willingly gave information to the CIA orthe U.S...
...She said the priest who built this school was a very good priest...
...The colonel who was in charge of MAC-V was furious...
...And if they come here and see this, they'll be very happy and they'll want to give money to our school and let us operate...
...What Tam-Ky needed was a good Christmas parade...
...God's above everything...
...DH: They are more of less manipulated by the conditions of their work...
...Anyway, the head Catholic priest and the head Protestant pastor rode in the military jeeep with the province chief and the MAC-V colonel down the main street of Tam-Ky in the7 Sermon on the Mount...
...Foreign Aid," NACLA Newsletter, IV, 2 (April 1970), pp...
...Taoism...
...MAG-3, MAG4, (Marine Air Groups No...
...having almost no contact with it...
...agricultural surplus to work for propaganda in the Cold War, as well as to provide other benefits described in "Funding the Empire: U.S...
...It was nearly always the chaplain...
...The women very much liked him, because he brought them * For more on the Wycliffe Bible Translators, see "Story of the Wycliffe Tran slators-Pacifying the Last Frontiers," in this issue...
...he's Buddhist and he's probably a Communist...
...A perfect Christmas"-a Marine band, everybody marching and gifts for all the children at the end...
...DH: The C&MA missionaries that I knew around Quang-Ngai, Da-Nang and Hue, which are the three cities where I basically got to know the missionaries, all lived in large compounds-very blatant protection from the community around them...
...As the young pastors had predicted, the giving out of gifts turned into a mob scene with everybody scrambling to try and get them, and the crowd overcame the North Americans who panicked and beat them back...
...and Saigon forces, occasionally hit very hard by shellings, and eventually destroyed by U.S...
...military...
...The U.S...
...back) To the parents of Tam-Ky District: Have your children told you what they are getting ready for at school...
...Emphasis added.14 maximum opportunity with maximum cooperation from the Saigon and U.S...
...For example, you might be asked, "What are the security problems your people have been having...
...Since the churches were for Christmas, of/course they would be very much in favor of this...
...But leadership and workers alike tend to assume the North American cultural values,the general good will of U.S...
...bombing a year or so later...
...They had to have people that thought and organized themselves along Western lines and Catholicism was the easiest way to accomplish that...
...But you got the feeling that there was a very different relationship between you and the missionaries, on the one hand, and the missionaries and even these Vietnamese on (front) Santa Claus will appear here on December 23 at 2 PM...
...The Vietnamese have a saying, Ta'm giao dong ton-"one family but three religions...
...I think it was probably soon after Tet (the Tet offensive, 1968...
...The work was explained to me as an attempt to bring the needs of the people together with the available facilities of the government so that the people know what the government has available and the government knows what the people's needs are...
...This sign is a motto in Viet-Nam hung in every government office-you see it in every government office...
...Technically we were set up very separate from the government, but VNCS did become involved in a rather large way in distributing PL 480 commodites...
...They were scared to death of the whole thing...
...article on the Office of Public Safety in A NACLA Handbook: The U.S...
...Lutheran World Relief Church World Service (whose representative was also chairman of the American Council of Voluntary Agencies /for Foreign Service...
...A lot of newspaper and magazine reporters were around to talk to VNCS about this...
...Only I've heard from Vietnamese sources that the chu-hors never actually get everything it says in the leaflet you're supposed to get...
...Government control...
...I asked the villagers who were the people buried there...
...good English...
...They were very good linguists in the strict sense of the world, in learning the Vietnamese language per se...
...Usually this is looked at in a completely non-political and non-historical sense...
...In the village where I lived, the head Protestant pastor and the head Catholic priest were both very powerful, very corrupt people...
...government made it so that 'God led' when you just happened to be doing what fit into the North American plan...
...LNS Photo...
...units in Chu-Lai...
...Beechy was critical of the political role which the U.S...
...He was absolutely furious...
...NACLA: I understand your critical stance brought you into conflict with the U.S...
...It's insecure to work in the other areas...
...The Quakers had a number of people who were refused re-entry into Viet-Nam...
...military and with VNCS, both of which conspired to get rid of you...
...Once, a U.S...
...As I said before, the Catholic priest wears the black cassock-it doesn't look very Vietnamese and is not par- ticularly comfortable in hot weather...
...The term is used by the Saigon administration to describe all population concentrations, be they "towns," "cities," or what we might call "villages...
...I had been given assurances that I could come out, accompanied by someone from their village...
...AID in the Dominican Republic-An Inside View," NACLA Newsletter, IV, 7 (November 1970), pp...
...He was there for only a few months, then left and returned to his teaching job...
...recognized as a Catholic priest, a "father," and went in and presented everything very "straight-forward...
...Most of his congregation were National Liberation Front (NLF) people...
...The military is running Viet-Nam...
...We were also given pasees to fly on the CIA airlines, Air America, which was the main transportation we used in Viet-Nam...
...But they missed a lot of the cultural connotations that go along with this...
...It was a traditional grave, with traditional style including the large concrete blocks in front of the entrance which were to keep away evil spirits...
...The following paragraphs report the government-financed planning phase of the "relief escalation" that followed closely on military escalation in 1965...
...The Catholic priest had the same kind of thing going between An-Tan and Tam-Ky...
...I knew a particular case of a SUSAID...
...But whenever you tried to go out and work in "enemy" areas, ,things were very dangerous...
...A very "nice" relationship...
...some of them only casually, others much more intentionally...
...The reason they gave was the problem of "security...
...This happened when I was helping to build a school up in Khe- Sanh back in '66...
...Public Law 480 ("Food for Peace") is a program of USAID designed in 1954 to put the U.S...
...And everything after that was good, straight Roman and Gothic architecture...
...military...
...I said, "Pastor Chen, do you know what this means...
...This brings you together as a family and, through the pagoda, joins you to the rest of the community...
...benevolent groups and official agencies...
...This office deals with psychological warfare but it's called "civic action...
...Governments, Is to regard the refugees as a positive asset and to foster growing con- fidence among these groups of people in the capability and intent of the Vietnamese Government to be their servant and thus to win ever-growing support of the present government...
...everybody knew who was in control at each level, and orders were given from the top down...
...he begged and borrowed (and, incidentally, stole) the money from the North Americans and his wealthy parishioners, and allowed anyone to come to get an education, even orphans and refugees...
...There should be no slackening of support for both types of activity, governmental and private, especially since they are working in increasingly close and effective collaboration...
...Pastor Ky was a young man who had grown up in the area and his church was in the country...
...I would say that while I was there (1966-1969), the majority were not anti-communist, any more than, say, the majority of U.S...
...he liked guns and offered to take me tiger hunting sometimes when we got around to it, as there still were some tigers in that area of Viet-Nam during that period...
...official presence in Indochina...
...As we were working, I saw him bringing a large sign, which said "To Quoc 'Tren Het,' which literally means "State Above All...
...This was especially good for having tape recordings to send back to your home church to raise money because folks can immediately recognize Silent Night even if it's sung in Vietnamese...
...war effort...
...He was very much the spiritual center, however...
...Either they did not see or did not care to see the ways in which these were cooperating with psychological warfare efforts of the Army and the USAID programs...
...These are my parishioners...
...Menonnite Central Committee, Catholic Relief Services, and International Rescue Committee...
...I was in the officers' club one night in Kon-Tum and met this guy who started up a conversation...
...It was just very, very different...
...It is not North Americans deciding what the Vietnamese need, but North Americans helping to provide some of the needs which the Vietnamese in their own programs have felt are significant and can be filled by North Americans...
...VNCS refused to even let me go out to investigate the possibility...
...I was up in Plei-Ku doing a special research project to see if we should open up a unit in Kon-Tum...
...If you look into them philosophically, Taoism has nothing in common with Confucianism and Buddhism has nothing in common with either of the other two...
...But when Vietnamese would come in, we would sit there and be polite6 to them and hurry them on so we could sit down and have our dinner...
...AID Shapes the Dominican Police," NACLA Newsletter, V, 2 (April 1971), pp...
...If you try to get your passport stamped at these "embassies," you find that they don't handle normal diplomatic business...
...So they were already working there when CWS decided to get involved in early 1965, just "coincidentally" after the Tonkin Gulf incident, when U.S...
...Many of theprograms which they were involved in were inherently political...
...The North Americans would surround the villages, load everybody up and bring them in, no questions asked...
...But, you know, we've invited the mayor of Nha-Trang, the province chief and all of these military officials...
...One of the groups that I've been working with over the last several years is Medical Aid for Indochina (MAI).* I think they have established a way of working in Viet-Nam which gets away from some of the problems most voluntary agencies fall into...
...Many agencies have increased or made plans to increase both the areas in which they work and the scope of their program...
...It is surrounded by a concrete wall about six feet high and has about three or four feet of barbed wire on top of it, and a locked gate...
...I don't believe I told you the story of when I was invited to work in an NLF village...
...I said, "Look, if you'll just tell me what I've done wrong, if I can see that I've made a mistake, I'll go and apologize and do whatever you want me to do...
...but not these people...
...I said, "Yes, it's a tragedy how Viet-Nam is suffering...
...They just kept making it very uncomfortable at meetings and cocktail parties that VNCS officials went to...
...government made it so that "God led" and things went well when you just happened to be doing what fit into the North American plan...
...No," they replied, "We have never had any religious persecution...
...They were ordered to carry a banner, which incidentally is how most demonstrations come about in Viet-Nam...
...I have also been told by the head of (ontminuedd on p. 31) *If you want more information, write Medical Aid for Indochina, 65 A Winthrop Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, or call 617: 492-0205...
...Whenever I came I was, of course, always invited to dinner very graciously, very nicely-they were really kind to me, and I very much appreciated it at the time...
...Chaplain boosts battlefield morale...
...government, however, there is nothing in this which prevents most big voluntary agencies from functioning as a part of the bourgeois state apparatus...
...Another thing was that we were given PX privileges to a certain extent and the use of the Armed Forces Post Office (APO...
...Excerpted from the Report on Vietnamese Refygees and Displaced Persons, reflecting "the unanimous judgment" of a Delegation from the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service, October 1965...
...once again you could hardly tell it from a pagoda...
...government would like to have them work...
...Well, the province chief said this was very good, and we should have great mass participation on this...
...There was a possibility I would die from U.S...
...He said that from then on, all the pastors who refused to cooperate in that parade would not be given any concrete or steel or corrugated tin for building their schools, clinics and orphanages...
...and whenever he would come in, for some reason or other the Green Berets at Khe-Sanh would always give him a jeep...
...The Vietnamese knew that the religious ideas taught by the missionaries had an implicit-and sometimes explicit-political content...
...Since to most North Americans all Viet- namese look alike, no one ever knew the difference...
...It made a big splash and everybody was a bit excited...
...These are the kids that I grew up with...
...The province chief orders people to be produced and they are produced, but that's a whole other story...
...Signed by representatives of: Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid...
...The missionaries were North Americans who spoke English and liked "good American food...
...What this comes down to is, "We have to have our own people there, we have to plan and administer the program, just so that we are being good stewards of the money which our donors have given to us, If it's given to a hospital in North Viet-Nam, Cambodia or Laos-well, who knows what they're going to do with that...
...I remember specifically the occasion when I got sick and had to go to the VNCS hospital in Nha-Trang, where they had a nursing program...
...These are my next door neighbors...
...In these areas, they would just pick them up with helicopters...
...government-communicating the needs of the agencies to the government and government policy to the agencies...
...Collaborating in a Holy War Whenever you talked to Protestants or Catholics in VietNam, you got the impression that this was a religious war"Christians" vs...
...The Buddhist monk would probably not have an interpreter and, you know the assumption: "He's one of those Orientals...
...apparatus in Viet-Nam...
...I know for a fact that the head Protestant pastor's orphanage was supported by two or three of the U.S...
...When I had a party for the Buddhist students and the monk came along, he would sit over in a corner, would not make public statements and was not the visual center of the room in any way...
...In the village where I lived there were no foreign missionaries, but the Vietnamese priests and the Protestant pastors were basically Westerners in their thought patterns, the way in which they organized their churches and associations in the church...
...continued from p.14) CWS, the main agency supporting VNCS, "One of the reasons why we have changed the personnel policy guidelines is so that people like you don't get into VNCS any longer...
...I think particularly of the one in Da-Nang...
...gods and the U.S...
...He got absolutely furious...
...Through its information center (TAICH, the Technical Assistance Information Clearing House) which is financed by USAID contract, ACVAFS coordinates communications for a wide range of religious and non-religious agencies, and serves as a bridge between such agencies and the U.S...
...NACLA: The United States, including the churches, has just been through eight years of debate and education about this country's aggression in Viet-Nam...
...college students at that time...
...It was basically religious-pacifist, where you give a cup of cold water, and refuse to deal with any political questions whatsoever...
...I found this out very early when I was living in 'Iam-Ky...
...That's what I wanted to do...
...19-28...
...government expected voluntary agencies to play, yet his attempt to block this through a simple prohibition was overridden almost immediately after he left...
...press and the government backed off...
...Leaflets were dropped all around the countryside, telling people to come in for the Christmas parade...
...When I was in Hanoi, I saw one of the first Catholic churches built in Viet-Nam...
...Agency for International Development (USAID),* CRS and the MAC-V, as part of the salaries of Saigon's regional and "popular" forces...
...Navy...
...There was some type of organization, but it was clearly not a chain of command, the hierarchy type of thing we are so used to...
...You've gone too far...
...You found some of the same stereotypes, some of the same fears, and people who got mortared by the NLF tended to be afraid of "the communists...
...He was very sure that the reason why Viet-Nam was suffering was basically because it was a Buddhist nation, and the reason why United States was so rich and powerful was because we trusted in God...
...Oh," he replied, "oh, I know that...
...In the literacy program which I started in Tam-Ky, I worked with two youth groups using high school students as teachers...
...DH: The teachers and priests are Western people, even if they are racially Vietnamese...
...They send only medical supplies requested by the Vietnamese agencies themselves...
...Man, you know I'm really jealous of you...
...are aware of the ways in which the voluntary agencies are being used are not volunteering any longer...
...If you don't have money, you can still go to school here...
...They're eventually worked around into the army or some government program...
...NACLA: If this was the situation, why did people convert to Catholicism...
...This was neglected, I think, by every director after him...
...1-13, and "The Food for Peace Arsenal," NACLA Newsletter, V. 3 (May-June 1971), pp...
...and was immediately trusted...
...Probably the biggest difference in terms of anticommunist attitudes was between VNCS workers who were really in touch with local people and knew the National Liberation Front first hand, and VNCS officials who were living essentially in English-speaking communities, working through interpreters, and had no real contact with the Vietnamese peasants...
...They would invite many Saigon government officials, who are almost all military men, USAID officials and other government and military "friends" of VNCS...
...Village...
...Embassy house" was a euphemism in Viet-Nam for CIA...
...They are rather public relations efforts to convince citizens at the base, that their rulers "care," by occasional handouts...
...your white face was an immediate passport to any military outfit and you could just go and stay with the military, live in their quarters and eat in their mess halls free of charge, and as a civilian you gould also get into the officers' clubs instead of the enlisted men's bars...
...He said, "What are you doing...
...It did not take me very long to realize that the people didn't trust the Saigon government, and the government in the area really couldn't give a damn about the people...
...And as a matter of fact, it wasn't...
...As a matter of fact, Americans have written on all of their money, 'In God We Trust...
...In fact, I got to know a pastor who had a Protestant church which was made up of "VC," literally speaking...
...we could use that free of charge almost at will...
...He not only had numerous organizations supporting the same project, he had double the orphans...
...Missionaries felt there was something inherently pagan about Oriental architecture...
...and have come over "free of charge," without being captured...
...By order of the province chief, who was carrying out MAC-V plans, each church was to carry a banner and lead their congregation in the parade...
...Eventually, as a result of this, a memo was issued by USAID to the effect that voluntary agencies could hire, fire and discipline their own people...
...Of course...
...The same is true for Protestantism...
...He had a clear concept of the problems of church involvement in Viet-Nam, and declared that VNCS would help all people in need regardless of political affiliation, would not take sides in the war and would not cooperate or identify with a U.S...
...When I got to the village where I was to do community development, I was the first volunteer in the area...
...I got to know the Protestants much more than the Catholics because I was working for a Protestant agency...
...There are a number of cases where VNCS personnal and missionaries were evaculated in U.S...
...DH: Well, I was sitting in my house one day with some Buddhist students when a Vietnamese Protestant pastor came in to talk to me...
...They work with the Red Cross societies and the Ministries of Health in the areas mentioned...
...single program under joint sponsorship...
...government are by definition "insecure...
...lots of jet fuel for their cooking and always brought food when he came...
...government was furious and made things very difficult for them...
...I don't know, with regard to the top leadership of the agencies in this country, whether there is actual government and foreign policy decision-making apparatus...
...When the "refugees" were brought into the reception center, Father Chau would be out there that day or the next with his CRS commodities...
...mass Christmas parade, with a few other clergy par- ticipating...
...The Vietnamese priest was otf course trained in Western thought and spoke at least French, if not English...
...Catholic Relief Catholic Relief Services (CRS) was one of the worst organizations, as far as being very partisan was concerned...
...These Wycliffe people were certainly very different from the C&MA people I described earlier...
...The role which they are playing is largely the role which the larger U.S...
...Where I was, the CRS commodities (delivered under PL 480) were controlled by the head Vietnamese Catholic priest...
...military whenever possible...
...The kind of house you cannot lock, which the C&MA missionaries with their TV and air conditioner and refrigerator in Da-Nang could never have had...
...But this was back in '66 when there were just a dozen U.S...
...He always had lots of provisions-canned goods, military C rations and jet fuel, which we used for our kerosene stoves...
...It was normally understood that most people would pass through all three religions within their lifetime...
...Voluntary agencies are not to be confused with "volun...
...The issue of separation of church and state, the whole idea of a voluntary agency* being "autonomous" in the "great American spirit of helping people," was being threatened...
...After high school, it's a church wedding and incorporation right into the church...
...Government, through the Agency for International Development, and the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service, it was agreed that a delegation of representatives of agencies with membership in the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service, together with U.S...
...It had Oriental architecture and was very much in the Vietnamese style...
...While I was there, there was a young anthropologist who was traveling through...
...For a review of one of its more political programs, see "Coming to the Promised Land," CRC Newsletter, 11, 4 (July 1972), pp...
...Voluntary agencies-and I've run into this time and time again-have this thing of "We have a responsibility to our people to make sure that this program is done, that it's done properly, and we have to be there personally to supervise it and see that it's done...
...I think "The U.S...
...government will use and work with voluntary agencies...
...But it's probably the most political thing the Saigon government is doing, and VNCS had a feeding program in a chu-hoi camp...
...Included in the schedule were two days in the field...
...The first director, Beechy, had written rules of the organization which did not allow us to accept medals or decorations or anything from either government, in an attempt to try to maintain "pacifist neutrality...
...There had been a lot of death and destruction around the village...
...NACLA: What has been the traditional role of Eastern religion in Viet-Nam...
...How U.S...
...1 replied, "Well, I'm planning to work in community development and maybe start some sewing classes, and do literacy work or agriculture...
...He said, "You talk to me about a 105millimeter artillery shell, a 500-pound bomb, or an 81millimeter mortar, that's something 1 can be afraid of...
...And he laughed...
...The most blatant example of how this would work, was when they would bring in a couple of hundred "refugees" from western Quang-Tin province...
...government, they could work directly with the Vietnamese, etc...
...H'et gao...
...intelligence that were much less obvious-the kind of thing that comes through a fraternization process...
...Write: Cuba Resource Center, Box 206 Cathedral Station, New York, New York 10025.9 Cardinal Terence Cooke, Gen...
...forces is to "win the populace...
...If a new area is "pacified," the missionaries, the voluntary agencies, the Christians and the relief services go in and help the people...
...I'm sure exactly the same kind of considerations were taken by the NLF in deciding that I could live and work in the area which they controlled some of the time, and work and set up schools in some of the villages they controlled all of the time...
...Could VNCS have set up programs there if only it had had the will to do so...
...They helped to finance these missionary journeys in the hope that they would open the way for the merchants and later on for the militia and this is in fact what happened...
...I had good vibrations from the short time that I stayed there...
...Chaplains are supplied by the various faiths and denominations roughly in proportion to their respective representation among the troops...
...In no sense do they approach the sort of structural change required for real development...
...funding...
...She said, "No, it's not...
...teer" organizations...
...There was a relationship between becoming Catholic and becoming an administrator...
...And the same was true with the North Americans-you could see it very, very plainly...
...There were some Wycliffe* missionaries up there teaching the Bruu Montagnards how to read and write their own language...
...Evidently, God's ear is "tuned out" on Oriental tones and he dislikes roofs that curve upward at the eaves, instead of curving over in Roman and Gothic style...
...Over the summer and early fall of 1965, as the character of the war in Vietnam changed sharply, increasing numbers of Vietnamese, including Montagnard (or mountain) people, left their homes in acute distress and appeared in urban and coastal areas seeking security under Vietnamese and U.S...
...Moreover, government provision of goods and transportation meant government regulation of their use...
...DH: The role of voluntary agencies and the churches is very much the same now as it was when I was in Viet-Nam...
...In all celebrations of the things that VNCS had done, you would have the Saigon government officials coming in, making speeches, and presenting awards...
...The myth is still very strong that our primary interest is in going around helping smaller nations who are in need...
...you can't get straight answers...
...He would have had to be told that by one of the Christian missionaries...
...Where you are helping a Vietnamese program which is in fact serving the people, not one which is some kind of front for a government organization, but a program which is Vietnamese, which is truly meeting the needs of the people and not falling into somebody's pocket, then I think it is possible to help...
...They further reveal the much-advertised ".church-state separation" to be no more than a legalfiction...
...Nevertheless, their role is significant and necessary, in the judgment of all, in- cluding the Vietnamese...
...Don't forget the 23rd of December at 2 PM on NRI...
...Hue, for example, was evacuated twice in this way...
...Fhe role of the voluntary agencies, whose programs vary considerably from one to another, is supplemental to that of government...
...They don't have to go back to the North American people, but can get it straight from the government...
...armed forces, as the team noted, in briefings both in Washington and in Saigon, that one of the military objectives of U.S...
...military, can perhaps now be accomplished by the churches and the voluntary agencies...
...money was cut back a little more, but in the beginning when I arrived in '66, all you needed was a white face and you could just get right on and go anywhere free of charge...
...military or government-civilian structure...
...This is only one of the ways in which the government can manipulate the circumstances to move these "benevolent" voluntary agencies into a kind of psychological warfare operation for the government...
...may also have been getting some money from World Relief Commission (National Association of Evangelicals...
...On the Best of Terms Prior to the public relations problems the anti-war movement caused for the religious agencies, they tended to "tell it like it is...
...We need the military to protect us and save us from this...
...I came to Viet-Nam as a very naive religious pacifist, straight out of my Mennonite college background, doing my Christian "good works...
...Some Christians call it "the giving of the cup of cold water...
...The politically naive or those who support the U.S...
...Currently active with Medical Aid .for Indochina and the Peace Section of the Mennonite Central Committee, he travelled to Saigon and Hanoi in the winter of'1970 with the U.S...
...Military Apparatus...
...I know in fact that in that country there has been much activity of U.S...
...They replied that these were Catholics killed during the time of Tu Due...
...NACLA: Explain very briefly why you were able to work in NLF areas...
...Tam-Ky has a population of upwards of 10,000 inhabitants...
...In Cambodia, USAID is not itself doing any of the work with refugees...
...eventually they had to leave the area...
...Few of them spoke any French and none of them spoke English...
...It's a real thing-you can become a millionaire if you do it right...
...In fact if you spelled it out they would deny it...
...They were really freaked out...
...and the pastor had just noticed that they were building a new Mieu (Taoist shrine) over the hill...
...ACVAFS is currently directed by Leon O. Marion.11 already back up in Tam-Ky, packing up my stuff to leave...
...There were times when you invited certain Vietnamese to dinner-a pastor who just happened to be traveling through, or one of the students at the school...
...The real work with the people is not being done by military people...
...It means 'State Above All...
...But the whole pattern is a part of an effort to get you to think Western...
...the other...
...Some of the clergy had problems...
...They never really "put it together" as a religious war, but that was always an undercurrent...
Vol. 7 • December 1973 • No. 10
