Vith French gone
jorkers, peasants
arry nation ahead

USTRY and agriculture are

eee of economy. In
: ~etnam, thanks to the
| oF the people and gen-
a from other socialist
and pecially the Soviet
aa China, industry has
fairly rapidly.
°wever, ind i i
| 5 ustry is still
Compared with our needs,”

trigsdent Ho Chi Minh.
ners et, ON and steel,

rent Ye femicals are not yet
Bein oe uture and oth-
feta ranches. The quali-
and eactured goods is still
€ir production costs

the o

My course of two visits to
nity ae I had ample op-
cs See how the people

fae
posing the tasks confront-

Ee buia:

Thowilding of furnaces at

lex is pen iron and steel
€ing speeded up. The

complex, Vietnam’s first metal-
lurgical base, built and equip-
ped with Chinese assistance, will
be completed at the end of the
first Five-Year Plan (1961-1965).
It will have a capacity of some
150,000 tons of iron and steel
per year.

Another new industrial centre
was born at Viet Tri in March,
1962, with the help of China. It
includes a power plant, paper
mill, chemical factory, sugar mill
and a concrete prefabricating
factory.

Work is completely mechaniz-
ed and partly automated at the
Lan Thao superphosphate plant,
one of the biggest among 165
industrial and agricultural pro-
jects supplied as aid to Vietnam
by the Soviet Union for the
period 1955-1965.

I inspected the Soviet-equip-
ped Hanoi engineering plant and
talked to the big, bluff Russian
in charge. He said the plant

Crop successes in North Vietnam

~

Ke 1939 1955 1961
= hectares) 1,840,500 2,176,400 = 2,396,187
10 ction (tons) 2,407,000 3,523,000 4,646,000
A
roduc estates) 3,400 9,455 14,556
TE Ction (tons) 1,000 2,610 6,029
A
Prod rectares) 550 790 6,357
3 Ction (tons) 440 1,121 8,894
UNDNUTS
eq
< lhectares) 4,600 16,000 28,204
IGA ion (tons) 3,400 14,000 28,593
R CANE
eq
Bs hectares) 5,200 5,000 11,736
ion (tons) 109,000 100,000 475,777

could turn out equipment for
four complete plants annually.

When I asked if there were
problems in training young Viet-
namese workers to handle the
complicated machines he replied:
“Very few. The young Vietna-
mese workers pick up skills
quickly and show a remarkable
mechanical aptitude. In fact, I
would say we have less indus-
trial accidents here than in simi-
lar plants in the USSR.”

I drove to Hong Gai, one of
the world’s great open pit coal
mines. Surely no miners ever
worked in a lovelier setting, for
almost directly below lies famed
Ha Long Bay, so beautiful that
according to legend even dragons
came down from heaven to
bathe.

In the days of French imper-
ialist rule the Vietnamese miners
sweated their lives away for the
benefit of foreign masters who
lived in luxury in the town be-
low. Today, Soviet and Czecho-
slovak excavators have replaced
hundreds of miners who have
transferred to other jobs, while
much of the old equipment aban-
doned by the French has been
renovated by the Vietnamese.

Under French rule, clean coal
produced in the peak year of
1939 totalled 1,600,000 tons. The
figure for 1960 was 2,464,000 tons.
And by 1965 it is estimated that
annual production will top 5,-
000,000 tons.

Cua Ong port near the mine
has been dredged and made ac-
cessible to ocean-going ships.

The loading system has been.

completely mechanized. In 1960
Vietnam exported 1,383,528 tons
of good anthracite coal. And the
Hong. Gai reserves are almost

Soon the Thai Nguyen Iron and Steel Complex will be in
operation, turning ‘out some 150,000 tons annually. Photo
shows the construction site of a blast furnace.

inexhaustible—an estimated five
million tons annually for the
next century.

Vietnam sells its coal to Japan,
China, Britain, Denmark, Nor-
way, Australia and several other
countries.

I climbed the steep hill to look
at the open coal seams and talk
to some of the miners—women
as well as men. Their lives have
improved greatly; they told me
of the new homes, Senior High
School, department store, hospi-
tal, restaurants and refreshment
canteens.

And on holidays the minérs
take pleasure cruises or go row-
ing on Ha Long Bay, enjoying its
beauty spots, sandy beaches and
historic grottos.

Trade has assisted the develop-
ment of industry. Vietnam im-
ports (mainly from other social-
ist countries) machines and
equipment for agricultural and
industrial development and scien-
tific research. It exports mineral,
farm and forest products and
large quantities of handicrafts.

Agriculture in. Vietnam is both
hampered and helped by the
fact that the country is situated
in the tropical zone. On the ad-
verse side is the high incidence

of drought, water-logging, floods,
typhoons and insects. On the fa-
vorable side is the long season,
allowing two and three crops an-
nually, and a network of rivers
and canals all over the country.

North Vietnam peasants are
organized into agricultural co-
operatives. Considerable  suc-
cesses have been achieved in
raising production of rice, cot-
ton, jute, groundnuts and sugar
cane.

Great efforts are being made to
promote animal husbandry. Oth-
er socialist countries have given
aid: the Soviet Union has helved
with scientific and technical
equipment; China has given
dairy cows, sheep and pigs; Mon-
golia has sent horses, sheep, oxen
and camels.

One cannot speak of agricul-
ture in a tropical rice-growing
country without mentioning the
role played by the water buffalo.
When one thinks of the Vietnam
countryside the picture that im-
mediately springs to mind is that
of a buffalo carrying on its back
a youngster playing a bamboo
flute.

There are one and a half mil-
lion buffaloes in North Vietnam
and for every buffalo there seems
to be a buffalo boy or girl.

ner

North advance to a better life

Stepp:

r
Ml dutieg "Yar equal in
to © State has

ari alntain and develop

yb
Malitieg VEER the vari-

west in 1955, and the Northern
Autonomous Region in the north-
east in 1956.

tion . EN
ve litie
Bctona: have the right

languages,
»- OWN nation-

ham ty

of aoe are 63 ethnic
a i a = live in
I Contrary wc = Huyen-
Ohaliti tral pecmuission
\ inter-
March, Hanoi, “The Cen:
Showed they
nt » that is, almost
population.

thi
ttong of the Un of
he Tegions have
nj hai-Meo Au-
M the north-

The larger national minorities
in North Vietnam are the Tho
(or Tay) numbering 500.000;
Thai, 400.000; Muong, 400.000;
Nung, 270,000; Meo, 200.000; Man,
180,000; and Ngai (or Hoa), 110,-
000. Other minorities are extreme-
ly small; for example. there are
only 533 Pa-di. 200 Chung and
less than 100 Chi-la.

All these minorities were op-
pressed and persecuted under
French colonial rule. Illiteracy
was practically universal.

The Thai, Nung and Muong
people live mainly in the val-
leys. They farm the land, using
ploughs. At the time of libera-
tion they were slightly more ad-
vanced than most minorities and
were even divided into groups

of poor peasants, middle peas-
ants and landlords.

The Man people traditionally
dwelt half way up the mountain
sides and used the ray method
of farming—burning and sow-
ing.

* * *

The Meo people and some
small groups such as the Lolos
are mountain-top dwellers. The
Meos have always grown much
opium, and_ the older people
still smoke it, though the habit
is being discouraged.

Formerly, the French bought
the opium and conducted a brisk
illegal traffic in it. Today the gov-
ernment buys it for medical pur-
poses.

Feudal and pre-feudal marriage
customs prevailed until recent
times among the ethnic minor-
ities. The husband was the de-

cisive voice in the family. The
Meos kidnapped brides and when
a husband died the wife married
a brother.

Girls wed at the ages of 13 to
16 and high officials often claim-
ed the right of “first night.”
Rich landlords practiced poly-
gamy in some areas. Selling of
wives who displeased their hus-
bands was not uncommon.

Great changes are taking place
today. Schools have been opened;
medical teams visit remote dis-
tricts; song and dance ensembles
from the delta visit the mount-
ain dwellers and encourage the
development of local cultural
groups.

. One problem difficult to solve
is that of persuading half a mil-
lion highlands people to abandon
their traditional nomad life and
settle in permanent villages.
Some 30,000 have already moved

down the slopes and become set-
tled farmers, but the majority
resist such a change. It is a step
by step process and will take
years to complete.

The north-west is building its
regional industry and small fac-
tories are springing up every-
where. Dien Bien has a sugar re-
finery and there is a small hydro-
electric station at Tuan Giao,
while at Sui Giang (altitude
5,000 feet) there is a new tea
factory.

The minority areas have great
potential wealth, and the govern-
ment is doing everything possible
to bring living standards in line
with the delta level. In some
places this has already been ac-
complished.

Certainly life is getting bet-
ter for the minorities from day
to day.

February 21, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7