Operation Passage To Freedom - Social Integration

Social Integration

The mass influx of refugees presented various social issues for South Vietnam. The new arrivals needed to be integrated into society with jobs and housing, as long periods in tents and temporary housing would sap morale and possibly foster pro-communist sympathies. Diem had to devise programs to ease his new citizens into the economic system.

Diem appointed Bui Van Luong—a family friend and devout Catholic—as the head of COMIGAL, the government resettlement agency. COMIGAL worked in cooperation with the United States Operations Mission, the non-military wing of the American presence and the Military Assistance Advisory Group. Although COMIGAL was purely dedicated to refugee issues, there was a constant turnover of public servants through their staff, and the benefits of continuity did not materialize. After only a few months in the job, Luong was replaced by Pham Van Huyen on December 7, 1954. COMIGAL were supplemented by American Catholic aid agencies and an advisory group from Michigan State University, where Diem had stayed while in self-imposed exile in the early 1950s. There were three phases in the resettlement program. With more than 4,000 new arrivals per day, the northerners were housed in Saigon and Vung Tau in 42 makeshift reception centers. These consisted of existing schools, vacated French barracks, churches and tent cities on the grounds of Tan Son Nhut Air Base and Phu Tho Racecourse. These could not be used indefinitely as the grounds needed to be used for their preexisting purpose, and furthermore, such ad hoc areas were vulnerable to outbreaks of fire and disease.

The refugees needed buildings such as schools, hospitals, warehouses, places of worship were built for them. As part of the second phase, temporary villages were built and by mid-1955, most of the one million refugees were living in rows of temporary housing settlements, mostly near highways leading out of Saigon, in provinces adjacent to the capital. The largest concentration of housing in this second stage was located to the north of the capital. Only a minority could be sent to the fertile Mekong Delta, as the area was already overcrowded. It was also restive due to the presence of militant religious sects, so the most of the military evacuees were sent there.

Overcrowding was a serious problem in many of the ad hoc secondary camps set up in the Saigon region, and led to public health issues. The Bien Hoa region on the northeastern outskirts of Saigon was scheduled to have a capacity of 100,000 refugees, but this was soon exceeded. In the Ho Nai camp near Bien Hoa, which was supposed to hold only 10,000 refugees, more than 41,000 were present by the end of 1954. The area surrounding Thu Dau Mot north of the southern capital had initially been allocated a quota of 20,000 even though there was no rice paddies in the area. The area near Tay Ninh was to accommodate 30,000 people, although the locals thought that 100,000 could fit in. Some large Catholic settlements such as Thu Duc, Binh Thanh and Go Vap on the outskirts of Saigon have now been subsumed by urban sprawl and are now districts of the city. Because of the excessive number of inhabitants, the infrastructure at many camps could not cope and the promises made to the refugees were not kept. American military doctors travelled around the south in groups of three, and because of the paucity of health professionals, saw around 150–450 patients per day. They were also hampered by customs law, which only allowed charities to bring medicine into the country without taxation. This forced them to turn to charitable organisations as a conduit, creating another layer of bureaucracy. This was exacerbated by the fact that some corrupt Vietnamese officials pocketed the medical aid.

The organisational ability of the government agencies charged with overseeing the integration of the refugees into society was frequently criticised by American officials. In many cases, the individual officials simply made their own decisions and the goal of resettling the northerners without disruption to the existing local economy or social structure was not achieved. In other cases, the northern Catholics formed their own committees and settled and built on areas as they saw fit. By the end of September, the shortage of funds and equipment had eased, but their distribution was not organised or coordinated effectively. At the same time, some Viet Minh cadres who stayed in the south after the partition pretended to be refugees and stirred up trouble inside the camps. Aside from disruption by communists, other non-communist movements such as the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang were strong in areas of central Vietnam, were opponents of Diem and some of them were military personnel. This sometimes caused hindrance in civilian-military cooperation in the resettlement program, as some of Diem’s public servants were suspicious of the military’s reliability as a working partner.

At the time, much of the rural ricelands had been abandoned due to war and lay fallow. The Americans pressured Diem to assume control of such lands and distribute it to the new settlers and to allow them to start their new lives and ease the overcrowding in the camps, but no action was taken in 1954. At the time, there was a severe wastage of personnel due to the placement of refugees in land that was inappropriate to them. Vietnamese officials had resolved to place the settlers in land similar to their northern origins so that they could be productive, but bureaucratic difficulties hampered COMIGAL and no plan was produced. Throughout 1954, 60% of the new arrivals identified themselves as having an agrarian background, but only 20% of the total refugees were placed in arable farming areas, meaning that at least 40% of the northerners were in areas not appropriate for their skill set. There were also severe problems in finding and then distributing farming equipment to the northerners so that they could get to work and resuscitate the agricultural sector that was hindered by the war.

The next objective was to integrate the refugees into South Vietnamese society. At the time, there was a lack of arable land in secure areas. In early 1955, the Viet Minh still controlled much of the Mekong Delta, while other parts were controlled by the private armies of the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects. The Binh Xuyen organised crime gang controlled the streets of Saigon, having purchased the operating license for the national police from Emperor Bao Dai. The new arrivals could not be safely sent to the countryside until the Viet Minh had moved north and Diem had dispersed the sects and gangs. The urban areas were secured when the VNA defeated the Binh Xuyen in the Battle for Saigon in late April and early May. Lansdale managed to bribe many of the Hoa Hao and Cao Dai military commanders to integrate into Diem's VNA, but some commanders fought on. It was not until early 1956 that the last Hoa Hao commander, Ba Cut, was captured in an Army of the Republic of Vietnam campaign by General Duong Van Minh. This allowed COMIGAL to send expeditions to survey the rural land for settlement.

The third phase of the resettlement involved the dispersal of the new arrivals from the temporary villages in regions surrounding the capital and other large cities. The areas where the refugees had initially were over settled, notably Bien Hoa, where the population had doubled during the migration period. In contrast, two thirds of South Vietnamese provinces had taken less than 10,000 refugees, and some of these less than 1,000. In the crowded provinces there were fears of social unrest due to a shortage of work.

COMIGAL dispatched inspection teams throughout South Vietnam to identify areas that were suitable for accommodating the new arrivals according to their professional skills. This required a search for arable land for farmers, favourable coastal areas for fishing and areas near large population centres for industrially oriented arrivals. Having identified the relevant areas, COMIGAL would set up plans for settlement subprojects, sending proposals to the USOM or the French Technical and Economic Cooperation Bureau to gain approval and funding. The bureaucracy was relatively low, with most applications taking less than a fortnight for finalising paperwork and receiving approval. Each subproject was given a nine-month deadline for completion.

When suitable areas were found, groups of refugees usually numbering between one and three thousand were trucked to the site and began creating the new settlement. This involved digging wells, building roads and bridges, clearing forests, bushes and swamps and constructing fishing vessels. Village elections were held to select members for committees that would liaise with COMIGAL on behalf of the new settlement.

COMIGAL provided the settlers with agrarian implements, fertilisers and farm animals. By mid-1957, 319 villages had been built. Of these, 288 were for farmers and 26 for fishermen. The refugees settled predominantly in the Mekong Delta, where 207 villages were built. The most notable scheme in the area was the Cai San Agricultural Resettlement Project, based along a system of canals near Long Xuyen. Another 50 villages were created further north near the border with North Vietnam, while 62 were built in the central highlands. A 1955 government report claimed that only 2% of the land in the central highlands, mostly inhabited by indigenous tribes were being used for economic purposes, and it was seen as a key area for exploitation and building settlements to block the advance of communism. The area was seen as an important means of alleviating overcrowding, fuelling rapid economic development, and the government hoped that the presence of ethnic Vietnamese development would prompt the indigenous tribespeople to abandon their hunter-gatherer lifestyle, thus "guiding them on the path to civilization and progress, so that they might join the ranks of the State’s founders and liberators". In the central highlands town of Ban Me Thuot, the local sawmill was inundated with lumber to build houses and much of the surrounding forest was cleared for settlements. In total, 92,443 housing units were constructed, serviced by 317 and 18 elementary and secondary schools respectively. 38,192 hectares of land were cleared and some 2.4 million tons of potassium sulfate fertiliser were distributed. At the end of 1957, Diem dissolved COMIGAL, declaring that its mission had been accomplished.