Hard Times for Hanoi

Hanoi's leaders have often boasted to sympathetic foreign visitors that the Vietnamese people were willing to "suffer with dedication." Last week truckloads of war-wounded and dead returning from the Chinese border and from Cambodia testified that the suffering was far from over. One unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable, question is how dedicated the 51 million citizens of the Vietnamese Socialist Republic remain to a leadership that has been unable to create a stable or prosperous country even after four years of relative peace.

Malnutrition and even hunger prevail throughout Viet Nam. Agricultural output declined 15% in 1978, while prospects for this year are so poor that Hanoi has already scaled down its crop estimates from the stated targets. Following widespread flooding of rice lands last September, the monthly ration of food per person was cut from 33 Ibs. to 29 Ibs. Of that, ordinary peasants and workers are allowed only a little over 2 Ibs. of rice, the staple of the Vietnamese diet.

Sugar, meat and flour are rare and prohibitively expensive. Factory workers have become inefficient because of malnutrition, according to the Western managers of foreign-built plants.

Typhoons, droughts and other natural disasters have contributed to Viet Nam's agricultural problems, but government incompetence has been the principal cause. Bureaucratic foul-ups hindered the planting of new strains of rice that are more resistant to drought, and the distribution of pesticides in areas infested by plant pests has been delayed. Rice production is declining in the once prosperous Mekong Delta. Hanoi had announced that it was willing to trade consumer goods such as electric fans for rice, hoping to induce peasants to sell their crops to the government instead of on the black market. When the government failed to deliver the promised consumer goods, disappointed farmers began producing less. The Vietnamese party newspaper Nhan Dan has complained that many peasants leave paddyfields uncultivated or use rice to distill alcohol or feed pigs.

Life is especially hard in the north. Families in Hanoi are permitted only 75 sq. ft. of living space per person--roughly the recommended allowance for prisoners in U.S. federal penitentiaries. Factory hands must work six days a week, and spend the seventh at political meetings or on "volunteer" construction projects. Privately owned automobiles are all but nonexistent, and spare parts for bicycles are in short supply. "There is a great deal of unhappiness," says a Hanoi-based diplomat. "People are starting to complain privately. One of the whispered questions heard most often is an ironic one: 'What the hell are we doing in Cambodia?' "

The south remains relatively more prosperous. Women there still wear the brightly colored ao dai, in contrast to the unisex black pants and white shirt commonly worn in the north. Food is somewhat more available but less affordable, since the inflation rate exceeds 100% a year. In general, the economy of the south has suffered from Hanoi's abolition last year of "bourgeois trade" and the introduction of a uniform currency throughout the country. Southern industry is currently running at 40% of capacity. About one-fifth of the 3 million residents of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) are unemployed. Conceding widespread mismanagement of industry and agriculture, Nhan Dan explained: "In the long struggles against imperialism, we became well versed in political and armed struggles and skilled in organizing major battles. But we are still unfamiliar with the organization of large-scale production and business."

Viet Nam's economic problems were greatly aggravated by the expulsion of 200,000 ethnic Chinese in the past nine months. The Chinese were targeted because of their wide spread involvement in the black market; but they constituted Viet Nam's major entrepreneurial class. They managed the rice trade, the major ports, the distribution systems and several key industries--notably coal.

The 300,000 refugees who have fled Viet Nam since the fall of the Thieu government in 1975 have also cut into the country's human resources. According to officials in Thailand and Hong Kong, where many of the refugees arrive, Vietnamese officials are privately profiting from the exodus of their citizens who are seeking food and freedom abroad. After interviewing refugees, investigators believe that as much as 50% of the money would-be refugees pay to leave Viet Nam ends up in the pockets of local Communists.

According to the refugees, one of the most striking recent changes apparent in Viet Nam is the corruptibility of middle-level party officials. Revolutionary zeal has given way to a cynical exploitation of Viet Nam's economic problems. Corrupt Communist officials have moved into the black market trade once operated by the ethnic Chinese. All of the Red River delta's major arteries south of Hanoi feature Communist-run "floating markets" that offer goods stolen from ships or directly off the docks at Haiphong. Conspicuous consumption among Communist officials has become so flagrant that Premier Pham Van Dong felt it necessary to issue a prevailing order: "At a time when the people in several areas are experiencing privations and hunger, it is absolutely necessary to refrain from organizing wasteful celebrations and feasts. All sectors and all levels should uphold an exemplary spirit by practicing economy in production and a way of life that avoids all waste."

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