HIGHLANDERS ON THE HO CHI MINH TRAIL

Abstract

The history of the hinterlands of the Indochinese peninsula, astride the frontier between Laos and Vietnam, during the first and second Indochina wars (1946–75) is arguably the least informed of this turbulent period. The aftermath of World War II saw the establishment of revolutionary bases at the junction between southeastern Laos and central and southern central Vietnam in highly strategic areas that were conduits for the “Ho Chi Minh Trail.” This article aims to go beyond conventional diplomatic and military histories of the Indochina wars to examine war from below. In particular, the second half of the article is constructed around the narratives of two female war veterans of ethnic minority origins who conducted most of their revolutionary activities during the Vietnam War along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Particular attention is given to their motivations and wartime lives, linked to their transformation from members of upland populations who not long ago were described as “savages” into “revolutionaries” and “patriots.”

Acknowledgments

Notes

1. Known as the Annamite Chain in English and Truong Son in Vietnamese and the high plateaus of southern Vietnam (the Central Highlands in English and Tay Nguyen in Vietnamese).

2. The League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Nam Doc lap Dong Minh, or Viet Minh) was founded in May 1941.

3. “Truong Son Route,” indicating its geographic location in the Truong Son mountains that form the natural border between Vietnam and Laos. Christie 2000, 94; Langer and Zasloff 1970, 37.

4. An Independent WriteNet Researcher 2002, 5.

5. However, many subgroups such as the Sre, Nop, Chil, and Lat have been lumped together into one ethnic group or misclassified under one heading, and therefore have lost their visibility and cultural recognition through this homogenization process.

6. Goudineau 2003, 14–15.

7. McAlister 1967, 792.

8. Important battles of the Indochina wars were fought in the highlands of southeastern Laos, as well as in northern and central southern Vietnam, with all sides — the French, the Americans, the Viet Minh, and the Pathet Lao — recruiting highland peoples for their troops. Confronted with communist guerrilla warfare, the French and later the Americans found themselves resorting to unconventional warfare strategy. By 1952, the French had created a network of guerrilla units from the Central Highlands to the Tai region in the north, called the Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés (GCMA) and led by French officers (Christie 2000, 93). Ten years on, in a strikingly similar fashion, the Americans developed their own patron‐client relationship with the Montagnards. In the early 1960s, faced with the necessity of defending South Vietnam against communist infiltration from Laos and burdened by ineffective South Vietnamese Special Forces, the U.S. Special Forces under CIA control organized a so‐called Village Defense Program in the Central Highlands, later known as Citizens' Irregular Defense Groups (CIDG) (Salemink 2003, 180 and 199–200). Eventually, “[f]acedwith the inability of either Lao or Vietnamese pro‐Western nationalism to build an effective bastion against communism in the region,” the Americans built up a “shield” along the Annamite Chain and in the Central Highlands consisting of members of minority groups from the Hmong in the Plain of Jars (northeastern Laos) to the Khmer Krom in western Cochinchina (Christie 2000, 105).

9. Rathie 1996, 31; Deuve 1999, 248.

10. Langer and Zasloff 1970, 38.

11. On 2 September 1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the independence of Vietnam.

12. However, the Vietnamese did not pay much consideration to the development of revolutionary bases in Laos and Cambodia before World War II. Despite the leadership role of the Vietnamese communists in the anticolonial war against the French, it seemed that Ho Chi Minh was a reluctant participant in the Soviets' federative project. For him, the space for revolutionary struggle was to be restricted to Vietnam's modern frontiers. He considered French Indochina's geographical boundaries unsuitable for carrying out revolutionary activities that were essentially guided by a nationalism of Vietnamese essence. The return of the French forced the Vietnamese to change their approach. See Goscha 1995, 13–46.

13. Furthermore, northeastern Thailand was no longer a viable option as a base for communist activities due to Phibun's increasingly anticommunist policies. A coup d'état in November 1947 in Bangkok ousted the government of Pridi Phanomyong and his Seri Thai allies from power. The rise to power of Phibun Songkram, the new strongman of Thailand, heralded the beginning of the end for communist support networks in Thailand, although it took two more major events before the Vietnamese reoriented their war operations eastward, namely, the rapidly increasing U.S. involvement in Thailand and the Chinese Communist victory of 1949. For more details on the Vietnamese Communists' military strategy and operations at the regional level in Laos and Cambodia during that period, see Goscha 2003.

14. The Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone was established as a dividing line between North and South Vietnam as a result of the First Indochina War (1946–1954). The Geneva Conference on 21 July 1954, recognized the 17^th parallel as a “provisional military demarcation line” temporarily dividing the country into a communist zone in the north and a noncommunist zone in the south.

15. Porter 1981, 88.

16. My point is not to argue that the participation of highlanders in the war effort was the key factor in the communists' final victory, either during the Franco‐Viet Minh war or in the North Vietnamese‐American conflict. (Grant Evans, for instance, has played down the significance of the ethnic minority factor in the buildup of the revolutionary forces in Laos and the latter's ultimate victory. Unfortunately, he does not develop his argument [Evans 2002, 134].) Their role, nonetheless, should not be underestimated.

17. Marr 1981, 403.

18. Thayer 1989; Salemink 2003, 194; McLeod 1999, 375; Duiker 1996, 198.

19. China's involvement in the First Indochina War was important: Beijing provided large quantities of ammunition and military equipment to the Viet Minh and helped in the training of Vietnamese military commanders and troops. Chinese advisers even participated in the Vietnamese communist leadership's decision‐making process. On Chinese aid to the Viet Minh during the First Indochina War, see King 1969, Chen 1993, Qiang 2000.

20. McAlister 1967, 831–32.

21. See, for instance, Goscha 2004.

22. Prados 1999, 84.

23. See Pelley 1995 (for Vietnamese nationalist historiography); Pholsena 2004 (for Lao nationalist historiography). Lao communist historiographers have reinterpreted the rebellions in the highlands of Laos that erupted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the pioneering fighting movements for the independence of the country. A series of highland peoples' revolts began in 1895 in the eastern regions of colonial Laos, reaching a peak between 1910 and 1916, and finally dying out in the 1930s. These all expressed resistance to almost every aspect of the French administration, though these armed revolts were devoid of any kind of nationalist ideology.

24. The French name has now become a common term synonymous with highlanders or highland population.

25. Salemink 1995, 265.

26. The politics of creating the Montagnards in the Central Highlands of Vietnam would also affect — to a lesser extent, though — the south of Laos. The newly appointed Haut‐Commissaire des pays moïs (“pays moïs” being a pejorative term equivalent to “savage” in Vietnamese), Lieutenant Omer Sarrault, claimed confidently in 1940 that “the ethnic and geographical unity of the 'Pays Moïs' should include 'the totality of autochthonous populations both in upland Annam and Cochinchina and in Eastern Cambodia and Southern Laos'” (Salemink 1995, 273). Still, there is no evidence that the French deliberately concocted a plan to create a Montagnard identity, as they did in Vietnam. The Montagnards policy was very much focused on the Central Highlands.

27. Michaud 2006, 228.

28. Hickey 1982, 401.

29. When the PRC was proclaimed in 1949, the traditional Han (China's ethnic majority) goal of forced assimilation was rejected. The objective of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was to end the inequality between the ethnic groups through a program of gradual cultural, economic, and political equality. Steven Harrell offers a concise definition of the work as “creating autonomous regions, implementing educational and developmental plans, bringing leaders of the peripheral peoples into the fulfilling of the promise that all minzu [Chinese term of Japanese origin that can be translated as “nation,” “people,” “nationality,” or “ethnic group”], equal legally and morally, would march together on the road to historical progress, that is, to socialism” (Harrell 1995, 24).

30. The Constitutions ofVietnam 2003, 39. After their victory over the French, the Viet Minh rewarded their ethnic minority supporters by creating in 1955 and 1956 two Autonomous Regions — the Tai‐Meo zone in the northwest and the Viet Bac zone in the northeast. However, the reunification of the country in 1975 heralded a return to the minority policy of the 1946 Constitution, which had made no mention of self‐determination. Thus, ignoring the provisions of the 1959 Constitution, the government announced on 29 December 1975 its decision to dissolve the Autonomous Regions.

31. Michaud 2000, 357.

32. Although nationalism was a secondary problem for Lenin, it was essential to keep it under control. His strategy for neutralizing the national question was guided by his perception of nationalism as the result of past discrimination and oppression. Consequently, national antagonisms and mistrust were to be dissipated by a period of national equality; this policy came to be known as “the flourishing of the nations.” It was predicated upon the belief that nations would naturally move close together, a process described in the official Marxist vocabulary as the “rapprochement” or “coming together” of nations (Connor 1984, 202).

33. Brown and Zasloff, 1986, 15.

34. McLeod 1999, 366–68; Salemink 2003, 168; Christie 2000, 94.

35. McLeod 1999, 377.

36. Christie 2000, 105.

37. Goscha 2004, 156–57.

38. These are two extracts from two North Vietnamese communist propaganda booklets:

“In 1965, a few ethnic groups inhabited the province of Quang Binh [North Central Viet Nam] in very remote mountainous areas, they were still living in the Stone Age…. Some of these groups scattered to go and live in caves…. Devoted partisans went to share these people's miserable lives, and progressively convinced them to leave their caves and settle back in their villages, their cultures… They also learnt to use machine guns, and as good montagnards [sic], they patiently waited until the day when planes were close enough to shoot them down. In addition to the use of machine guns, they also learnt agricultural techniques and the alphabet. In four years, the U.S. aggression moved them from the stone age to the age of machine guns.” (Face aux bombes 1969, 101–2.)

“The Truong Son is populated by elephants, tigers, leopards, deer…but its true masters are those men hardened by the climate rigor. These men are the Van Kieu, the Lao and some other ethnic minorities settled in scattered villages along the Annamite Chain.” (Sur la piste Ho Chi Minh 1982, 6.)

39. See, for example, short stories published by the Neo Lao Hak Sat in the 1960s, such as Dignes enfants du people lao (lukphupaseutkhongpasasonlao), éditions du NLHS, 1966; and Rains in the jungle, éditions du NLHS, 1967.

40. The Pacoh, a Mon‐Khmer‐speaking group, inhabit Central Vietnam (where they are subsumed under the category of another Mon‐Khmer‐speaking group, the Bru Van Kieu, in the country's official census) and southeastern Laos.

41. The journalist wrote in a lyrical tone: “At times when caught in the whirlwinds of a complex struggle, one may lose one's grip on fundamental truths. But in Kan Lich, we have found something that resembles the angelic sparkle in a child's eyes, a sparkle which holds power to purify the soul and to lighten the truth.” (Tran Mai Nam 1968, 91.)

43. Burchett 1965, 174.

42. This Mon‐Khmer‐speaking group is officially known today as Xo Dang in Vietnam. They live in the provinces of Kon‐Tum, QuangNam, andQuangNgai. SeeBurchett 1965, 169.

45. Goscha 2004, 151.

44. Furuta 1992, 147.

46. Pavatsat heng kan pativat khong khwaeng Sekong 1991, 41–44.

47. Le Cao Dai 2004, 125.

48. Pavatsat heng kan pativat khong khwaeng Sekong 1991, 41–44.

49. Le Cao Dai 2004, 324–25.

50. For more details on Bouanyeung's experience, see Pholsena 2006.

51. Our visit to Mr. Bouanyeung took place in December 2003; all quotations are from this interview.

52. “Pa” means aunt. I use this Lao term as a sign of respect.

53. According to Vietnamese official historical records, these youth units “kept open 2,195 kilometres of the roads that made up the Ho Chi Minh Trail, guarded over 2,500 key points under constant bombardment, built six airstrips, neutralized tens of thousands of bombs, shot down 15 enemy planes and transported on theirpack bicycles tens of thousands of kilograms of cargo, weapons, and food.” (Turner 2002, 94.)

54. Ibid., 94–95.

55. Ibid., 93.

56. Taylor 1999, 18.

57. Mayoury 1993.

58. First as a teacher, then as a translator before representing her country in various international conferences and congresses throughout the 1960s and the 1970s and after the war.

59. Ms. Nyaeng, Ms. Buasy, Mother Mi, Mother Buakham, Mother Yongkay, Ms. Su, Ms. Buakham, Mother Phanh, and Nang Trai Phet.

60. “Les récits des femmes ne contiennent rien ou presque rien de ce dont nous entendons parler sans fin et que sans doute, d'ailleurs, nous n'entendons plus, qui échappe désormais à notre attention, à savoir comment certaines gens en ont tué héroïquement d'autres et ont vaincu. Ou bien ont perdu. Les récits de femmes sont d'une autre nature et traitent d'un autre sujet. La guerre 'féminine' possède ses propres couleurs, ses propres odeurs, son propre éclairage et son propre espace de sentiments. Ses propres mot, enfin.” (Alexievitch 2005, 9.)

61. Their interviews are drawn from field notes gathered during research trips carried out in the southern provinces of Sekong, Saravane and Savannakahet in 2003 and 2004. These research trips were funded by the Toyota Foundation and aimed to collect the life stories of former revolutionaries noted for their “heroic” actions during the Indochina wars in southeastern Laos. In writing this article, I have also drawn upon other material collected over several years of fieldwork in the upland areas of southeastern Laos, especially in Sekong and Savannakhet provinces. I have changed the interviewees' and villages' names throughout.

62. Bruner 1991, 4.

63. Ochs and Capps 1996, 25.

64. Portelli 2006, 36.

65. Waterson 2007, 12.

66. Watson 2006, 3.

67. Ochs and Capps 1996, 23.

68. The Katang (also known as Bru Katang) is a Mon‐Khmer‐speaking group. They inhabit the highland areas straddling the border between the provinces of Savannakhet and Saravane in southeastern Laos.

69. Lao Issala (“Free Laos”) is the name of the first Lao nationalist movement that emerged during World War II.

70. By the beginning of the Geneva Conference in May 1954, two Lao parties were claiming national legitimacy: the Royal Lao Government (RLG), set up through negotiations with the French, and the Pathet Lao “resistance” government, created with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam's (DRV) support. In the course of the Geneva Conference, however, the status of the RLG as the internationally recognized Lao political entity was confirmed, as was its territorial integrity. Nevertheless, the powers at the conference stated that the Pathet Lao (PL) should continue to administer the two provinces of Phong Saly and Huaphan (these two northeastern provinces had been occupied by the PL and the Viet Minh troops since December 1953) until a negotiated settlement could be reached between the RLG and the PL and the political, administrative, and military integration of these two provinces in the RLG system could be arranged. Between 1954 and 1958, therefore, the RLG government regarded the PL's integration into the Lao political mainstream as a foremost priority in order to secure the country's long‐term stability.

71. Dommen 1964, 109; Toye 1968, 114.

72. Christie 1998, 212.

73. Dommen 1964, 91.

74. With the recent inclusion of the Neo Lao Hak Sat (NLHS) into the government, supplementary elections were called, which would provide for representation of the new party in the Assembly and so complete the process of national integration that began at Geneva. To this end, twenty additional parliamentary seats were created and elections were scheduled for May 1958. But as the elections approached, hostilities between the two camps deepened, with the political struggle on the ground becoming increasingly violent. The NLHS, with its electoral ally, the left‐wing Santhiphab (Peace) Party, eventually won thirteen of the twenty‐one seats that were contested in the 1958 election. These results proved enough to alarm the right‐wing politicians and their U.S. allies in Vientiane and later (in July) to force Souvanna Phouma to resign as prime minister following the suspension of U. S. aid. In actuality, the electoral gains obtained by the leftist camp merely reflected a reality already entrenched in some eastern parts of the country — north and south alike — i.e., the conviction among the Lao communist partisans (and the people that were sympathetic to their cause) of the existence of two opposed governments, the Vientiane‐RLG side, backed by the United States, and the Pathet Lao, supported by the Viet Minh.

75. The summer of 1959 marked a low point in the PL's military strength. Their two battalions had recently fled Luang Prabang and Huaphan provinces to reach North Vietnam and had hardly had any time to regroup by the time sixteen of their leaders were arrested and detained in Vientiane.

81. A former administrative division replaced today by the rather vaguely defined administrative unit, khet, though the term “tasseng” is still used in rural areas in Laos.

76. See Pholsena 2007.

77. Qiang2000, 81.

78. Prados 1999, 15.

79. Ang 2002, 36.

80. Prados 1999, 24.

82. Portelli 2006, 38, emphasis in the original.

83. Bourdieu 2000, 297.

84. Turner 1986, 36.

85. Bruner 1991, 8.

86. The Bahnaric‐speaking Mon‐Khmer Taliang (or Talieng) inhabit the province of Sekong in southeastern Laos.

87. Engelbert 2004; Pholsena 2006.

88. The area became a northern Vietnamese military stronghold during the Second Indochina War. In particular, large base areas were built at Chavane, which was located on a strategic junction at the borders between Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia and was an entry point into southern Vietnam.

90. Though Pa Phet humbly said that “she never had any status, never held any position,” she nonetheless was the head of the Women's Union in Saravane and Sekong provinces for several years after the war.

89. Ochs and Capps 1996, 27.

91. I returned to visit Pa Phet in Sekong in August 2007. She had moved to a much larger wooden house built on stilts and covered by a metal roof. I first thought that the authorities had finally rewarded her for her contribution to the independence struggle. The truth was altogether different: Pa Phet's nieces and nephews (her luk lieng) had built the house themselves.

92. Langness and Frank speak of the inescapable incompleteness of lives, as well as the impossibility of any final interpretation (Langness and Frank 1981.)

93. Quinn‐Judge 2001, 269.

94. Ibid., 268.