Today we took a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels located about 60 kilometers from Ho Chi Minh City. This is an area where the Vietcong had, over many years, built an extensive underground tunnel system, a 200 kilometer underground network designed to help them fight the war against the American aggressors. Our van, filled with about 14 tourists, headed out of the city. We stopped for about an hour at a workplace where victims of agent orange make beautiful wall hangings. Then we got in a terrible traffic jam and inched our way out of Ho Chi Minh City for about one and a half hours. Finally we broke through the jam and were soon out in the beautiful tropical countryside. We passed a former U.S. infantry base and then arrived at one of two Cu Chi tunnel sites for tourists.
According to our tour guide, the people of Saigon were against the Vietcong and supported the Americans because they brought a lot of business opportunities and provided decent public services. He told us that when the war ended, the Communists took over and expropriated people with property and money and also sent many to "re-education camps". The harsh conditions resulted in hundreds of thousands of boat people leaving Vietnam. He lamented that Saigon had more than doubled in population since 1975 to 8.5 million people. He said that now that everybody can buy a Chinese made motor scooter for about $400, the traffic is a nightmare. Nobody walks. It seems that with full bellies, a motor scooter to get around in, and time to relax with friends drinking iced coffee, life is more than bearable for many, at least in the areas we have visited so far in the south.
Our guide took us around showing us the entrances to the tunnels and how the guerrillas lived, explained how they built the tunnels and protected themselves from attempts to destroy the tunnels. Women participated fully in the war effort. We saw a video, a kind of a propaganda film made in the 60s about the Vietcong struggle and their heroism. We entered one of the tunnels and I crawled in the pitch black tunnel for about 25 feet to arrive at the other side. (It was a claustrophobic and unpleasant experience. We were disappointed when our guide later told us that these are not the real tunnels and that to see the real ones, one needed to go about 20 kilometers further to another part of the tunnel system. Of course, that would cost extra money. But they did seem authentic to me, so I wonder what the real story is.
We also saw a destroyed U.S. tank, a guerrilla kitchen area, several kinds of bombs and guns used during the war, and B52 craters left over from the war. Numerous kinds of booby traps set by the Vietcong were shown and explained as well.
In the afternoon, we were dropped off at the War Museum which offers a well-done account of the war and the resistance fight through photos, exhibits of war materials, children's anti-war drawings, and a section describing the horrific prison system run by the French and later the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies. The focus was on the atrocities committed by the U.S. and there is also a section on the international solidarity efforts that went on in support of the Vietnamese people.
I felt very emotional about being in this museum. In 1968 during the Vietnam war, I was 17 years old. Although I was able to obtain a conscientious objector status to avoid military service (with the help of some good draft counseling from the American Friends Service Committee), some of my classmates got drafted and some served in Vietnam. I was very active in opposing the war from 1965 to the end of the war in 1975, and today's visit to the museum was very moving for me. Long live the Vietnamese people and all peace-loving people! Convert military spending to spending for human needs!
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