Word: conge
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Tearing Toward Berlin. Inevitably the next act will be the Battle of Saigon. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong sappers are already probing the outskirts of the uneasy city; mortars and rockets may soon follow. To many observers, the outcome of the battle is no longer in any doubt. According to a secret report to the U.S. Senate last week, the military situation in South Viet Nam is now "irreversible." The capital may fall as early as May 1, said, the report, and nothing short of "decisive military action" by the U.S. could affect that prognosis...
...larger mysteries surrounding the collapse of most of South Viet Nam is the fate of an estimated 9 million people who did not-or could not-flee from the 19 provinces overrun by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. Hanoi has officially refused to permit the handful of foreign correspondents stationed in the North Vietnamese capital to visit the captured areas. Thus most of the scattered reports about conditions in South Viet Nam's northern provinces have been issued by the "Liberation Press Agency" of the Provisional Revolutionary Government. These euphoric communiqués stress the "delirious welcomes from...
...that the Communist conquest of almost three-quarters of South Viet Nam was proceeding so far without widespread bloodbaths or reprisals. Some refugees reported public stonings as well as scattered executions. In Danang, a policeman was beheaded in the marketplace soon after the Communist forces arrived, and the Viet Cong tied several captured ARVN soldiers together and blew them up with grenades. In Hué, after a drumhead court-martial, five policemen were shot. None of the refugees, however, reported mass executions similar to those during the 1968 Tet offensive, when about 2,000 civilians were slaughtered...
According to one Swiss journalist who managed to accompany Viet Cong forces into Hué, one-fifth of the city's population of nearly 200,000 had fled before the Communists seized the old imperial capital. Dozens of planes and helicopters had been abandoned at Hué's airport. Aging Queen Mother Doan Huy, 86, was treated with respect by the arriving soldiers, the reporter said, but part of her palace was converted into a hospital. Soup kitchens were set up in public squares and even bicycles were commandeered to bring in food...
...areas, Communist cadres are expected to begin methodically identifying and bringing to trial "traitors" who were closely identified with the Saigon government. Ironically, among the first "criminals" rounded up in the captured provinces were some South Vietnamese soldiers who had profiteered by selling U.S. military equipment to the Viet Cong. But ordinary soldiers were apparently not being punished. Instead they were required only to write "confessions" as part of a mass indoctrination program that included compulsory public rallies for civilians and, as schools reopened, the replacement of some textbooks...