Word: thieu
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...What Thieu had was a facade of control maintained by an unprecedentedly powerful machine of repression," Burchett writes. "But the waves of organized resistance lapped right up to the walls of what seemed to be bastions of Saigon power and seeped under those walls to erode at the centers of power within." Burchett is one of the few Western writers who has had real access to the organization of that resistance, and he describes it carefully, movingly, in Grasshoppers...
More than anything else, it was the people's uprisings that forced the Thieu government out of power--uprisings that were not covered at all in the Western press. The uprisings had been planned for years, Burchett says; it was only a matter of waiting for the general offensive...
Burchett scoffs at the recent charges that former Thieu officials and army officers have been placed in what amount to reeducation camps: "Reeducation is just what the name says it is," he says, an effort to explain the war to people, "to try to reintegrate them into the community so they can play a constructive role." Vietnam has had some setbacks this year, largely because it was hit by floods in the south, droughts in the north, and a severe typhoon in the middle. But he repeats, "These are just short-term problems. In general, they're doing a fantastic...
...Minh Forest, the Central Highlands and the area bordering Cambodia's Parrot's Beak, are proving as inhospitable to Hanoi's troops as they were to America's. Tattered groups of militant Hoa Hao Buddhists, disgruntled peasants and bitter former soldiers of the fallen Thieu regime in Saigon have established strongholds in these areas. Around Dalat, for instance, up to 2,000 veterans sporadically battle the forces of the new rulers. The fighting has been serious enough for circumspect Hanoi newspapers to admit that "veterans do not hesitate to open fire on security forces...
...weary passengers were Vietnamese-the most recent group of perhaps 300,000 refugees who have fled South Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos since the Communist conquest. About 145,000 South Vietnamese were brought to the U.S. by American sea-and airlift after the regime of Nguyen Van Thieu in Saigon collapsed. The 90,000 Laotians who have slipped over the border to Thailand and an estimated 7,000 Cambodians live in wretched refugee camps that are maintained by the United Nations. Since the fall of Saigon, anti-Communist South Vietnamese have had no choice but to make perilous escape attempts...