Word: viets
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...borders. Estonian emigres in Stockholm report that there have been nationalist demonstrations at schools in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, as well as a strike at a tractor factory in the city of Tartu. Students in Tartu held protest rallies, demanding an end to the 40-year-old So viet occupation of their country. Walesa is characteristically defiant about the possibility of Soviet intervention. "Tanks can guard us," he says, "but they cannot make us work...
More than five years after the fall of Saigon brought South Viet Nam under the banner of socialism, private enterprise survives there. Indeed, the free-market system that Hanoi vowed to crush accounts for 60% of the South's economic activity. Out of necessity, the regime has tacitly accepted the fondness that the entrepreneurial Saigonese have for profits-and even the still treasured U.S. dollar. Following a visit to what is now officially called Ho Chi Minh City, TIME Correspondent David DeVoss filed this report...
...allowed to receive or spend dollars and gold freely. Explains one government adviser: "We don't care where the dollars come from as long as they are used to import raw materials and create new jobs." Saigon is also welcoming investment from Western nations. In partnership with Viet Nam's Ministry of Health, the French chemical firm Rhone-Poulenc has invested $500,000 in a factory where 120 Saigonese produce vitamin C, aspirin and cough syrup...
Incentives are sorely needed. Viet Nam's economic growth rate is under 2%. The exodus of "boat people" refugees left severe labor shortages. Factories are falling apart. All homes and businesses forgo electricity one day each week so that more oil will be available for the war in neighboring Kampuchea. A year ago, the gasoline ration was three liters a month; now it is four liters every three months. The Soviet Union contributes about $5 million a day in economic assistance, but its value is limited. Explains a Vietnamese economist: "You can't buy American technology or Canadian...
...conditions continue to deteriorate, the spirit of defiance in Saigon grows. The Saigonese may not be able to shape Viet Nam's economic development to their liking, but they are far enough away from Hanoi to be able to chart their own path. The broken remnants of the city's old bourgeoisie often gather at dusk along the Saigon River's Bach Dang Quay to watch the unloading of rusty freighters and talk business. They have endured, and they still hope some day to prosper once again...