Cu Chi Tunnels

Cu Chi Tunnels

Cu Chi Tunnels is part of a huge network of underground tunnels used by the Viet Minh (or Viet Cong, which apparently is no longer a derogatory term as the Vietnamese have reclaimed it, so I'm going to use it) used during the Vietnam War.

Cu Chi town is about 60km from Saigon – I took a 4USD group tour there. The Guide is a comedic guy who breaks into song every now and then and makes pretty tasteless jokes about being injured by booby traps. Its a pretty good set up at the Ben Dinh tunnels - where you get a little class room to learn about the history etc, then you have some replicas of booby traps and munition factories and a fantasitc rubber-tyre sandle making workshop for tourists. Only the tunnels that we were allowed to crawl in were genuine left overs from the war, the rest is pretty much replicas. Flocks of Vietnamese kids just loves them. Most of the propaganda (obviously in the text book communist style) the outdoor Tunnel Museum blasts are really really anti-American, ie. almost personal. they call them "merciless devils" "ruthless representation of demons" and other stuff like "heartless bombs destroyers" and had a profile on a twelve year old girl soldier who was given the honour of "American-killer hero". Kind of like a less toned down version of "Tour of Duty" or "Rambo" - except the Americans are the villains. As much as I feel for the Vietnamese as victims on their own land, and they do have the right to gripe - its just as one sided as American versions of the war. Its interesting to an extent but it actually made me shut off after a while.

Saigon is the HQ of the South Vietnam and American armies - which controlled the teritory by day, but at night its the Viet Cong guerillas hiding in the tunnels that controls the vast area around Saigon. They come out at night to get supplies from the Villagers and do some fighting and booby trapping. Most of their years would be spent in darkness. We got to try crawling some 1 km of the tunnel system (I only lasted 30m...) it was dark and narrow and the fact that you are stuck in there with 20 other ppl is bloody scary - I never knew I could have claustrophobia but hey, I would be definitely after a few years in one of these, particularly having to fight, look for food, and dodge napalm.

I can not but admire the tennacity and determination of the Viet Cong - the Americans probably had ten folds more amount of resources and technology than they did - the VC had Chinese and Russian backing but really it didn't quite reach the amount of power the Americans had. I am not quite sure if ideology was really what each side was fighting for - I doubt that many of the peasants and gurillas would actually understand what communism really means. Nor most of GIs for that matter. The VC had nothing to lose - most of them are starving to death. Many of them fight on pure resentment of foreign control, revenging for the deaths of their families, and the sheer determination to protect their own land and be their own master. This is their land, that's why they won. No matter how much you may shell it, poison it, burn it - its their land.

Much of the land near Cu Chi is still laced with chemical defoliants which poisons the soil and water which still affects agricultural production in that area. Not mentioning two or three generations of babies that are born through out the years with deformaties due to their parents being exposed to various chemicals sprayed by the Americans.

The War Reminiscence Museum

Lucky me got to visit the War Reminiscence Museum in Saigon on the way back from the tunnels. Its like their version of the War Memorial,except ofcourse resources meant that its much smaller and less well curated. There are some pretty gruesome photos of massacres committed by the Americans that not many of us are familiar of, which wiped out entire villages of the elderly and children (can a five month old baby be accused of "helping the VC"??). Including one partly committed by a former American Senator Bob Kerrie who admitted to his crimes in 2001. Its really ironic that Americans can put any one they like on the international war crime trials but they deal with their own kids with their martial law. One law for me, one law for every one else. Sounds familiar?

Another irony about this museum is that a lot of the photographs are supplied by American and Western journalists rather than Viet Cong photographers from their own side of the story. Mainly because war coverage was quite novel and every news agency sent their own photographers rather than buying stuff from each other. The Viet Congs on the other hand had next to no resources to fight, let alone photography. They did have some very good photographers but the products were low in quantity and quality as they had no equipment for processing either. The ones that actually did come out had to be paint brushed like early 20th century studio photos.

A very very touching exhibition one should not miss is a gallery dedicated to photographers world over that has died in the line of duty. It was touching to me because some of the photos they took were the ones that I first ever saw about the Vietnam War as a child - ie. the one by Koichi Sawada of the woman and her kids swimming away from bombs in the river. And one of Dicky Chapelle, one of the only women photographers around at the time who's dying photo after a helicopter crash just stabbed right into me.

Other points of interest is pretty unsavoury - a guillotine brought in by the French to get rid of anti-colonialists and then used by the South Vietnam gov to get rid of communists. And some very unerving jars where deformed foeti affected by chemical sprays are preserved. You should really be prepared when you go.

So this concludes my very gruesome day of learning about the Vietnam War.