The Thai Binh popular revolt started in April 1997 and dragged on for months. The state run press of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam steadfastly remained tight-lipped. The Vietnamese population outside Thai Binh only learned of the incident from news on the BBC, RFI, and other international broadcasts, or by word of mouth. Not until mid September did the official Nhan Dan [People] newspaper mention the revolt in a series of articles. But as usual, the Nhan Dan hardly reaches people. Those who read newspapers don't read Nhan Dan, Those who sell newspapers refuse to stock Nhan Dan for its slow sale.

However, when Nhan Dan starts discussing a taboo subject, it serves as a green light for other newspapers to follow. Indeed, a few papers have begun to print articles relating [to the incident]. For example, the October 3 and 5, 1997 issues of the Thanh Nien (Youth) newspaper printed "Why Peasant Folks from Hundreds of Districts in Thai Binh Sought Litigation?"; particularly, the Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Central Committee of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth League, discussed the incident in four issues, number 105 to 108 on October 2,4,7,9, 1997. The series was titled "Thai Binh (Pacific) Will Return Pacific". The Central Committee of the League dispatched a "task force" to some of the "hot spots" as early as June 19. In early July, Tien Phong newspaper sent another group led by its deputy editor-in-chief to Thai Binh. However, like Nhan Dan, Tien Phong must wait until the situation settled down and until "Thai Binh returns pacific" before it can discuss ... state secrets in Thai Binh. Tien Phong, nevertheless, was quite thorough in its reporting. "Please go back in time with us to review what had happened at a distant little village, where the first hot spot flared up. The village is incidentally named "Democracy" and belongs to Quynh Xa district of Quynh Phu area," Tien Phong wrote in its 106th issue.

At the end of the 1980s, a number of local officials in Quynh Xa were convicted of abuses of power. Those who replaced them did no better. Power abuses, illegal tax collection and expenses soon returned. "We cannot put up any longer," the people of Democracy village sent their complaints to various levels of authority in early 1994. It took a long time before the district authority announced that the ward authority had over-collected taxes on several types and must return them to local people. Ward authority simply ignored the order. At the next harvest, people automatically kept the amount of rice that had been wrongly taxed before and refused to give in. Village officials decided to get tough and resort to confiscation by force.

They mobilized 50-60 men, in three squads, ... to carry out the operation. It was done in broad daylight as if in the story "What a Night That Was."

"Seeing no other way, 139 of 156 families of O Cach village signed an application to withdraw from the agricultural collective. They wanted to set up a private co-op to save themselves from starvation, and most of all, to save themselves from the grip of the village cadres. But how could they escape the village bamboo hedge? 'Opposing corruption and complaining again? - Just wait right there!,' somebody warned [the protesters]. They didn't just bare their teeth. They really retaliated."

[Under the regulations of the agricultural collective] the villagers turn in part of their crops for taxes according to prior agreement, and are not allowed to use crops as barter among themselves. Life improved ever since the villagers left the agricultural collective. They were able to save enough to build a brick walkway. The project, however, was blocked by village officials, who told higher authority that people were attempting to build an "illegal" walkway. Villagers appealed to the district authorities without result. The Chairman of the ward [People's Committee] even publicly condemned the appellants as "feudalists" and harassed them. For example, Mr. Pham Van Son is an educated, energetic man whom the villagers respect very much. But "because he discovered the excess tax problem and because he complained to higher authority, he was badly abused by the civil "servants". The village Party Cell Secretary, accused of being an "accomplice to the villagers" was expelled from the Party. No one, young or old , was spared. One 71 year old man who had occasionally spoken his mind, had his hay burned to ashes. Fueled by anger, the old man cursed into the air. Ward Public Security cadres "stormed his house. Some grabbed his shirt, others grabbed his arms and dragged him to the ward office for some 'education'." The villagers surrounded the cadres and finally rescued the old man. Such abuses are "daily" stories at this ward.

"These 'hot spots' not only flared up at the Democracy village, but also in other villages, gradually becoming a 'movement of litigation'. The first few wards eventually infected the whole Quynh Phu area. Only a few wards were still 'clean'. Then, on April 25, 1997, 3,000 people of Quynh Hong ward marched to the provincial capital to file complaints against their ward officials. Along the way the marchers never violated traffic laws. They walked in straight columns, staying on the right side of the road that was reserved for pedestrians. Anyone who displayed disorderly conduct was asked to leave the rank. Walking in front were the Heroic Mothers of dead soldiers; next disabled veterans; families of dead soldiers; veterans; members of the communist party and communist youth league; and poor families."

"The marchers maintained absolute order and carried with them signs usually hung at prominent places, such as 'Long live the Vietnamese Communist Party', 'Great Chairman Ho Chi Minh Will Live Forever in Our Achievements'. Another sign they carried was 'Down With the Corrupt Clique'. As they entered the courtyard of the provincial government building, the marchers never hurt even 'a pebble, a leaf or a lower'. One person commented: 'This silence is frightening.' Who could have thought how prophetic the comment turned out to be."

"On May 5, 1997, Messrs. Nguyen Huu Hoanh and Pham Van Toi, representatives of people of Quynh My, sent a letter inviting the representatives of the Party and Government and of people in other wards of the same district to a meeting to discuss the problems. The two men were summoned to the district Public Security Office on May 8. Here, they refused to sign a 'confession of violating the laws' and were consequently arrested."

"The fuse of the silent bomb was ignited. On the next day, May 9, 1997, thousands of people of Quynh My and the surrounding areas rushed to the center of Quynh Coi. Even more people arrived when the evening came. The little district of Quynh Coi was packed with people, screaming, denouncing the government officials, and throwing rocks. Head of the district People Inspection Office had to 'operate' in his office for two days and three nights because the building was besieged by layers and layers of people. The flow of villagers then spread to other offices. The peaceful farmers who used to know only of digging and plowing now paralyzed all government offices of Quynh Phu. The situation got more and more tense. A few extreme elements in the crowd acted violently, snatching police's shields, smashing police's handheld megaphones, breaking window panes, hitting fire engines, and throwing rocks at police. Eleven Public Security cadres were injured. When they had no other way to defuse the bomb, they decided to temporarily release Messrs. Hoanh and Toi. The protesters refused to accept the release without the government's admittance of the two men's innocence and return of their confiscated properties (two bicycles). The 'May 9 incident' cooled down and ended around 14 o'clock on May 11, 1997."

And so the "fire" has burnt itself out. The pundits, however, still felt other "hot spots" lying beneath the surface. In the afternoon of May 18, 1997, five cadres of the Quynh Nguyen ward were surrounded by a number of villagers for questioning. Vice Chairman [of the ward People's Committee] was not released until the afternoon of June 22. At Quynh Giao ward, 800 villagers surrounded the ward People's Committee's Office and questioned the ward officials. More than 200 villagers of Quynh Hoa ward went to the district People's Committee Office to detain its Chairman. Even more seriously, on July 6, 1997, thousands of villagers of wards Thai Thinh, Thai Tan (Thai Thuy), An Ninh (Quynh Phu) simultaneously surrounded their ward People's Committee Offices. They first interrogated the ward officials, then destroyed these offices along with houses of these ward cadres. In ward An Ninh (Quynh Phu) alone, nine houses of cadres were burned or demolished. Properties were destroyed or taken away. Gifts to be given to families with dead or disabled veterans were also destroyed or taken. (according to Tien Phong newspaper, issue 108).

What was the root cause of the Thai Binh incident? What if Messrs. Hoanh and Toi had not been arrested? - Well, the same result would have taken place. Their arrest was just a fuse, a starting point. Was the whole incident the random act of some extreme elements? - Mandarins in the past usually used that excuse to explain away real grievances among the population.

"As we passed through Thai Binh this time, we heard complaint of hardship and extreme taxation everywhere. A self-proclaimed local pundit, who joined the actions in various wards and districts, condensed the causes in one phrase: ' For each square decameter, 28 protruding hands asking for taxes'. He then went into details. For the average yield of 15 tons per hecta, each head in the farmer families was given at most 70 kg of hulk-covered rice a year after all the taxes were paid off. When the ration is not even 100 kg of hulk rice for twelve months, hunger is ensured. Another cadre revealed at some places there were even more than 30 types of taxes! The official documented number for each farmer family is 21 types of taxes. Indeed electricity distribution project for streets, schools, and stations in Thai Binh look much better than other rural areas. But behind that appearance was a more than 30 billion dong debt of 2.5 - 3.0% interest. The smallest debt assigned to a ward was several hundreds of millions of dong", Tien Phong newspaper, issue 106, said.

People's demands might be even deeper. They seemed to ask for democracy. "After days traveling across the wards of Quynh Phu, Nguyen Duc Hong, head of the investigation team from the Youth League Central Office, confided to us: 'Even more troublesome than the heavy taxation is people's outrage of being ignored and scorned by ward cadres.' A senior revolutionist concluded: 'The root of all problems was the loss of democracy and the abuses of power by ward cadres'. These public 'servants' treated people like garbage but at the same time, blinded their superiors with a fabricated 'democratic picture' of their villages. The farce was used to cover up the long-existing chasm between villagers and ward cadres", Tien Phong newspaper, issue 106, said.

Was it coincidence or fate that the first explosion took place at the village named Democracy? Nevertheless, the intelligent royal court felt the 'jolt'. Thai Binh might be the start of something much more serious. The 1989 event in Romania was started with an uprising at Timisoara, a city far away from the capital.

Whether the Thai Binh incident was caused by bad elements or not, it has the characteristics of a rebellion. As in the earlier excerpts, unrest in Quynh Coi started on May 9, 1997, in Quynh Nguyen June 18; and most seriously, on July 26, 1997, as if being coordinated, several wards, Thai Thinh, Thai Tan, An Ninh, etc. rose simultaneously. The article on the Thanh Nien newspaper observed that on May 11 when Messrs. Hoanh and Toi were released, the crowd was dispersed; but "after this episode, laws totally lost their effect. All administrative offices were helpless. Demonstration and appealing by villagers took place daily. A few elements took extreme actions." This situation is unprecedented since 1975, if not since 1954.

Thai Binh is indeed not ... another Saigon. The Thanh Nien newspaper (Oct. 3, 1997 issue) said, "People in this area are not only industrious in growing golden harvests but also very brave in the wars against internal and external enemies". During war time, people of Thai Binh "achieved many victories", in peace time, "they continued to advance on the economic front." In the Thai Binh incident, some might say bad elements poured gasoline into the fire, but fire had been there in the first place. Fire came from the "Heroic Mothers and families of dead soldiers, veterans, party-members, youth league members" of the 3000-strong demonstration at Quynh Hong ward on April 25, 1997.

If it was just the matter of unhappy farmers not having enough food and savings, then France has had more spectacular protests. Vegetables, fruits, potatoes were thrown in the streets. Vehicles lied still on highways to block traffic. The media exuberantly took picture of the events and showed the world. The October 18 issue of the Saigon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon) newspaper reported 10,000 vegetable growers gathered before the Belgium embassy in Paris on October 15, 1997 to protest the low price of vegetables in Belgium, which was one eighth the price in France. In the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, however, for certain reasons, the Thai Binh incident was well hidden so not to awake people across the country from their "political stability" sleep. Not until lately, when the situation has relatively calmed down and it was impossible to hide any longer , was the incident mentioned. This mentioning was quickly followed by self-reassurance and reassurance for the public: "Thai Binh will return pacific."

As long as the totalitarian dictatorship remains, there is only the Thai Binh kind of "political stability" for the socialist regime, which is more and more crowded with bullies and red capitalists; There is nothing but "centralized democracy" and the "million times better than that in capitalist countries" freedom. Will Thai Binh return pacific or reject pacification?

Nguyen Ngoc Lan