Pursuing the Peasantry

From the beginning of the war in Viet Nam, nothing has proved more difficult to capture than the allegiance of the peasantry, particularly the landless tenant farmers. Well aware of the issue's importance, the Viet Cong have long made a point of redistributing land under their control. A succession of Saigon governments paid due obeisance to the ideal of land reform, but did nothing. Last week, in the Mekong Delta center of Can Tho, President Nguyen Van Thieu signed into law a land-reform bill that, he said, would help "each tenant to become a landowner enjoying a prosperous life. This will open a new era for the nation."

The bill encountered heavy going from the moment it was introduced into the legislature last July. In the lower house particularly, important sections were eviscerated or killed, largely by landowners reluctant to give up any of their holdings. Thieu was well aware of the need for reform--and of its vote-winning potential in next year's scheduled presidential elections. He began applying pressure to restore key provisions, and finally got what he wanted. The bill, which will cost an estimated $400 million over the next decade, strips 3,120,000 acres, slightly less than half of South Viet Nam's cultivated land, from absentee landlords or those who own more than 37 acres of land apiece. Eventually, 800,000 peasant families (totaling 5,000,000 people) will divide up the redistributed farm land.

In theory, anyway. No one has yet calculated, for instance, just how much of the land involved is under Viet Cong control, or at least subject to harassment. Also, redistribution will be primarily in the hands of village committees, which will have difficulty sorting out the complicated priorities and fixing prices for the land involved. Though peasants will pay nothing, the landed farmers will be compensated at a rate that is likely to vary from region to region. They will be paid 20% of the total in cash, the rest over a number of years in government bonds of uncertain value. More than a few of them are likely to recall the old Viet Nam adage that advises: "Fight to the death against him who takes your wife or your land."

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