oe S00 (This interview, slightly abridged, is fron The Times, 27/1/69) ) In November, this woman was unknown to the outside world. Then she appeared in Paris and the picture of a grave rather beautiful Asian face appeared in newspapers everywhere. Her name, we were told, was Madame Neuyen Thi Binh, and she was acting chief of the Mational Liberation Front delegation at the Vietnamese Peace Conference. Madame Binh's arrival was news and sensational. The NLF nad been recognized as a power and this unknown woman wes equal in rank to the American negotiator, Mr, Cyrus Vance, a far from unknown figure, She wears the long Vietnamese tunic and trousers with a European woollen jacket for warmth. She uses neither make-up nor a hairdresser, ‘She is small, very thin, pitifully and heroically tired, undaunted, probably shy and certainly modest. She has great dignity, her eyes are sad. Yet she laughed in the delicious way of her people, like a child erumpling into riggles, when I said with wonder that she had no lines on her face, not a single one, after such a life. Madame Binh does not think her life is special: it is how Vietnamese "patriots" live. When Madame Binh was a girl of 16, the Second World War ended and the Japanese were defeated and expelled from her country. ‘Since older Woatriots", led by Ho Chi Minh, had been largely responsible for this result..., the Vietnamese expected to be free and independent, rulers in their own land. But the French returned; the "patriots" were cheated of their nationhood, again to becpp second-class citizens in a colony. So the "patriots" took up arms 4 second time in September 1945, and Madame Binh's father joined them: Vietnam for the Vietnamese. "From 1945, we had no money. ‘After he was arrested two or three times by the French, my father had to escape to the maquis. I stayed: there were five children to look after." She was in Saigon alone at 16, teachin: "little classes of children" to earn money, taking courses to qualify for a proper lycee post, and "participating". ttl eouid not have done it without help from friends.” First she worked with students, then with women's organizations, then with "the intellectuals". “The great majority of intellectuals in our country have always been patriots." How did she know what to do? “Me, I never received any political education" - again that b-ief smile. "I learned from experience, We
of patriots, we distributed leaf-
he kept her family of brothers and
a organised protest marches against the arrest lets, we met and discussed." For six years sisters together and "participated", Then, at the are of 2h, she was arrested by the French. She spent four years in prison. “ind I-was tortured too, you know, to make me confess to subversive activities and to say,I was a communist. I did not speak, but they wrote anythine they liked in anyone's dossier."
=
tel
=
I asked who tortured her. "Vietnamese, with the French directing. dust 4s now it is Vietnamese who torture, with iimericans directing. There are people like that in every country. M-rcenaries, who torture their own for money." She says the wordmercenaries with loathing. But she would not speek ofwhat had been done to her; she dislikes talking about herself as if the subject was without importance. Her memory is full of the endurance of others. "hen I wes in prison", Madame Binh went on, "there were hundreds and hundreds of women with ma who did not even know why they were there. They asked, what have we done? They did not know when they came but when they left, they knew. They left as patriots." Her brothers and sisters were dispersed among friends, it was really the end
of the family. Four locked-up years, and finally the "patriots" won and the French were defeated, The prison doore opened. The agreement reached at Geneva looked forward to elections that would eventually unify the country. Nie were so happy, so happy to have peace at last and to be free, My father came back, and the children." Im that short spell of hope, she married "someone I had known for a long time. for a few months, we were all topether". This is the best memory; her eyes shone. For a few months in 195 is the only time they have been “all together". Madame Binh is now ll years old and the mother of two and she has never had a home with her husband and children. When the people poured into the streets of Saigon to celebrate the Geneva iLereement and their freedom, Diem's police fired into the crowd, “Medeme Binh was there that day, when rejoicing instantly choenged to fear and a pirl friend of hers was killed by a bullet in the stomach. The "intellectuals" understood quickly that the Geneva Agreement would not be respected and Diem's "repression" grew. "There would be a police raid, closing both ends of the street, and the police would look at identity ards end collect the young men and take them away to the army3 it happened like that even in cinemes. (ind patriots were arrested and shot. Later even whole villages would be decimated with machine guns. They pulled the guillotine through the streets of towns an? villages to intimidate the people. They executed people openly in mrket squsres and made their families wretch. tind that division of our country, it was to last only two years until we could vote, and instead it lasted for alyvays. Children do not remember ever seeing their fathers who went north with our army as the treaty planned. We have a profound tradition of the family in Vietnam: men and women remain faithful, all these years, tithout ever knowing happiness." In 1957 Madame Binh left Saigon to hide in the country, "moving from one place to another, slways moving. Sometimes we would arrive and be told no, you mast, go on at once, We lived underground often, never coming out in the air except at night. 1957 through 1959; these were the black years, By 1960 the people could not bear it any longer. They demanded the right to gight and protect themselve.We organised village by village. Those who knew how to fight taught the others, it was the third tire we fought you know, The Geneva Agreement was torn up by Diem; we knew we would never have the vote to decide how our country should live. ind then the fmoricens come, I think the whole world knows that our patriots are breve." During her first year of hiding and flight Madame Binh bore a son, and four years later a daughter. These children, now aged 12 and 8, have always lived with friends in what has so far remained a safe place, "I can count the days - not weeks, not months - in all these years that I have seen my husbend, My children count the time they heve seen m or their father in days. People say we are accustomed to this life, But we have the same desires and wants 2s everyone else, The same, It is difficult to live as we do." Obviously, Madame Binh will not give details about this gifficult Live: in how many places does she live; in what sort of pleces - = villece house with thatched roof, a concrete-lined underground shelter; how coes she travel; does she ever rest; is there any amusement in her deys? Che says of her hus< band only that he is a patriot too and constantly occupied; they ere nver able to visit their childrent to ether. Wor can one know her exact position in the NLF - but clearly she mst have risen to this great responsibility through intellignece, work and courase. All one can tell, for sure by her voice and eyes, is that she loves snd misses her husbandand her children. A "difficult!
my!