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Vietnam: The War Changes Form

By VVAW

After the defeat of the French in 1954, the U.S. Government continued to invest billions of dollars in Vietnam to maintain a friendly government in Saigon. It did this because the U.S. Government realized, like others before it, that Vietnam and the nations of the Pacific Basin possessed great potential as centers of profitable trade and investment. But it has been only recently that the tools for developing this potential have been constructed.

The United States' strategy for developing this potential consists of three parts. The first is to maintain local allies friendly to U.S. business interests that depend on U.S. investment for their survival. Multinational traded and investment agreements, government loans, government grants-in-aid and government investments are all geared toward promoting greater political allegiance between local business people and U.S. business interests. The second is to establish supra-national associations, agencies, capital pools and the like, maintained by state funding and controlled by multinational corporations to oversee development in accordance with pre-established plans. The International Monetary Fund, the international Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Asian Development Bank encourage such development. The third part is to establish local standing armies and police forces patterned after their U.S. counterparts.

One important method of developing the profit potential of Indochina is through regional organizations. The largest organization of this type is PBECC (Pacific Basin Economic Cooperation Council) which was formed in 1967 by representatives from multinational corporations in the U.S., Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Its explicit purpose is to create a homogenous market for trade and investment in the Pacific.

Another important tool in developing investment potential is the use of surveys. In 1967, the U.S., AID (Agency for International Development), ADB (Asian Development Bank) and others began funding a $3 million survey which was just completed on the prospects for a transportation system in Southeast Asia. Prepared by the U.S. firm of Arthur D. Little, the Southeast Asia Regional Transportation Survey proposes a network of transportation projects that are a clear invitation to foreign investors in agriculture and extractive industries. The survey recommends a comprehensive, twenty-year program of 145 transportation projects. These projects are expected to cost $3.25 billion and to be financed by private investments, international low-interest loans and state subsidies, largely from the U.S. and Japan.

Since 1968, ECAFE (Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East) has sponsored geophysical surveys in the South China Sea that have greatly benefited United States, Japanese and European oil consortiums, according to the Oil and Gas Journal. The offshore area is, in the words of the trade journal Offshore, "probably the largest contiguous continental shelf area in the world." With the recent oil concessions granted by the Thieu regime, it is evident that they surveys have borne fruit.

The results of two six-year $14 million plans were released in July, 1971. Conducted by the U.S.-controlled Mekong Committee Secretariat in Bangkok, the Draft Amplified Basic Plan outlines an overall scheme for the entire Mekong River Basin.

The Private Investment Co. of Asia (PICA) is a multinational combine, which includes 28 U.S. firms, that has already begun investing in Indochina. Both ford and American Motors plan assembly plants near Saigon, according to American Report. And Ford has proposed a $6 million assembly operation for autos, trucks, tractors and agricultural machinery at a site near Bien Hoa. Philco established an office in Saigon in 1967 and continues to make enormous profits in such areas as communications and electronics. Shell, Esso and Caltex have been marketing petroleum products in Vietnam for many years.

U.S. planners, working with South Vietnamese government officials, have managed to revamp legal codes, educational programs, occupational training, police and military organization, land distribution, farming techniques, transportation systems, fiscal policies and the like in accordance with the aims of multinational corporations. The most recent example of this in South Vietnam is the 1972 investment law. This law contains no limitation on the percentage of profit return for foreign businesses, business tax exemptions are now scheduled to last fifteen years and income taxes have been sharply reduced. Even further, the law guarantees that the Vietnamese government will not permit local companies to compete with foreign firms.

U.S. companies have benefited not only during the over war, but now they stand to profit from the effects of that war. Free fire zones forced millions of people to the cities; now they represent a source of cheap labor and a large market for consumer products. The abandonment of small scale farming opens up a market for new machinery as well as profitable food production. When the U.S. turned over its military apparatus to Saigon it opened the door for civilian contractors like Lear-Siegler, Northrop and NHA to continue the war effort by aiding the Saigon military through Pentagon contracts. U.S. imperialism consists of both military and business operations; and a peaceful Vietnam will not be possible until U.S. military personnel as well as U.S. corporate personnel leave that country.