National Liberation Front

For centuries peasants in South Vietnam accepted living in poverty because they believed it a punishment for crimes committed by their ancestors.

 

The National Liberation Front (NLF) seek to educate them in economics by explaining that 50% of the farmland is owned by less than 3% of the population. The NLF gains additional support by following strict directives:

Never damage the land and crops or spoil the houses and belongings of the people; never insist on buying or borrowing what the people are not willing to sell or lend; never speak to them in a way that is likely to make them feel they are held in contempt; assist them with daily work, such as harvesting, gathering firewood, fetching water, etc.

The NLF begins confiscating property of large landowners and distributing it among the poor. In exchange, the peasants feed and hide soldiers and often take up arms to help liberate other villages.

 

If the U.S. Marines or Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) gains control of a village, they are told their land will be confiscated. Consequently, peasants think of the NLF as their friends and U.S. military and ARVN as enemies.

 

These beliefs are reinforced as explained by U.S. Marine William Ehrhart, “They’d (peasants) be beaten pretty badly, maybe tortured. Or they might be hauled off to jail, and God knows what happened to them. At the end of the day, the villagers would be turned loose. Their homes had been wrecked, their chickens killed, their rice confiscated—and if they weren’t pro-Vietcong before we got there, they sure as hell were by the time we left.”