dom. Life in Saigon was very relaxing from 1955 to1962. We had freedom to do things without fear. Now you say that giving land back to the landlords was alienating the peasants. But is that not what democracy is about? If someone took your land, wouldn’t you want it back? The land was taken from the landlords by the Viet Cong and given to the peasants. I admit this is noble and good will. But the truth is that the land belongs to the landlords. You cannot just take their land and say that it is just. Imagine what would happen if that happened here in America. Diem did the right thing.” The issue of giving back land to landlords needs to be examined more carefully. Is it just to give land to the poor, or is it just to return something that was wrongfully stolen?From a certain standpoint, it is just to return something to its rightful owner. To win security in the countryside, Diem abolished local village councils to prevent the possible election of Vietminh supporters and appointed his own officials. This further elevated the resentment of peasants because the majority of the appointments were Catholic supporters of Diem. New levels of corruption ran rampant as officials engaged in bribery and peasant abuse. Every level of Diem’s government was plagued with some form of corruption. Historians point out that this corruption greatly decreased the public’s liking for Diem.Khiem Khac Pham states that the problem of corruption is not really a “problem”. The whole problem of corruption, however one sees it, must be seen in a larger context than that of American views. Repression and corruption prevailed not only in most non-communist Southeast Asian countries, but also in most of the existing communist regimes, i.e., in the USSR, East Europe and also in Cuba. Outsiders tend to see it as corruption but Khiem and the Vietnamese people see it as everyday life. They call it “Than Nhung” meaning ...
