SAIGON'S BLACK MARKET: SCREWING THE LITTLE GUYS The people of Saigon are coming upon hard times, harder than ever. One of the latest woes is a U.S.-sponsored crackdown on black market operators. Many Vietnamese families depend on the black market dealings in U.S. goods and currency for their survival; now these people are in trouble.
Ironically, the crackdown has had the effect of undermining the support for the Saigon regime. That regime, unlike the Provisional Revolutionary Government, has tolerated and encouraged the black market, just about the only lively thing left in puppet-controlled Vietnam. The puppets will still get their kickbacks, however. The Christian Science Monitor repor ted last month that the crackdown has been less than total:
"The worst offenders escaped. The axe fell hardest on the small operators who surrendered most of the $30,000 in black-market goods. But the big black-market operators-dealing in U.S. dollars, checks for dollars, and money orders-have largely gone unscathed. "
Inflation is going up, jobs are difficult to come by, and, the Monitor reports, "there is little doubt that times will become still harder before they get better.
No wonder so many South Vietnamese people are siding with the revolutionaries. In liberated areas, there's no black market-but there's also no inflation, no unemployment.
Even policemen may be joining the ranks of 'the pro-revolutionary forces, as life under the -Saigon regime becomes more unbearable. Here's what Monitor reporter George W. Ashworth saw:
"The South Vietnamese police officer stood pleading with his superior on a Saigon street.
"All the black-market goods in his wife's sidewalk stand had just been confiscated.
"Quietly, the superior told the unhappy officer that he would like to help but it was impossible. The Americans with his patrol already had had entered the goods on the confiscation tally, he said. lic spending and especially increased interest payments on the housing account. One speaker at the meeting raised the question of interest payments. Islington pays more than £2 million every year straight to the money lenders. Actual spending on houses is much less than this, and the saving on the baths would be only £35,000.
Labour is delighted to cash in on the feeling