New Zealand's Vietnam War by Ian McGibbon

Author:Ian McGibbon [Ian McGibbon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781877568534
Publisher: Exisle Publishing Pty Ltd
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Moya McTamney’s role (and that of Mandy Harrison and Adrienne Lattimore, who would follow her in later teams) was to attend to the general health conditions of the refugees, most of whom were in chronically poor health from hookworm infestation even before the war affected them. She was soon doing the rounds of 15 clinics in the various resettlement areas. This work was often challenging in its association with traditional beliefs among her patients, especially the Montagnards, for whom she developed a special affection. ‘It’s not unusual,’ she noted later during a second tour of duty, ‘for a witchdoctor to be performing while I’m giving treatment, and often a sacrificial chicken is being killed at the same time.’25

Apart from attending to the refugees’ immediate needs, team members also tried to encourage self-sufficiency among them. Although the Vietnamese responded well to such help, the Montagnards were harder to get moving in this area. Having survived by slash and burn cultivations in the hills, and expecting to return to this lifestyle once the situation allowed, they were not attracted by or interested in paddy field rice production. Team members provided means for refugees to grow crops, and gave particular attention to irrigation, even obtaining water pumps from New Zealand. Their efforts were not unrewarded: by the end of 1968 all but one of the villages had gardens. Rabbit breeding was also encouraged, with some imported New Zealand rabbits to improve the stock.

Red Cross assistance was not confined to agriculture. Other ways of improving self-sufficiency were also encouraged. On sewing machines obtained from New Zealand, refugees learned the techniques of garment making. The Montagnards, in particular, were adept at handcrafts, and these offered the means of earning cash, though sales were hampered because An Khe was out of bounds to Americans.26 Allied to this emphasis on self-sufficiency was an attempt to make education available to refugee children. Team members oversaw the building of schools in a number of camps.

The New Zealanders impressed those who came to inspect their efforts. Allison described them as ‘five very intrepid people’, while Ambassador Edmonds lauded their ‘obvious delight and interest in their work’ and the ‘first class job’ that they were doing. By August, the former reported to Red Cross headquarters, the team seemed ‘to have become “part and parcel” of the district and accepted by all – Vietnamese, Montagnards, and Americans’; he noted the ‘easy friendly manner’ with which they mixed with the Montagnards in the refugee camps.27 Team members made so much progress that when their replacements, led by agriculturist Peter Wilson, arrived in February 1969 Bowden thought that ‘all that is relatively easy to accomplish has been, and that which is more difficult has yet to be’.28 Although Wilson’s team applied themselves well to the tasks at hand, they were conscious that the time of real need for the refugees in An Tuc had passed. They were looking for ways to improve an already acceptable situation rather than to alleviate distress. This second team

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