Fordlandia's setup also left workers even more susceptible to malaria. The financial cost left corporations unable to compete with Southeast Asian plantations where the blight was not found, and the example of systematic planting was implemented in Asian countries. By the turn of the 21st century, Asia was supplying more than 90% of the world’s rubber, with Vietnam serving as an important player.
the Michelin company established their plantation in 1925 the 50 square mile (31,000 acres) plantation was the largest in Vietnam.
For their part, the French corporations were accused of excessive tapping and unsustainable practices so as to exact as much short-term profit as possible in light of the uncertain political future. These French operators were often caught between adversaries and played one off another as it suited their interests. They paid bribes and ransoms to insurgent forces while requesting help and providing support to the southern government. With some exceptions, their preference for profits demanded they take a bet-hedging and pragmatic approach to politics, hoping to remain in good enough standing with whomever ultimately prevailed in the wars.
Due to it's location between the Cambodia border and Saigon it was an important base and staging area for revolutionary Vietnamese forces. It was also an important source of revenue for the South Vietnamese Government and it's rumored that the Michelin Company paid off the Vietcong in order to keep the plantation operating during the war. Plus US forces were obliged to compensate Michelin $600 for each rubber tree damaged during military operations... and it was decimated due to the opposing forces having battles, and then the USA used agent orange on the trees....
A 1964 CIA memorandum notes that Vietnam produced the fifth-most rubber in the world at the time, accounting for 57% of the nation’s foreign earnings.
In 1967, Thuan Loi, isolated, was abandoned. Dautieng, in 1969, a working plantation of 40 years of efforts was reduced to nothing because of widening of roads to allow tanks to pass, then the Agent Orange ... nothing was spared from the bombings: village, churches, bungalows, schools. 1969 saw complete defoliation of Thuan Loi.
The U.S. Army, in the personage of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, was given the mission of securing the rubber plantation. It was a particularly fraught job since, among other strictures, no artillery could be fired into the rubber plantations. The preferred way of using American troops to fight the Cong and the NVA was to have our platoons conduct search patrols, and then when they found some enemy, pull back and call in artillery.
American artillery wasn’t all that accurate, but there was a lot of it. During a barrage, hundreds of shells could fall from the sky, bracketing an enemy position, wrecking everything. But not in the rubber plantations; they were off limits to American batteries.
It was a govt rule to avoid firing into the plantations. Once the enemy had figured this out, the local North Vietnamese commander decided to set up shop in the rubber plantation, digging in headquarters, hospitals and barracks.
That the policy also cost lives, American lives, seemed to be a secondary concern. That fighting nearly hand-to-hand when there was a job the artillery could do much faster and safer, was plainly stupid. And providing enemy a safe place to hide, to make sure the Michelin Tire Company didn’t suffer any losses, typifies govt intelligence and exemplifies cowardly politicians exempt from the draft, and with none of their sons in the war, running the war from Washington DC...
American artillery wasn’t all that accurate, but there was a lot of it. During a barrage, hundreds of shells could fall from the sky, bracketing an enemy position, wrecking everything. But not in the rubber plantations; they were off limits to American batteries.
It was a govt rule to avoid firing into the plantations. Once the enemy had figured this out, the local North Vietnamese commander decided to set up shop in the rubber plantation, digging in headquarters, hospitals and barracks.
That the policy also cost lives, American lives, seemed to be a secondary concern. That fighting nearly hand-to-hand when there was a job the artillery could do much faster and safer, was plainly stupid. And providing enemy a safe place to hide, to make sure the Michelin Tire Company didn’t suffer any losses, typifies govt intelligence and exemplifies cowardly politicians exempt from the draft, and with none of their sons in the war, running the war from Washington DC...
Well there you go. Much more information that I gave you but yours won't tell you about us fly in the plantation!
ReplyDelete