Minorities in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Abstract

Although a number of studies have been made of the minority groups of North Vietnam, almost all of them were written during the period of French occupation or have been based upon data derived from French sources. Relatively little fresh material has been available to European and American scholars during the last two decades. It is because of this, and not because of any claim to ethnographic expertise that I am presenting the modest amount of information that follows, gathered during a brief sojourn in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in August of 1971. This is not based on field research among the minority groups, but reflects statistical data and official views of minority policy provided in response to my questions by knowledgeable members of the Hanoi governmental administration. The non-Vietnamese ethnic minorities who reside north of the 17th parallel occupied in 1971 about two-thirds of the D.R.V.'s area and constituted about 15% of its population. For the most part they live in the strategic mountain and upland valley areas that, like a huge horse-shoe, circle the fertile, river-laced rice plains of the central heart and sea-face of Tonkin. It was in ithe mountainous northeastern marches of Tonkin that the Vietminh established its first bases for struggle against the forces of the Japanese occupation and the French. Here dwelt the principal concentrations of such major ethnic minorities of Vietnam as the Tay, Nung and Yao; and if Ho Chi Minh and his predominantly Vietnamese following were to be successful it was incumbent that they develop a reasonably harmonious and cooperative relationship with these groups. Most of the accounts that I have encountered by knowledgeable outside commentators indicate that in this effort Ho's Vietminh was for the most part successful.' Although I have little basis for gauging the extent to which the current minority policies