Tourists call the shots at Chu Chi

Tourists call the shots at Chu Chi

Michael Mathes, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Cu Chi, Vietnam

Bursts of automatic weapons fire ring out through the eucalyptus
northwest of Saigon, and camera-toting tourists are ducking for
cover.

"A.K., A.K.!" croaks a Vietnamese tour guide, referring to the
make of machine gun shattering the serenity of Cu Chi.

Dozens of international visitors to this outlying district of
present-day Ho Chi Minh City have come to see the Cu Chi tunnels,
the notorious underground honeycomb which served as command
center and communication network for communist Viet Cong during
the Vietnam War.

Two hundred metres away, several trigger-happy tourists are
shooting off AK-47s and M-16s, emptying clips at a dollar per
bullet.

During a recent visit to the site, the gunslingers were not
American war veterans, whose pilgrimages to Vietnam's war-related
sites are to be expected. They were young tattooed backpackers
from Australia, Europe, the United States and east Asia.

An earnest Japanese woman could be seen getting hands-on
instruction from an army officer before letting loose with an M-
16, the ubiquitous machine gun that was standard issue for most
American GIs during the Vietnam War which ended nearly 27 years
ago.

"This attracts a lot of tourists," Le Van Phuoc, office chief
at Cu Chi, says of the firing range. "Even those who have no idea
about guns want to try the shooting."

A lot of tourists, indeed. The "Iron Land of Cu Chi", where
over 200 kilometers of tunnels for several years confounded the
high-tech American military machine, has become Vietnam's most
popular tourist attraction, boasts Phuoc.

Run by state-owned giant Saigon Tourist, the Cu Chi Tunnels
hosted 795,000 visitors last year, including over 201,000
foreigners.

It's all a far cry from 15 years ago, when the only outsiders
were communist party cadres who lauded the "army of moles" who
lived, worked, fought and died by the thousands in the tunnels.

Dug in the 1940s as underground redoubts of the Viet Minh who
were fighting French colonization, the tunnel system was expanded
in the late 1950s by the Viet Cong, the southern guerrillas
driven by a communist push for independence by revolutionary
leader Ho Chi Minh.

By the mid-1960s they stretched from near Saigon to the
Cambodian border; they held living quarters, hospitals and
munitions factories.

Washington discovered the labyrinth in early 1967, then spent
billions of dollars and hundreds of troops lost trying to destroy
it.

By 1970 Cu Chi was one of the most bombed, gassed, defoliated
and devastated places on earth. An estimated 12,000 Viet Cong and
their supporters were killed, but the tunnels served their
purpose and Saigon fell to communist troops in 1975.

A decade later much of the complex was overgrown and all but
forgotten. But when enough foreign tourists started showing up
unannounced, authorities realized they were sitting on a cash
cow.

By the early 1990s, Cu Chi district had successfully marketed
the tunnel complex as Rambo's playground, complete with firing
range, enlarged tunnels to accommodate the wider girth of foreign
tourists, and menacing displays of booby traps used to maim and
kill GIs.

And what of security concerns, with the firing range just a
few dozen kilometers away from Cambodia, from where anti-
communist "provocateurs" are accused by Hanoi of staging attacks
into Vietnam?

Phuoc brushes them aside. "The guns are put in locks, they're
very safe. This facility has been in place 10 years but there
have been no accidents or security incidents."

Cu Chi is now on the well-worn path of Lonely Planeteers, who
are bussed out from Saigon on five-dollar tours by budget travel
agents.

Upon arrival, visitors are ushered into a reception room where
they are subjected to a barrage of propaganda about Cu Chi.

A grainy black and white film chronicles the "unwavering
spirit" of the tunnel diggers and dwellers. "Anyone who went in
to these tunnels had to admire the talent, the determination, the
passion of communists," a film narrator says.

Outside, tour guide Liem escorts a group through the complex,
pointing out perfectly camouflaged trap doors, setting off trip
wires attached to firecrackers, and encouraging picture-taking.

The featured attraction, the tunnels themselves, have been
enlarged to accommodate the girth of Westerners, but Liem brings
the group to what he says is an "original tunnel", measuring 70
cm high and 80 cm wide.

"Sometimes old people try to get down there, and when they
come out, they're unconscious," Liem quips.

Members of this group survived the claustrophobic 50-metre
crawl unhurt, with Japanese women bending over with happiness at
seeing their friends emerge from the tunnels.

"It is ingenious, incredible," huffs one Australian as he
steps out, the crack of machine-gun fire in the distance. "It's
amazing how they did it."

Equally amazing, perhaps, is how Vietnam managed to turn a
secret communist revolutionary gambit into such a money-spinner.

Phuoc wouldn't divulge any profit figures from the 100-hectare
complex, but he made it clear that, unlike most tourist sites in
Vietnam, Cu Chi needs no funding from the government.

Instead it submits an undisclosed amount to local and state
coffers, and helps build charity houses for war invalids, he
says.