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The Struggle for the Unification of Vietnam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Philippe Devillers
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Extract

For many years, many thousands of Vietnamese patriots have sacrificed themselves for a double objective—the unity and independence of Vietnam—and it was in pursuit of these aims immediately after the Second World War that, first the Viet-Minh, then the anti-Communist nationalists, brought into operation all the means at their disposal, both military and diplomatic. The Geneva Agreements of July 1954 confirmed the independence of Vietnam at international level. Yet, at the same time the country's unity, which for several years had no longer constituted a problem, was destroyed.

Type
North Vietnam
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 9 , March 1962 , pp. 2 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1962

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References

1 The term Viet-Minh is used in this article to designate not only this organisation which lasted ten years (1941–51), but also those which took over after it (the Lien-Viet, 1951–55, and the Patriotic Front). Viet-Minh is a useful and well-known term, even when it is not strictly accurate.

2 A Saigon daily paper at this time said: “In the North, the fall of the illegitimate regime is near. … As soon as the people's hatred of the Communist dictatorship is sufficiently mature for it to succeed in overthrowing it, then general elections which are really free will take place in the whole of Vietnam, and will peacefully bring about the reunification of the country.

“If he refuses to have recourse to force in order to liberate the North, while yet realising the dearest aspirations of the people, the supreme head of the Republic of Vietnam does so solely in order to avoid bloodshed and undesirable fratricidal strife.” (Cong Nhan quoted by Vietnam Press, the official agency, 11 9, 1956.)Google Scholar

3 It is to be noted that at this time (the beginning of 1957) the U.S.S.R., showing small regard for Vietnamese national sentiments, proposed at the United Nations the simultaneous admission of the two Vietnams.

4 At the beginning of 1958 the press of Saigon, and the National Assembly itself (in the sessions of January 3–4, 1958) gave voice to the serious popular unrest provoked by the way the police were acting; the brutal behaviour of the prison authorities was mentioned in forthright terms. The semi-governmental newspaper Tu Do wrote (03 4, 1958)Google Scholar: “We must have done with arbitrary arrests and imprisonment. The citizens of a free and independent country have the right to be protected in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution.” Some days earlier, on March 18, the National Democratic Movement of South Vietnam launched an appeal to the French and American peoples in which it stated, “We enjoy neither justice nor freedom of the press nor free speech nor freedom to travel and meet together. A revolt is simmering.”

But the régime had prepared in advance weapons to deal with such a situation. Ordinance No. 6, dated January 11, 1956, authorised the arrest or imprisonment of “any person considered to be a danger to the defence of the state or to national interests,” and their detention until order and security were fully restored. By Article 98 of the Constitution, the President was empowered provisionally to suspend all liberties in case of danger.

5 Cf. the case of Ng. Xuan Hieu and Lam Van Nanh heard by the Saigon Court of Appeal in January 1961.

6 Cf. Chinh, Truong, La Résistance Vaincra, 1947, Chap. XV.Google Scholar

7 Declaration of the Veterans of the Resistance on the current situation in South Vietnam, March 1960.

8 Pour le Viêt-Nam, Paris, No. 2, 11 1960.Google Scholar

9 The Soviet-Vietnamese talks which followed after the Congress, according to the communiqué issued, served to bring out “the complete identity of the points of view” of the two governments as regards “the essential aspects” of the problems discussed (among which was the international situation).

10 At the beginning of 1961, for example, Diem forces discovered, near the Khmer frontier, a hide-out where 400 deserters had taken refuge.

11 Leading articles like that of April 3, 1961, in the Nhan Dan of Hanoi make it seem very likely.

12 Programme published in the Echo du Viêt-Nam, No. 4, Paris, 05 1961.Google Scholar

13 Cf. Huy, Nguyen Ngoc, “Open letter to Mr. Kennedy,” in Pour le Viêt-Nam, No. 6, 03 1961.Google Scholar

14 The creation in January 1962 of a “People's Revolutionary Party” (a “party of the working class”) within the framework of the Liberation Front is probably designed as an insurance against the risk that they could not. It would be interesting to know whether this new move was made on the advice of the Chinese that it was essential to have in the South an ideologically solid core to ensure that the Front maintained a correct line. It was certainly the Chinese who advocated a similar relationship between the Viet-Minh and the Lien Viet in 1951.