- Mythili Iyer
How a bloody conflict shook a nation to the ground..
On January 23rd, 1973, a black-suited Richard Nixon with a honeycombed tie stood on the podium and said
“I have asked for this radio and television time tonight for the purpose of announcing that today we have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honour in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.” (The Richard Nixon Foundation, 2017)
Peace with honour. That’s something Vietnam didn’t have for more than a hundred years. It wasn’t a war with one winner and one loser. All the parties involved were losers. And amid all the turmoil the worst affected were the innocent people who took no side in the conflict.
The conflict’s soup started cooking in 1857 when France invaded Vietnam. Vietnam's colonial name was Indochina.
Source- WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
The situation was not unlike any other colony. The Vietnamese and Vietnam were ruthlessly exploited for their labour and resources respectively. The French established a class of ‘mandarins’, loyal Vietnamese clerks that spoke French and acted as the link between the rulers and the ruled.
During the next 50 years, although a small group of Vietnamese freedom fighters emerged, they were limited to foreign expats or exiles. Nguyễn Sinh Cung was one of them. At the time, World War 1 had just ended and the Versailles Peace Talks had begun. Cung entered the window that had just opened and submitted letters to the allied leaders with the alias Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Patriot) for the acknowledgement of the rights of the people of Indochina. However, they rejected his message as they probably had better things to do. (Huynh, 1982; Hunt, 2016; Hunt, 2016) The allied leaders had just closed the window. If they had peered in, it might have made a world of difference.
While Quoc (Cung) was serving as a communist agent in China, there was a military strike on a harbour in Hawaii. The violent attack better known as Pearl Harbour had a profound impact on Vietnam. Earlier the French were the invaders, now the Japanese. The Japanese claimed they were propagating the ideal ‘Asia for Asians’. They had chased the French away. However, that involved horrific brutality on not only Europeans and Americans but also Asians. The Japanese filled their granaries with Vietnamese rice to feed mouths at home, while the Vietnamese themselves were starving. The soup was still cooking.
Quoc took on a new name – the name most associate with him – Hồ Chí Minh (the enlightened one). He came from China back to Vietnam, now the leader of the communist revolutionary group Việt Minh. There was much unrest in the countryside, and many were unsatisfied with the Japanese regime. Unsatisfied is too subtle a word. They were outraged. Hồ was determined to jump right into the action and not miss the train this time. (Hunt, 2016). They had two enemies – Japan and Vichy France (The part of France free of German rule in WW2) and one clandestine supporter - the United States of America who wanted to get rid of the Japanese, not the French. (Brocheux, 2007)
Finally, after four years of fighting, Hồ became the premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Despite the hard-won freedom, no country recognized Vietnam, perhaps as a result of unfortunate timing. The world had barely recovered from World War 2 and there wasn’t any time to recognize a new country. His desperate plea to Harry Truman for recognition of Vietnamese independence received no reply. It was hypocritic in Truman’s part as the United States had signed the Atlantic Charter which stated that all people had a right to self- determination. However, it was signed by Roosevelt and not by Truman. Truman had embraced a different philosophy on self-determination. Self-determination only if the country was not communist. (Zinn, 1995)
Nevertheless, Hồ had achieved his dream of ‘an independent Vietnam’, but he still had problems. He felt that non-communist parties in Vietnam had to be dealt with a firm hand. How firm? Let me tell you. He had massacred people who were supporting a slightly different form of communism called Trotskyism just so that his doctrine would under no circumstances be undermined. A French socialist remembers that when he had inquired about a Trotskyist leader’s mysterious demise, Hồ replied, “with unfeigned emotion," that "Thâu (the leader) was a great patriot and we mourn him, but then a moment later added in a steady voice ‘All those who do not follow the line which I have laid down will be broken.’" (Guerin, 1954)
Now, imagine the tragic fate of people who believed in completely different philosophy from Hồ’s. Many innocent were victims of this regime as they were incorrectly judged for their political beliefs.
The French had been ousted from ‘their beloved Indochina’. And they wanted to get it back. So, after World War Two, France gained control of South Vietnam along with a fellow colonial power, Britain. This was the origin of the communist north and non-communist south divisions.
They tried to solve the issue with peace – but it didn’t work. The French wanted control over Vietnam, never mind it was partial or complete. Hồ wanted complete independence of Vietnam. Therefore, the fighting resumed. Meanwhile, the United States who had initially helped the Việt Minh fight the Japanese started helping the French, fearful of the communist rise in Asia.
Now, once you stretch a rubber band for too long it breaks, and that is what happened with First Indo China War. The international community coerced the Việt Minh and the French with a ceasefire and divided Vietnam – this time officially. The Final Declaration, so it was called, asked for an election to take place. But, our friends the USA and France knew that the Việt Minh would win and for the safety and security of the United States and France, they didn’t sign the declaration. The elections never did happen.
Meanwhile, Ngô Đình Diệm was appointed prime minister of South Vietnam by the aforementioned world powers. He and his coterie of advisors, all members of the Roman Catholic minority unleashed a reign of terror against the Buddhist majority. The so-called democracy was actually nothing but an autocracy. In fact, Diệm was overshadowed by the influence of his brother Ngô Đình Nhu and his wife Madame Nhu, infamous for her sharp tongue.
Infuriated, the South Vietnamese populace revolted against this tyrannical regime. And usually in protests, people burn buildings and vehicles. In Vietnam, people burned themselves.
Source- WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
This was Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhist monk who protested against the tightened regulations over religious freedom in South Vietnam. Things were at such a bad state that one would think that Buddhism was outlawed. Many more incidents like this took place. Madame Nhu, on the other hand, said,
“Let them burn and we shall clap our hands.” , “And if the Buddhists wish to have another barbecue, I will be glad to supply the gasoline and a match.” (Sorkin, 2011)
Source- TIME MAGAZINE
Certain military generals wanted to take control of the situation and asked for the US for permission. They approved of this coup d’état and Diem and Mister Nhu were killed. And as usual, an ineffective government was replaced by another ineffective government and then another. Almost three to four governments in South Vietnam passed like this, by when the Viet Minh, which had transformed into the Viet Cong was ready to start another offensive.
The US, who had relative control over South Vietnam noticed and the soup that had been brewing for quite some time now had cooked. A brutal war raged and the United States had to conscript – forcefully draft civilians into the army. Many Americans protested – why do they have to fight a war, not of their own? Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese Viet Cong gained the upper hand using a strategically placed trail, named after their beloved leader Ho Chi Minh. Americans were unfamiliar with the Vietnamese guerrilla tactics and hence were on the brink of losing the war. Nixon, who at the time was the President, obviously didn’t want the world to know about America’s goof up. So, he called for peace. Peace with honour.
Now, comes the aftermath. Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger, the diplomats representing North Vietnam and USA respectively were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize who were the negotiators of the agreement mentioned by Nixon in his ‘Peace with Honour’ speech. Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam was rechristened as ‘Ho Chi Minh City’. Nixon soon resigned due to the Watergate Scandal. And there was relative peace. “Finally!”, you might exclaim, but the problems didn’t stop here. It wasn’t good-good victory. It was a pyrrhic victory – a victory with so many losses that it doesn’t even seem like a victory.
The economy was in tatters and there was barely any infrastructure and whatever had been built was ravaged by war. Not only that, imagine soldiers becoming bureaucrats and administrators. Combine this with several floods, droughts and famines, you get a triple disaster. Other countries were rather unsupportive of this new government except for the communist Soviet Union and its proxies China, Cambodia and Laos. The US imposed sanctions, further weakening the country. In my sister’s first grade English book, there was a diary entry of an Australian boy living in Vietnam. He missed the traffic lights in Melbourne.
Let’s fast forward to 2020. There are some ‘veterans’ of the First Indochina War still alive albeit their numbers are fast declining. Vietnam’s economy isn’t as nearly as bad as the initial days of complete independence, it’s one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia. However, the agriculture hub still faces a plethora of problems, even though modernization has taken the reins.
What I find ironical is that the United States supported Vietnamese against the Japanese and the French against the Vietnamese. It approved of the death of a leader it propped up. And it imposed sanctions (they have been taken back) on a country it promised peace with honour.
The tale of Vietnam is tragic. The ones who truly suffered were the people of Vietnam. They were tormented by foreign interference and internal strife. They were mere puppets. They could be discarded and played with any time according to the whims and fancies of their leaders and foreign invaders. We cannot change the past, but we can change the future. We must make sure that a situation like this never, ever occurs again.
Works Cited
The Richard Nixon Foundation. (2017, September 2). President Richard Nixon’s 14 Addresses to the Nation on Vietnam. Retrieved May 2020, from The Richard Nixon Foundation: https://www.nixonfoundation.org/2017/09/president-richard-nixons-14-addresses-nation-vietnam/
Brocheux, P. (2007). Ho Chi Minh: A Biography. Cambridge University Press.
Hunt, M. H. (2016). The World Transformed 1945 To the Present. New York City, New York, United States of America: Oxford University Press.
Huynh, K. K. (1982). Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945. Ithaca, New York, United States of America: Cornell University Press.
Zinn, H. (1995). A People's History of the United States. New York City: Harper Perennial.
Guerin, D. (1954). Aux services des colonises, 1930–1953. Paris, France: Editions Minuit.
Sorkin, A. D. (2011, April 27). Madame Nhu’s Match. The New Yorker.
Botstein, S., Burns, K., Novick, L. (Producers), Ward, G. C. (Writer), Burns, K., & Novick, L. (Directors). (2017). The Vietnam War (TV Series). United States: PBS.
Comments