Mr. Chairman,
Time and again, and particularly in early 1959, I have brought to the notice of the International Commission for Supervision and Control the serious violations of Article 14 (c) of the Geneva Agreements committed by the south Viet Nam administration; l have also stressed that “the correct implementation of this provision in south Viet Nam would not only mean guaranteeing the life and democratic liberation of millions of people, but would also create conditions to check any manœuvre aimed at undermining peace and the reunification of Viet Nam”. In the present letter, I would like to draw the Commission’s attention to the more and more serious character of the situation.
Early in 1959, at a moment when a tidal wave of protest against the food-poisoning of over 6,000 detainees in the Phu Loi concentration camp was sweeping over south as well as north Viet Nam, Ngo Dinh Diem stated : “(South) Viet Nam is in a state of war.” Thereafter, the south Viet Nam propaganda apparatus started a campaign for intensified repression. It is particularly worth mentioning that the ‘Cach mang quoc gia’, the ‘ruling circles’ semi-official mouthpiece and leading body in the repression, raised the question of ‘exterminating the Viet Cong’ in accordance with the guiding principle: “To wipe them out mercilessly, not regarding them as human beings, to mobilize the forces of all branches for this purpose just as in a state of war”, and “to combine all military and para-military forces into a single bloc, operating together under a common plan, and actively working under the leadership of a central body”.
For this purpose, the south Viet Nam ruling circles have worked out a plan which includes the following points:
“1. To apply the radiating tactics: to muster all the operating forces in one or several centres; the Army is to be organized into mobile groups specializing in guerilla warfare, encirclements and raids.
2. To set up a secret information network in the villages, and, before carrying out the plan, to have census registers duly established in villages and districts.
3. To re-shape the judiciary system with a view to annihilating the Viet Cong, to set up special courts to judge on the spot, to enforce draconian anti-communist laws, to mete out harsh punishments to the Viet Cong’s sustainers.
4. After the elimination of the Viet Cong from a village, to re-organize its administration and to make the return of the Viet Cong impossible”.
As is known to public opinion, ‘Viet Cong’ is a name applied by the south Viet Nam authorities to south Viet Nam peace-loving patriots, the great majority of whom participated in the Resistance war against the colonialist aggressors. Thus the above-mentioned plan is actually a plan for the extermination of these patriots.
The repression of the people and the reprisal against former resistance members in south Viet Nam over the last two years are obviously the implementation of the aforesaid guiding principle and plan.
The setting up of the ‘information’ network has been actively pursued on a large scale. Besides the strengthening of the network of secret agents at the communal level, the south Viet Nam administration has created within communal councils the posts of ‘member in charge of political affairs’, ‘member in charge of information’ and ‘member in charge of the youth’ to take up the ‘security work’; at the provincial level, a deputy-chief of province is specially responsible for ‘internal security’. The increased militarization of the administrative apparatus deserves particular mention. At present, there are in south Viet Nam 14 chiefs of province, 22 deputy-chiefs of province and 67 chiefs of district chosen from among officers on active service. In big cities, the south Viet Nam administration has established a ‘network of inter-families’. With regard to Saigon in particular, the entire population is to be organized into 10,687 groups, of which 6,040 have been set up. The so-called ‘policy of the Government of the Republic of Viet Nam towards former resistance members’ is a basis for local authorities to carry out a ‘differentiation of citizens’, and to terrorize the people.
With the promulgation of law 10-59 on May 6, 1959, the Ngo Dinh Diem administration ‘re-shaped the whole judiciary system’. By their powers and their procedure, the special military courts set up under this law differ completely from the existing courts in south Viet Nam. They are placed under the direct authority of the Defence Ministry, and judge in accordance with special provisions: no preliminary investigation required, no possibility of defence or appeal given to the accused, sentences to be acted upon on the spot... As has been repeatedly pointed out by the Viet Nam People’s Army, law 10-59 and special military courts are designed to exterminate south Viet Nam peace-loving patriots opposed to the U.S.-Diem clique, irrespective of political beliefs.
The large-scale military operations carried out from Ca Mau to the 17th parallel, from the plains to the High Plateaus, are clear illustrations of the putting into practice of the ‘radiating tactics’. South Viet Nam has been divided into many zones of operation: the eastern region, the western region and the Plain of Reeds in Nam Bo, the western part of Quang Nam, Quang Ngai, Thua Thien and Quang Tri in Trung Bo (central Viet Nam), Kontum and Darlac in the High Plateaus... In each of these zones, there is a ‘delegate of the Government’ endowed with full powers to carry out ‘the mustering of all the operating forces in one or several centres under the leadership of a central body’. At present, ‘the delegate of the Government’ is Nguyen Van Vang in west Nam Bo, and Ngo Dinh Can in Trung Bo... The operations in the above-mentioned zones involved on an average 10,000 to 15,000 regular troops (including the air force, the navy and the artillery), and an equivalent strength of militia men, civil guards, commandos, agents of the ‘Cong dan vu’, secret agents and security agents. They resulted in tragic massacres of unarmed innocent people although peace had been restored: the victims were either burnt by napalm bombs, or guillotined before thousands of spectators; others had their heads cut off and planted on banana-tree trunks set adrift in rivers... It is obvious that the south Viet Nam ruling circles have put into practice the slogan: “To wipe out the Viet Cong mercilessly, not regarding them as human beings, just as in a state of war”.
In accordance with the plan, the carrying out of the ‘radiating tactics’ is to be followed by a re-organization of the administration according to new principles. This re-organization of the communes according to new principles is precisely the removal of villages and concentration of their inhabitants into so-called ‘zones of prosperity’. The south Viet Nam administration has forced the people, especially former resistance members and their families, to settle in fenced enclosures permanently guarded by the militia and military police, with agents of the police and of the ‘Cong dan vu’ keeping a vigilant watch upon each person and each family. Actually, such ‘zones’ are merely new-type concentration camps designed to keep former resistance members and their relatives in forced residence, and at the same time, to facilitate the pressganging of soldiers and hand labour, in furtherance of the manœuvres of military reinforcement and war preparations. For this purpose, the south Viet Nam authorities have resorted to every means: tortures and massacres to intimidate the people; destruction of entire villages, of houses and crops with a view to depriving the people of their means to earn a living, thereby compelling them to join the ‘zones of prosperity’; shelling of villages to force away their inhabitants…
Since the restoration of peace, for over four years in succession, the south Viet Nam people have been living a very wretched life.
In furtherance of the U.S. imperialists’ manœuvres aimed at sabotaging the implementation of the Geneva Agreements, perpetuating the partition of Viet Nam, and turning south Viet Nam into a new-type colony and a military base of the U.S.A., the Ngo Dinh Diem administration has unceasingly carried out a cruel policy of terror. With this policy, the most typical illustration of which is the ‘Wipe out communists campaigns’, it hopes to be in a position to suppress any popular aspiration for peace and unity in south Viet Nam. These ‘campaigns’ resulted in numerous casualties and cases of arrest or deportation. The policy of military reinforcement and the consequences of the so-called ‘U.S. aid’ have driven the south Viet Nam economy into a cul de sac. As a result, while encountering the greatest difficulties in their daily life, the people, already harassed by indiscriminate arrests and savage tortures, have, furthermore, been despoiled of their lands for the building of strategic roads and military bases. Faced with increasing opposition from the people, the Ngo Dinh Diem administration has set out on the so-called plan for ‘exterminating the Viet Cong just as in a state of war’. Since it was put into effect, the south Viet Nam people have been driven to an utterly wretched life. Although peace has been restored for six years now, they are living not only in the perpetual anxiety of arrest and execution by the police, but also through the horrors of a real war with napalm bombings, savage massacres, destruction of entire villages, destruction of crops, etc. They are not given the possibility of leading the peaceful life they are longing for. Violence and oppression have led them into a situation wherein they have no way out other than to take into their own hands the defence of their lives, property and living conditions. Popular indignation has been spreading from the countryside to big cities, reaching even the inner ranks of the south Viet Nam administration and army. The November 11, 1960 coup d’etat involving almost all south Viet Nam paratroops, and a part of the naval and air forces, and the tearing-up of Ngo Dinh Diem’s photographs and south Viet Nam flags by many civil servants and armymen, clearly evidenced the fact that broad strata of the people in south Viet Nam were already fed up with Ngo Dinh Diem, and wanted to overthrow his dictatorial regime.
In face of the development of the opposition movement, the ruling clique in south Viet Nam has intensified the repression. On October 26, 1960, Ngo Dinh Diem stated: “the Government has decided to strengthen the pacification and security work...”. On November 5, 1960, he stage-managed the farce of the ‘National Assembly’ requesting the ‘application of all emergency measures’. In the south Viet Nam 1961 budget, the appropriations for the Directorate General of the Security and Police, the Directorate General of the Militia, and the Central Inspection service of the Civil guard have increased by 130,240,000 piastres as compared with 1960; this increase alone is double the appropriations for the south Viet Nam Ministry of Economy, which account for only 66,216,000 piastres. Since the coup d’etat the atmosphere of terror has become even more stifling. After achieving the task of rescuing Ngo Dinh Diem, parts of the regular troops have been sent back to western Nam Bo, Kontum, etc. to carry on mopping-up operation there. A committee endowed with large powers has been set up to ‘fight the rebels and the communists’. Many people have been arrested, including former ministers of the Ngo Dinh Diem administration and officials or armymen whom Diem had not the opportunity to eliminate before. Many others are under the menace of being arrested. Although it has been camouflaged recently under the signboard of ‘United Front against the rebels and the communists’, this committee is an instrument of repression most dangerous for the people. Public opinion is being deeply disturbed by the arrests and the atmosphere of terror in general. While previously the calumnious accusation of ‘communism’ was for the south Viet Nam authorities a sufficient pretext to carry out arrests, they are now basing themselves on a new charge: that of ‘being involved in the coup, or of entertaining close relations with its authors’. Thus, in south Viet Nam simple citizens as well as civil servants and armymen, irrespective of political affiliation are now living under the perpetual fear of being arrested of killed, or having their houses destroyed.
All these fact show that the leaders of the south Viet Nam administration are going deeper and deeper along the path of persecutions against the people, and reprisal against former resistance members, thereby violating in a most serious manner Article 14 (c) of the Geneva Agreement concerning Viet Nam. Nevertheless, immediately after the coup d’etat, they have again impudently resorted to the slanderous allegations about so-called ‘subversive activities’ by the authorities of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, which they have been constantly using for over six years now to cover up their policy of terror. However, the coup d’etat has clearly revealed who is at work for the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem. Undoubtedly, the calumnious allegations of the south Viet Nam ruling circles cannot conceal the truth.
It is not fortuitous that the Ngo Dinh Diem administration is intensifying the persecution of patriots and all opposition groups in south Viet Nam, while increasing its calumnious propaganda against the Government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. For the last few years, the policy of terror and repression has always been an instrument to further the U.S. imperialists’ policy of intervention and war in south Viet Nam. But, in view of the failure of this policy, and of ‘the cold war’ in the world, the U.S.-Diem clique has pushed forward military reinforcement in this region, in the hope of carrying on the preparations for a new war, and of consolidating its domination. That is why M.A.A.G. has been reinforced with hundreds of American military advisers, and is striving to speed up the building of military bases and strategic roads in south Viet Nam. That is why the U.S. Government decided to increase its aid in armaments in 1960 almost twofold by comparison with 1959, and openly to send warships and planes to the south Viet Nam naval and air forces. That is why, as revealed by the U.S. Secretary of State for the Army, W. Brucker himself, a ‘plan of operation’ has been worked out for an eventual military intervention in south Viet Nam. That is why the U.S.-Diem clique has availed itself of the International Commission’s majority decision authorizing the introduction of U.S. military personnel as reinforcements for M.A.A.G., to give a legal cover to the continued existence of this mission, with a view to pushing forward military reinforcement and war preparations in south Viet Nam. The slanderous propaganda about so-called ‘subversive activities’ by north Viet Nam, is designed to achieve the same aim, and, at the same time, to cover up the use of the regular army in savagely suppressing any popular opposition.
Mr. Chairman,
The intensified persecution of the opponents of the U.S.-Diem regime and policy, and of the peace-loving patriots who stand for the Geneva Agreements in south Viet Nam, is a question coming within the purview of the Geneva Agreements concerning Viet Nam. This is because such persecution is an instrument in furtherance of the U.S. interventionists’ war manœuvres, in flagrant contravention of the provisions of the Geneva Agreements aimed at consolidating peace in Viet Nam. This is because, running counter to Article 14 (c) of the Geneva Agreements, it constitutes a serious menace to the life and democratic liberties of millions of people who participated in the Resistance war against the colonialist aggressors in south Viet Nam.
The Viet Nam People’s Army High Command strongly protests against the incessant persecutions which the Ngo Dinh Diem Administration have perpetrated against south Viet Nam patriots who, in their vast majority, participated in the Resistance war. Such persecutions are an extremely serious violation of Article 14 (c) of the Geneva Agreements.
The Viet Nam People’s Army High Command declares that the said administration must bear full responsibility for the creation of ‘a state of war’ in south Viet Nam and for the eventual consequences of its policy of intensified terror.
I request the International Commission to pronounce severe condemnation against the south Viet Nam authorities policy of terror and reprisal as a whole, and to urge them to put an end to this policy, to stop the operations of reprisal, to abrogate law 10-59, to dissolve the Saigon special military court, to dissolve ‘the zones of prosperity’ and other concentration camps, and to ensure all democratic liberties to former resistance members in conformity with the stipulations of Article 14 (c) of the Geneva Agreement.
I take this opportunity to renew to you, Mr. Chairman, and to the other members of the International Commission, the assurances of my highest consideration.
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