PEOPLE

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The Boat Bople consider and with empire-minded Churchill in command, differed from the Americans. The decision taken by Rmsevelt, Churchill and Stalin at Potsdam in 1945 was that, on the defeat of Japan, Vietnam would be occupied below the sixteenth p~talkl by British traops and above the line by the Chinese. The British ushered back the French in the south. In the north the Chinese eventually allowed them hck also (in exchange for some privileges) but not More 1 M 000 Chinese soldiers had ransacked the route into Hanoi in a manner that is still referitd to with awe. They moved through the countryside like locusts, seipping houses of even their roof-tiles and doors, and sending a shiver through the Vietnamese population which some historians believe strengthened Ho's hand. Choosing brilliantly a moment of chaos (the Japanex had added to the confusion earlier by staging a coup against the Vichy French) Ho proclaimed in Hanoi in September 1945, on kh~lf of the Victminh, the declaration of the democratic republic of Vietnam. The opening words of the declaration were: 'All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these arc Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. , .' Ho'8 luck, or his charm, was remarkable. As the ceremony preceded, a flight of American airaaft passed overhead. Seeing the mwd, they dipped wings to take a h e r look, so it is said - but the Vietnamese (and many French) believed that the dip was n salute. Ho's peaceful Azure of power, undcr the benevolent gaze of the victarious Americans, revived fulk memories for the Vietnamese people. This was the leader who, having the 'mandate of hcavcn', could unitc the country. It was the only place in the whole of colonial South-East Asia where leadership passed directly to the communists. Elsewhere leadership passed to the nationalists, like Sukarno, Tunku AMul Rahman and Lee Kuan Yew and the communiuts aied in subsequent years to wrench power from thcm, uneuccessfully. Ho's national leadership was now establkhed; party membership rose from 20 000 in 1946 to 168000 in 1948. In view of what was to come, which would demonstrate to the world the qualities of both Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese communistu, it is a linlc too easy to anributt his quick success in 1946 to a quirk of fate. Nor is it possible to suggest that, in becoming rwmmunist, Victn m simply followed China, as it had done in all other important matters. In 1945 China was four yeam away from communist rule and, while Ho followed Mao Tse-tung in the strategy of peasantsupported partisan warfare, the ricc mlture of Vietnam is different from that of China north of the Yangt~e, where grain is the staple, and even in southern China the rice culture is dflaent from Vietnam's btcause of the absence of the South-Eat-Asian monsoon. Vietnam is not China, Ho Chi Minh, in spite of his m y years abroad, remained intensely Victnamesc, with a hard-headed political approach that has reminded writers as much of Gandhi as of Mao. So txgan the lwt stage of the struggle for Vietnamw unity and indcpcndtnce for which millions hd been sacrificed in the past and for which millions would be saaificcd during the next thiq ycars. For, although a compromise agreement was signed bctween the French and Viemam, and Ho Chi Minh adopted a strategy of conciliation (even dissolving the communist party), clashes between he Vietminh and French wmp continued. In Nwcmber 1946 the French navy bombarded Huiphong, killing 6000. Ho Chi Minh returned with his govmmtnt to the jungles and the paddy field5 and war with the French began. The emperor of Annam, Bao Dai, was persuaded to h d a pro-French government. With the dmth of Roosevelt and Washington's preoccupation with restoring wwem Europe, American anti-colonial sentiment became suMued. Tk cold war brought a US commitment to NATO (1949) and America'~ fint military aid to the French in Vietnam arrived the next year, Although wtgumed, the Victminh twk the offensive in rhe classical manner of gusiHa warfrrrc, controlling the rural arcas of Tonkin md Annarn and penetrating into Cochin China. The battle of Dim Bien Phu in north-west Tonkin ww decisive. After a siege of fifty-five days, on 7 May 1954, 10 000 Frtnch trqs surrendered to General Giap and the French nation was ready to negotiate. 'he Geneva agraments of 1954 confirmed at an international level tht Vietnam was an inde~ndent, aovtreign state, but at the same time destroyed the unity that had been maintained since 1802. 'rhc country was split along the seventeenth parallel, with the intmtion that gcntml elections in nvn yenrs timc for the entire country : wwld rcstore unity, If the elections had bren hcld, there secms little doubr that the Vietmintr would harc won handsomely. The mandate: i
Th Boat People of heaven was again theirs. But thc elections werc never held, Instead, the policy of John Fostcr Dulles, who had become US secrctary of state under President Eisenhower, rquired a stand to k made ac the seventeenth parallel as part of the grand strategy of conmining China and communism, and thus preventing the domin~s falling throughout South-East Asia and the south-west Pacific. It also required someone who could compete widr Ho Chi Minh for the mantle of nation~lemdership. The man chosen was Ngo Dinh Diem. Like Ho, Diem also came from central Viemam and was somewhat the same generation, being born in 1901, There the similarities ended. Ho Chi Minh was an austere bachelor who had lived most of his life abroad in obscurity and secrecy. Diem came from a large Catholic family nctive in Victnamese public life. He had held office under Bao Dai in the 1930s but had resigned as a protest againsr French influence. He had been sought out early by the Viemjnh but had become strongly anticommunist. It was thought that a man with a record of opposition to both the French and the communists would have the kind of nationalist integrity needed to make a stand against Ho Chi Minh and the Vietminh, The formation of the South-East Asia Trwty Organization (SBATO) in 1954 brought South Vicrnam, 1,aos and Cambodia under the American security umbrella. With the division of the mnay into two internationally recognized states, without a prospect of unity in the foreseeable future, some major movements of refugees began. Thousands from the north went to Thailand, where many of them remain, Some 800 000 awiied from the north to the south. Most were Catholic and opposed to reunification if this meant conceding victory to the Victrninh. These refugees provided the Diem regime with its central staif and its cadres. Thc Victminh had felt that they could negotiate successfully on thc basis of the Geneva agreements with Bao Uai and the French, both of whom had signtd, but they were confronted now by the Americans and Diem, neither of whom had signed. The Vietminh complained to nu avail about the failure to implement the agrecmcnts. They received little support from the Soviet Union and (:hina, nor, indeed, from nonaligned states like India and Indonesia. In the late 1950s they decided tu fight back. By 1960, the National Liberation Frr.ln~ (NLF) ' had ken formed in South Viemam. Working ns always in the rural ueas, it intimidated village and assassinated peq officials. Its always stresscd the unity of Vietnam. With the backing of the Amcrimns, Diem set about reforming South Vietnam. He deposed Bao Dai (by referendum) and =tablished himself as president of the republic of Vietnam. He hunted down the communists, brought in land reform and g~ined control ovcr several religious-military sects who had supported Bao Dai and stlnretimes the Victminh, and who monnpotided piracy and banditry as well as running brothels, gaming houscs and opium dens in Saieon. His rule was authoritarian, as if hc wished to return to a former age when Vietnarncsc miety was hierarchical md stable, Given by Saigon the derog~tory description 'Vietcong' (Vietnamese communists), the guerillas gradually moved from sporadic raids to partisan warfare, In ddition tn Chinese weapons, they werc armed with captured French and Amerian equipment. In 1961 President Kennedy xnt military adviacrs to Vietnam. At chat stage, Viem was still on the fringe of American strategic thinking (the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 being ctnml). But after the Sino- Indian conflict in 1962 and Peking's flirtation with Sukarno, who was 'confronting1 the British in Malaysia, Washington kgan to take the view that a firmer stand needed to be raktn in Viemam. Politid unren intensified in South Vietnam as pressure un the insurgents increased. Buddhist and studmt group -me openly hostilc to Diem, who responded with mass arrmts and the declaration of a state of siege, late in 1963 a dtcision wns made in Washingon - although thc details are still argued - thnt Diem's unpupularily, his patrician aloofness and unwillingness to work clmely with the Americans had made him a liability and that he should bt replaced. His brother Ngo Dinh Nhu was aiso suspected of secretly ncgatiating with Hanoi. A nod in rhc ducrtion of a group of generals was enough. In November 1963 the President's palace was stormed. Diem escaped with his brother but they were found hiding in a Cathulic church in the Chinese suburb of Cholon, They w m shot dead in a car taking them to army headquarters. 'The Americans were shmked a~ Diem's bruta1"murder; their understanding was that he would bc given safe conduct. But they had encouraged thc removal of thc man they had built up as n patriot
Page 2 and 3: Grant, Bruce book Penguin Y w JI Pe
Page 5: The orher contributors were numerou
Page 9 and 10: ' Th Boat PBopk is succewfuily mmag
Page 11 and 12: Tk Boat People among the Swth Vietn
Page 13 and 14: into the South China Sea, That nigh
Page 15 and 16: TAb Bwt People family were among th
Page 17 and 18: TAe Boat Pbople Vietnam - lived bey
Page 19 and 20: The Boat People transport war arran
Page 21 and 22: i I camp as a backdrop. A thiu man,
Page 23 and 24: TAB Boar Wuple toiy impul~es of att
Page 28 and 29: The Boat People against Ho Chi Minh
Page 30 and 31: April cadres' because of the suspic
Page 32 and 33: The Borai fiople was avoided becaus
Page 34 and 35: drowned abut ten kilomctres from th
Page 36 and 37: The Boat Psople esc, Shc left Haiph
Page 38 and 39: The Boat Bople 700 people. Most of
Page 41 and 42: The Boat hpk registered freighter,
Page 43 and 44: Thr Boat People Malaysian authoriti
Page 45 and 46: Tke BWI &pk and gds. There were woo
Page 47 and 48: Chapter 4 Exodus Why in 1978 and 19
Page 49 and 50: The Borrt hople the refugee exodus.
Page 51 and 52: i % Boar AopL We would have to go t
Page 53 and 54: administration and co-operativca, m
Page 55 and 56: The Boat Aopb war nevertheless dram
Page 57: wuth in the 1950~. Onc wm Ncurrn Tn
Page 61 and 62: exploiting rhc wmkcm under chc old
Page 63 and 64: 7'hs Boat Wloplt mmmt at the NEZ, t
Page 65 and 66: Vietnam chamber of commerce from Ch
Page 67 and 68: The Boat People purchase a veswl fr
Page 69 and 70: few ~cople took much notice and the
Page 71 and 72: The Boat hpk capacity was 700. bter
Page 73 and 74: Tap he had close connections with t
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I I The Boat Aopk to dramatize thei
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I The Boat f3Zaple cngineer agrecd
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The Boat hop18 I there in her ornat
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Ths Bwt Psople commerce, which had
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Tkb Boat People Vietnamese authorit
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The Bwt Aopk The refugee and Kampuc
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I Stability referring to the boat p
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Stability ling hundrcd~ of thousand
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The Bout Peopk after the ww, claime
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The Boat People At home, you go out
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I Tb Bwt People Meanwhile, Chinn's
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The Boas Aople from all that made t
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my house by waking the streets and
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l%e Bwt fiopk Fifty-one vessels, ca
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formulate any opinion beyond 'we ar
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I their way uninvited to Jqan, Of t
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Tks Boat People uncertain and that
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Tk Bont People then, finally, invad
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The Boat EQlopk deceit. Let the con
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Th? Bmt W l e politicians in the wa
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The Boat Aople analogy did not fit.
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Maps
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July August October Dccemkr Januaiy
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Cater, Sir Jack 157 Cntholics, 28,
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Seng Cheong, I29 ships refugee trad
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PEOPLE

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