Resisting the designs of major powers
The signing of the I was 17 years old and a student at What is etched in my memory is the visit by a Vietnamese government delegation led by Pham Van Dong, the then Deputy Prime Minister cum Foreign Minister, to our school. He was on his way back to I was going through mixed feelings. I was sad that I could not return to Ha Noi to celebrate its liberation from the French because I was among several Vietnamese students selected to go to Luckily, more than a year later, I was told to stop my studies and work in the Vietnamese Embassy there. That is how I became a diplomat. Now, I can say that the Geneva Accords were a turning point in my life. Working in the diplomatic sector, I had to study the history of the Vietnamese diplomacy, including the Geneva Accords. As time passed, I came to the conclusion that if you want to have thorough understanding about any international event, you should understand the background circumstances in which it happened. Here, in this article, I will focus on the Geneva Accords. Power play Everything that happened then was arranged by the then big powers - the Soviet Union, The early 50s of the last century were seen as the peak of the Cold War days. The world was divided into two sides { capitalist and socialist} . The peaks of confrontation between the two sides were the It was a time that Joseph Stalin had died and the
Meanwhile, Finally, Until now I have not been able to access any original documents on how In the book published by the National Political Publishing House, I found Truong Chinh saying: "We are now conducting three wars at the same time - the diplomatic war, the military war and the land war [land reform]. Our firm stand is national independence, unification, democracy and peace."
To win the three wars, he laid down four principles: (i) No change in the nation's objectives, but the roads to achieve these objectives can be straight or winding; (ii) We should hold high the principle of respecting our national sovereignty, equality, willingness and for the interest of both sides; (iii) Subjective force is the principal condition for winning the final victory; and (iv) We must always put the nation's interest within the interest of the international movement of peace, democracy and socialism. In an interview granted to the Swedish newspaper Expressen on November 26, 1953, President Ho Chi Minh said, "If the French government had drawn lessons learned from the war in the last few years and wanted a cessation of hostilities in Viet Nam through peaceful negotiations, the government of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and the Vietnamese people would have approved the French proposal. A foundation for the cessation of hostilities in This meant that both the Soviet Union and 'Initiative' to divide When they talk about the 1954 General Accords everyone want to know who initiated the idea of dividing In his first report sent home on May 4, 1954, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Van Dong said
According to other sources, To come to the final decision on how Viet Nam should be divided into two parts, on March 2, 1954 (two months before Dong sent the above said report), the Chinese Party Central Committee sent a telegram to the Vietnamese Party Central Committee, saying: "If Viet Nam wants to have a cessation of hostilities, it is ideal to have a relatively permanent demarcation line that can safeguard the whole region. In reality, the cessation of hostilities today may become a permanent demarcation line dividing the country into two parts tomorrow. The demarcation line should go further the south. It could be the 16th parallel." These pieces of information indicate that 'Expensive lesson' However, based on other documents, we can see that the Soviet Union was put in a rather "passive position" as its attention at that time was on how to solve issues in On the other hand I also realize that what was achieved at the Geneva Conference in 1954, including the agreements on the cessation of hostilities, French troops' withdrawal from Indochina, liberation of North Viet Nam, the affirmation by countries participating in the conference that they "are committed to respecting sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia" - all this can be attributed to the huge sacrifices and the resounding victory gained by the Vietnamese people and army in their resistance war against the French colonialists, particularly the Dien Bien Phu victory. The achievements on the negotiation table were rooted in the indirect victories on the battlefield. Regarding the regrouping sites, Dong had been persistent in choosing the 13th parallel. But his proposal was rejected by other participants who said the demarcation line should be either the 16th or 17th parallel. And finally, the 17th parallel was selected. From a historical point of view, the 1954 From this, I have drawn for myself another lesson, that is, if Indochinese solidarity Another topic discussed at the Geneva Conference was the issue of Forces of the Cambodian and Lao resistance were not invited to participate in the conference. The other participants who only wanted to talk about the liberation of Northern Viet Nam, simply demanded that the Pathet Laos forces regroup to Samnua and Phongsaly provinces and that the Khmer Issarak forces merge with the forces of the
Abusing the situation, some forces slandered In his speech at the conference, Dong demanded that representatives of the resistance forces of Dong's legitimate stand was reiterated many times at various sessions of the conference. His point of view was also included in the 8 points petition issued on May 10, 1954. Of course, it is easy to understand that the western countries only wanted to recognise the representatives of administrations having close relations with them, not the resistance forces of Recent documents that I have read has further vindicated Until now, this lesson remains fresh and valuable. The solidarity among the three nations is based on equality and development of each nation. That's the rule of life for people of the three Indochinese nations. - VNS |
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Article 6
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