Transcript The Diem Regime in South Viet Nam

The Diem Regime
in
South Viet Nam
The Diem Regime in
South Vietnam
•After the Geneva
Conference
Vietnam was split
into two. South
Viet Nam became
an independent
republic ruled by
Ngo Dinh Diem
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Diem was an authentic
nationalist
• He believed that Viet Nam
should be ruled by
Vietnamese
• He had resigned as Minister
of the Interior to Emperor Bao
Dai as he resented French
rule and the failure of France
to let the Vietnamese make
significant decisions
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• He had fraternised with the
Japanese during WWII In
1945 they had invited him to
be Prime Minister in Bao
Dai’s puppet government
• In 1945 he was captured by
the Viet Minh and was invited
to join their government but
refused.
• His brother and nephew had
ben killed by the Viet Minh.
Diem had become fervently
anti-communist
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• In 1946 he tried to
establish an anticommunist organisation
• In 1947, when the French
had returned to Viet Nam,
he set up an anti-French
political party
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• He was described as
honest and a man of
integrity
• He was a workaholic
with an amazing
stamina
The Identity of the Diem Regime
Diem saw his nation
as a Confusian
society in which
everyone knew their
place and their was
no 20th century
nonsense about
democracy
The Identity of the Diem Regime
In Diem’s own words,
"A sacred respect is
due to the person of
the sovereign. He is
the mediator
between the people
and heaven as he
celebrates the
national cult."
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Diem arranged, with CIA support a vote of
98.2% for himself in the 1955 elections.
• Bao Dai was removed as Emperor. Diem
became President.
• Diem cancelled the 1956 elections under the
Geneva Accord. He knew he would not win the
elections and that the people would vote for the
Viet Minh if given a free choice.
Voting in 2005 with statue
of Ho Chi Minh in forground
– in trying to avoid a
communist dictatorship
Diem set up his own one
party state
The Identity of the Diem Regime
Diem saw democracy as a “western disease’
“ To him, his one man rule was not evil, but a
necessity imposed by war and history. If he
relaxed his dictatorship everything would fall
apart and then there would be chaos.”
H. Dareff The Story Of Vietnam 1966
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• No democracy meant
that Diem was in
reality a dictator
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• The illusion that he
was popular and
had the support of
the majority of
people in South Viet
Nam was just
propaganda
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• He was a devout
Catholic
• He briefly trained for
the priesthood
• He spent two years in
a monastery in New
Jersey in the USA
• Diem never married
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• When he became
South Viet Nam’s
Prime Minister in
1954 and then later
President he lacked
popular support,
gaining most of his
support from the
Catholic minority.
Note the Catholic priest in
the crowd
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Catholics were given
preference in jobs in
his regime.
Diem greeting Catholic priests
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Diem set up an oligarchy
• This was a family dictatorship
• He surrounded himself with family and a
few close aides – the only people he
personally trusted. This meant he was a
remote and aloof figure.
The Identity of the Diem Regime
President Ngo Dinh Diem with the Ngo Dinh family at Phu Cam, Hue
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• President Ngo Dinh
Diem, brothers Ngo
Dinh Nhu, Bishop
Ngo Dinh Thuc.
Mrs. Nhu, sister and
Ngo Dinh Nhu's
children.
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Ngo Dinh Diem = President
• Ngo Dinh Nhu = Head of Can Lao Political Party and
Diem’s chief political advisor
• Madame Nhu = ‘First lady’ & Head of the Women's
Solidarity Movement
• Monsignor Ngo Dinh Thuc = Catholic Archbishop of Hue
• Ngo Dinh Can = Governor of Central Viet Nam
• Ngo Dinh Luyen = Ambassador to Great Britain
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Ngo Dinh Nhu was
the most important
figure after Diem
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Diệm's rule was firm,
puritanical and
nepotistic.
• He had the goal of
achieving social
reform in South Viet
Nam and undertook
the pursuit of proCatholic policies
• Diem was negatively
described as a
remote, inflexible
and authoritarian
figure.
Diem had many faults : remoteness, inflexibility, and
an authoritarian belief that he alone knew what was
best for his country and had no need to listen to any
critical voices.
Arnold R Isaccs, The Guardian 2/8/87
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Diem used Nhu to
enforce his ideas
• Nhu set up the
Revolutionary Labour
Party or Can Lao in 1956
• South Viet Nam became
a one-party state
• Its members were placed
in key government jobs
• Can Lao members spied
on people in schools,
factories and villages
• Suspected Communists
were reported and
dismissed from their jobs
• Other members of noncommunist opposition
groups were rounded up
and labelled communists
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• From 1955 to 1960 Diem,
… attempted to assert his
authority over rural South
Vietnam. His minions
killed, tortured and
imprisoned tens of
thousands who resisted
his unfair rule. It was
vicious repression.
CIA director William Colby,
writing in reflection although at the time the USA
was not so harsh in its views.
Above: Fear on a woman's
face as her village gets
searched by soldiers
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• All potential
opposition groups
were eliminated
• Diem used bribes to
crush the Cao Dai
and force to defeat
the Hoa Hao. The
Hoa Hao leader was
guillotined.
• The Saigon based
criminal syndicate
called Binh Xuyen
were crushed by force
in street battles using
the army
• In this way Diem
consolidated his
power
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Under Law 10/59
• The Denunciation
Campaign
Diem set up a campaign for
people to denounce
communists, especially those
Viet Minh cadres who had stayed
at home.
• 12,000 had been killed between
1955 and 1957
• By 1958 40,000 political
prisoners were in gaol
military tribunals tried
“infringements of national
security with sentences
of death or hard labour
for life for being a
Communist or working
with Communists”
• By 1961 150,000 political
prisoners were being held
in a system of
concentration camps
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Fortified Hamlets were set up.
This was called the Agroville
Strategy
• In these strategic hamlets,
rural people were made to live
behind barbed wire
• In 1962 American advisers
helped expand these to move
34 % of the population into
villages protected by
stockades so that they would
not help the Viet Cong, the
liberation group who had been
set up to defeat Diem
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Madame Nhu, the ‘first lady’
played a leading role in the
moral reform President Diem
instituted in South Vietnam,
closing down brothels, opium
dens and gambling houses.
• She was at the front of
imposing Catholic morality on
South Vietnam, which included
the abolition of divorce,
contraceptives and abortion.
Nightclubs and ball rooms
were also often targets.
• This campaign of decency,
while admirable, was met with
a great deal of hostility by
those who did not share
Madame Nhu's view of ethics.
The Identity of the Diem Regime
Madame Nhu set up
the Women’s
Solidarity Movement
to co-ordinate her
morality campaigns.
In October 1961 she introduced a
resolution in the National Assembly to
create a military training program
for 1,500 young women who would,
in turn, train more women to build a
reserve force of some 360,000
The Identity of the Diem Regime
She justified Diems the
repressive regime poetically:
• “ If we open the window
not only sunlight but
many bad things will fly
in.”
By keeping the window
shut, the Diem regime
made sure that the bad
things - such as
democracy - were kept
out.
H Dareff The Story of Vietnam 1966
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Diem was a difficult friend for the Americans.
• Diem himself did not always do what they wanted. He was a
nationalist and did not accept the idea of being any other
nations puppet.
Ambassador Fritz
Nolting, was appointed
ambassador to Vietnam
in 1961 with orders to
support the government
of Ngo Dinh Diem.
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• Diem visited the USA and was
lauded as a hero of the free
world. Privately the US were
less sure of him. The reality
was that they had no
alternative in South Vietnam to
back.
The United States President Eisenhower
greeted South Vietnam President Ngo
Dinh Diem in Washington, 05/08/1957
As a hero in a parade in
the USA
Right: With Vice
President L.yndon B.
Johnson
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• What Diem got from
the USA was military
support – advisors
and equipment
The Identity of the Diem Regime
Left:: A father holds
the body of his child
as South
Vietnamese Army
Rangers look down
from their armoured
vehicle. The child
was killed as
government forces
pursued guerrillas.
Above: Viet Cong killed by
the South Vietnam Army
The Identity of the Diem Regime
Above: Diem talking with
supporters
Diem Inspecting troops, Dalat, South Vietnam, March 30, 1963
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• The Buddhist Crisis
• Favouritism was given to Catholics.
Catholic families were given privileges or
excused from obligations. This reflected the
Catholic identity of the Diem regime.
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• The Buddhist Crisis
• Diem’s brother, the Catholic Archbishop of
Hue, banned the display of Buddhist flags
and a Buddhist festival in Hue.
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• The Buddhist Crisis
South Vietnamese troops, enforcing a ban on the
Buddhist multicoloured flag, fire upon 20,000 Buddhists
at Hue. The attack begins a series of intensifying
protests by Buddhists against the government.
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• The Buddhist Crisis
Buddhist monk Quang Duc sets himself on fire
in protest against the Diem government's
policies. Buddhist protest intensify daily
The Identity of the Diem Regime
This was a crisis for
the Diem Regime
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• The Overthrow of Diem
A group of
discontented
Army
Generals
began to
plot a coup
d’etat with
tactic
approval of
the US
Ambassador
Cabot Lodge
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• The Overthrow of Diem
• On 1 November 1963 the coup
began.
The Identity of the Diem Regime
• The Overthrow of Diem
• Diem and Nhu fled to a
Catholic church but were
captured and killed
Diem
Nhu
• The Formation of the Identity of Ngo
Dinh Diem and the Regime he presided
over. The Expression of this Identity.
• - what factors influenced / contributed
to this identity
• - what were the characteristics of this
identity
• - what were the expressions of this
identity (both positive and negative)