I wrote the following article for the first issue of a newsletter I published at the time, _The Indochina Newsletter_, October 1979. It is a bit dated now, but nevertheless might serve as historical interest with regard to the changed public posture -- before and after April 30, 1975 -- of DRV and NLF representatives on the issue of human rights and the 1973 Paris Agreements.
- Steve Denney sdenney at uclink.berkeley.edu
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The Indochina Newsletter Issue No. 1 October, 1979
The Paris Agreements and Human Rights in Vietnam Today
by Stephen Denney
The "Open Letter to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam" that was signed by Joan Baez and other anti-war activists and published in various newspapers last May 30 has renewed a three- year old controversy within the anti-war movement over the subject of human rights in Vietnam.
One of the presumptions involved in the debate involves the question of what standards by which the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) is to be judged on the issue of human rights. Those who have defended the SRV's policy on human rights have tried to set very low standards -- referring to worse cases of repression that have occurred in other countries or arguing that the massive bloodbath that some predicted (in order to justify U.S. involvement) has not occurred.
However, few people involved in the anti-war movement believed in such predictions about a bloodbath. On the contrary, many who opposed the war professed to believe in the strong verbal commitments to human rights made by the communist side during the war; particularly with regard to Articles 9 and 11 of the 1973 Paris Peace Agreements. Those who protest the violation of human rights in Vietnam today are merely asking the SRV leaders to abide by the same principles of human rights that these leaders advocated before they took power over South Vietnam in 1975.
The Paris Agreements was signed by representatives of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam and the United States on January 27, 1973. On March 2, 1973, twelve governments signed, in the presence of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the "Act of the International Conference on Vietnam", in which they expressed their commitment to the implementation of the treaty. In addition to the U.S. and the three Vietnamese parties, these governments includes: the USSR, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, France, Hungary, Indonesia and Poland.
The treaty was hailed by the PRG and the DRV as a "victory" and the Saigon government was severely criticized, beginning immediately after the signing of the treaty, for alleged violations of the treaty; with particular attention given to Articles 9 and 11, which were highly praised.
In Article 9, the governments of North Vietnam and the United States pledged to respect the South Vietnamese people's right to self-determination as "sacred" and "inalienable", including their right to "decide themselves the political future of South Viet Nam through genuinely free and democratic elections under international supervision."
In Article 11, "all acts of reprisal and discrimination against individuals or organizations that have collaborated with one side or the other" during the war were prohibited. Furthermore, the South Vietnamese people were ensured the following rights: "personal freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of meeting, freedom of organization, freedom of political activities, freedom of belief, freedom of movement, freedom of residence, freedom of work, right to property ownership, and right to free enterprise."
In an address to the DRV National Assembly on February 20, 1973, less than one month after the signing of the treaty, DRV Premier Pham Van Dong claimed that "with the approval and support of the United States, the Saigon administration has openly and systematically sabotaged the implementation of the most important and urgent provisions of the Agreement, in the first place, those concerning the ceasefire, democratic liberties, the return of captured and detained persons... Here, we must underline and denounce the violations of the provisions regarding the ceasefire which aim at ensuring the restoration, maintenance and consolidations of peace, as well as the provisions on democratic liberties and national concord."
The Chairman of the NLF Central Committee, Nguyen Huu Tho, made the following statement in an interview with Hanoi's _Thong Nhat_ magazine (reprinted in the NLF's _South Vietnam in Struggle_, April 11, 1973): "The NLF and PRG are resolved to mobilize the South Vietnamese people and armed forces to this effect, and to demand the same from the US and Saigon side, particularly their observance and enforcement of the ceasefire, Saigon release of all political prisoners, ensurance of all the democratic liberties of the people, cessation of all terror, reprisals and discrimination against those who have collaborated with either side, meaningful negotiation in the spirit of national reconciliation and concord on the eventual holding of really democratic and free elections under international supervision to make it possible for the South Vietnamese to shape their own political future."
This theme, or pretense, of high commitment to the human rights provisions of the Paris Agreements was further elaborated in _The Paris Agreement on Vietnam: Fundamental Juridical Problems_, a book published by the Institute of Juridical Sciences/Committee of Social Sciences in Hanoi in 1973 and circulated throughout the world. In one article, by Pham Hong Linh, Article 11 was said to be "in perfect agreement with international law, particularly with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December 10, 1948, and the two international Pacts, one relating to civic and political rights, and the other to economic, social and cultural rights, both dated December 16, 1966." (page 126)
Pham Hong Linh argued that the democratic liberties of Article 11 "must be the prelude to everything on the political and social planes." (page 126). He also quoted PRG leader Nguyen Van Hieu, who said: "..democratic freedoms are man's fundamental rights, ardent aspirations of all social strata, of all political and religious forces and tendencies of South Vietnam. Only a full and total exercise of democratic liberties can serve as a basis for the realization of national reconciliation and concord, the settlement of the internal affairs of South Vietnam, and the exercise of the South Vietnamese people's right to self- determination." (page 128)
The same book published another article, by Pham Ngoc Thuan and Pham Giang, titled "National Reconciliation and the Settlement of the Problem of Power in South Vietnam." They also emphasized that "Democratic liberties should be considered the essential groundwork on which national reconciliation and concord are to be built." (page 161)
In discussing the "free and democratic" elections ensured to the South Vietnamese people under Article 9, Thuan and Giang argued: "The South Vietnamese population hold that the exercise of democratic liberties is a crucial problem, an essential condition for the realization of their right to self- determination, the carrying into effect of the spirit of national reconciliation and concord and the organization of general elections. In other words, without guarantee for democratic liberties, without the human and civil rights, the right to self- determination would be an empty word, national reconciliation and concord would remain dead letter, and the general elections would be postponed indefinitely." (page 169)
Those who speak out against the violation of human rights in Vietnam today can certainly agree with the above statement.
The communist side was very specific in the demands they made of the Thieu administration with regard to human rights. In the 17th Consultative Conference of the two South Vietnamese parties at the La Celle St. Cloud Palace, held in Paris in July 1973, PRG representative Nguyen Van Hieu presented a list of demands, with seven chapters and twenty-two articles, detailing how the Thieu government should implement Article 11. For example, the 12th article of Hieu's list called upon the Thieu government to "cancel all forms of censorship; cancel all measures aimed at restricting freedom of the press, such as seizures, compulsory posting of money with the government, fines, etc." Article 13 demanded that the Thieu government "respect and guarantee the freedom of assembly. No authorization is necessary for gatherings, meetings and demonstrations." Article 10 said that "Doctors, pharmacists, engineers, journalists, lawyers and intellectuals engaged in other liberal professions should be guaranteed freedom of practice."
In contrast to the South Vietnam government, Thuan and Giang claimed in their article that "Public opinion, both at home and abroad, has been able to see that there is no problem concerning the exercise of democratic liberties in the zone administered by the PRG... In particular, the revolutionary power pays constant attention to the democratic liberties and fully ensure their exercise in daily life." (page 170) <SNIP>
-- Michael Pugliese