today's Featured Article on wikipedia.
next time someone tries to BS you re justification of the NV invasion of South Vietnam, show them this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Passage_to_Freedom
Operation Passage to Freedom was the term used by the United States Navy to describe its transportation of 310,000 Vietnamese civilians, soldiers and non-Vietnamese members of the French Army from the communist North Vietnam (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) to South Vietnam (the State of Vietnam, later to become the Republic of Vietnam). The French military transported a further 500,000.[1][2][3] In the wake of the French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the Geneva Accords of 1954 decided the fate of French Indochina after eight years of war between French Union forces and the Viet Minh, which sought Vietnamese independence. The accords resulted in the partition of Vietnam at the 17th parallel, with Ho Chi Minh's communist Viet Minh in control of the north and the French-backed State of Vietnam in the south. The agreements allowed a 300-day period of grace, ending on May 18, 1955, in which people could move freely between the two Vietnams before the border was sealed. The partition was intended to be temporary, pending elections in 1956 to reunify the country under a national government. Between 600,000 and one million northerners fled communist rule,[4] while between 14,000 and 45,000 civilians and approximately 100,000 Viet Minh fighters moved in the opposite direction.[1][5][6]
Originally posted by zeeblebotFled communist rule?
The agreements allowed a 300-day period of grace, ending on May 18, 1955, in which people could move freely between the two Vietnams before the border was sealed. The partition was intended to be temporary, pending elections in 1956 to reunify the country under a national government. Between 600,000 and one million northerners fled communist rule,[4] while ...[text shortened]... civilians and approximately 100,000 Viet Minh fighters moved in the opposite direction.[1][5][6]
I think you'll find that many of them were Viet Cong returning to the south after training in the north, or Viet Minh going south to join the Viet Cong. One has to remember that the French - and later the U.S. - had absolutely no intention of allowing free elections in Viet Nam. This realisation was not lost on the Vietnamese people. The Vietnamese had seen off the Japanese, then the French, and were now preparing to see off France's puppet government in the south. This then became a succession of U.S. backed military dictatorships, which - after about 20 years - the Vietnamese finally rid themselves of.
Originally posted by zeeblebotIn either my Hertfordshire dialect, or my Irish brogue, I'd kind of say the same thing: World War Two was fought explicitly in the name of national self-determination and an end to Empires, such as the Japanese one and the German one. So what on earth was the Netherlands thinking of when it assumed it was going to stroll back into Indonesia at the war's end - especially when 400,000 had died at the hands of the Japanese, more than either the U.K or the U.S. had lost in all theatres of war combined? Same goes for Viet Nam. What was France thinking - fresh from being liberated from the Germans, and contributing to the liberation of Belgium, the Netherlands etc. etc. - what was it thinking when it assumed it would waltz back into Viet Nam, imperial trappings and all, after the Vietnamese had spent 5 years resisting the Japanese Empire? So much for national self-determination. What on earth was going on with a 'French-backed' regime in the "South". Was it an attempt to turn World War Two into a monumental monument to monumental hypocrisy and hubris? Good gracious!
what's the word for "copout" in your native dialect?
Originally posted by zeeblebotHow many of those 600,000 were quislings and collaborators who had betrayed their compatriots and the independence struggle by working for the French or the Japanese? Got any percentage on that?
In the wake of the French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the Geneva Accords of 1954 decided the fate of French Indochina after eight years of war between French Union forces and the Viet Minh, which sought Vietnamese independence. The accords resulted in the partition of Vietnam at the 17th parallel, with Ho Chi Minh's communist Viet Minh in contro ...[text shortened]... ry under a national government. Between 600,000 and one million northerners fled communist rule