Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Indochir Chronology of Indochina conflict AT BUF Come to Bul the hot, gold bun with let delicious. Ar are FREE! Yi cost when yi No coupon r 1211 C0 Campus 1400 CI 2902 Tv ia and In 1945 - First Indochina war begins May 8, 1954 - French defeated by Vietminh at Dienbienphu May 8- July 24, 1954 - Geneva Conference on Indochina 1954 - 1956 - Geneva accords promise elections and reunification; Diem and U.S. renege TH A A/HALER IGER KING MARC "ger King* and wade into a Wha en, tender fish sandwich served tuce and tangy tartar sauce. It' id to make it more enjoyable, the >u get a generous, crispy order c au buy your Whaler. Offer good ieeded. Bring the family to Burge Available only at liege St. (Opposite Drayton I Horse Horshoe Columbia, S.( alesion Hwy. (Near K-Mart), i m Notch Rd. (At Belt Line I ternationa July, 1954 - Diem appointed premier by Head of State Bao Dai Feb. 1955 - South East Asia Treaty Organization formed July 20, 1955 - Talks scheduled to start for consultation on all Vietnam election scheduled for July 1956 to reunite country. Diem refuses to hold talks. H -6-19 ler! Discover on a toasted s absolutely French Fries >f them at no March 6-19. rKing! lall and rest Columbia Blvd.) 1 Law:F By TONY The United States' involvemer disrupt the orderly process of I the actions of any other single c civilization. The United States Geneva Agreements of 1954, the the United Nations Charter. Th Indochina and its people, has ev In May of 1954, the French were defeated at Dienbienphu by the Vietminh forces, symbolically marking the end of the First In dochina War. Negotiations were immediately initiated in Geneva to attempt to provide for a fair and orderly peace. Participating in the conference were Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, France, Laos, the People's Republic of China, the State of (South) Vietnam, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Despite the overwhelming victory won by the Vietminh revolutionaries over the French in Indochina, the communists made many concessions. In Vietnam, they accepted a temporarily divided country; in Cambodia, they withdrew the demand of recognition for the Khmer Issarak liberation force; and in Laos, the Pathet Lao agreed to join a coalition government. British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden commented, "the Geneva Accords were about .the best bargain France and the associated States could have made." In retrospect, the most im portant aspect of the Geneva Accords is what they do not say. They in no way partitioned Viet nam into two separate and in dependent nations. Rather, Ar ticles one and fourteen of the Agreements of Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam make it quite explicit that the division at the seventeenth parallel is only a means of temporarily separating the two opposing forces in a (guerilla) war without clear cut lines. Article Six of the Final Declaration of the Geneva Con ference clarifies the temporarty nature of the division even further when it states that the seventeenth parallel is only a "provisional military demarcation line" that "should not in any way be con strued as a political or territorial boundary." All the countries that attended the conference, with the exception of the State of (south) Vietnam and the United States, signed the Geneva Agreements. Despite the fact that the U.S. delegate at Geneva, Walter Bedell Smith, promised that the United States would respect the Geneva Accords and "refrain from the use of force to disturb them," testimony revealed by General .James Gavin and the formation of the South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) demonstrate that the. U.S. never, in reality, had any intentions of - respecting the Geneva Accords. According to General Gavin, before the Ink was dry at Geneva, "Admiral Radford was emphatically In favor of landing a force In the Haiphong Hanoi area even If it meant war with Red China. In this he was fully supported by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and the Chief of Naval Operations." However, a compromise was reached "to sunnart a aa. S$ Veaa... art One. HERMAN it in Indochina has done more to nternational law than, perhaps, ountry in the history of modern has ignored and violated the Geneva Agreements of 1962, and e U.S. in Its attempt to control en violated its own Constitution. The South East Asia 'Treaty Organization makes U.S. in tentions even more explicit. SEATO, initiated by U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, was established only two months after the signing of the Geneva Accords. SEATO unilaterally extended protection to the "free territory under the jurisdiction of the State of Viet nam." The initiator of SEATO, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in explaining the South East Asia Treaty Organization said: "SEATO's principal purpose was to provide our President with legal authority to interVene in Indochina." Thus, it is not surprising that despite the Geneva guarantees for reunification and elections (Article seven of the Final Agreement states: "...general elections will be held in July 1956..."), elections and reunification have yet to take place.Ngo Dinh Diem was installed as President with American aid in violation of Article fourteen which states: "Pending the general elections which will bring about the unification of Vietnam, the conduct of civil administration in each regrouping zone shall be in the hands of the party whose forces are to be regrouped there in virtue of the present agreeement." (French and Vietminh). Diem stated that the communists refused to allow the election. However, the evidence reported by the International Control Commission, consisting of Canada, India, and Poland which was est"blished to supervise the elections; indicates that the American-supported Diem regime refused to even consider the Geneva Agreements. According to the International Control Com mission (ICC) it was the Saigon regime which refused to nar ticipate in the consultative con ferences required before the election by the Geneva Accords. A climax of sorts was reached, as reported by the New York Times of July 21st, 1955, when instead of initiating the consultative con ferences, Diem staged an attack on the hotel where the members of the Commission were staying. In President Dwight D. Eisenhower's book, "Mandate for Change," he states: "I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the communist Ho Chi Minh." Time magazine sustains Eisenhower's analysis of the popularity of Ho in its Jan. 3, 1950 issue: "Both the masses of peasants and great numbers of Vietnamese nationalists, political reformers, hopeful idealists, and the like, firmly believe the Viet mninh Communist leader ... Consequently, it appears that elections weren't held due to American fears of a communmist victory. As a result, the Viet namese dream of a unifled country free .from foreign (Amwtip)h. Intervention hasyetWnbe semmenes