Popular Support In South Vietnam example essay topic

America wanted to prevent the spread of communism by making sure that Ho Chi Minh did not spread communism to all of Vietnam. America decided to establish a stable non-communist government based on popular support in South Vietnam. After being conquered at Dien Bien Phu, the French were forced to leave Vietnam after a hundred years of colonial rule. The Geneva Peace Accords, signed in 1954, for the time being divided Vietnam along the 17th parallel until national elections, designed to rejoin the country, would be held in 1956. The United States like most anti-communists, however, did not support the Accords. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles thought that the Accords gave the communists in Vietnam too much power.

The United States wanted to make sure that Ho Chi Minh did not establish authority south of the 17th parallel. The American government believed that a communist regime in South Vietnam would be a direct threat to national security and so they recommend a counter-revolutionary alternative. To sidetrack this, American government convinced Emperor Bao Dai to name Ngo Dinh Diem as leader of South Vietnam in 1955. Diem was selected because he was a loyal anti-communist and he had never joined forces with the French or the Japanese.

They believed that he would unify South Vietnam and later North Vietnam under his control. America's primary objective for Diem from 1954 to 1956 was to create a firm government rooted in popular support. They neglected to note that Diem was also a strong nationalist which meant that he would be willing to listen to but then disregard American advice. The United States also established the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization in which was included in the new U.S. supported, Government of South Vietnam. Also in the spring of 1955, Ho Chi Minh, in agreement with the Geneva Accords, withdrew 100,000 Vietminh troops from the seventeenth parallel in anticipation of the 1956 election which he was confident he would win. Lacking such confidence, Ngo Dinh Diem violated the Geneva Accords by sending between 15,000 and 50,000 Southern Vietnamese civilians to concentration camps in mid-1955.

This included workers for the Vietminh, who were preparing for the election and whose actions were protected by the Geneva Accords, as well as non-communist Buddhists who opposed the Diem regime. Then in July of 1955, Diem refused to hold elections until Ho Chi Minh's northern regime adopted democratic institutions. It should be noted that at this point, the SEATO allies separated themselves from the United States and from Diem. They hardly considered Diem's government democratic and they argued that the Geneva Accords did not make democratic institutions pre-requisites for national elections as long as the elections were held in a democratic manner. As a result of this, SEATO would not aid Diem in the case of an attack from the North. This, however, did not faze Diem.

In October of 1955, with apparent American backing, Diem usurped Bao Dai's position of emperor. Then, in a carefully controlled election, Diem received 98.2% of the South Vietnamese vote. On October 26, 1955, Diem was formally proclaimed president of the Republic of South Vietnam. Once in power, however, Diem faced much opposition and so he solicited the United States for support for his counter-revolutionary alternative arguing that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), or North Vietnam, was planning to take South Vietnam by force. In 1957, with aid from the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Diem identified and arrested thousands of people suspected of plotting to bring down his government.

In 1959, Diem passed Law 10/59, which was a series of acts that allowed the use of political prison camps and the imprisonment of anyone suspected of being communist without bringing formal charges. It also stated that military courts would replace the civilian courts, that the penalty for crimes against the state would be punishable by death, that there were not to be demonstrations of more than seven people and that the destruction of farm equipment would be considered treason punishable by death. Despite Diem's seemingly undemocratic rule, he had the full backing from the United States. In order to justify its support, the United States sent several people to South Vietnam from the University of Michigan on a fact-finding mission.

However, because of the mentality of the United States during the cold war, they failed to see the truth of the situation in South Vietnam. They went in looking for evidence of a democracy and came back proclaiming Diem as a "one man democratic ruler" - seemingly a contradiction in terms. The United States, however, did not really care what kind of democracy Diem's government was, as long as it was stable and rooted in popular support. The fact-finders only reported the positive aspects of Diem's rule and neglected everything else. This report legitimized the rule of Diem and made the protection of South Vietnam a national interest for the United States. In essence, Ngo Dinh Diem's rule was tyrannical and undemocratic in that it unjustly subjected laws upon people who had no say in their creation.

If this was America's intent when it promoted Diem's government, then it failed miserably. By 1961, it became clear to the United States that Diem had failed to create a government rooted in popular support [3]. Diem's only supporters were the Catholics and the military and he faced extreme opposition from the Viet Cong, which was determined to overthrow his regime. At this time, America changed its policy towards South Vietnam, no longer relying on Diem.