On November 11, 1960, four thousand paratroopers encircled the presidential palace in Saigon. They were joined by units of the infantry, navy and public security.
Who were these men?
They were soldiers whom Ngo Dinh Diem considered as his pets.
If they rose against the regime, it is because they deemed that a stifling atmosphere was prevailing in south Viet Nam, and that there the least freedom of opinion is branded as heresy, political opposition and communist subversion.
However, some of the leaders of this abortive coup d’état upheld the same anti-communist principles as Ngo Dinh Diem. When a dictatorship gives its followers no other way than to take up arms to express a wish, one may ask what freedoms do the broad masses of the people enjoy!
November 11, 1960, was the inevitable outcome of a policy of repression which has been hitting indiscriminately since the cessation of hostilities.
Whole divisions raiding the countryside, supported by artillery and airplanes. The napalm bomb. The guillotine which moves from one province to another. The concentration camps. A new-type gestapo. Wholesale poisoning. A network of inter-families. A political carcanet on the necks of the people of south Viet Nam.
Seven years after the re-establishment of peace under the Geneva Agreements, south Viet Nam is still living in the throes of war.
Why?
We open the file…
FOREIGN LANGUAGES PUBLISHING HOUSE