Services Vietnam offered to free world during WWW II

Ho Cho Minh’s Call for Support

Ho Cho Minh called for support from the free world during the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’s 1945 Declaration of Independence address in part because of services provided during World War 2. Before the country gained its freedom, Japan ruled over Vietnam after driving out the French colonizers following Nazi Germany’s conquest of Indochina. The United States backed its allies in China and other Asian nations throughout World War II as they fought the Japanese military. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which subsequently collaborated with Ho Cho to defeat the Japanese, was consulted by the US government following the liberation of France. Ho was the leader of Viet Minh, a liberation movement that sought to get Vietnam’s freedom from France and put an end to Japanese occupation. He, therefore, worked closely with the leaders of the free world by helping OSS organize intelligence network in Indochina to help fight Japanese. Ho worked with American intelligence in the coordination of propaganda activities. Vietnam also provided guerrilla missions and gathered information to help the US defeat Japanese. The guerrillas even rescued a US pilot who had been shot down in Vietnam.

Right to Self Determination

In the Vietnam independence speech, Ho states that the declaration of independence is consistent with the philosophical principles the allies claimed were important during World War II. He was referring to the principle of self-determination. According to Neuberger (2001), Self-representation refers to the right of people to decide their political fate; this may mean the right of individuals to form their national ideas, government, or the right to achieve independence from foreign nations. Ho gives an example of a situation where France and Japanese rulers had undermined Vietnam’s right to self-representation. The speech notes that French colonialists had intensified their inhuman activities in Vietnam by massacring political prisoners detained at Yen Bay Caobang Minh (1945). For years, the French and the Japanese continually abused the standards of liberty, equality, fraternity and oppressed Vietnam citizens. Ho states that the colonialists built more prisons, mercilessly slaughtered patriotic Vietnamese, and killed those who stood against their malevolent acts. He states that the Japanese had violated Indochina territories by forcefully establishing new fighting bases in Vietnam. Additionally, Ho gives the example of Tehran and San Francisco that got independence by using the principles of equality and self-determination. The speech cites these two nations as an example of occasions where these principles were reassured.

Crimes Committed by French Colonizers

Ho Cho Minh mentions a wide range of crimes committed by the French colonialists during their occupation of Vietnam. One of the most severe of these crimes is the denial of Vietnamese people the liberty to form democratic political structures. He notes that the colonizers had established political regimes in all parts of Vietnam: in the North, the centre and in the south. These regimes prevented people from coming together as a nation, and therefore could not unite. The colonialists, after depriving them education, health, equality, self-determination, and liberty, sold twice the country to Japanese. They came up with unjust tax policies, mercilessly exploited workers and reduced the common man to extreme levels of poverty. Another severe crime that justified Ho’s demand and declaration of independence are involved theft of Vietnamese land. Ho Min argues that French had robbed them of their rice fields, forests, mining centers and taken control of the financial system. Despite the tolerant attitude, Vietnamese showed to French; fellow Vietnamese citizens continued to suffer.

References

Minh, Ho Cho (1945). Declaration of Independence of Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Retrieved from http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5139/

Neuberger, B. (2001). National self-determination: A theoretical discussion. Nationalities Papers, 29(3), 391-418.