1954 Geneva Conference
- For other similar events, see Geneva Conference
The Geneva Conference (April 26 - July 21, 1954) was a conference between many countries that agreed to end hostilities and restore peace in French Indochina and Korea. It produced a set of treaties known as the Geneva Accords, signed on behalf of France by Pierre Mendès-France and of North Vietnam by Pham Van Dong.
Background
After the defeat of the Japanese Empire in 1945, the Provisional Government of the French Republic restored colonial rule in French Indochina. Nationalist and communist popular movements in Vietnam led to the First Indochina War in 1946. This colonial war between the French Union's Expeditionary Corps and Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh guerrillas turned into a Cold War crisis in January 1950.[1] The communist Viet Minh received support from the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, while France and the newly created Vietnamese National Army received support from the United States.
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu started in March 13 and pursued during the conference. Its issue became a strategic turnover as both sides wanted to emerge as the victor in order to benefit of a favorable position during the planned negotiations about "the Indochinese problem". Fighting for 57 days the besieged composite garrison made of European, Asian, African and North African was ordered to ceasefire on May 7th at 5:00 PM by the Hanoi based-French Chief of Staff.
This war was significant because it was the first time that a western colonial power was defeated by an indigenous revolutionary force. The French having pacificated a similar uprising in the Madagascar colony in March 1947. Few months after the fall of Dien Bien Phu, the French troops were deployed in Algeria and a second guerrilla warfare based-independence war started in November 1954. Growing distrust and defiance among the army's Chief of Staff toward the Fourth French Republic after the contested defeats of the First Indochina War and the Suez Crisis led to two military coup d'état in March 1958 and April 1961. Most of the rebel Generals were Indochina veterans including their leader, Raoul Salan.
The Geneva Accords
On April 27, 1954, the Conference produced a declaration which supported the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Indochina thereby granting it independence from France. In addition, the Conference declaration agreed upon the cessation of hostilities and foreign involvement (or troops) in internal Indochina affairs. Northern and southern zones were drawn into which opposing troops were to withdraw, to facilitate the cessation of hostilities between the Vietnamese forces and those that had supported the French. The Viet Minh, having advanced to the far south while fighting the French, retreated from these positions to north of the ceasfire line, awaiting unification on the basis of internationally supervised free elections to be held in July 1956[2]. Most of the French Union forces evacuated Vietnam, although much of the regional governmental infrastructure in the South was the same as it had been under the French administration.
An International Control Commission was set up to oversee the implementation of the Geneva Accords, but it was basically powerless to ensure compliance. It was to consist of India, Canada, and Poland.
The agreement was between Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, France, Laos, the People's Republic of China, the State of Vietnam, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Post declaration events
 | The neutrality of this article is disputed. |
Communist forces had been instrumental in the defeat of the French; the ideology of communism and nationalism were closely linked. Communism and nationalism were synonymous in the minds of many Vietnamese [citation needed] while many viewed the South Vietnamese leadership as a French colonial, and later, an American puppet regime. Ho Chi Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam looked forward fairly comfortably to being elected by a grateful populace in the forthcoming elections.
After the cessation of hostilities, a large migration took place. 450,000, mostly Catholics, moved to south of the Accords-mandated ceasefire line during Operation Passage to Freedom. The CIA attempted to further influence Catholic Vietnamese with slogans such as 'the Virgin Mary is moving South'. 52,000 went north. Communist supporters were urged to remain in the south to vote in the coming elections.[3]
The U.S. replaced the French as a political backup for Ngo Dinh Diem, then President of the State of Vietnam, and he asserted his power in the south. A referendum on his leadership netted him 98% of the vote, with 133% in Saigon. American advisors had suggested that he win by a lesser margin. Diem continued to make poor decisions, counter to the strategy of his American advisors, increasingly alienating the southern population. The conference stipulated national elections take place in two years, but Diem suppressed the advocates of the agreed-to election, and it never took place. Further suppression, and the prospect of democratic elections dwindling away, led South Vietnamese who opposed Diem to form the Communist National Liberation Front, better known as the Viet Cong, which eventually launched guerrilla attacks against the RVN government and desired the reunification of Vietnam under Communist rule. The Viet Cong were supported by the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) of the North.
Increasingly backed by the United States, Diem's government refused to open consultation with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam concerning general elections. The South contended it did not have to honor the agreement, as it was not a signatory.
The U.S. support of Diem's government and those that followed violated multiple provisions of the Accords. Most notable among these were that it backed a self-appointed government that refused to hold the mandated democratic elections, and of course its violation of the stipulations that no foreign government was to bring military forces to the region, or supply military aid.
Guerrilla activity in the South escalated, while U.S. military advisors continued to support the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, which was created as a replacement for the Vietnamese National Army. The result was the Second Indochina War, more commonly known as the Vietnam War.
Notes
- ^ Replacing France: The Origins of American Intervention in Vietnam, Kathryn C. Statler, University Press of Kentucky, July 2007
- ^ (Article 3) (N. Tarling, The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, Volume Two Part Two: From World War II to the present, Cambridge University Press, p45)
- ^ [1]