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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (188908)	6/9/2006 9:27:50 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

They were annulled by the US, not by Ho. I'm not attributing any great virtue to Ho by saying this--he knew and we knew that he would win those elections. Get one thing straight. The US did not have the power to annul anything. Only the two respective governments of N. and S. Vietnam did. Diem chose not to engage in the elections. And we had no right to make him. It was Diem's decision to make, and since S. Vietnam was NOT a signator to the Geneva Accords, he didn't feel obligated to abide by it. Besides.. Diem was a Catholic, and close to a million fellow Catholic Vietnamese fled the Communist North into Cochin China (S. Vietnam). Diem, and the rest of these Catholics, knew full well that were the communists elected, they would not be permitted to maintain an opposition party, let alone their religion. I know you love communism.. It's apparent by your fervent support of enabling the ideology to wipe out all potential for democratic progress. Face some facts.. Both Ho Chi Minh and Diem were driven by power (like all political or ideological leaders). And one LOOK AT THE RESULTS, not the intentions, of both leaders. Diem held elections, even if they were imperfect and possibly even rigged in his favor. Ho NEVER held an election, rigged or not, in N. Vietnam. There WERE OPPOSITION PARTIES in S. Vietnam, even though Diem repressed them. There NEVER have been opposition parties in N. Vietnam. History reflects that neither leader deserves to to be glorified. And if anything Ho certainly deserves to be remembered as the leader who inflicted an incredibly brutal, and just as foreign, totalitarian ideology upon the Vietnamese people. As for Diem, he'll go down as someone who permitted his own favoritism towards Catholics, while ignoring the concerns of the Buddhists, to isolate him from the people he was elected to govern. Bottom line, 40 years of brutal repression, economic stagnation, and a denial of any form of accountable government, as well as blatant aggression in Cambodia and Laos, is Ho Chi Minh's legacy. Nothing to be proud of. Hawk