Letter from Saigon: the Neutralists Speak Out
Morrow, Michael
The Neutralists Speak Out AST JUNE, while President Thieu was meeting President Nixon at Midway, a small group of intellectuals, students, politicians, and labor leaders gathered for...
...In 1967 Lieng held the Vice-Presidential spot on the Buddhist-backed ticket of General Duong van (Big) Minh, yet was denied participation in the elections...
...The single set-back the PNF has suffered to date is that Thich tri Quang has not endorsed it, and it is thereby denied access to much Buddhist organizational support...
...There was much speculation within and without this small band...
...But Tran ngoc Lieng, chairman of the committee that established the PNF, moved quickly...
...This government would have the responsibility to establish normal patterns of living, to secure order and basic civil liberties for the entire nation, and to prepare for and hold elections to determine the political future of Vietnam...
...These were the "Old Generals" who overthrew Diem before being themselves overthrown by the interim strong man, Nguyen Khanh...
...Leading members do not discourage this kind of speculation...
...There can be no solution until this government also descends to quasi-legal status...
...Some had brought their wives...
...But the bonzes who determine the militant Buddhists' strategies—Thich Tri Quang and Thich Thien Minh—have been fighting an unsuccessful holding action since their 1965 uprising was crushed by Nguyen Cao Ky's air force and U.S...
...When Thieu's attack came, Lieng went to the Vietnamese press to say: "We are of the minority as President Thieu has said...
...Tri Quang has made it known here that he favors a new government headed by Big Minh with Au Truong Thanh (Lieng's law partner and a former Minister of Economy who went to France a year ago to avoid imprisonment for his neutralist views) as Prime Minister...
...T T HE PNF STANDS FOR a loosely defined and somewhat mind-boggling concept of neutralism...
...3) Because of the war the people are gradually losing the right to determine their own destiny, making it imperative that they "join forces to solve the problems of their own future in peace...
...The PNF is gaining strength, revitalizing the position of the Third Force in South Vietnam's politics...
...Finally, the President himself had started something of a "Hundred Flowers Bloom" MICHAEL MORROW campaign by forming his own political party and asking others with opinions different from his own to do likewise...
...go-ahead...
...It is significant that three of the PNF founders are seasoned backers of the Buddhist cause...
...The PNF could well expect the worst, but it did not happen...
...Nearly two months have elapsed and the PNF has enjoyed a healthy growth...
...2) A reconciliatory government must be established, composed of nationalists acceptable to all sides...
...If the Americans choose to protect the PNF from the rightwing elements they support and if they are wise enough to keep their own hands off the infant movement, there may yet be a meaningful Third Force in Vietnam...
...3) This government would maintain friendly relations with all peace-loving countries in the world and would not join in any military alliance...
...Tran ngoc Lieng was Minister of Social Welfare in the Ky government but resigned to protest the government's policies...
...The silver-haired lawyer now bustles around Saigon, meeting several times a day with his cohorts...
...Why stigmatize us...
...Its original declaration said that PNF demands for cease-fire, reconciliatory government, free elections, and troup withdrawals were based on three preconditions: (1) The war is militarily unwinnable...
...On May 9, a month before the founding of the PNF, Duong van Minh met with eight retired generals at the home of General Tran van Don...
...Marines...
...they point to the wide base of public support enjoyed by the General...
...Tri Quang is said to be holding back, waiting for the right time...
...apron strings and acceptable to the National Liberation Front...
...And again: j We advocate reconciliation of Nationalists who are neither Communitsts nor stooges to the capitalists, and who struggle for the people's basic necessities of life and for the sovereignty of the people...
...SAIGON: THE NEUTRALISTS SPEAK OUT In essence, so far as one can tell, what the PNF seems to be calling for is a non-Communist caretaker government free of U.S...
...The PNF is the first to admit that its caretaker formula has been rendered more difficult by the creation of the NLF's Provisional government...
...There is no hope anymore of making the change within the political-legal framework of the present constitution...
...No one went to jail...
...2) The longer the war continues the more destructive it will be to the Vietnamese nation...
...If the Nationalists do not get together in the interest of the people's cause—true peace and freedom—we stand no chance against the Communists," said another...
...The close connection between Tran ngoc Lieng and General Duong van (Big) Minh and recent meetings between leading members of the PNF and the General give credibility to the notion that the PNF has Minh in mind to head a caretaker government...
...Recently Lieng made a showing at Saigon University in support of the students' antimilitary-training sit-in and received a hero's welcome...
...Moreover, the government's arrests of the Venerable Thich Thien Minh, Saigon Daily News publisher Nguyen Lau, Buddhist student leader Pham Phi Long, and a host of other students and intellectuals throughout the spring had set off vociferous protests in the Lower House...
...He got the declaration to the foreign press and accommodated requests for interviews...
...In response to President Thieu's six-point plan of July 11, 1969, the PNF issued a statement that said in part, A coalition government composed of warlike factions with conflicting positions does not meet the above requirements, because the opposition between extremist factions in the government will ruin its efficiency...
...The Neutralists Speak Out AST JUNE, while President Thieu was meeting President Nixon at Midway, a small group of intellectuals, students, politicians, and labor leaders gathered for dinner near the Truong Minh Giang market in a crowded quarter of Saigon...
...4) All non-South Vietnamese forces must withdraw from South Vietnam according to agreed-upon timetables...
...What would happen to them for their brash act...
...Since the meeting of May 9, speculation has had it that Minh and Don are plotting something...
...And it is probably in part thanks to tacit American protection that the PNF has got a good start...
...They are recognized by 23 countries...
...Only four months earlier a Saigon professor, Le Doan Kim, had issued a one-man declaration for neutrality...
...But things became cloudy again with a later resolution: We advocate a government of Reconciliation...
...we advocate a Reconciliation Government composed of nationalist elements acceptable to all sides concerned, to play an essential role in holding free elections under observation by an international body...
...Ngo Ba Thanh, a professor-in-absence of the International School of Justice, who has served three of the past five years in jail for her long-standing support of a negotiated settlement, is another...
...Criticism of the bonzes' leadership has long been heard from secular quarters within the struggle movement...
...This government is not necessarily neutralist in ideology but must have the power and the ability to hold free elections in a truly democratic fashion...
...It contained four main points: (1) A complete cease-fire must be brought into effect immediately...
...But if President Thieu wants to arrest us, let him do so...
...The PNF's timing had been perfect...
...The study team had made an international issue of political and religious repression in South Vietnam...
...They are now a quasi-legal entity...
...There must be a complete change, a new government, also with provisional, quasi-legal status...
...It is an irreversible step," said one leader...
...Miss Tran Tin Lan, current head of the Buddhists' university students' movement, is also a leading member...
...Ly Chanh Trung, philosophy professor at Saigon and Dalat universities and eloquent spokesman for the young Catholic progressives, is one...
...study team looking into religious and political freedom in Vietnam...
...Vice-chairmen of the founding committee include Buddhist labor leader Nguyen van Cuot and pro-Buddhist Lower House Representative Pham Xuan Huy...
...It is time to end this and let the people choose—let the real political forces decide . . . the war has gone on long enough," said one of the group's members...
...Some of Vietnam's most prominent intellectuals are involved in the PNF...
...Not all of those attending knew that this would be anything more than a social gathering...
...A Buddhist-backed alliance between Don's National Salvation Front and the pro-Minh PNF is not ruled out and is generally thought to be a formula for power...
...The 23 were called one by one to see the National Police, but the interrogations were polite...
...Thieu returned and went on television, threatening to punish anyone who advocated coalition and making the point that "there will be no peace cabinet, no provisional government, and no such thing as a reconciliation government...
...But when the purpose of the meeting became clear, wives went home and a declaration was read...
...Their coming-out followed closely upon a visit by a prestigious interreligious U.S...
...His law practice has been all but abandoned, and the plainclothesman who watches his offices on Phan Thanh Gian Street has little to do...
...Of those present, 23 signed the declaration (three abstained), bringing into being the Luc Luong Quog Gia Tien Bo, or the Progressive National Force (PNF...
...Mrs...
...Since the time of Ngo Dinh Diem, when political parties were destroyed in the name of one-party dictatorship, the bastion of Third Force resistance has been the militant branch of the Buddhist Church...
...But neither the PNF nor anyone else will get to first base in Saigon without at least a U.S...
...However, discord between the Buddhists and some of the young progressives may also be a reason...
...He had quickly gone to jail and was already serving a oneyear jail term...
...But there seems to be an unresolved contradiction between the pacifism of some members of the founding group and the sophisticated anti-Communism of others...
Vol. 16 • September 1969 • No. 5
