Buddhist crisis

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The Buddhist crisis was a period of political and religious tension in South Vietnam from May 8 to November 2, 1963. It was triggered by the ban on the Buddhist flag by the government of Ngô Đình Diệms , and ended with a coup by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam , whereby Ngô Đình Diệm was arrested and later killed.

Starting position

Situation in Indochina 1960 to 1963

In 1963, 70 to 90 percent of the population in South Vietnam was of the Buddhist faith. However, the government led by Ngô Đình Di wurdem was dominated by representatives of the Roman Catholic minority. The Catholic Church was the largest landowner at the time . Ngô Đình Diệm issued many ordinances and laws and issued orders which the Buddhist majority perceived as discrimination . So there were instructions to assign high military degrees to Catholics, whereupon many soldiers converted to Christianity. While the flag of the Vatican City was partly hoisted at major public festivals, the government banned the raising of the Buddhist flag on May 7, 1963, the day before Vesakh , the highest Buddhist holiday in memory of the birth, enlightenment and extinction of the Buddha .

course

May 1963

On May 8, 1963, Vesakh, many Buddhists ignored this ban on the Buddhist flag or violated it in protest . In Huế there was a demonstration of around 3,000 people in the city center, which was then surrounded by security forces. The Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức called at this demonstration to defend oneself against the discrimination by the Catholics, whereupon more and more people joined the protest. When two explosions shook the city that evening, the military broke up the demonstration by force of arms. The military operation claimed nine lives. The government accused the Viet Cong of causing the explosions and defended the use of weapons as absolutely justified. In the days that followed, there were demonstrations in which Đức campaigned for nonviolent resistance . May ended with a large demonstration by 500 monks in Sài Gòn , who went on hunger strike for two days after the demonstration.

June 1963

On June 1, 1963, the dismissal of three important officials connected to the Huế incident was announced by the Ngô regime: the head of the provincial administration as well as his deputy and the government delegate for Central Vietnam were removed from their offices. At this point, however, the development no longer seemed to be reversible.

On June 3, 1963, 67 peacefully demonstrating monks were injured in a tear gas attack by the Vietnamese police and military in Huế when the chemical was poured over the heads of those praying. The US government unofficially threatened to withdraw aid from the Catholic regime.

In protest against the suppression, the monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself on June 11th in the square of the National Assembly. A photo of Thích Quảng Đức's self-immolation went around the world as a 1963 press photo . He endured the burn without showing any signs of pain or agony. The president's sister-in-law, Madame Nhu, and her husband , who are considered the first lady , made cynical comments in front of the world press, which increased the protest. She offered to bring gasoline, matches or mustard to the next self-immolation. She later accused the monks of a lack of patriotism for using imported gasoline.

At the same time, Saigon became the intellectual center of the protest movement. They resisted the oppression with writings, demonstrations and hunger strikes .

July 1963

On July 7, 1963, American journalists accompanying a Buddhist protest march on the ninth anniversary of Diệm's rise to power were attacked by the secret police. Because they resisted, they were later arrested in their offices for attacking the police. The secret police was under Diệm’s brother Ngô Đình Nhu.

August 1963

On August 20, a proposal was made to Ngô Đình Diệm that martial law be imposed and the monks dispersed. The morale of the ARVN had already suffered severely under the protest actions, a communist infiltration of the protest movement was blamed for this. In the early morning hours of August 21, ARVN special forces carried out a series of synchronized attacks on Buddhist pagodas in South Vietnam. More than 1,400 Buddhists were arrested, the number of those killed or disappeared is estimated in the three-digit range. The most famous of the stormed pagodas was Xa Loi, which had meanwhile become the center of the Buddhist uprising. Two of the monks sought refuge in the US relief mission that granted them asylum . The ARVN soon thereafter declared its military control over Saigon, in the course of which it canceled all commercial flights into the city and began censoring the press.

November 1963

On November 1, 1963, after six months of tension and growing opposition to the regime, ARVN generals carried out a coup against the Diệm government . Diệm was captured and the regime was overthrown. A day later, Diệm was shot dead during a transport without a trial.

literature

  • Malcolm W. Browne: The New Face of War . Publishing house Huber & Co, Frauenfeld 1965.
  • Stanley Karnow: Vietnam. A history . Penguin Books, New York 1997, ISBN 978-0-670-74604-0 .
  • Keesing's Contemporary Archives (Ed.): South Vietnam. A Political History 1954-1970 (= Keesing's Research Report. Volume 5). Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1970.
  • Mark Moyar: Political Monks: The Militant Buddhist Movement during the Vietnam War. In: Modern Asian Studies. Volume 38, No. 4, October 2004, ISSN  0026-749X , pp. 749-784 doi : 10.1017 / S0026749X04001295 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stanley Karnow: Vietnam, a history , Penguin Books, New York 1997, p. 281
  2. ^ Robert Templer: Madame Nhu obituary. In: theguardian.com. July 15, 2017, accessed February 25, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Neil Sheehan: A Bright Shining Lie. Random House, 2010, ISBN 978-1-407-06390-4 , p. 335 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  4. ↑ Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu: Feared and outspoken politician who wielded. In: independent.co.uk. June 16, 2011, accessed February 23, 2018 .