The US declaration of Independence adopted on 4 July 1976 is as follows:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The final declaration of the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina (Excerpts)
“The Conference declares that, so far as Vietnam is concerned, the settlement of political problems, effected on the basis of respect for the principles of independence, unity and territorial integrity, shall permit the Vietnamese people to enjoy the fundamental freedoms, guaranteed by democratic institutions established as a result of free general elections by secret ballot.
In order to ensure that sufficient progress in the restoration of peace has been made and that all the necessary conditions obtained for free expression of the national will, general elections shall be held in July 1956, under the supervision of an international commission composed of representatives of the Member States of the International Supervisory Commission, referred to in the Agreement on the cessation of hostilities. Consultations will be held on this subject between the competent representative authorities of the two zones from 20 July 1955 onwards.”
Curtis Lemay, Commander of the Strategic Air Command, US Air Force Chief of staff said in his statement on 25 November, 1965 as, “My solution to the problem would be to tell them (the North Vietnamese) frankly that they’ve got to draw in their horns…., or we’re going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.”
3 million Vietnamese were killed (among them 2 million civilians). 2 million people injured and 300,000 people missing during the Vietnam war. Many women took part in the Anti-US National Salvation Front. It was a battle all groups of citizens, politicians, scholars, teachers, workers, farmers, students participated in.
4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange and over 3 million of them were its victims. The results of studies conducted in Vietnam and the world have shown that Agent Orange/Dioxin can cause complex and diverse damages to all parts of a human body and diverse damages to the skin, liver, thyroid and diabetes; cause damages to the system of respiration, circulation, digestion, endocrine and nerves; play an important role as a genetic and chromosome mutating factor which causes birth defects and reproductive complications. Common diseases in children and grandchildren of Agent Orange victims include complete or partial paralysis, blindness, dumbness, deafness, mental retardation, mental illness, cancer, deformities and birth defects. According to incomplete statistics, in the whole nation, they currently have:
More than 150,000 victims of the 2nd generation;
35,000 victims of the 3rd generation;
2,000 victims of the 4th generation
As per Le Figaro statement on 25 April 1965, “Vietnam has become an experimental place for all inventions from US military engineers. Their purpose was to use living targets to test their inventions for later use in other battle fields.” But the world supported Vietnam in its resistance to US aggression 1954 – 1975.
US weapons and war equipments provided to Saigon puppet government (1954 – 1975) were as follows:
- Tanks, armoured vehicles – 2,074
- Aircraft of all types – 1,800 (including 600 helicopters)
- Artillery weapons – 1,532
- Mechanised vehicles – 56,000
- Infantry weapons – 1,900,000
- Communication equipments – 120,000
The following is an excerpt from a declaration signed by one thousand professors and lecturers of American Universities and published in The New York Times on 13 May, 1965:
“The situation in Vietnam poses serious moral problems, which are not merely diplomatic or tactical. Our nation is possessed of an immense power. To permit its utilisation for unreasonable and barbarous purposes endangers the very foundation of American influence.”
The statement of American Senator, Wayne Morse in United States Senate on 23 September, 1965 is as follows:
“In Vietnam, we have totally flouted the rule of law, and we have flouted the United Nations Charter. Ever since our first violations of the Geneva Accords, starting with the imposition of our first puppet regime in South Vietnam, the Diem regime, we have violated one tenet after another of international law and one treaty obligation after another, and the world knows it. For more than ten years, we have written on the pages of history with the indelible ink of US violations of the Geneva Accords of 1954, as well as article after article of the United Nations Charter and even article 1, section 8 of the Constitution of the United States, a sad and shocking chronicle of our repudiation of the rule of law in our foreign policy practices.”
Where as, W. Bedell Smith, Under Secretary of State, Head of the US delegation, in the closing session of the Geneva Conference gave the following statement, which became declaration on 21 July 1954:
“The Government of the United States declares with regard to the afore-said Agreements and paragraphs that: It will refrain from threat or use of force to disturb them, in accordance with Article Two, Section Four of the Charter of the United Nations dealing with the obligation of Members to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force.”
The Bertrand Russel Tribunal – Stockholm session, 2-10 May, 1967 and Copenhagen session, 20 November – 1 December 1967 concluded:
“The United States bears responsibility for the use of force in Vietnam, and has, therefore, committed against that country a crime of aggression, a crime against peace… In subjecting the civilian populations and civilian targets of the D.R.V.N. to an intense and systematic bombardment, the USA has committed a crime of war. This is on the part of the US armed forces utilisation or testing of weapons prohibited by the laws of war (C.B.U’s napalm, phosphorus bombs, combat gases, toxic chemicals).
The prisoners of war captured by the US armed forces are subjected to treatments prohibited by the laws of war. The US armed forces subject the civilian populations to inhuman treatments prohibited by International law. The US government is guilty of genocide vis-a-vis the Vietnamese people.”
In this article, the information and photographs have been collected from the War Remnants Museum of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). Tim Page and Horst Foas – two press photographers, who were injured in action in Vietnam’s battlefield, collected a wide range of photographs of Indochina War in commemoration of all press photographers who died in this war. The exhibition named “Requiem” has a collection of thousands of photographs taken by 133 photographers of the two fronts.
