The Vietnam War-British Complicity

Just a few words about the events leading up to the murder and rape of the citizens of Indo-China which included bombings of one ton a minute,napalm raids and orders -a so called strategy announced by the U.S. command in South Vietnam:

'Destroy all, burn all,kill all' or the search and destroy campaign.

Was this a massacre ??

Below is the first part of a leaflet from the 70s which I hope will be read by many. jandee

- The Plot to annex Indo-China-

The year was 1941. The United States were busy plotting to annex Indo-China and to take part in the French Colonialist aggressive war in Indo-China.

It was on the 19 th. of July 1941 that president Roosevelt delivered an oral message to Marshal Petain,head of the Vichy Government,declaring that the U.S. would take over Indo-China after the Allies' victory over Japan. Roosevelt confirmed this with Churchill in 1944,who declared he fully understood U.S. interest in Indo-China.

At the end of World War 11,on August 18th,1945, the people of Vietnam successfully launched a general insurrection and ousted the Japanese, and set up a popular revolutionary power throughout the country. President Ho Chi Minh proclaimed to the world the declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

On September the 13th,1945, British troops landed in Saigon

with the official mission on behalf of the allied forces, to disarm the Japanese troops in Indo-China. Instead, they rearmed the Japanese. They released the French Military forces (disarmed by the Japanese, who immediately launched their war of reoccupation and by December 1946, with the support of the British forces, extended their war of Colonial re-occupation to the whole of Vietnam.

The British Government made no response to an appeal from President Ho Chi Minh to intervene and stop the war.

In August and September 1945, three U.S.military missions had arrived in Hanoi.

In 1948 the French colonialists put up Boa Dai to take over the administration, and in January 1949 .the U.S. Government notified the French Government it supported Bao Dai as head of the Government in Vietnam.

In December,the commander of the U.S. Air Force arrived in the Far East, along with the Chief of the CIA in Japan, and in 1950 the U.S. Government officially recognised the Bao Dai puppet Government.

On February 12th, 1952, the U.S. daily- New york times revealed the U.S. aims in Indo-China: 'Indo-China is a prize worth a large gamble. Ever since World War 11, Indo-China yields an annual interest of 300 million dollars -in the North are exportable tin, tungsten, zinc, manganese, coal, lumber and rice, and in the south are rice, rubber,tea, pepper, cattle and hides. From the military standpoint Indo-China is equally important , forging an 800-mile long bridge between communist China and British Malaya.

In 1953 President Eisenhower said:

'Now let us assume that we lost Indo-China...The tin and tungsten that we so greatly value from that area would cease coming, so when the U.S.A. votes 400 million dollars to help that war we are not voting a give-away programme; We are voting for the cheapest way that we can to prevent the occurrence of something that would be of the most terrible significance to the U.S.A. and our security, our power and ability to get certain things we need from the riches of Indo-Chinese territory'.

The reason for U.S. intervention in Indo-China could not have been expressed more blatantly.

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The above writing about 'British Complicity in the Vietnam War'

Written and compiled by'the Kent Council for Peace in Vietnam.

Secretary: Mrs. Yuille nr. Rochester.