Războiul din Vietnam
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The Vietnam War (occurring from 1959 to April 30, 1975) was a military conflict in present day Vietnam between Vietnamese nationalists (Viet Minh, Democratic Republic of Vietnam [or "North Vietnam"] with the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam [also known as the Việt Cộng [2]]) against the United States and the South Vietnamese Republic of Vietnam (RVN) government. The U.S. ceded its objectives in Vietnam, South Vietnam's government fell, and the DRV victory under Ho Chi Minh unified Vietnam under a communist state government. From the Vietnamese point of view, the "American War" was like the other Indochina Wars in that it was a war of independence, but one that successfully resulted in a liberation of Vietnam from foreign (Western world) influence. The United States point of view is mixed, and the "Vietnam War" era is regarded as a period of extreme political division, touching on controversial matters of imperialism and human rights. The chief cause of the war was the attempt by the United States to establish a Western-friendly government in South Vietnam, in the wake of the Vietnamese defeat of France in the First Indochina War (1946–54). The Viet Minh had resisted military occupation by the Japanese during WWII, and the U.S. had naturally supported the Viet Minh due to having the common enemy. But after Japan's defeat, the U.S. chose to support France in its attempt to reassert its control of Vietnam (Yalta Conference), financing 80% of France's war costs. France was defeated nine years later, and the Viet Minh agreed to a two-year temporary geographic separation of forces to allow French troops and colonists to leave. (Geneva Conference (1954)). Nationwide elections were scheduled for 1956 after which Vietnam would be unified. The United States instead used this two year window to attempt to establish a Western-sympathetic government in South Vietnam, based on an existing class base of urban elites, and (as did the French) supported a series of puppet governments, beginning with Ngo Dinh Diem. The scheduled elections of 1956 were rejected, because the United Stated feared that Ho Chi Minh would be easily elected. The U.S. deployed large numbers of military personnel to South Vietnam as advisors. (American advisors had assisted French colonial forces as early as 1950). The Diem government was corrupt and unpopular, and the U.S. sanctioned his effective replacement via his assassination. Popular dislike for Diem merged with popular resistance to the U.S. presence, and the U.S. found it increasingly untenable that South Vietnam could stand without further "support." Large numbers of American combat troops began to arrive in 1965. The last American troops left the country on April 30, 1975.[3] To a degree, the Vietnam War was a "proxy war" between the U.S. and its Western allies on the side of the RVN, with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China supporting the DRV on the other. As a result of this it is often considered part of the Cold War, and as such the Vietnam War is typically characterised as complex. It is also characterised as a quagmire and most historians agree that the war was largely imperialist in nature, reflecting the U.S.' desire to impose its own paradigm on a foreign culture, fighting the very people it claimed to have been helping. At various stages the conflict involved clashes between small units patrolling the mountains and jungles, guerrilla attacks in the villages and cities, and finally, large-scale conventional battles. U.S. aircraft also conducted substantial aerial bombing campaigns, with controversial targeting of both logistical and civilian targets. Large quantities of chemical defoliants were also sprayed from the air in an effort to reduce the cover available to enemy combatants. The Vietnam War was finally concluded on 30 April 1975, with the fall of the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces. The war claimed between 2 and 5.7 million Southeast Asian lives,[4] most of whom were noncombatants, as well as large numbers of the peasant resistance.
[modifică] Istorie
From 110 BC to 938 AD (with the exception of brief periods), much of present-day Vietnam, especially the northern half, was part of China. After gaining independence, Vietnam went through a history of resisting outside aggression. The French gained control of Indochina during a series of colonial wars beginning in the 1840s and lasting through the 1880s. At the post-World War I negotiations that led to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Hồ Chí Minh requested that a delegation of Vietnamese be admitted in order to work toward obtaining independence for the Indochinese colonies. His request was rejected, and Indochina's status as a colony of France remained unchanged. During the Second World War, the government of Vichy France cooperated with Imperial Japanese forces sent to occupy Indochina. Vietnam was under de facto Japanese administrative control, although the French continued to serve as official administrators until 1944. Hồ Chi Minh returned to Vietnam and formed a Communist-dominated resistance group called the "League for the Independence of Vietnam" (better known as the Viet Minh) to oppose the Japanese in the north[5]. He was aided by teams deployed by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (the precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency). These teams worked behind enemy lines in Indochina giving support to indigenous resistance groups. In 1944, the Japanese overthrew the French administration and humiliated its colonial officials in front of the Vietnamese population. The Japanese then began to encourage nationalist activity among the Vietnamese and, late in the war, granted Vietnam nominal independence. After the war and following the Japanese surrender, Vietnamese nationalists, communists, and other groups hoped to finally take control of the country. The Japanese army in Indochina assisted the Viet Minh — Hồ's resistance army — and other Vietnamese independence groups by imprisoning French officials and soldiers and handing over public buildings to the Vietnamese. On 2 September 1945, Hồ Chí Minh declared independence from France and proclaimed the formation of a new Vietnamese government under his leadership. In his exultant speech before a huge audience in Hanoi, he cited the U.S. Declaration of Independence and a band played "The Star Spangled Banner." Hồ, who had been a member of the Third Communist International since the early 1920s, hoped that the Americans would ally themselves with a Vietnamese nationalist movement, communist or otherwise. He based this hope on speeches by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who opposed a revival of European colonialism after World War II. Roosevelt, however, had moderated his position after the British — who wanted to keep their own colonies — objected. The new Vietnamese government only lasted a few days, however, since it had been decided by the Allies at the Potsdam Conference that Vietnam would be jointly occupied by Nationalist Chinese and British forces who would supervise the Japanese surrender and repatriation.[6] The Chinese army arrived in Vietnam from north only a few days after Hồ's declaration of independence and took over areas north of the 16th parallel. The British arrived in the south in October and supervised both the surrender and departure of the Japanese army from Indochina. With these actions, the government of Hồ Chí Minh effectively ceased to exist. In the South, the French prevailed upon the British to turn control of the region back over to them. French officials, when released from Japanese prisons at the end of September 1945, took matters into their own hands in some areas. In the north, The French negotiated with both the Nationalist government of China and the Viet Minh. By agreeing to give up Shanghai and its other concessions in China, the French persuaded the Chinese to allow them to return to northern Vietnam and negotiate with the Viet Minh. Hồ agreed to allow French forces to land outside of the capital, Hanoi, while France agreed to recognize an independent Vietnam within the new French Union. In the meantime, Hồ took advantage of this period of negotiations to liquidate competing nationalist groups in the north. After negotiations with Hồ collapsed over the possibility of his forming a government within the French Union in December 1946, the French bombarded Haiphong, killing thousands and then entered Hanoi. Ho and the Việt Minh fled into the mountainous north to begin an insurgency, marking the beginning of the First Indochina War. After the defeat of the Nationalist Chinese by the Communists in the Chinese Civil War, Premier Mao Zedong was able to provide direct military assistance to the Viet Minh. By this method, Viet Minh obtained more modern weapons, supplies, and the expertise necessary to transform them into a more conventional military force.
