Misplaced Pages

#904095

122-740: The Permanent Peoples' Tribunal (PPT) began in Bologna in 1979, continuing the work of the Russell Tribunal II on Latin American dictatorships (1974–1976). It was founded by Lelio Basso to denounce the crimes committed by military regimes in the region. The PPT aims to encourage action in judicial courts based on intergovernmental treaties, such as the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice . The PPT's work

244-589: A French magazine criticizing the use of English words by French sportswriters. The article implored Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré to outlaw such Franglais as le manager , le round and le knock-out . His articles and speeches caught the attention of Dmitry Manuilsky , who would soon sponsor his trip to the Soviet Union and under whose tutelage he would become a high-ranking member of the Soviet Comintern. In 1923, Quốc (Hồ) left Paris for Moscow carrying

366-647: A Russell Tribunal on Human Rights in Psychiatry held in Berlin between 30 June and 2 July. The Tribunal brought in the two following verdicts: the majority verdict claimed that there was "serious abuse of human rights in psychiatry" and that psychiatry was "guilty of the combination of force and unaccountability"; the minority verdict, signed by the Israeli Law Professor Alon Harel and Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho , called for "public critical examination of

488-485: A Việt Minh advisor who was killed trying to escape. According to journalist Bernard Fall , Hồ decided to negotiate a truce after fighting the French for several years. When the French negotiators arrived at the meeting site, they found a mud hut with a thatched roof. Inside they found a long table with chairs. In one corner of the room, a silver ice bucket contained ice and a bottle of good champagne, indicating that Hồ expected

610-776: A chef or dishwasher (reports vary) at the Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing. Claims that he was trained as a pastry chef under Auguste Escoffier at the Carlton Hotel in Haymarket, Westminster are not supported by documentary evidence. However, the wall of New Zealand House , home of the New Zealand High Commission which now stands on the site of the Carlton Hotel, displays a blue plaque . During 1913, Thành

732-520: A clerk in the French Army ; his brother Nguyễn Sinh Khiêm (Nguyễn Tất Đạt), a geomancer and traditional herbalist ; and another brother (Nguyễn Sinh Nhuận), who died in infancy. As a young child, Cung (Hồ) studied with his father before more formal classes with a scholar named Vương Thúc Quý. He quickly mastered chữ Hán , a prerequisite for any serious study of Confucianism while honing his colloquial Vietnamese writing. In addition to his studies, he

854-607: A concern that he had betrayed the organization. However, according to Ton That Thien's research, he was a member of the inner circle of the Comintern, a protégé of Dmitry Manuilsky and a member in good standing of the Comintern throughout the Great Purge . Hồ was removed from control of the Party he had founded. Those who replaced him charged him with nationalist tendencies. In 1938, Quốc (Hồ) returned to China and served as an advisor to

976-478: A coup against them. On 1 November 1963, a coup overthrew Diệm, who was killed the next day together with his brother. Diệm had followed a policy of "deconstructing the state" by creating several overlapping agencies and departments that were encouraged to feud with one another to disorganize the South Vietnamese state to such an extent that he hoped that it would make a coup against him impossible. When Diệm

1098-750: A document from the Centre des archives d'Outre-mer in France shows that he was admitted to Collège Quốc học on 8 August 1908, which was several months after the anti- corvée demonstration (9–13 April 1908). In Saigon , he applied to work as a kitchen helper on a French merchant steamer, the Amiral de Latouche-Tréville , using the alias Văn Ba. The ship departed on 5 June 1911 and arrived in Marseille , France on 5 July 1911. The ship then left for Le Havre and Dunkirk , returning to Marseille in mid-September. There, he applied for

1220-617: A given name meaning "Bright spirit" or "Clear will" (from Sino-Vietnamese 志 明 : Chí meaning "will" or "spirit" and Minh meaning "bright"). His new name was a tribute to General Hou Zhiming (侯志明), Chief Commissar of the 4th Military Region of the National Revolutionary Army , who helped release him from a KMT prison in 1943. In April 1945, he met with the OSS agent Archimedes Patti and offered to provide intelligence, asking only for "a line of communication" between his Viet Minh and

1342-557: A nationwide total of nearly 100,000 executions. Because the campaign was concentrated mainly in the Red River Delta area, a lower estimate of 50,000 executions was widely accepted by scholars at the time. However, declassified documents from the Vietnamese and Hungarian archives indicate that the number of executions was much lower than reported at the time, although it was likely greater than 13,500. In early 1956, North Vietnam ended

SECTION 10

#1732876914905

1464-676: A negotiated peace. During the so-called "Maneli Affair" of 1963, a French diplomatic initiative was launched to achieve a federation of the two Vietnams, which would be neutral in the Cold War. The four principal diplomats involved in the Maneli affair were Ramchundur Goburdhun , the Indian Chief Commissioner of the ICC; Mieczysław Maneli , the Polish Commissioner to the ICC; Roger Lalouette,

1586-913: A passport with the name Chen Vang, a Chinese merchant, where he was employed by the Comintern , studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East and participated in the Fifth Comintern Congress in June 1924 before arriving in Canton (present-day Guangzhou ), China in November 1924 using the name Ly Thuy. In 1925–1926, he organized "Youth Education Classes" and occasionally gave socialist lectures to Vietnamese revolutionary young people living in Canton at

1708-503: A relationship with a dressmaker named Marie Brière. As a French police document discovered in 2018, Quốc also had relations with the members of Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea like Kim Kyu-sik , Jo So-ang while in Paris. During this period, he began to write journal articles and short stories as well as run his Vietnamese nationalist group. In May 1922, he wrote an article for

1830-453: A scholar named Phan Châu Trinh as well as his friend Phan Văn Trường . In Paris he joined the Groupe des Patriotes Annamites (The Group of Vietnamese Patriots) that included Phan Chu Trinh, Phan Văn Trường, Nguyễn Thế Truyền  [ vi ] and Nguyễn An Ninh . They had been publishing newspaper articles advocating for Vietnamese independence under the pseudonym Nguyễn Ái Quốc ("Nguyễn

1952-623: A senior agent undertaking Comintern activities in Southeast Asia. Quốc (Hồ) remained in Thailand, staying in the Thai village of Nachok until late 1929, when he moved on to India and then Shanghai . In Hong Kong in early 1930, he chaired a meeting with representatives from two Vietnamese communist parties to merge them into a unified organization, the Communist Party of Vietnam. He also founded

2074-527: A thousand," noting that Stanley Karnow provided no source for the extended quote attributed to him in his 1983 Vietnam: A History and that the original quote was most likely forged by the Frenchman Paul Mus in his 1952 book Vietnam: Sociologie d'une Guerre . Mus was a supporter of French colonialism in Vietnam and Hồ Chí Minh believed there was no danger of Chinese troops staying in Vietnam. The Vietnamese at

2196-560: A time when the Buddhist crisis had seriously strained relations between Saigon and Washington. Supporting the latter theory is the fact that Nhu promptly leaked his meeting with Maneli to the American columnist Joseph Alsop , who publicized it in a column entitled "Very Ugly Stuff". The possibility that the Ngo brothers might accept the peace plan contributed to the Kennedy administration's plan to support

2318-628: A woman to teach me the language and keep house". She was 21 and he was 36. They married in the same place where Zhou Enlai had married earlier and then lived in the residence of a Comintern agent, Mikhail Borodin . Hoàng Văn Chí argued that in June 1925 he betrayed Phan Bội Châu , the famous leader of a rival revolutionary faction and his father's old friend, to French Secret Service agents in Shanghai for 100,000 piastres . A source states that he later claimed he did it because he expected Châu's trial to stir up anti-French sentiment and because he needed

2440-464: Is ambiguous and subject to academic debate. At least four existing official biographies vary on names, dates, places, and other hard facts while unofficial biographies vary even more widely. Aside from being a politician, Hồ w as a writer, poet, and journalist. He wrote several books, articles, and poems in Chinese, Vietnamese, and French. Hồ Chí Minh (胡志明) was born as Nguyễn Sinh Cung (阮生恭) in 1890 in

2562-781: Is an intention of genocide in the war that the American government is fighting against Vietnam. Article 2 of the Convention of 1948 defines genocide on the basis of intention." And that "Recently, Dean Rusk has declared: 'We are defending ourselves ... It is the United States that is in danger in Saigon. This means that their first aim is military: it is to encircle Communist China, the major obstacle to their expansionism. Thus, they will not let south-east Asia escape. America has put men in power in Thailand, it controls part of Laos and threatens to invade Cambodia. But these conquests will be useless if

SECTION 20

#1732876914905

2684-750: Is based on the principles of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples , proclaimed in Algiers in 1976, and on the main international instruments protecting human rights. The historical and geographical context of the Declaration, known as the Charter of Algiers, links its general principles with liberation struggles, which Resolution 1514 (XV) of the United Nations of 14 December 1960 had already placed under

2806-769: Is believed that while in the US he made contact with Korean nationalists , an experience that developed his political outlook. Sophie Quinn-Judge states that this is "in the realm of conjecture". He was also influenced by Pan-Africanist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey during his stay, and said he attended meetings of the Universal Negro Improvement Association . At various points from 1913 to 1919, Thành (Hồ) claimed to have lived in West Ealing and later in Crouch End , Hornsey . He reportedly worked as either

2928-473: Is just one single entity". At a meeting in Hanoi held in French, Hồ told Goburdhun that Diệm was "in his way a patriot", noting that Diệm had opposed French rule over Vietnam, and ended the meeting saying that the next time Goburdhun met Diệm "shake hands with him for me". The North Vietnamese Premier Phạm Văn Đồng, speaking on behalf of Hồ, told Maneli he was interested in the peace plan, saying that just as long as

3050-751: The Việt Minh independence movement against the Japanese, and in 1945 led the August Revolution against the monarchy and proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. After the French returned to power, Hồ's government retreated to the countryside and initiated guerrilla warfare from 1946. The Việt Minh defeated the French in 1954 at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ , ending the First Indochina War . At

3172-560: The 1954 Geneva Conference , Vietnam was divided into two de facto separate states, with the Việt Minh in control of North Vietnam, and anti-communists backed by the United States in control of South Vietnam . Hồ remained president and party leader during the Vietnam War , which began in 1955. He supported the Viet Cong insurgency in the south, overseeing the transport of troops and supplies on

3294-500: The Battle of Route Coloniale 4 successfully broke the French border blockade, he met with Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong in Moscow after the Soviet Union recognized his government. They all agreed that China would be responsible for backing the Việt Minh. Mao Zedong's emissary to Moscow stated in August that China planned to train 60,000–70,000 Viet Minh shortly. The road to the outside world

3416-820: The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation but didn't participate in the Tribunal, wrote 30 years later about the criticism that the Russell Tribunal would not also investigate alleged Communist atrocities. In his memoirs, Horowitz wrote that Jean-Paul Sartre said, "I refuse to place in the same category the actions of an organization of poor peasants ... and those of an immense army backed by a highly organized country ...". Horowitz interpreted Sartre's words to mean "the Communists were, by definition, incapable of committing war crimes ." A detailed historical account of

3538-729: The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation organised Citizens Commissions of Inquiry (CCI) to hold hearings intended to document testimony of war crimes in Indochina. These hearings were held in several American cities, and would eventually form the foundation of two national investigations: the National Veterans Inquiry sponsored by the CCI, and the Winter Soldier Investigation sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against

3660-573: The Chinese Communist armed forces. He was also the senior Comintern agent in charge of Asian affairs. He worked extensively in Chongqing and traveled to Guiyang , Kunming , and Guilin . He was using the name Hồ Quang during this period. When France was defeated by Germany in 1940 , Hồ and his lieutenants, Võ Nguyên Giáp and Phạm Văn Đồng , saw this as an opportunity to advance their own cause. In 1941, Hồ Chí Minh returned to Vietnam to lead

3782-531: The Ho Chi Minh trail until his death in 1969. North Vietnam won in 1975, and the country was re-unified in 1976 as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam . Saigon, South Vietnam's former capital, was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in his honor. The details of Hồ 's life before he came to power in Vietnam are uncertain. He is known to have used between 50 and 200 pseudonyms. Information on his birth and early life

Permanent Peoples' Tribunal - Misplaced Pages Continue

3904-668: The Pathet Lao , and used 30,000 men to build a network of supply and reinforcement routes running through Laos and Cambodia that became known as the Hồ Chí Minh trail . It allowed the North to send manpower and material to the Việt Cộng with much less exposure to South Vietnamese forces, achieving a considerable advantage. To counter the accusation that North Vietnam was violating the Geneva Accord,

4026-474: The Việt Minh independence movement. The Japanese occupation of Indochina that year, the first step toward an invasion of the rest of Southeast Asia, created an opportunity for patriotic Vietnamese. The so-called "men in black" were a 10,000-member guerrilla force that operated with the Việt Minh. He oversaw many successful military actions against the Vichy France and the Japanese occupation of Vietnam during World War II , supported closely yet clandestinely by

4148-400: The Whampoa Military Academy . These young people would become the seeds of a new revolutionary, pro-communist movement in Vietnam several years later. According to William Duiker , he lived with a Chinese woman, Zeng Xueming (Tăng Tuyết Minh), whom he married on 18 October 1926. When his comrades objected to the match, he told them: "I will get married despite your disapproval because I need

4270-462: The cane as punishment for an infraction. His father was eligible to serve in the imperial bureaucracy, but he refused because it meant serving the French. This exposed Thành (Hồ) to rebellion at a young age and seemed to be the norm for the province. Nevertheless, he received a French education, attending Collège Quốc học ( lycée or secondary education) in Huế in Central Vietnam. His disciples, Phạm Văn Đồng and Võ Nguyên Giáp , also attended

4392-409: The "North First" faction which favored focusing on the economic development of North Vietnam, and the "South First" faction, which favored a guerrilla war in South Vietnam to reunite the country within the short term. Between 1961 and 1963, 40,000 Communist soldiers infiltrated South Vietnam from the North. In 1963, Hồ purportedly corresponded with South Vietnamese President Diệm in hopes of achieving

4514-425: The 300 days, Ngô Đình Diệm and CIA adviser Colonel Edward Lansdale staged a campaign to convince Northerners to move to South Vietnam. The campaign was particularly focused on Vietnam's Catholics, who were to provide Diệm's power base in his later years, with the use of the slogan "God has gone south". Between 800,000 and 1 million people migrated to the South, mostly Catholics. At the start of 1955, French Indochina

4636-497: The Allies. The OSS agreed to this and later sent a military team of OSS members to train his men and Hồ Chí Minh himself was treated for malaria and dysentery by an OSS doctor. Following the August Revolution organized by the Việt Minh, Hồ Chí Minh became Chairman of the Provisional Government (Premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and issued a Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Although he convinced Emperor Bảo Đại to abdicate, his government

4758-400: The American advisers left South Vietnam "we can agree with any Vietnamese". On 2 September 1963, Maneli met with Ngô Đình Nhu , the younger brother and right-hand man to Diệm to discuss the French peace plan. It remains unclear if the Ngo brothers were serious about the French peace plan or were merely using the possibility of accepting it to blackmail the United States into supporting them at

4880-449: The Cape Town Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine as "It's theatre: the actors know their parts and the result is known before they start. Israel is to be dragged into the mud." After the Cape Town session, Israeli MK Otniel Schneller filed a complaint with the Knesset's Ethics Committee against MK Hanin Zoabi , who testified at the Tribunal that "Israel is an apartheid state". A group of Jewish South Africans protested against

5002-485: The Declaration of Independence of Vietnam on 2 September 1945 under the name of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. In Saigon , with violence between rival Vietnamese factions and French forces increasing, the British commander, General Sir Douglas Gracey , declared martial law. On 24 September, the Việt Minh leaders responded with a call for a general strike. In the same month, a force of 200,000 Chinese National Revolutionary Army troops arrived in Hanoi to accept

Permanent Peoples' Tribunal - Misplaced Pages Continue

5124-442: The Democratic Republic of Vietnam government found that war was inevitable. The bombardment of Haiphong by the French Navy only strengthened the belief that France had no intention of allowing an autonomous, independent state in Vietnam. The attack reportedly killed more than 6,000 Vietnamese civilians in Haiphong. French forces marched into Hanoi, now the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. On 19 December 1946, after

5246-685: The First Tribunal Session in Stockholm, testimony and evidence was produced by the following witnesses (incomplete list): During the Second Tribunal Session in Roskilde, testimony and evidence was produced by the following witnesses (incomplete list): The Tribunal stated that its conclusions were: We find the government and armed forces of the United States are guilty of the deliberate, systematic and large-scale bombardment of civilian targets, including civilian populations, dwellings, villages, dams, dikes, medical establishments, leper colonies, schools, churches, pagodas, historical and cultural monuments. We also find unanimously, with one abstention, that

5368-440: The French Colonial School but did not succeed. He instead decided to begin traveling the world by working on ships and visiting many countries from 1911 to 1917. While working as the cook's helper on a ship in 1912, Thành (Hồ) traveled to the United States. From 1912 to 1913, he may have lived in New York City ( Harlem ) and Boston , where he claimed to have worked as a baker at the Parker House Hotel . The only evidence that he

5490-475: The French ambassador to South Vietnam; and Giovanni d'Orlandi, the Italian ambassador to South Vietnam. Maneli reported that Hồ was very interested in the signs of a split between President Diệm and President Kennedy and that his attitude was: "Our real enemies are the Americans. Get rid of them, and we can cope with Diệm and Nhu afterward". Hồ and Maneli also discussed the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which passed through officially neutral Cambodia and Laos, saying "Indochina

5612-425: The Haiphong incident, Hồ Chí Minh declared war against the French Union, marking the beginning of the Indochina War . The Vietnam National Army, mostly armed with machetes and muskets immediately attacked. They assaulted the French positions, smoking them out with straw bundled with chili pepper, destroying armored vehicles with "lunge mines" (a hollow-charge warhead on the end of a pole, detonated by thrusting

5734-472: The ICC's "competence was to be limited to the supervision and control of the implementation of the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities by both parties". Of the nine nations represented, only the United States and the State of Vietnam refused to accept the declaration. Undersecretary of state Walter Bedell Smith delivered a "unilateral declaration" of the United States position, reiterating: "We shall seek to achieve unity through free elections supervised by

5856-451: The Indochinese Communist Party. In June 1931, Hồ was arrested by the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) as part of a joint operation between the French authorities in Indochina and the HKPF; scheduled to be extradited from Hong Kong to French Indochina, Hồ was successfully defended by British solicitor Frank Loseby. Eventually, after appeals to the British Privy Council , Hồ was reported as dead in 1932 to avoid being extradited to Indochina; it

5978-514: The Indochinese Federation and the French Union . The agreement soon broke down. The purpose of the agreement, for both the French and Vietminh, was for Chiang's army to leave North Vietnam. Fighting broke out in the North soon after the Chinese left. Historian Professor Liam Kelley of the University of Hawaii at Manoa on his Le Minh Khai's Asian History Blog challenged the authenticity of the alleged quote where Hồ Chí Minh said he "would rather smell French shit for five years than eat Chinese shit for

6100-507: The Kemalist republic. More than three decades later, the Russell Tribunal model was followed by the World Tribunal on Iraq , which was held to make a similar analysis of the Project for the New American Century , the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation of Iraq , and the links between these. After Russell's death in 1970, Senator Lelio Basso began organizing a second tribunal in 1973 initially focused on human rights violations in Brazil, which then expanded to include Chile in

6222-421: The Nazis." The Russell Tribunal was included by historian Guenter Lewy as part of a "veritable industry publicizing alleged war crimes", as increasing numbers of American servicemen were stepping forward with published accounts of their experiences with atrocities, and scholars and peace organisations were holding tribunals dealing with war crimes. Staughton Lynd , chairman of the 1965 "March on Washington",

SECTION 50

#1732876914905

6344-444: The Palestinian people in breach of the prohibition on apartheid under international law?" Pierre Galand pointed out that the Cape Town session of the tribunal had a budget of €190,000; €100,000 was donated by Editions Indigene, the publisher of the book Time for an outrage . More than €15,000 was raised at a 24 September 2011 fundraising event by the Belgian support committee of the Russell Tribunal. The Caipirinha Foundation lists

6466-447: The Patriot") prior to Thành's arrival in Paris. The group petitioned for recognition of the civil rights of the Vietnamese people in French Indochina to the Western powers at the Versailles peace talks , but they were ignored. Citing the principle of self-determination outlined before the peace accords, they requested the allied powers to end French colonial rule of Vietnam and ensure the formation of an independent government. Before

6588-455: The Politburo passing a resolution calling for North Vietnam to complete the overthrow of the regime in Saigon as soon as possible; while the members of the "North first" faction were dismissed. As the South descended into chaos, whatever interest Hồ might have had in the French peace plan faded, as it became clear the Việt Cộng could overthrow the Saigon government. A CIA report from 1964 stated that factionalism in South Vietnam had reached "almost

6710-436: The RToP as a grant receiver, but does not disclose the amount or the year of its grant. A fourth international session of the RToP took place in New York on 6–7 October 2012. A fifth session met in Brussels on 16–17 March 2013. An extraordinary session was held in Brussels on 24 September 2014 in response to Israel's Operation Protective Edge launched in the Gaza Strip on 8 July 2014. The Russell Tribunal on Kashmir

6832-418: The Russell Tribunal on Palestine that "It is not a 'tribunal.' The 'evidence' is going to be one-sided and the members of the 'jury' are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known. In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute ." South African journalist and human rights activist Benjamin Pogrund , now living in Israel, described

6954-773: The Tribunal has held 46 sessions on numerous cases of human rights violations. The judgments of the TPP rely on sources of existing international law. Russell Tribunal The Russell Tribunal , also known as the International War Crimes Tribunal , Russell–Sartre Tribunal , or Stockholm Tribunal , was a private people's tribunal organised in 1966 by Bertrand Russell , British philosopher and Nobel Prize winner, and hosted by French philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre , along with Lelio Basso , Simone de Beauvoir , Vladimir Dedijer , Ralph Schoenman , Isaac Deutscher , Günther Anders and several others. The tribunal investigated and evaluated American foreign policy and military intervention in Vietnam . Bertrand Russell justified

7076-440: The Tribunal. After all, I argued, a "crime" is an action that is wrong no matter who does it. Pressing my case, I asked, "What if it were shown that the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam tortures unarmed prisoners?" The answer, as I understood it, was, "Anything is justified that drives the imperialist aggressor into the sea." I declined the invitation to be a member of the Tribunal." David Horowitz , who did some work for

7198-410: The US has to face a free Vietnam with thirty-one million united people." Furthermore that "At this point in our discussion, three facts emerge: (1) the US government wants a base and an example; (2) this can be achieved, without any greater obstacle than the resistance of the Vietnamese people themselves, by liquidating an entire people and establishing a Pax Americana on a Vietnamese desert; (3) to attain

7320-445: The United Nations to ensure that they are conducted fairly". Between 1953 and 1956, the North Vietnamese government instituted various agrarian reforms, including "rent reduction" and " land reform ", which were accompanied with executions of "reactionary and evil landlords." During the land reform, testimonies by North Vietnamese witnesses suggested a ratio of one execution per 160 village residents, which if extrapolated would indicate

7442-427: The United States Office of Strategic Services and later against the French bid to reoccupy the country (1946–1954). He was jailed in China by Chiang Kai-shek's local authorities before being rescued by Chinese Communists. Following his release in 1943, he returned to Vietnam. It was during this time that he began regularly using the name Hồ Chí Minh, a Vietnamese name combining a common Vietnamese surname (Hồ, 胡 ) with

SECTION 60

#1732876914905

7564-583: The United States was directly represented by any individual on the 25-member panel, although a couple of members were American citizens. More than 30 people, including military personnel from the United States, and both of the warring factions in Vietnam, gave evidence to the tribunal. Financing for the Tribunal included a large contribution from the North Vietnamese government after a request made by Russell to Ho Chi Minh . Other intellectuals were invited but eventually rejected this invitation for various reasons: The Tribunal aims were stated as follows: During

7686-404: The Viet Minh. The subsequent Geneva Accords peace process partitioned North Vietnam at the 17th parallel. Arthur Dommen estimates that the Việt Minh killed between 100,000 and 150,000 civilians during the war. Benjamin Valentino estimates that the French were responsible for 60,000–250,000 civilian deaths. The 1954 Geneva Conference concluded the war between France and the Việt Minh, allowing

7808-724: The War . John Gerassi was an investigator for the Tribunal and documented that the United States was bombing hospitals, schools and other civilian targets in Vietnam. He offers first hand and documentary evidence about US war crimes. His book provides many details of US atrocities and shows the larger motivation for the Tribunal on the accusation of genocide rests from the clear need to expose documented atrocities against civilians rather than an actual ongoing genocide. Jean-Paul Sartre bases his argument for genocide on several reasons, but part of it rests on statements and declarations from US leaders and intention rather than conduct. [1] "In particular, we must try to understand whether there

7930-427: The Western allies sought to have no deadline. Molotov proposed June 1955, then later softened this to any time in 1955 and finally July 1956. The Diệm government supported reunification elections, but only with effective international supervision, arguing that genuinely free elections were otherwise impossible in the totalitarian North. By the afternoon of 20 July 1954, the remaining outstanding issues were resolved as

8052-458: The armed confrontations underway in Vietnam, War Crimes in Vietnam , was published in January 1967. His postscript called for establishing this investigative body. The findings of the tribunal were largely ignored in the United States. Further tribunals were also held on various other issues, including psychiatry , human rights , and the Israel-Palestine conflict and, most recently, on the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The idea for

8174-475: The charge against the side of a tank; typically a suicide weapon ) and Molotov cocktails , holding off attackers by using roadblocks , landmines and gravel. After two months of fighting, the exhausted Việt Minh forces withdrew after systematically destroying any valuable infrastructure . Hồ was mistakenly reported to be captured by a group of French soldiers, led by Jean Étienne Valluy at Việt Bắc, during Operation Léa . The person in question turned out to be

8296-399: The closing session of the Russell Tribunal the creation of three new institutions was announced: the International Foundation for the Rights and Liberations of Peoples, and the International League for the Rights and Liberations of Peoples, and the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal . The Permanents People's Tribunal was established in Bologna on 23 June 1979. Between its founding and April 1984,

8418-402: The conference, the group sent their letter to allied leaders, including French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau and United States President Woodrow Wilson . They were unable to obtain consideration at Versailles , but the episode would later help establish the future Hồ Chí Minh as the symbolic leader of the anti-colonial movement at home in Vietnam. Since Thành was the public face behind

8540-468: The country, his subordinates imprisoned 2,500 non-Communist nationalists and forced 6,000 others to flee. Hundreds of political opponents were jailed or exiled in July 1946, notably, members of the Nationalist Party of Vietnam and the Dai Viet National Party after a failed attempt to raise a coup against the Viet Minh government. All rival political parties were hereafter banned and local governments were purged to minimize opposition later on. However, it

8662-417: The court, and the organiser of the protest called it a " Kangaroo Court ." Daniele Archibugi and Alice Pease have argued that it is a rather common practice that those accused of international crimes challenge the impartiality of their accusers. And it may be the case that the organisers of opinion tribunals, as of any other tribunal, might be biased or produce insufficient evidence. But to further develop

8784-640: The disputed territory of Indian-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir were marked at an inaugural tribunal in Sarajevo that sought to draw global attention to the atrocities committed in the Muslim-majority region. The tribunal did not investigate alleged war crimes by the Viet Cong ; Ralph Schoenman commented: "Lord Russell would think no more of doing that than of trying the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto for their uprising against

8906-586: The establishment of this body as follows: If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us. The tribunal was constituted in November 1966, and was conducted in two sessions in 1967, in Stockholm , Sweden and Roskilde , Denmark. Bertrand Russell's book on

9028-513: The government of the United States of America is guilty of repeated violations of the sovereignty, neutrality and territorial integrity of Cambodia, that it is guilty of attacks against the civilian population of a certain number of Cambodian towns and villages. The question also arises as to whether or not the governments of Thailand and other countries have become accomplices to acts of aggression or other crimes against Vietnam and its populations. We have not been able to study this question during

9150-632: The independence of the Việt Cộng was stressed in communist propaganda. North Vietnam created the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam in December 1960 as a " united front ", or political branch of the Việt Cộng, intended to encourage the participation of non-Communists. At the end of 1959, aware that the planned national elections would never be held and that Diệm intended to purge opposing forces (mostly ex-Việt Minh) from South Vietnamese society, Hồ Chí Minh informally chose Lê Duẩn to become

9272-520: The intention of the systematic extermination of the Armenian people, intent as specified in article II of the 1948 convention, and that it was undoubtedly a genocide, the manifestation of a policy that had emerged in the Ottoman Empire in the 1890s. The tribunal criticised as unacceptable the denial ( il diniego abusive "the abusive refusal") of the genocide by Turkish governments since the establishment of

9394-420: The land reform and initiated a "correction of errors" to rectify the mistakes and damage done. That year, Hồ Chí Minh apologised and acknowledged the serious errors the government had made in the land reform. As part of the campaign, as many as 23,748 political prisoners were released by North Vietnam by September 1957. By 1958, the correction campaign had resulted in the return of land to many of those harmed by

9516-774: The land reform. As early as June 1956, the idea of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government was presented at a Politburo meeting. In 1959, Hồ Chí Minh began urging the Politburo to send aid to the Việt Cộng in South Vietnam; a " people's war " on the South was approved at a session in January 1959, and this decision was confirmed by the Politburo in March. North Vietnam invaded Laos in July 1959, aided by

9638-475: The latter's forces to regroup in the North whilst anti-Communist groups settled in the South. Hồ's Democratic Republic of Vietnam relocated to Hanoi and became the government of North Vietnam, a Communist -led one-party state . Following the Geneva Accords, there was to be a 300-day period in which people could freely move between the two regions of Vietnam, later known as South Vietnam and North Vietnam. During

9760-581: The major cities, but particularly in the South, in Saigon-Cochinchina, they had been a challenge. From the outset, they had called for armed resistance to a French restoration and an immediate transfer of industry to workers and land to peasants. The French Socialist leader Daniel Guérin recalls that when in Paris in 1946 he asked Hồ Chí Minh about the fate of the Trotskyist leader Tạ Thu Thâu , Hồ Chí Minh had replied, "with unfeigned emotion," that "'Thâu

9882-481: The money to establish a communist organization. In Ho Chi Minh: A Life , William Duiker considered this hypothesis, but ultimately rejected it. Other sources claim that Nguyễn Thượng Huyện was responsible for Chau's capture. Chau, sentenced to lifetime house arrest , never denounced Quốc. After Chiang Kai-shek 's 1927 anti-communist coup, Quốc (Hồ) left Canton again in April 1927 and returned to Moscow, spending part of

10004-479: The negotiations to succeed. One demand by the French was the return to French custody of several Japanese military officers (who had been helping the Vietnamese armed forces by training them in the use of weapons of Japanese origin) for them to stand trial for war crimes committed during World War II. Hồ Chí Minh replied that the Japanese officers were allies and friends whom he could not betray, therefore he walked out to seven more years of war. In February 1950, after

10126-520: The next party leader. This was interpreted by Western analysts as a loss of influence for Hồ, who was said to have preferred the more moderate Võ Nguyên Giáp for the position. From 1959 onward, the elderly Hồ became increasingly worried about the prospect of his death, and that year he wrote down his will. Hồ stepped down as General Secretary of the Vietnam Communist party in September 1960 and Lê Duẩn

10248-619: The parties agreed that the partition line should be at the 17th parallel and the elections for a reunified government should be held in July 1956, two years after the ceasefire. The Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam was only signed by the French and Việt Minh military commands, with no participation or consultation of the State of Vietnam. Based on a proposal by Chinese delegation head Zhou Enlai, an International Control Commission (ICC) chaired by India, with Canada and Poland as members,

10370-847: The party's chairman until his death. Hồ was born in Nghệ An province in French Indochina , and received a French education. Starting in 1911, he worked in various countries overseas, and in 1920 was a founding member of the French Communist Party in Paris. After studying in Moscow , Hồ founded the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League in 1925, which he transformed into the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930. On his return to Vietnam in 1941, he founded and led

10492-573: The present session. We intend to examine at the next session legal aspects of the problem and to seek proofs of any incriminating facts. The three Tribunal members who voted against agree that the Japanese Government gives considerable aid to the Government of the United States, but do not agree on its complicity in the crime of aggression. Prompted in part by the My Lai Massacre , in 1969

10614-519: The protection of international law, with the understanding that the right to self-determination remained unfulfilled and that it did not involve decolonization. The court is composed of a president (currently Philippe Texier of France), four vice-presidents, a secretary general (currently Gianni Tognoni of Italy), a coordination officer (currently Simona Fraudatario of Italy) , and 58 members from 26 countries, from different disciplines such as law, economy, sociology, arts, and literature. As of 2016,

10736-426: The publication of the document (although it was written by Phan Văn Trường), he soon became known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, and first used the name in September during an interview with a Chinese newspaper correspondent. Many authors have stated that 1919 was a lost "Wilsonian moment", where the future Hồ Chí Minh could have adopted a pro-American and less radical position if only President Wilson had received him. However, at

10858-516: The role of psychiatry." In 2004 the " BRussells Tribunal " took place in Brussels as a continuation of the tradition of the Russell Tribunal as part of the World Tribunal on Iraq . Philosopher Jacques Derrida praised this event, stating that "to resuscitate the tradition of a Russell Tribunal is symbolically an important and necessary thing to do today." The Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP)

10980-769: The rule of law, those which are unsatisfied about the outcomes of these tribunals should be able to produce further evidence and legal arguments rather than unsubstantiated criticism. Legal discourse, they argue, is necessarily based on the opposition of contrasting views. Ho Chi Minh President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam Chairman of the Workers' Party of Vietnam Struggle for Independence Presidency First Indochina War Vietnam War Ho Chi Minh Thought Legacy Hồ Chí Minh (born Nguyễn Sinh Cung ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), colloquially known as Uncle Ho ( Bác Hồ ) and by other aliases and sobriquets ,

11102-584: The school, as did Ngô Đình Diệm , the future President of South Vietnam and political rival. His early life is uncertain but there are some documents indicating activities regarding an early revolutionary spirit during French-occupied Vietnam, but conflicting sources remain. Previously, it was believed that Thành (Hồ) was involved in an anti-slavery (anti- corvée ) demonstration of poor peasants in Huế in May 1908, which endangered his student status at Collège Quốc học . However,

11224-536: The second, the US must achieve, at least partially, this extermination." Additional tribunals using the same model and the denomination Russell Tribunal have been held. The Second Russell Tribunal on Latin America was held over three sessions that spanned three years and focused on human rights violations during the military dictatorships in Argentina and Brazil (Rome, 1974), on Chile's military coup d'état (Rome, 1974–76),

11346-494: The summer of 1927 recuperating from tuberculosis in Crimea before returning to Paris once more in November. He then returned to Asia by way of Brussels , Berlin, Switzerland, and Italy, where he sailed to Bangkok , Thailand, arriving in July 1928. "Although we have been separated for almost a year, our feelings for each other do not have to be said to be felt", he reassured Zeng in an intercepted letter. In this period, he served as

11468-542: The surrender of the Japanese occupiers in northern Indochina. Hồ Chí Minh made a compromise with their general, Lu Han , to dissolve the Communist Party and to hold an election that would yield a coalition government. When Chiang forced the French to give the French concessions in Shanghai back to China in exchange for withdrawing from northern Indochina, he had no choice but to sign an agreement with France on 6 March 1946 in which Vietnam would be recognized as an autonomous state in

11590-673: The third tribunal focused on the situation of Human Rights in Germany (1978), the fourth tribunal focused on the rights of the Indians of the Americas (Rotterdam 1980), subsequent tribunals forcused on the Threat of Indigenous Peoples of America (1982), on Human Rights in Psychiatry (Berlin, 2001), on Iraq (Brussels, 2004), and on Palestine (Barcelona, 2009–12). The tribunal was criticised by some historians and activists who argue against its lack of standing. At

11712-645: The time of the Versailles Conference, Hồ Chí Minh was committed to a socialist program. While the conference was ongoing, Nguyễn Ái Quốc was already delivering speeches on the prospects of Bolshevism in Asia and was attempting to persuade French socialists to join Lenin 's Communist International . Upon hearing of the October 1920 death of Irish republican hunger striker (and Lord Mayor of Cork) Terence MacSwiney , Quốc (Hồ)

11834-462: The time were busy spreading anti-French propaganda as evidence of French atrocities in Vietnam emerged, while Hồ Chí Minh showed no qualms about accepting Chinese aid after 1949. The Việt Minh then collaborated with French colonial forces to massacre supporters of rival Vietnamese nationalist movements in 1945–1946, and of the Trotskyists. Trotskyism in Vietnam did not rival the Party outside of

11956-506: The tribunal carried out by historian Cody J. Foster, on the contrary, has argued that the evidence produced in the tribunal was reliable and well balanced, and that the initiative was very important to re-balance the American public opinion views about the Vietnam war. Furthermore, it inspired several subsequent films and documentaries on the Vietnam war. Judge Richard Goldstone , writing in The New York Times in October 2011, said of

12078-709: The tribunal pronounced two advisory opinions on Western Sahara and Eritrea and held eight sessions ( Argentina , Philippines , El Salvador , Afghanistan I and II, East Timor , Zaire and Guatemala ). The latter was concluded in January 1983 in Madrid . A special hearing was conducted in Paris on 13–16 April 1984 to investigate the Armenian genocide . The Tribunal's 35-member panel included three Nobel Prize winners— Seán MacBride , Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Professor George Wald — and ten eminent jurist, theologians, academics and political figures. The tribunal concluded that genocide

12200-580: The tribunal was first proposed to Russell in 1965 by M.S. Arnoni . Representatives of 18 countries participated in the tribunal's two sessions. The tribunal committee, which called itself the International War Crimes Tribunal, consisted of 25 notable individuals, predominantly from leftist peace organisations, including winners of the Nobel Prize, Medals of Valor, and awards of recognition in humanitarian and social fields. Neither Vietnam nor

12322-652: The village of Làng Chùa or Hoàng Trù in Kim Liên commune, Nam Đàn district, Nghệ An province, in Central Vietnam which was then a French protectorate . Although 1890 is generally accepted as his birth year, at various times he used four other birth years: 1891, 1892, 1894 and 1895. He lived in his father Nguyễn Sinh Sắc 's village of Làng Sen in Kim Liên until 1895 when his father sent him to Huế for study. He had three siblings: his sister Bạch Liên (Nguyễn Thị Thanh),

12444-722: The wake of the military coup in that country , and then to all of Latin America. The official name chosen by the constituents was "Russel Tribunal II on the Repression in Brazil, Chile and in Latin America" and was held in three sessions from 1974 to 1976 in Rome and Brussels. Basso presided over the tribunal and writer Gabriel García Márquez , historians Vladimir Dedijer and Albert Soboul , and professor of law François Rigaux served as vice-presidents. In 2001, Thomas Szasz and others took part in

12566-614: Was a Vietnamese communist revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945 until his death in 1969, and as its first prime minister from 1945 to 1955. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist , he founded the Indochinese Communist Party in 1930 and its successor Workers' Party of Vietnam (later the Communist Party of Vietnam ) in 1951, serving as

12688-482: Was a great patriot and we mourn him', but then a moment later added in a steady voice 'All those who do not follow the line which I have laid down will be broken.'" The Communists eventually suppressed all non-Communist parties, but they failed to secure a peace deal with France. In the final days of 1946, after a year of diplomatic failure and many concessions in agreements, such as the Dalat and Fontainebleau conferences ,

12810-560: Was already prohibited by law at the time the Armenian Genocide took place - that though not explicitly banned by written rules it was not legally tolerated - thus the 1948 International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was formally expressing an already existing prohibition. The tribunal concluded that the massacres of Armenians between 1915 and 1917 revealed

12932-488: Was also employed as a pastry chef on the Newhaven – Dieppe ferry route. From 1919 to 1923, Thành (Hồ) began to show an interest in politics while living in France, being influenced by his friend and French Section of the Workers' International comrade Marcel Cachin . Thành claimed to have arrived in Paris from London in 1917, but the French police had only documents recording his arrival in June 1919. When he arrived, he met

13054-417: Was asked by Russell to participate in the tribunal and rejected the invitation. Lynd's objections and criticism of the Tribunal were based on the fact that Russell planned to investigate only non-North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front conduct. Lynd wrote that "in conversation with the emissary who proffered the invitation, I urged that the alleged war crimes of any party to the conflict should come before

13176-509: Was created in March 2009. In April 2011, the association converted to a non-profit organisation, with legal status in Brussels, by Pierre Galand  [ fr ] , Jacques Michiels , Jacques Debatty , Nadia Farkh , Henri Eisendrath and Roseline Sonet . The former non-elected PS senator, Galand, was appointed president of the association. The first session of the Tribunal took place in Barcelona in March 2010 This session's objective

13298-516: Was dissolved, leaving Diệm in temporary control of the South. All the parties at Geneva called for reunification elections, but they could not agree on the details. Recently appointed Việt Minh acting foreign minister Phạm Văn Đồng proposed elections under the supervision of "local commissions". The United States, with the support of Britain and the Associated States of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, suggested United Nations supervision. This plan

13420-424: Was fond of adventure and loved to fly kites and go fishing. Following Confucian tradition, his father gave him a new name at the age of 10: Nguyễn Tất Thành. His father was a Confucian scholar and teacher and later an imperial magistrate in the small remote district of Binh Khe ( Qui Nhơn ). He was demoted for abuse of power after an influential local figure died several days after having received 102 strokes of

13542-593: Was in the United States is a single letter to French colonial administrators dated 15 December 1912 and postmarked New York City (he gave his address as the poste restante in Le Havre and his occupation as a sailor) and a postcard to Phan Chu Trinh in Paris where he mentioned working at the Omni Parker House Hotel. Inquiries to the Parker House management revealed no records of his ever having worked there. It

13664-739: Was launched in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and took place on December 17–19, 2021. It was organized by Canadian NGO Kashmir Civitas whose Secretary-General is Canadian academic Farhan Mujahid Chak, and attended by Richard Falk , Sami al-Arian , Jonathan A.C. Brown , David Hearst, and Omar Suleiman The event had support/partnerships with the World Kashmir Awareness Forum, Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, Aljazeera Balkans, Nahla, Center for Advanced Studies in Sarajevo, and International University of Sarajevo . Decolonization, settler-colonialism, crimes against humanity, genocide and nuclear threats emerging from

13786-513: Was not recognized by any country. He repeatedly petitioned President Harry S. Truman for support for Vietnamese independence, citing the Atlantic Charter , but Truman never responded. In 1946, future Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Hồ Chí Minh became acquainted when they stayed at the same hotel in Paris. He offered Ben-Gurion a Jewish home-in-exile in Vietnam, which Ben-Gurion declined. In 1946, when he traveled outside of

13908-526: Was noted that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam 's first Congress had over two-thirds of its members come from non-Việt Minh political factions, some without an election. Nationalist Party of Vietnam leader Nguyễn Hải Thần was named vice president. They also held four out of ten ministerial positions ( Government of the Union of Resistance of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam  [ vi ] ). Following Emperor Bảo Đại's abdication in August, Hồ Chí Minh read

14030-530: Was officially named party leader, leaving Hồ to function in a secondary role as head of state and member of the Politburo . He nevertheless maintained considerable influence in the government. Lê Duẩn, Tố Hữu , Trường Chinh and Phạm Văn Đồng often shared dinner with Hồ, and all of them remained key figures throughout and after the war. In the early 1960s, the North Vietnamese Politburo was divided into

14152-546: Was open for Việt Minh forces to receive additional supplies which would allow them to escalate the fight against the French regime throughout Indochina. At the outset of the conflict, Hồ reportedly told a French visitor: "You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win". In 1954, the First Indochina War came to an end after the decisive Battle of Dien Bien Phu , where more than 10,000 French soldiers surrendered to

14274-452: Was overthrown and killed, without any kind of arbiter between the rival arms of the South Vietnamese state, regime authority in South Vietnam promptly disintegrated. The American Defense Secretary Robert McNamara reported after visiting South Vietnam in December 1963 that "there is no organized government worthy of the name" in Saigon. At a meeting of the plenum of the Politburo in December 1963, Lê Duẩn's "South first" faction triumphed, with

14396-512: Was placed in charge of supervising the ceasefire. Because issues were to be decided unanimously, Poland's presence in the ICC provided the Communists with effective veto power over supervision of the treaty. The unsigned Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference called for reunification elections, which the majority of delegates expected to be supervised by the ICC. The Việt Minh never accepted ICC authority over such elections, insisting that

14518-406: Was rejected by Soviet representative Vyacheslav Molotov , who argued for a commission composed of an equal number of communist and non-communist members, which could determine "important" issues only by unanimous agreement. The negotiators were unable to agree on a date for the elections for reunification. North Vietnam argued that the elections should be held within six months of the ceasefire while

14640-519: Was ruled that, though he would be deported from Hong Kong as an undesirable, it would not be to a destination controlled by France. Hồ was eventually released and, disguised as a Chinese scholar, boarded a ship to Shanghai. He subsequently returned to the Soviet Union and studied and taught at the Lenin Institute in Moscow. In this period Hồ reportedly lost his positions in the Comintern because of

14762-860: Was said to have burst into tears and said “a country with a citizen like this will never surrender”. In December 1920, Quốc (Hồ) became a representative to the Congress of Tours of the French Section of the Workers' International, voted for the Third International , and was a founding member of the French Communist Party. Taking a position in the Colonial Committee of the party, he tried to draw his comrades' attention towards people in French colonies including Indochina, but his efforts were often unsuccessful. While living in Paris, he reportedly had

14884-746: Was to consider the complicities and omissions of the European Union and its member states in the Palestinian-Israel conflict. The second international session of the RToP took place in London in November 2010. It examined international corporate issues in Israel and human rights law. The third international session of the RToP took place in Cape Town in November 2011. It asked the question: "Are Israeli practices against

#904095