Huế Phật Đản shootings: Difference between revisions

| title = Huế Phật Đản shootings

|type location = [[MassacreHuế]], [[warSouth crimes]]Vietnam

The '''Huế Phật Đản shootings''' were the deaths of nine unarmed [[Buddhist]] civilians on 8 May 1963 in the city of [[Huế]], [[South Vietnam]], at the hands of the [[ARVN|army]] and security forces of the government of [[Ngô Đình Diệm]], a [[Roman Catholic]]. The army and police fired guns and launched grenades into a crowd of Buddhists who had been protesting against a government ban on flying the [[Buddhist flag]] on the day of [[Vesākha|Phật Đản]], which commemorates the birth of [[Gautama Buddha]]. Diệm denied governmental responsibility for the incident and blamed the [[Việt Cộng]], which added to discontent among the Buddhist majority.

Diệm denied governmental responsibility for the incident and blamed the [[Việt Cộng]], which added to discontent among the Buddhist majority. The incident spurred a protest movement by Buddhists against the religious discrimination that they felt was perpetrated by the largely Catholic Diệm regime; this, known as the '"[[Buddhist crisis]]'", which led to widespread civil disobedience among the South Vietnamese.

After six months of tension and growing opposition to the regime, leaders of the army, supported by the [[CIA]], [[1963 South Vietnamese coup|conducted a coup on 1 November 1963]];, this led toincluding the [[arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm]] the following day.

In a country where surveys of the religious composition estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,<ref>[http://www.historynet.com/wars_conflicts/vietnam_war/3033916.html The 1966 Buddhist Crisis in South Vietnam] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080304102006/http://www.historynet.com/wars_conflicts/vietnam_war/3033916.html |date=4 March 2008}} HistoryNet</ref><ref>Gettleman, pp. 275–276, 366.</ref><ref>Moyar, pp. 215–216.</ref><ref name="TIME1963">{{cite magazine|date=14 June 1963|url=http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,874816,00.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121204165344/http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,874816,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=4 December 2012|title=The Religious Crisis|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|access-date=21 August 2007|last=TIME|author-link=Time (magazine)|quote=South Viet Nam's Buddhists, who comprise 80% of the country's 15 million people, are bitter over alleged favoritism by Diệm and his Catholic ruling family toward the nation's 1,500,000 Catholics}}</ref><ref>Tucker, pp. 49, 291, 293.</ref><ref>Maclear, p. 63.</ref><ref name="PentagonPapers">{{cite web|date=10 July 1963|url=http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/doc125.htm|title=The Situation in South Vietnam – SNIE 53-2-63|work=The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 2|pages=729–733|access-date=21 August 2007|quote=President Diệm, his family, and a large proportion of the top leaders of the regime are Roman Catholics, in a population that is 70 to 80 percent Buddhist.|archive-date=9 November 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171109110224/http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/doc125.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> the policies of the staunchly Catholic Presidentpresident, [[Ngô Đình Diệm]], generated claims of religious bias. As a member of the [[Roman Catholicism in Vietnam|Catholic Vietnamese]] minority, he is widely regarded by historians as having pursued pro-Catholic policies that antagonized many Buddhists. Specifically, the government was regarded as being biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions, as well as the allocation of land, business favors and tax concessions.<ref>Tucker, p. 291.</ref>

Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting the man was a Buddhist, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted."<ref name=gett/> Many officers in the [[Army of the Republic of Vietnam]] converted to Catholicism in the belief that their military prospects depended on it.<ref name=gett>Gettleman, pp. 280–2 82.</ref> Additionally, the distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias intended to repel [[Việt Cộng]] guerrillas saw weapons only given to Catholics, with Buddhists in the army being denied promotion if they refused to convert to Catholicism.<ref name="sv">{{cite magazine|title=South Vietnam: Whose funeral pyre?|magazine=[[The New Republic]]|page=9|date=29 June 1963}}</ref> Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies,<ref>Warner, p. 210.</ref> and in some areas forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of pagodas occurred.<ref>Fall, p. 199.</ref> Some Buddhist villages converted ''en masse'' in order to receive aid or to avoid forcible resettlement by Diệm's regime.<ref>Buttinger, p. 993.</ref> The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country, and the "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French, which required official permission to conduct public Buddhist activities, was not repealed by Diệm.<ref>Karnow, p. 294.</ref> Land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform measures.<ref>Buttinger, p. 933.</ref> Catholics were also ''de facto'' exempt from the ''[[corvée]]'' labor that the government obliged all citizens to perform; U.S. aid was disproportionately distributed to Catholic majority villages. Under Diệm, the Catholic Church enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and in 1959, he dedicated the country to the [[Virgin Mary]].<ref>Jacobs, p. 91.</ref> The white and gold [[Vatican flag]] was regularly flown at major public events in South Vietnam.<ref name="crusade">{{cite magazine|title=Diệm's other crusade| date=22 June 1963|magazine=[[The New Republic]]|pages=5–6}}</ref>

[[Image:Flag of Buddhism.svg|left|thumb|The Buddhist flag.|alt=The flag consists of six vertical stripes, coloured from left to right as blue, yellow, red, white and saffron. The sixth stripe consists of five squares from top to bottom in the same colours. The flag is rectangular.]]

A rarely enforced 1958 law known as "Decree Number 10" was invoked on 7 May 1963 to prohibit the display of religious flags. This disallowed the flying of Buddhist flags on Phật Đản, the birthday of [[Gautama Buddha]]. The invoking official was the deputy province chief in charge of security, Major [[Đặng Sỹ]], a Catholic who was charged with maintaining public security and was commander of the Huế garrison. The application of the law caused indignation among Buddhists on the eve of the most important religious festival of the year, since a week earlier Catholics had been allowed to display Vatican flags to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the appointment of Diệm's brother, Thục, as Archbishop of Huế. The celebrations had been bankrolled by Diệm's regime through a national committee which asked the population to donate money to Thục's jubilee. Buddhists complained that they had been forced to give a month's wages to pay for the celebration.<ref>Hammer, pp. 103–05.</ref> However, Diệm invoked the flag decree because he was annoyed with the commemoration for Thục.<ref>{{cite book |title=Miller, p. 266.}}</ref> In spite of this, the authorities in Hue tore down thousands of Buddhist flags that had already been unfurled on homes and pagodas in preparation for Phật Đản.<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/3023496 South Vietnam's Buddhist Crisis: Organization for Charity, Dissidence, and Unity], ''Asian Survey'', Vol. 4, No. 7 (July 1964), pp. 915–928.</ref> The origin of the order to enforce the law on the Buddhists of Hue has been attributed to Thục. Despite protestations from the Saigon representative to the central provinces, the order was enacted upon consultation with Saigon. Villages in the central region had converted ''en masse'' to Catholicism, with priests allowed special access to government facilities and funds. The designation of Buddhism as an "association" prevented it from acquiring land for the construction of pagodas.<ref>Hammer, pp. 110–111.</ref><!--these last few sentences should be before the section on enforcing Decree Number 10 unless they are tied to it in some way-->≤≤

[[File:Dai2024 kiHuế niem- suTu kienDam 1963Temple tại(Chùa HueTừ 2Đàm) - img 09.jpg|thumb|A[[Từ monumentĐàm toPagoda]], the shootingssite of initial congregation]]

On Phật Đản, thousands of Buddhists defied the ban on flag-flying. More than 500 people marched across the [[Perfume River]], carrying signs and placards, congregating at the [[Từ Đàm Pagoda]] before a 3,000-strong demonstration, calling for religious equality, took place in the city centre as government security officials surrounded the area with armoured personnel carriers and civil guardsmen. The signs were in English, to convey the message to Western observers, and in Vietnamese. Despite the ban on religious flags, Vatican flags hoisted on the bridge from the Catholic celebration were never taken down.<ref>Warner, p. 226.</ref> The leading Buddhist activist monk [[Thích Trí Quang]] addressed the crowd and exhorted them to rise up against Catholic discrimination against Buddhism. He called the Buddhists to congregate outside the government radio station in the evening for a rally. Tension increased throughout the day with demonstrators chanting and displaying anti-government slogans as the crowd <!--outside the radio station? Not clear whether they have moved-->grew. They expected to hear another speech from Thích Trí Quang, but the speech was withdrawn from broadcast by the government censor. The Armedarmed Forcesforces were called in to disperse the discontented crowd. After two explosions shook the ground, the crowd thought that the troops had resorted to using bombs. Major Sỹ reportedly fired into the air, and his men responded by launching grenades into the crowd as firehoses were unleashed on the demonstrators. His troops fired directly into the crowd. Nine were killed and four severely injured. Two of the dead, both children, had been crushed underneath armored personnel carriers. Some of the nine had been mutilated and decapitated.<ref name="Jacobs, pp. 142–143">Jacobs, pp. 142–143.</ref><ref>Jones, pp. 247–250.</ref>

At 11:00&nbsp;am on 9 May, Major Sỹ announced to nearly 800 youthful pro-Buddhist demonstrators that "oppositionist agitators" had forced troops to take the severe measures to maintain order in the face of Việt Cộng agitation. The protesters showed their anger at such an improbable explanation by marching around the old citadel quarter of Huế, chanting anti-Catholic and anti-Diệm slogans. A government -organised counter-demonstration to condemn the "Việtcộng terrorist act" under the leadership of Diệm's brother, [[Ngô Đình Nhu]], attracted almost nobody. Thích Trí Quang, who had traveled throughout the country protesting against religious inequality and the flag ban, began rallying Buddhists in central Vietnam. He called on them to attend a public mass funeral for the Huế victims scheduled for 10 May. Such an emotion-charged spectacle would likely have attracted thousands of spectators and placed pressure on Diệm's regime to grant reforms, so the government announced a curfew and put all armed personnel on duty around the clock to "prevent VC infiltration". A confrontation was averted when Thích Trí Quang persuaded the protesters to lay down their flags and slogans and observe the 9:00&nbsp;pm curfew. The following day, tensions increased again as a crowd of around 6,000 Buddhists attended Tu Dam Pagoda for the funerals and a series of meetings. Major Sỹ was present with ARVN troops {{Clarify|date=January 2012}} and armed police. Slogans and speeches calling for religious equality and anti-government sentiment were prevalent. Thích Trí Quang called on Buddhists to use unarmed struggle and follow [[Gandhi]]an principles, saying "Carry no weapons; be prepared to die ... follow Gandhi's policies". After Sỹ echoed Buddhist calls for compensation and expressed sorrow for the victims, the meeting dissolved without violence.<ref>Jones, pp. 251–252.</ref>

After the fall of the Diệm regime in a [[1963 South Vietnamese coup|coup on 1 November 1963]], Đặng Sỹ faced a trial held under a government led by [[Nguyễn Khánh]]. Some of the accusations were that Sỹ's men had fired on the crowd and crushed the victims with armouredarmored cars, or that the grenades had been launched at his orders and caused the deaths. Sỹ later reportedly revealed that Archbishop Thục had personally given him the order to shoot the Buddhists but refused to testify against Thục, who was by that time living in exile in Rome. Sỹ was sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to compensate the victims' families. His lawyer contended that the court had been unable to establish the nature and source of the lethal explosions. The Defensedefense Ministerminister, General [[Trần Thiện Khiêm]], a Catholic who had helped Khánh in his [[January 1964 South Vietnamese coup|January 1964 coup]], later claimed Khánh had rigged the trial to gain Quang's support, and released Sỹ from prison; Sỹ later emigrated to the United States. In 1970, the Saigon-based Catholic newspaper ''Hòa Bình'' ran a story claiming that CIA agents had used a secret new explosive to foment trouble for Diệm's regime, whose relations with the United States were deteriorating.<ref>Hammer, pp. 114–116.</ref>

[[Category:ConflictsMassacres in 1963the Vietnam War]]

[[Category:1963Vietnam inWar crimes by South Vietnam]]

[[Category:Mass1963 murdercrimes in 1963Vietnam]]