On January 27, 1973, representatives of the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam signed the Agreements on Ending the War and Restoring the Peace in Vietnam. The Agreements were based on the respect for the Vietnamese people's right to self-determination and the contribution to the consolidation of peace in Asia and the world. Article 9b of the Agreements provided self-determination for the South Vietnamese people according to which "the South Vietnamese people shall decide themselves the political future of South Vietnam through genuinely free and democratic elections under international supervision."
Article 11 of the Agreements, in particular, promised to honor the civil and political rights of the Vietnamese people, with all citizens being equal and free to enjoy authentic democratic freedom. "Immediately after the cease-fire, the two South Vietnamese parties will: -achieve national reconciliation and concord, and hatred and enmity, prohibit all acts of reprisal and discrimination against individuals or organizations that have collaborated with one side or the other; -ensure the democratic liberties of the people, political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of the meeting, freedom of organization, freedom of political parties, freedom of belief, freedom of movement, freedom of residence, right to property ownership, and right to free enterprise ..."
Article 5 stipulates that "Within sixty days of the signing of the Agreement, there will be a total withdrawal from the South Vietnam of troops, military advisors, and military personnel including technical military personnel and military personnel with associated with the pacification program, armaments, munitions, and war material of the United States and those of the other foreign countries ..." The Agreement nevertheless left the 219,000 North Vietnamese troops with all their armaments, munitions, and war material not only to stay not only in place but also in attack positions in the South Vietnam. No sooner had the cease-fire taken effect than North Vietnam expanded both political and military activities in the South Vietnam. It consistently made every effort to take it by force. More divisions from the North went south. The Paris Agreement ended the Vietnam War, but another war had already begun.
At the 21st Plenum of the Workers’ Party, the Communist leadership decided to shift the primary emphasis from political warfare to military offensive. In late October, 1974, field commanders and chief politics commissioners in the battle areas of the B Front, i.e. the South Vietnam, received the Politburo’s new directives on the strategy concepts for 1975-1976. In January 1975, Le Duan gave the Politburo’s directives for the 1975 campaign to the Military Committee of Central Highlands to further attacks towards Ban Me Thuot. The Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam did little to hold them back. Armaments were affected due to U. S. serious military aids cuts. Heavy weapons such as artillery, tanks, and jet aircraft were largely useless against the North Vietnamese troops equipped with multiple war armaments from the Soviet Union and Communist China. The American Vietnamization of the war came into play. The South Vietnamese defended the South Vietnam on their own.
By March 1975, the North Vietnamese troops launched a series of attacks throughout the Military Zone I, including Da Nang, the area between Da Nang and Hue, Hue, and Quang Tri. Within days, Quang Tri, the farthest north province of the South fell into the hands of the North Vietnamese army. Both ends, north and south, of Highway I came under heavy fire of North Vietnamese artillery By April 1, North Vietnamese troops held Military Region I, Hue and the adjoining southern provinces Quang Tin and Quang Nam. The North Vietnamese divisions in the Central Highlands met no resistance, advanced toward the coastal provinces, and took Nha Trang. With little resistance against them, they seized the entire Military Region II by mid-April. Defeat after defeat, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam lost the best troops.
General Van Tien Dung, the Commander-in-chief of North Vietnamese Troops in the South, received the Politburo’s directives to take Saigon. On April 30, the North Vietnamese troops from all directions inundated Saigon, dismantling the various units of the Armed Forces of Vietnam that defended it. The Vietnamization of the war came to an end. The red flag of North Vietnam was hoisted over the South’s presidential palace. The Republic of Vietnam administration crumbled and so did U. S. military power in the Southeast Asia. The United States of America lost the war!
Before its takeover of Saigon, the Provisional Revolutionary Government gave, in its 10-point declaration, assurances to carry out the national concord and reconciliation policy. Nevertheless, the councils for these purposes never functioned. In his speech delivered during the May 75 victory celebration in Saigon, Party Secretary-general Le Duan promised that the Party would turn the prisons into schools and fostered national reconciliation. Notwithstanding, the Military Administration Committee of Capital Zone Saigon - Gia Dinh, by its communiqué in June 1975, appealed to all superior officers from the rank of captain and above and all officials from the grade of assistant director and vice province chief or above from the former administration to turn themselves in at Gia Long High School for Girls and Taberd High School for reeducation. Officials, officers, members of the Senate and House of Representatives, politicians, and priests and monks of all Churches were to register with the Communist military authorities. Reeducation began in the awe of the South Vietnamese people.
In the months that followed the liberation when the wounds of the war were yet to heal, political hatred, economic oppression, social injustice, and corruption spread everywhere. While hundreds of thousands of high-level officials and officers of the Republic of Vietnam were sent to reeducation camps, civil servants and the military personnel of the lower ranks were to attend reeducation sessions in place at the local wards. To begin with, in the summer of 1975, the Communist government carried out a general administrative measure. This measure nevertheless evolved into a policy following the reunification of the country.
The Law on Counterrevolutionary Crimes and Punishment, promulgated in North Vietnam on November 10, 1967, came into effect in the South on July 2, 1976. Article 15 of the law, in particular, stipulates that "those who, for counterrevolutionary purposes, commit the following crimes: 1) Carrying out propaganda and agitating against the people's democratic administration and distorting socialism; 2) Propagating enemy psychological warfare themes, distorting the war of resistance against the U.S. aggressors for national salvation, independence, democracy and national reunification, and spreading baseless rumors to cause confusion among the people; 3) Propagandizing the enslavement policy and depraved culture of imperialism; and 4) Writing, printing, circulating or concealing books, periodicals, pictures, photographs or any other documents with counterrevolutionary contents and purpose... will be punished by imprisonment from 2 to 12 years (Aurora Foundation, 1989: 76). Anyone who showed negative attitude toward and non-cooperation with the new regime were likely subject to arrest and detentuon.
Intolerance against freedoms of expression and of the press was noticeable in the press policy of the Vietnamese Communist administration. Through the medium of the Front of Fatherland, it executed control on all means of public expression. Besides the daily Nhan Dan (The People), which was published in Hanoi, only the Tin Sang (Morning News) and the Saigon Giai Phong (Saigon Liberated) were circulated in Saigon. The ideological control laid hand on the printing and publication of books. The control of associations throughout the South was also of prime target. Associations could only exist under the control or supervision of the Fatherland Front. Along with the administration of the old regime, all political parties and economic, social, cultural, and religious associations in the South Vietnam were dissolved.
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