Buddhist Uprising - Background

Background

The Buddhist activist movement in South Vietnam came about as a result of the administration of President Ngo Dinh Diem, who ruled the country from 1955 to 1963.

In a country where the Buddhist majority was estimated to be between 70 and 90 percent, Diem ruled with a strong religious bias. As a member of the Catholic Vietnamese minority, he pursued pro-Catholic policies that antagonized many Buddhists. The government as being biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions, as well as in the allocation of land, business favors and tax concessions. Many military officers converted in the belief that their military prospects depended on it. Forgetting that he was talking to a Buddhist, Diem once told a high-ranking officer, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted." In addition, the distribution of firearms to village self-defence militias intended to repel Vietcong guerrillas resulted in weapons only being given to Catholics. Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies, and in some areas, forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of Buddhist pagodas occurred. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse in order to receive aid or avoid being forcibly resettled by Diem's regime.

The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country, and the "private" status that was imposed on Buddhism by the French colonial authorities, which required official permission to conduct public Buddhist activities and restricted the construction of Buddhist temples, was not repealed by Diem. Furthermore, the land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from redistribution under land reform programs. Catholics were also de facto exempt from the corvée labor that the government obliged all citizens to perform and the government disproportionately allocated funding to Catholic majority villages. Under Diem, the Catholic Church enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition, and in 1959, he dedicated the country to the Virgin Mary. The Vatican flag was regularly flown at major public events in South Vietnam.

On May 8, 1963, Diem’s officials invoked a rarely enforced law to prohibit the display of religious flags, forbidding Buddhists from flying their flag on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. This caused Buddhist indignation, as Vatican flags had been flown a week earlier at a celebration for Diem's brother, Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc. On May 8, in Huế, a crowd of Buddhists protested against the ban on the Buddhist flag. The police and army opened fire and threw grenades at the demonstrators, leaving nine dead.

Diem's denial of responsibility for the incident—he blamed it on the communist Vietcong—led to more discontent among the Buddhist majority. The incident spurred a protest movement against the religious discrimination of Diem's Roman Catholic-dominated regime. The dispute came to be known as the Buddhist crisis, and it provoked widespread and large-scale civil disobedience. The objective of the protests was to have Decree Number 10 repealed, and to gain religious equality. However, the standoff persisted, and in August, the ARVN Special Forces of Colonel Le Quang Tung, loyal to Diem’s brother and chief adviser Ngo Dinh Nhu, raided temples across the country, killing an estimated hundreds and arresting thousands of Buddhist laypeople and monks. After this, the American government began to turn against Diem and secretly encouraged a coup. On November 1, Diem was deposed and he and Nhu were assassinated the next day.

After Diem, South Vietnam went through a period of persistent and heavy instability, as multiple coups, as well as other failed uprisings, occurred for 18 months. Apart from personal rivalries between the senior officers, the infighting was also stoked by conflict between religious pressure movements. The Buddhists lobbied for the removal of Diem’s pro-Catholic policies, as well as the those officers who had risen up the ranks quickly because they converted to Catholicism and vigorously enacted Diem’s policies. On the other hand, Catholics, whose privileges were rolled back post-Diem, accused the regime of General Nguyen Khanh of persecuting them on behalf of the Buddhists. At times, religious riots broke out during this period.

In September 1964, the Catholic Generals Lam Van Phat and Duong Van Duc tried to overthrow Khanh after he had removed them under Buddhist pressure. This failed, but in February 1965, the Phat tried again with the help of fellow Catholic, Colonel Pham Ngoc Thao, publicly invoking the memory of Diem in launching their coup. Phat’s second attempt also failed, and the pair went on the run, but the inability of Khanh to secure a decisive victory forced him into exile.

In mid-1965, Air Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky and General Nguyen Van Thieu took charge as prime minister and figurehead president, respectively, and continuity began to arise.

Because of the fractious nature of Vietnamese politics in the period after Diem’s overthrow, no officer could rule decisively without regard for the opinions of his peers without being deposed.

The generals who commanded South Vietnam’s four corps oversaw separate geographical regions, and were given wide-ranging powers. In the absence of civilian government, they were virtual warlords in their regions. The corps commanders were happy with this federated arrangement; Ky was acceptable to the US, and he would pass American military aid to them while allowing them substantial regional autonomy.

Despite, the steady control of Ky and Thieu, the religious tension remained. After one month, Thich Tri Quang began to call for the removal of Thieu because he was a member of Diem’s Catholic Can Lao Party, decrying his “fascistic tendencies”, and claiming that Can Lao members were undermining Ky.

For Thich Tri Quang, Thieu, was a symbol of the Diem era of Catholic domination, when advancement was based on religion. He had desired that General Thi, known for his pro-Buddhist position would lead the country, and denounced Thieu for his alleged past crimes against Buddhists. The Buddhist leader Thich Tri Quang said that “Thi is nominally a Buddhist, but does not really care about religion”.

The Buddhist activists wanted to end the war through a negotiated settlement with the communists and the departure of the Americans, putting them at odds with the pro-war, pro-American generals. It was clear that the Buddhists would stage some kind of protest against Ky and Thieu, and the prime minister regarded the Buddhist activists as traitors, so he welcomed confrontation as an opportunity to break their influence.