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Huế Phật Đản shootings

May 08, 2023

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 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 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.

Memorial to the Buddhists killed in the demonstrations during the Phat Dan of 1963 in Hue, Vietnam

The incident spurred a protest movement by Buddhists against the religious discrimination that they felt was perpetrated by the Diệm regime; this, known as the 'Buddhist crisis', led to widespread civil disobedience among the South Vietnamese. After six months of tension and growing opposition to the regime, leaders of the army conducted a coup on 1 November 1963; this led to the arrest and assassination of Ngô Đình Diệm the following day.

Prelude

In a country where surveys of the religious composition estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent,[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] the policies of the staunchly Catholic President Ngô Đình Diệm generated claims of religious bias. As a member of the 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.[8]

Diệm once told a high-ranking officer, forgetting the man was of Buddhist extraction, "Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places. They can be trusted."[9] Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Catholicism in the belief that their military prospects depended on it.[9] 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.[10] Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies,[11] and in some areas forced conversions, looting, shelling and demolition of pagodas occurred.[12] Some Buddhist villages converted en masse in order to receive aid or to avoid forcible resettlement by Diệm's regime.[13] 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.[14] Land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform measures.[15] 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.[16] The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at major public events in South Vietnam.[17]

 
The Buddhist flag.

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.[18] However, Diệm invoked the flag decree because he was annoyed with the commemoration for Thục.[19] 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.[20] 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.[21]

Protest and shootings

 
A monument to the shootings

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.[22] 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 grew. They expected to hear another speech from Thích Trí Quang, but the speech was withdrawn from broadcast by the government censor. The Armed Forces 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.[23][24]

Government reaction

 
Ngô Đình Diệm

Diệm and his government alleged that a Việt Cộng guerrilla had caused the incident by setting off the initial explosion, sparking a stampede. He initially refused to take any disciplinary action against the local authorities, claiming that they had acted properly. The government claimed that only percussion grenades had been used, not lethal fragmentation grenades. The force of the explosion cast doubt on whether the Việt Cộng would have had access to sufficiently powerful explosives. Another theory at the time was that a CIA agent had caused the blasts with the aim of fomenting sectarian tension and destabilising the Diệm regime. Eyewitness testimony of government troops firing on the crowd disputed the official version of events. A local doctor concluded that there was no evidence of the fatal injuries being inflicted by plastic explosives; he was subsequently jailed.[25] Diệm refused to be swayed from his account of the incident, and ordered the bodies of the victims to be buried without autopsy. Thích Trí Quang spent the night riding through the streets of Huế with a loudspeaker, accusing the government of firing on the demonstrators. U.S. Ambassador Frederick Nolting, known for his policy of appeasement of Diệm, attempted to spread the responsibility. He claimed all parties were responsible, the demonstrators for (as he alleged) trying to take over the radio station, the government for deploying the army, which later opened fire, and "agitators" for throwing the explosives. When the government later ignored his version and refused to assign responsibility, Nolting called its actions "objective, accurate and fair".[23][26]

Buddhist reaction and protests

At 11 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 them to attend a public mass funeral for the Huế victims scheduled for 10 May. Such an emotion-charged spectacle would 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 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[clarification needed] 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 Gandhian 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.[27]

Buddhist demands for equality

See also: Buddhist crisis

On 10 May, Thích Trí Quang proclaimed a five-point "manifesto of the monks" that demanded freedom to fly the Buddhist flag, religious equality between Buddhists and Catholics, compensation for the victims' families, an end to arbitrary arrests, and punishment for the officials responsible.[28]

On 13 May, a committee of Buddhist monks formalized their request to Diệm for the five demands. Although the signatories had couched the declaration as "requests", they had expectations that these would be met. On 15 May, a delegation of six monks and two laymen met Diệm to present the document. After the meeting, the monks held a press conference at the Xá Lợi Pagoda. It was to be the first of many in which they attempted to publicise their cause to the foreign press corps.[29] Diệm agreed to meet with a Buddhist delegation, but increased tension further by demeaning them. Initially, Diệm refused to pay compensation, believing it was a sign of weakness. He claimed there was no discrimination in South Vietnam and that all religions had been treated equally with respect to the flag issue. In regard to the classification of Buddhism as an "association" under Decree 10, Diệm claimed it was an "administrative oversight" that would be fixed (although no action was taken on the matter during his final six months of office); Diệm labeled the Buddhists "damn fools" for demanding something that according to him, they already enjoyed. The government press release detailing the meeting also used the expression "damn fools".[28][30]

As the demonstrations continued, Ambassador Nolting managed to extract theoretical concessions from Diệm on 18 May. Diệm agreed a modest compensation package of US$7000 for the families of the victims as a conciliatory gesture. Diệm also agreed to dismiss those responsible for the shootings. However, the publicly stated reason for this action was that the officials had failed to maintain order, rather than that they had been responsible for the deaths of the protesters. Despite these concessions, Diệm maintained that his government was not responsible for the deaths, resolutely continuing to blame the Việt Cộng. It was enough to satisfy Nolting, who immediately departed for his vacation. His absence allowed the remaining American diplomatic staff led by William Trueheart, Nolting's deputy, to end Nolting's policy of appeasing Diệm.[31]

Trial

After the fall of the Diệm regime in a 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 armoured 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 Defense Minister, General Trần Thiện Khiêm, a Catholic who had helped Khánh in his 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.[32]

Notes

  1. ^ The 1966 Buddhist Crisis in South Vietnam 4 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine HistoryNet
  2. ^ Gettleman, pp. 275–276, 366.
  3. ^ Moyar, pp. 215–216.
  4. ^ TIME (14 June 1963). "The Religious Crisis". Time. Archived from the original on 4 December 2012. Retrieved 21 August 2007. 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
  5. ^ Tucker, pp. 49, 291, 293.
  6. ^ Maclear, p. 63.
  7. ^ . The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 2. 10 July 1963. pp. 729–733. Archived from the original on 9 November 2017. Retrieved 21 August 2007. 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.
  8. ^ Tucker, p. 291.
  9. ^ a b Gettleman, pp. 280–2 82.
  10. ^ "South Vietnam: Whose funeral pyre?". The New Republic. 29 June 1963. p. 9.
  11. ^ Warner, p. 210.
  12. ^ Fall, p. 199.
  13. ^ Buttinger, p. 993.
  14. ^ Karnow, p. 294.
  15. ^ Buttinger, p. 933.
  16. ^ Jacobs, p. 91.
  17. ^ "Diệm's other crusade". The New Republic. 22 June 1963. pp. 5–6.
  18. ^ Hammer, pp. 103–05.
  19. ^ Miller, p. 266.
  20. ^ South Vietnam's Buddhist Crisis: Organization for Charity, Dissidence, and Unity, Asian Survey, Vol. 4, No. 7 (July 1964), pp. 915–928.
  21. ^ Hammer, pp. 110–111.
  22. ^ Warner, p. 226.
  23. ^ a b Jacobs, pp. 142–143.
  24. ^ Jones, pp. 247–250.
  25. ^ Hammer, pp. 134–135.
  26. ^ Jones, pp. 250–251.
  27. ^ Jones, pp. 251–252.
  28. ^ a b Jacobs, p. 143.
  29. ^ Hammer, p. 117.
  30. ^ Jones, pp. 252–253.
  31. ^ Jacobs, pp. 144–145.
  32. ^ Hammer, pp. 114–116.

References

  • Buttinger, Joseph (1967). Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled. New York: Praeger Publishers.
  • Gettleman, Marvin E., ed. (1966). Vietnam: History, documents and opinions on a major world crisis. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.
  • Hammer, Ellen J. (1987). A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963. New York: E. P. Dutton. ISBN 0-525-24210-4.
  • Jacobs, Seth (2006). Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950–1963. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-4447-8.
  • Jones, Howard (2003). Death of a Generation: how the assassinations of Diem and JFK prolonged the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505286-2.
  • Karnow, Stanley (1997). Vietnam: A history. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-84218-4.
  • Miller, Edward (2013). Misalliance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and the Fate of South Vietnam. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-07298-5.
  • Tucker, Spencer C. (2000). Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 288–289. ISBN 1-57607-040-9.
  • Warner, Denis (1963). The last Confucian: Vietnam, South-East Asia, and the West. Macmillan.

Coordinates: 16°28′02″N 107°35′25″E / 16.46722°N 107.59028°E / 16.46722; 107.59028

May 08, 2023
huế, phật, Đản, shootings, were, deaths, nine, unarmed, buddhist, civilians, 1963, city, huế, south, vietnam, hands, army, security, forces, government, ngô, Đình, diệm, roman, catholic, army, police, fired, guns, launched, grenades, into, crowd, buddhists, be. 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 army and security forces of the government of Ngo Đinh 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 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 Memorial to the Buddhists killed in the demonstrations during the Phat Dan of 1963 in Hue Vietnam The incident spurred a protest movement by Buddhists against the religious discrimination that they felt was perpetrated by the Diệm regime this known as the Buddhist crisis led to widespread civil disobedience among the South Vietnamese After six months of tension and growing opposition to the regime leaders of the army conducted a coup on 1 November 1963 this led to the arrest and assassination of Ngo Đinh Diệm the following day Contents 1 Prelude 2 Protest and shootings 3 Government reaction 4 Buddhist reaction and protests 5 Buddhist demands for equality 6 Trial 7 Notes 8 ReferencesPrelude EditIn a country where surveys of the religious composition estimated the Buddhist majority to be between 70 and 90 percent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 the policies of the staunchly Catholic President Ngo Đinh Diệm generated claims of religious bias As a member of the 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 8 Diệm once told a high ranking officer forgetting the man was of Buddhist extraction Put your Catholic officers in sensitive places They can be trusted 9 Many officers in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam converted to Catholicism in the belief that their military prospects depended on it 9 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 10 Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies 11 and in some areas forced conversions looting shelling and demolition of pagodas occurred 12 Some Buddhist villages converted en masse in order to receive aid or to avoid forcible resettlement by Diệm s regime 13 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 14 Land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform measures 15 Catholics were also de facto exempt from the corvee 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 16 The white and gold Vatican flag was regularly flown at major public events in South Vietnam 17 The Buddhist flag 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 18 However Diệm invoked the flag decree because he was annoyed with the commemoration for Thục 19 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 20 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 21 Protest and shootings Edit A monument to the shootings 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 Đam 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 22 The leading Buddhist activist monk Thich Tri 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 grew They expected to hear another speech from Thich Tri Quang but the speech was withdrawn from broadcast by the government censor The Armed Forces 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 23 24 Government reaction Edit Ngo Đinh Diệm Diệm and his government alleged that a Việt Cộng guerrilla had caused the incident by setting off the initial explosion sparking a stampede He initially refused to take any disciplinary action against the local authorities claiming that they had acted properly The government claimed that only percussion grenades had been used not lethal fragmentation grenades The force of the explosion cast doubt on whether the Việt Cộng would have had access to sufficiently powerful explosives Another theory at the time was that a CIA agent had caused the blasts with the aim of fomenting sectarian tension and destabilising the Diệm regime Eyewitness testimony of government troops firing on the crowd disputed the official version of events A local doctor concluded that there was no evidence of the fatal injuries being inflicted by plastic explosives he was subsequently jailed 25 Diệm refused to be swayed from his account of the incident and ordered the bodies of the victims to be buried without autopsy Thich Tri Quang spent the night riding through the streets of Huế with a loudspeaker accusing the government of firing on the demonstrators U S Ambassador Frederick Nolting known for his policy of appeasement of Diệm attempted to spread the responsibility He claimed all parties were responsible the demonstrators for as he alleged trying to take over the radio station the government for deploying the army which later opened fire and agitators for throwing the explosives When the government later ignored his version and refused to assign responsibility Nolting called its actions objective accurate and fair 23 26 Buddhist reaction and protests EditAt 11 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 Ngo Đinh Nhu attracted almost nobody Thich Tri Quang who had traveled throughout the country protesting against religious inequality and the flag ban began rallying Buddhists in central Vietnam He called them to attend a public mass funeral for the Huế victims scheduled for 10 May Such an emotion charged spectacle would 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 Thich Tri Quang persuaded the protesters to lay down their flags and slogans and observe the 9 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 clarification needed and armed police Slogans and speeches calling for religious equality and anti government sentiment were prevalent Thich Tri Quang called on Buddhists to use unarmed struggle and follow Gandhian 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 27 Buddhist demands for equality EditSee also Buddhist crisis On 10 May Thich Tri Quang proclaimed a five point manifesto of the monks that demanded freedom to fly the Buddhist flag religious equality between Buddhists and Catholics compensation for the victims families an end to arbitrary arrests and punishment for the officials responsible 28 On 13 May a committee of Buddhist monks formalized their request to Diệm for the five demands Although the signatories had couched the declaration as requests they had expectations that these would be met On 15 May a delegation of six monks and two laymen met Diệm to present the document After the meeting the monks held a press conference at the Xa Lợi Pagoda It was to be the first of many in which they attempted to publicise their cause to the foreign press corps 29 Diệm agreed to meet with a Buddhist delegation but increased tension further by demeaning them Initially Diệm refused to pay compensation believing it was a sign of weakness He claimed there was no discrimination in South Vietnam and that all religions had been treated equally with respect to the flag issue In regard to the classification of Buddhism as an association under Decree 10 Diệm claimed it was an administrative oversight that would be fixed although no action was taken on the matter during his final six months of office Diệm labeled the Buddhists damn fools for demanding something that according to him they already enjoyed The government press release detailing the meeting also used the expression damn fools 28 30 As the demonstrations continued Ambassador Nolting managed to extract theoretical concessions from Diệm on 18 May Diệm agreed a modest compensation package of US 7000 for the families of the victims as a conciliatory gesture Diệm also agreed to dismiss those responsible for the shootings However the publicly stated reason for this action was that the officials had failed to maintain order rather than that they had been responsible for the deaths of the protesters Despite these concessions Diệm maintained that his government was not responsible for the deaths resolutely continuing to blame the Việt Cộng It was enough to satisfy Nolting who immediately departed for his vacation His absence allowed the remaining American diplomatic staff led by William Trueheart Nolting s deputy to end Nolting s policy of appeasing Diệm 31 Trial EditAfter the fall of the Diệm regime in a coup on 1 November 1963 Đặng Sỹ faced a trial held under a government led by Nguyễn Khanh Some of the accusations were that Sỹ s men had fired on the crowd and crushed the victims with armoured 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 Defense Minister General Trần Thiện Khiem a Catholic who had helped Khanh in his January 1964 coup later claimed Khanh 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 Hoa Binh 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 32 Notes Edit The 1966 Buddhist Crisis in South Vietnam Archived 4 March 2008 at the Wayback Machine HistoryNet Gettleman pp 275 276 366 Moyar pp 215 216 TIME 14 June 1963 The Religious Crisis Time Archived from the original on 4 December 2012 Retrieved 21 August 2007 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 Tucker pp 49 291 293 Maclear p 63 The Situation in South Vietnam SNIE 53 2 63 The Pentagon Papers Gravel Edition Volume 2 10 July 1963 pp 729 733 Archived from the original on 9 November 2017 Retrieved 21 August 2007 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 Tucker p 291 a b Gettleman pp 280 2 82 South Vietnam Whose funeral pyre The New Republic 29 June 1963 p 9 Warner p 210 Fall p 199 Buttinger p 993 Karnow p 294 Buttinger p 933 Jacobs p 91 Diệm s other crusade The New Republic 22 June 1963 pp 5 6 Hammer pp 103 05 Miller p 266 South Vietnam s Buddhist Crisis Organization for Charity Dissidence and Unity Asian Survey Vol 4 No 7 July 1964 pp 915 928 Hammer pp 110 111 Warner p 226 a b Jacobs pp 142 143 Jones pp 247 250 Hammer pp 134 135 Jones pp 250 251 Jones pp 251 252 a b Jacobs p 143 Hammer p 117 Jones pp 252 253 Jacobs pp 144 145 Hammer pp 114 116 References Edit Vietnam portal Religion portal 1960s portalButtinger Joseph 1967 Vietnam A Dragon Embattled New York Praeger Publishers Gettleman Marvin E ed 1966 Vietnam History documents and opinions on a major world crisis Harmondsworth UK Penguin Books Hammer Ellen J 1987 A Death in November America in Vietnam 1963 New York E P Dutton ISBN 0 525 24210 4 Jacobs Seth 2006 Cold War Mandarin Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America s War in Vietnam 1950 1963 Lanham MD Rowman amp Littlefield ISBN 0 7425 4447 8 Jones Howard 2003 Death of a Generation how the assassinations of Diem and JFK prolonged the Vietnam War New York Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 505286 2 Karnow Stanley 1997 Vietnam A history New York Penguin Books ISBN 0 670 84218 4 Miller Edward 2013 Misalliance Ngo Dinh Diem the United States and the Fate of South Vietnam Boston MA Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 07298 5 Tucker Spencer C 2000 Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War Santa Barbara CA ABC CLIO pp 288 289 ISBN 1 57607 040 9 Warner Denis 1963 The last Confucian Vietnam South East Asia and the West Macmillan Coordinates 16 28 02 N 107 35 25 E 16 46722 N 107 59028 E 16 46722 107 59028 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Huế Phật Đản shootings amp oldid 1153745165, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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