Huế Phật Đản shootings

• 1. Demographics And Discrimination

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  South Vietnam was often portrayed as having a Buddhist majority, comprising 70 to 90 percent of the population. Foreign journalists reported these figures, but they were overestimated because Westerners commonly mistook folk religion for Buddhism. The actual number of Buddhists was much smaller, at most about 27 percent. Ngô Đình Diệm pursued pro-Catholic policies that antagonized many Buddhists. The government was regarded as being biased towards Catholics in public service and military promotions. It also favored Catholics in the allocation of land and business favors. The distribution of firearms to village self-defense militias allegedly saw weapons only given to Catholics. Some Catholic priests ran their own private armies. Some Buddhist villages converted en masse in order to receive aid or to avoid forcible resettlement by Diệm's regime. The Catholic Church was the largest landowner in the country. Land owned by the Catholic Church was exempt from land reform measures. Under Diệm, the Catholic Church enjoyed special exemptions in property acquisition. In 1959, he dedicated the country to the Virgin Mary.

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• 2. The Flag Decree And Prelude

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  A rarely enforced 1958 law known as Decree Number 10 was invoked on the 7th of 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. He 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. 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. Despite this, the authorities in Huế tore down thousands of Buddhist flags that had already been unfurled on homes and pagodas in preparation for Phật Đản. The origin of the order to enforce the law on the Buddhists of Huế has been attributed to Thục.

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• 3. The May Eight Shootings

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  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. They congregated at the Từ Đàm Pagoda before a 3,000-strong demonstration took place in the city centre. 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. 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. 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.

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• 4. Government Denial And Blame

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  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. 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 trying to take over the radio station, the government for deploying the army, which later opened fire, and agitators for throwing the explosives.

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• 5. The Buddhist Crisis Escalates

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  At 11:00 am on the 9th of May, Major Sỹ announced to nearly 800 youthful pro-Buddhist demonstrators that oppositionist agitators had forced troops to take severe measures. 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 Việt Cộng terrorist act under the leadership of Diệm's brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, attracted almost nobody. Thích Trí Quang began rallying Buddhists in central Vietnam. He called on them to attend a public mass funeral for the Huế victims scheduled for the 10th of May. Such an emotion-charged spectacle would likely have attracted thousands of spectators and placed pressure on Diệm's regime to grant reforms. 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 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 and armed police. Slogans and speeches calling for religious equality and anti-government sentiment were prevalent.

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• 6. Diplomatic Failure And Coup

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  On the 10th of 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. On the 13th of May, a committee of Buddhist monks formalized their request to Diệm for the five demands. On the 15th of 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. 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. Ambassador Nolting managed to extract theoretical concessions from Diệm on the 18th of 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. After six months of tension and growing opposition to the regime, leaders of the army, supported by the CIA, conducted a coup on the 1st of November 1963, including the arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem the following day.

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