"All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit
of Happiness"
This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America
in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal
from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.
The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man
and the Citizen also states: "All men are born free and with equal rights,
and must always remain free and have equal rights." Those are undeniable
truths.
Nevertheless, for more than eight years, the French imperialists, abusing
the standard of Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity, have violated our Fatherland and oppressed our
fellow-citizens. They have acted contrary to the ideals of humanity and
justice. In the field of politics, they have deprived our people of every
democratic liberty.
They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political
regimes in the North, the Center and the South of Vietnam in order to wreck our
national unity and prevent our people from being united.
They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly slain our
patriots - they have drowned our uprisings in rivers of blood. They have
fettered public opinion; they have practised
obscurantism against our people. To weaken our race, they have forced us to use
opium and alcohol.
In the fields of economics, they have fleeced us to the backbone,
impoverished our people, and devastated our land.
They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw
materials. They have monopolised the issuing of
bank-notes and the export trade.
They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people,
especially our peasantry, to a state of extreme poverty.
They have hampered the prospering of our national bourgeoisie; they have
mercilessly exploited our workers.
In the autumn of 1940, when the Japanese Fascists violated Indochina's
territory to establish new bases in their fight against the Allies, the French
imperialists went down on their bended knees and handed over our country to
them.
Thus, from that date, our people were subjected to the double yoke of the
French and the Japanese. Their sufferings and miseries increased. The result
was that from the end of last year to the beginning of this year, from Quang Tri province to the North of Vietnam, more than two
million of our fellow-citizens died from starvation. On March 9, the French
troops were disarmed by the Japanese. The French colonialists either fled or
surrendered, showing that not only were they incapable of
"protecting" us, but that, in the span of five years, they had twice
sold our country to the Japanese.
On several occasions before March 9, the Vietminh League urged the French to
ally themselves with it against the Japanese. Instead of agreeing to this
proposal, the French colonialists so intensified their terrorist activities
against the Vietminh members that before fleeing they massacred a great number
of our political prisoners detained at Yen Bay
and Cao Bang.
Not withstanding all this, our fellow-citizens have always manifested toward
the French a tolerant and humane attitude. Even after the Japanese putsch of
March 1945, the Vietminh League helped many Frenchmen to cross the frontier,
rescued some of them from Japanese jails, and protected French lives and
property.
From the autumn of 1940, our country had in fact ceased to be a French
colony and had become a Japanese possession.
After the Japanese had surrendered to the Allies, our whole people rose to
regain our national sovereignty and to found the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam.
The truth is that we have wrested our independence from the Japanese and not
from the French
The French have fled, the Japanese have capitulated, Emperor
Bao Dai has abdicated. Our people have broken the
chains which for nearly a century have fettered them and have won independence
for the Fatherland. Our people at the same time have overthrown the monarchic
regime that has reigned supreme for dozens of centuries. In its place has been
established the present Democratic Republic.
For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government, representing
the whole Vietnamese people, declare that from now on we break off all
relations of a colonial character with France; we repeal all the international
obligation that France has so far subscribed to on behalf of Vietnam and we
abolish all the special rights the French have unlawfully acquired in our
Fatherland.
The whole Vietnamese people, animated by a common purpose, are determined to
fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer their country.
We are convinced that the Allied nations which at Tehran
and San Francisco have acknowledged the
principles of self-determination and equality of nations,
will not refuse to acknowledge the independence of Vietnam.
A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than
eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the
Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.
For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam, solemnly declare to the world that Vietnam has the
right to be a free and independent country and in fact it is so already. The
entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and
mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard
their independence and liberty.
Source: Ho Chi Minh,
Selected Works (Hanoi, 1960-1962), Vol. 3, pp. 17-21.