"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 eighty 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 practiced
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 Bai 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.
