Witnesses share stories about implementation of Paris Peace Accords

Hanoi (VNA) – Stories of some witnesses to history at Camp Davis during the implementation of the Paris Peace Accords were shared at a discussion held in Hanoi on April 25.

The event took place on the occasion of 50 years since the signing of the Paris Peace Accords (January 27, 1973) and the 48th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification Day (April 30, 1975). It was held by the National Archives Centre No 3, the liaison board of war veterans at Camp Davis, and the Friends of Vietnam Heritage.

On January 27, 1973, after nearly five years of negotiations, the Paris Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam (Paris Peace Accords) was signed.

Consisting of nine chapters with 23 articles, its main content included that the US and other countries pledge to respect the independence, united sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Vietnam. The US would completely end its invasive war, military engagement, and interference in the internal affairs of South Vietnam while respecting the right to self-determination and guaranteeing the rights to freedom and democracy of the people in South Vietnam.

However, to ensure the accords was implemented seriously and fully, Article 16 of this agreement stated that the four parties – the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, the US, and the Republic of Vietnam – would immediately send representatives to set up a four-party Joint Military Commission.

The Joint Military Commission was tasked with ensuring the parties’ coordination of actions to carry out the military-related articles in the agreement. The Vietnamese side – the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam – set up two military delegations comprising generals, officers, cadres, and outstanding soldiers of the military, public security, and diplomatic forces, along with representatives of the press and some agencies engaging in the diplomatic and military struggles for the implementation of the accords.

Camp Davis, an abandoned military camp of the US army located near Tan Son Nhat Airport to the southwest (now in ward 4 of Tan Binh district of Ho Chi Minh City), was chosen to house the headquarters of the liaison board of Camp Davis and the two military delegations of Vietnam.

To isolate the two Vietnamese delegations, the US-backed Saigon administration surrounded Camp Davis with layers of barbed wire. It also erected 13 watch towers outside, pointed guns at the camp around the clock, and conducted numerous threatening activities to cause pressure on the two delegations.

At the discussion, witnesses to history, including Col. Dao Chi Cong (an officer for external affairs at the office of the military delegation of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam) and Col. Dinh Quoc Ky (a liaison officer of the delegation), shared many stories about the two delegations’ clever and brave struggle against the Saigon administration and the US as soon as the delegations set foot at Camp Davis.

They said that the strong and clever struggle by the two Vietnamese delegations helped promote the release of military and civilian prisoners of the parties concerned who were arrested during wartime and forced the militaries of the US and its allies to completely withdraw from the South within 60 days – the most important factor that changed the correlation of forces on the battlefield in a way benefiting the Vietnamese revolution and created the decisive turning point and the main condition for the liberation of the South and the national reunification in the spring of 1975.

Also at the event, witnesses and families of the persons joining the Vietnamese delegations at Camp Davis presented many valuable keepsakes related to Camp Davis to the National Archives Centre No 3./.