使用者:圍棋一級/沙盒

順化化學襲擊
襲擊發生的御津橋(Chợ Bến Ngự
位置越南共和國 南越順化市
日期1963年6月3日
類型催淚瓦斯的液體成分蒸發失敗
受傷67

順化化學襲擊是一件發生於1963年6月3日的暴力鎮壓行動,越南共和國陸軍在事件中向順化市街上一群正在舉行活動的佛教徒傾倒催淚化學液體,導致67人皮膚起水泡和呼吸系統受損而需要送院治療。這次示威是佛教徒危機的一部分,當時該群佛教徒正在參與一個抗議羅馬天主教徒總統吳廷琰順化佛誕槍擊案中射殺佛教徒和推行宗教歧視制度的示威,目的是為了爭取宗教平等。這次襲擊引致美國私底下威脅要停止支持吳廷琰政權。而數月後美方減少對吳氏政權的援助,更被陸軍視為對他們行動開的綠燈,最終發動了政變。

一次調查確定了襲擊中使用的化學物質是法國殖民時代催淚瓦斯中沒有氧化的催淚瓦斯。這排除了陸軍使用毒氣芥子毒氣等毒性武器的嫌疑。然而由於群眾們對此事的強烈抗議,使吳氏派出了一個三名內閣成員的小組去跟佛教領袖就宗教平等一事進行磋商,並和他們簽署了聯合公報。但因為公報所提及的政策轉變並沒有被實行,導致示威不斷蔓延,而他最終則在政變遭到殺害

背景 編輯

在越南人口的宗教構成中,佛教徒約占人口的70%到90%[1][2][3][4][5]。 許多歷史學家認為,作為一名天主教徒,吳廷琰的政策明顯繼續偏向在越南占人口少數的天主教徒,而歧視占人口多數的佛教徒。政府被認為在公用設施、軍人晉升、土地安置、商業利益和減免稅收方面都偏向天主教徒。[6]許多軍官改信天主教,因為他們的前途很大程度上取決於此,如果拒絕皈依天主教,將很難得到提升。[7]吳廷琰還曾經對一位高級軍官說,要他忘記自己是一名佛教徒,「將天主教徒安置在敏感的職位上,因為他們很值得信賴。」[7]此外,甚至在向保衛村莊免受越共游擊隊攻擊的民兵分發輕武器時,只有天主教徒村莊得到了武器。[8]一些天主教神父甚至擁有自己的私人武裝部隊。[9]在一些地區,強迫皈依天主教、搶掠和毀壞寺廟也時有所聞。[10]一些佛教徒村莊全體改宗,以便能得到援助,或避免被吳廷琰政府強迫遷居。[11]

天主教會是越南最大的地主,天主教會擁有的土地被免於進行土地改革[12]。自法國殖民時代起,政府只認定佛教為私人團體,需要官方許可才能舉行公眾活動和建造寺廟,吳廷琰當政時也沒有廢止這項政策。[13]天主教徒們也在「事實上」被豁免了政府強迫所有公民參加的無償勞動;天主教徒們也在「事實上」被豁免了政府強迫所有公民參加的無償勞動;美國援助不成比例地分配給天主教徒占多數的村莊。在吳廷琰統治下,天主教會享受免除財產所得稅的特權,在1959年,吳廷琰將越南奉獻給聖母瑪利亞。[14] The Vatican flag was regularly flown at major public events in South Vietnam.[15]

 
佛教旗

On May 7, 1963, government officials invoked a rarely enforced 1958 law known as Decree Number 10 to prohibit the display of religious flags, forbidding Buddhists from flying their flag on Vesak, the birthday of Gautama Buddha. The application of the law caused indignation among Buddhists in the lead-up to the most important religious festival of the year, as Catholics had been allowed to display Vatican flags a week earlier at a celebration for Diem's brother, Archbishop Ngo Dinh Thuc.[16][17] On May 8, 1963, in Huế, a crowd of Buddhists protested against the ban on the Buddhist flag. The police and army broke up by opening fire and throwing grenades at the demonstrators, leaving nine dead.[18][19]

Diem's denial of governmental responsibility for the incident, and instead blaming members of the Vietcong insurgency, led to growing discontent among the Buddhist majority. The incident spurred a protest movement by Buddhists against the religious discrimination of Diem's Roman Catholic-dominated regime. The dispute came to be known as the Buddhist crisis, and it provoked widespread and large-scale civil disobedience throughout South Vietnam, persisting throughout May. The objective of the protests was to have Decree Number 10 repealed, and to force the implementation of religious equality.[20][21] At the time, the United States, the main backer of South Vietnam in the midst of the Cold War, had 16,000 military advisors in the country to assist the Army of the Republic of Vietnam in the war against the Vietcong insurgency, who sought to reunify Vietnam under communist rule. Washington wanted the dispute to be resolved quickly so that it would not dampen public morale and detract from the fight against the Vietcong.[22][23]

Incident 編輯

On June 3, Buddhists held another series of protests across the country. In the morning, attention focused on the capital Saigon, where approximately 500 Buddhist laypeople, mostly youths, protested in front of the Government Delegate's office while 300 troops stood by. The crowd and a government official equipped with a loudspeaker exchanged taunts and accusations. When the official claimed that Vietcong were among the crowd and attempting to cause trouble, the troops aimed their firearms at the protestors.[24] When the crowd responded by taunting the soldiers as "stupid killers",[24] the troops fixed bayonets to their guns and put on gas masks before charging at the protestors and throwing tear gas grenades at them. Some of the demonstrators ran away, while others remained stationary and began praying. Deaths and injuries were averted when a Buddhist leader urged the protestors to either retreat to a pagoda and receive medical treatment for the tear gas or to go home. When the entrance to the pagoda was blocked with barbed wire, some protestors simply sat on the ground and continued praying. After a standoff lasting almost three hours, troops wearing gas masks forcibly dispersed the crowd.[24]

The situation was worse in Huế, where Diem had banned demonstrations and ordered his forces to arrest those who engaged in civil disobedience.[25][26] At 1 pm, some 1,500 protestors attempted to march towards Tu Dam Pagoda in Huế for a rally,[25] having gathered at Ben Ngu bridge near the Perfume River.[26] A confrontation ensued when the protestors attempted to cross the bridge. Six waves of ARVN tear gas and attack dogs failed to disperse the crowd.[25][26][27] Government officials stood on trucks, using loudspeakers to call out above the noise, urging the Buddhists—primarily high school and university students who had arrived on bicycles—to disperse. The announcements were met by jeers when the government spokesperson blamed the unrest on the Vietcong.[24] At 6:30 pm, the military personnel at the scene dispersed the crowd by emptying vials of brownish-red liquid on the heads of praying protestors, resulting in 67 Buddhists being hospitalised for chemical injuries.[24][27] The symptoms consisted of severe blistering of the skin and respiratory ailments. The crowd responded angrily to what they suspected was the use of poison gas, and the incident became a public relations disaster for Diem.[24][25]

Reaction and investigation 編輯

By midnight, tensions were high as a curfew and martial law were enacted.[24] Rumours circulated that three people had died, and Newsweek reported that police had lobbed blister gas into the crowd. Reports citing reliable sources claimed that Diem was planning a military showdown against the Buddhists.[24][25] US consul John Helble suspected that the ARVN troops had used tear gas,[26] and in a report to the American embassy in Saigon, he noted that "possibly another type of gas which caused skin blisters" was used.[24] Helble reported that the substance, although unidentified, had raised concerns by the US State Department that poison gas was used because the symptoms were not consistent with standard tear gas.[24] If this were the case, Helble concluded that the United States should tell Diem that his regime must condemn the actions of the troops and punish the culprits.[24] If Diem did not, the United States should threaten to publicly condemn and distance itself from Saigon.[24] With the US also decrying the use of troops against civilian protests, the South Vietnamese government complained that unlike their Saigon counterparts, the Huế police were not trained in riot control. Diem's authorities requested that the Americans airlift 350 military personnel from Vung Tau in the far south to quell the protests in Huế, but the Americans refused.[25]

William Trueheart, who was in charge of the US embassy in Saigon while Ambassador Frederick Nolting was on holiday, confronted Secretary of State Nguyen Dinh Thuan about the allegations of blister gas usage the next day. Thuan appeared to be astounded and asked Trueheart what blister gas was. Trueheart explained that the symptoms of the victims were consistent with those of mustard gas and passed on the US threat to denounce the regime for the chemical attacks.[25][26] As a result, Thuan started an inquiry into the usage of chemical weapons on the protestors. The investigation went on to exonerate the Diem regime of the most serious allegations of using poison or mustard gas. Before the president was deposed in November, the inquiry's report declared that only tear gas was used, and that the liquified components of the grenades were poured onto the protestors after they had failed to vapourise as they were designed to. A further commission chaired by General Tran Van Don prior to February 1964 concluded that the tear gas was left behind by French colonial forces in the 1950s.[25]

The tear gas used came in glass containers in the form of a liquid that was transformed into gaseous vapour upon activation by acid. The injuries were attributed to the acid failing to activate the liquid into gaseous form. US Army chemists in Maryland confirmed that the tear gas had come from canisters dating back to French World War I stocks.[25] During World War I, France had used tear gas containing a mixture of chloroacetone and ethyl bromoacetate against German troops at Ypres on the Western Front,[28] which was known to strongly irritate mucous membranes.[29] Chloroacetone turns brown-orange when exposed to light,[30][31] while ethyl bromoacetate is a yellow liquid at tropical outdoor temperatures.[32] Both have similar colours to the liquid used on the demonstrators.[33] Some varieties of French tear gas also contained phosgene oxime[34] or hydrogen cyanide.[35] These two chemicals can be fatal, but none of the protestors in this incident died.[27]

Repercussions 編輯

Diem responded to the controversy of the chemicals by agreeing to have formal talks with the Buddhist leaders. He appointed a three-member Interministerial Committee, which comprised Vice President Nguyen Ngoc Tho as chairman, Thuan and Interior Minister Bui Van Luong.[25][26] Despite continuing protests, including public self-immolations by monks such as Thich Quang Duc, a Joint Communique resulting from the discussions was signed in mid-June, which promised to end the Buddhist crisis. However, the Joint Communique was not implemented and the situation continued to deteriorate, particularly after the Ngo family ordered South Vietnam's Special Forces to attack Buddhist pagodas across the country on August 21. The US condemned the raids, and began to cut aid to the Special Forces, which was effectively a private Ngo family army, in addition to other government programs that were closely identified with the ruling clan. Regarding such gestures as a green light, and safe in the knowledge that the US would not intervene in Diem's defence, the army staged a successful coup in November, resulting in the assassination of the president. The removal of Diem resulted in a period of political instability, as a series of military juntas deposed one another. This led to a deterioration in the military situation as the communist Vietcong made substantial gains against the ARVN, prompting the US to deploy hundreds of thousands of combat troops in 1965, escalating the Vietnam War.[36]

Notes 編輯

  1. ^ Moyar, pp. 215–216.
  2. ^ The Religious Crisis. TIME. 1963-06-14 [2007-08-21]. 
  3. ^ Tucker, pp. 49, 291, 293.
  4. ^ Maclear, p. 63.
  5. ^ The Situation In South Vietnam - SNIE 53-2-63. The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 2: 729–733. 1963-07-10 [2007-08-21]. 
  6. ^ Tucker, p. 291.
  7. ^ 7.0 7.1 Gettleman, pp. 280–282.
  8. ^ South Vietnam: Whose funeral pyre?. The New Republic. 1963-06-29: 9. 
  9. ^ Warner, p. 210.
  10. ^ Fall, p. 199.
  11. ^ Buttinger, p. 993.
  12. ^ Karnow, p. 294.
  13. ^ Buttinger p. 933.
  14. ^ Jacobs, p. 91.
  15. ^ Diệm's other crusade. The New Republic. 1963-06-22: 5–6. 
  16. ^ Hammer, pp. 103–105.
  17. ^ Jacobs, p. 142.
  18. ^ Jacobs, p. 143.
  19. ^ Hammer, pp. 113–114.
  20. ^ Jacobs, pp. 144–147.
  21. ^ Jones, pp. 252–260.
  22. ^ Jacobs, pp. 100–102.
  23. ^ Karnow, pp. 305–312, 423.
  24. ^ 24.00 24.01 24.02 24.03 24.04 24.05 24.06 24.07 24.08 24.09 24.10 24.11 Jones, pp. 261–262.
  25. ^ 25.00 25.01 25.02 25.03 25.04 25.05 25.06 25.07 25.08 25.09 Jones, pp. 263–264.
  26. ^ 26.0 26.1 26.2 26.3 26.4 26.5 Hammer, p. 136.
  27. ^ 27.0 27.1 27.2 Jacobs, p. 145.
  28. ^ Verwey, pp. 33–34.
  29. ^ Verwey, p. 165.
  30. ^ Chloroacetone. International Programme on Chemical Safety. [2008-06-06]. 
  31. ^ Occupational Safety and Health Guideline for Chloroacetone. U.S. Department of Labor - Occupational Safety & Health Administration. [2008-06-06]. 
  32. ^ Ethyl 2-bromoacetate. Chemical Land. [2009-03-29]. 
  33. ^ Natelson, S.; Gottfried, S. (1955). "Ethyl Bromoacetate". Org. Synth.; Coll. Vol. 3: 381. 
  34. ^ Verwey, p. 35. In chemical warfare terminology, phosgene is often used when phosgene oxime (a choking agent) is meant.
  35. ^ Price, pp. 54–56.
  36. ^ Jacobs, pp. 150–170.

References 編輯

Template:Buddhist crisis