顺化化学袭击
袭击发生的御津橋(Chợ Bến Ngự
位置越南共和国 南越顺化市
日期1963年6月3日
類型催泪瓦斯的液体成分蒸发失败
受傷67

顺化化学袭击是一件发生于1963年6月3日的暴力鎮壓行動,越南共和国陆军在事件中向顺化市街上一群正在舉行活動的佛教徒倾倒催泪化学液体,导致67人皮肤起水泡和呼吸系统受损而需要送院治疗。这次示威是佛教徒危机的一部分,当时该群佛教徒正在参与一个抗议罗马天主教徒总统吴廷琰顺化佛诞枪击案中射杀佛教徒和推行宗教歧视制度的示威,目的是为了争取宗教平等。这次袭击引致美国私底下威胁要停止支持吴廷琰政权。而数月后美方减少对吴氏政权的援助,更被陆军视为对他们行动开的绿灯,最终发动了政变。

一次调查确定了袭击中使用的化学物质是法国殖民时代催泪瓦斯中没有氧化的催泪瓦斯。这排除了陆军使用毒气芥子毒气等毒性武器的嫌疑。然而由于群众们对此事的强烈抗议,使吴氏派出了一个三名内阁成员的小组去跟佛教领袖就宗教平等一事进行磋商,并和他们签署了联合公报。但因为公报所提及的政策转变并没有被实行,导致示威不断蔓延,而他最终则在政变遭到杀害

背景 编辑

在越南人口的宗教构成中,佛教徒约占人口的70%到90%[1][2][3][4][5]。 许多历史学家认为,作为一名天主教徒,吳廷琰的政策明显继续偏向在越南占人口少数的天主教徒,而歧视占人口多数的佛教徒。政府被认为在公用设施、军人晋升、土地安置、商业利益和减免税收方面都偏向天主教徒。[6]许多军官改信天主教,因为他们的前途很大程度上取决于此,如果拒绝皈依天主教,将很难得到提升。[7]吴廷琰还曾经对一位高级军官说,要他忘记自己是一名佛教徒,“将天主教徒安置在敏感的职位上,因为他们很值得信赖。”[7]此外,甚至在向保卫村庄免受越共游击队攻击的民兵分发轻武器时,只有天主教徒村庄得到了武器。[8]一些天主教神父甚至拥有自己的私人武装部队。[9]在一些地区,强迫皈依天主教、抢掠和毁坏寺庙也时有所闻。[10]一些佛教徒村庄全体改宗,以便能得到援助,或避免被吴廷琰政府强迫迁居。[11]

天主教会是越南最大的地主,天主教会拥有的土地被免于进行土地改革[12]。自法国殖民时代起,政府只认定佛教为私人团体,需要官方许可才能举行公众活动和建造寺庙,吴廷琰当政时也没有废止这项政策。[13]天主教徒们也在“事实上”被豁免了政府强迫所有公民参加的无偿劳动;天主教徒们也在“事实上”被豁免了政府强迫所有公民参加的无偿劳动;美国援助不成比例地分配给天主教徒占多数的村庄。在吴廷琰统治下,天主教会享受免除财产所得税的特权,在1959年,吴廷琰将越南奉献给圣母玛利亚。[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 The objective of the protests was to have Decree Number 10 repealed, and to force the implementation of religious equality.[20][21] At the time, the United States, the main backer of South Vietnam in the midst of the Cold War,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 编辑

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 编辑

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 编辑

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 编辑

  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 编辑

Template:Buddhist crisis