CHAPTER 4 Building Indochinese Links To Thailand ( 1945-46 )

 CHAPTER 4 

Building Indochinese Links To Thailand ( 1945-46 )

The period between the end of the Pacific War in August 1945 and the outbreak of full-scale war in Indochina in December 1946 marks a turning point in our story. Within the span of little more than a year, Vietnamese leaders began reviving their operations in Thailand as full-scale war looked ever more likely in Indochina. Unlike the earlier period, however, this time Ho Chi Minh and his lieutenants were on the inside of Indochina looking out. What they saw in the wake of the August revolution left little room for optimism. To the south, by late September southern Viet Minh forces had taken cover in the marshes of the Mekong as the French Expeditionary Corps and Navy took control of ports, towns, canals and roads in southern Vietnam, Cambodia and the southern tip of Laos. To the north, the KMT’s control of southern China made decis​ive, although not impossible (see Chapter 5), for the DRV. Along the entire eastern coastline, the French Navy was increasing its presence as the Americans began sweeping mines in the Gulf of Tonkin.

As in 1927, Vietnamese communists looked west to Thailand for an opening to the region. But there was a key modification in the ICP’s Southeast Asian organisations from 1945 in that the Japanese overthrew the French in Indochina in March 1945, the subsequent haemorrhaging of the Sūreté’s Indo-Chinese wall, and the ICP’s full presence in eastern Indochina provided Vietnamese anticolonialists with the unprecedented opportunity to include Laos and Cambodia in their prewar Southeast Asian operations. Not only were these two Indochinese countries key to the Viet Minh’s ability to defend its western flank, but they were also essential to the Viet Minh’s ability to get back to Thai-land. This chapter examines how the DRV went about regaining hold of its prewar Thai operations before the outbreak of full-scale war in all of Indochina in late 1946 and how Laos and Cambodia became part of this endeavour. Let us thus start in the east, as we did for the late 19th century, and slowly make our way westwards to Thailand, this time by way of Laos and Cambodia rather than Japan, Hong Kong or Canton.

The Viet Minh Come to Power in Vietnam

At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the Allied powers decided that the disarmament of the Japanese in Indochina would be divided along the 16th parallel, with the Chinese in charge of the northern zone and the British responsible for the southern part. On 13 August, two days before the Japanese capitulated, a special ICP All-Country Committee, at Tan Trao, a jungle base located in northern Vietnam. Three days later, Ho Chi Minh presided over a National Congress there during which guidelines were set by which the Viet Minh would seize power, establish a provisional government, and negotiate with the Allies. In the days leading up to 19 August, before Allied troops arrived to accept the Japanese surrender in Indochina, the Viet Minh rode a groundswell of popular discontent to take power. Within a week, groups pledging loyalty to the Viet Minh held the upper hand throughout much of central and northern Vietnam. On 24 August the Vietnamese Emperor, Bao Dai, abdicated his throne, turning over his symbols of power to the Viet Minh. On 2 September 1945 Ho Chi Minh announced the official formation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV).

The challenges to the newly formed DRV government in late 1945 were immense. Internally, the Vietnamese Cabinet was a coalition of different parties and competing interests. While the communists held key government positions, Ho could not aim for a monopoly, at least not in public. The non-communists, in particular the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (VNQDD) led by Vu Hong Khanh and the Vietnamese Revolutionary Alliance (Viet Nam Cach Menh Dong Minh Hoi or DMH) under Nguyen Hai Thanh, were deeply suspicious of the communist credentials of several Viet Minh leaders and sought to expand their own power with assistance from Chinese bakers. The violent world in which many of the ICP and VNQDD/DMH militants had lived in southern China and Thailand since the 1920s soon manifested itself in clashes in the streets of Hanoi. Vo Nguyen Giap and Tran Huy Lieu were apparently even briefly kidnapped in December by VNQDD agents. Nguyen Hai Than, who had known Ho Chi Minh since their truely days in Canton in 1925 (see Chapter 2), made a point of broadcasting Ho’s communist credentials.

In the south, the situation was even more complex. Immediately following the Japanese capitulation, an incredibly diverse group of patriotic forces came to power in Saigon between 24 and 25 August under the direction of Tran Van Giau’s Provincial Administrative People’s Committee (Lam U Yanh Chinh Nhan Dan). This southern entity pledged loyalty ‘to the Viet Minh’ on 2 September 1945 and, presumably, to the DRV too. This committee was an explosive coalition of communists, nationalists, and religious sects, some of them opposed to Giau’s heavy-handed leadership. In late August 1945 Cao Hong Lanh and Hoang Quoc Viet arrived in the south on behalf of the Executive Committee of the ICP’s Central Committee and the Viet Minh’s Tong Bo. Viet transformed Giau’s committee into the People’s Committee of the South (Uy Ban Nhan Dan Dan Bo) with Pham Van Bach serving as President. As for the leadership of southern communists, not one, but several groups claimed to represent the communists, just as in the 1930s.

The landing of Allied forces in Indochina further threatened the DRV’s hold on power. By late September a 150,000-man Chinese army began to arrive to accept the Japanese surrender in all of northern Indochina above the 16th parallel. Far from stabilising the situation, this army was a collection of regular and irregular troops, often more interested in looting and profiteering than in disarming the Japanese. The possibility that the Chinese might overthrow the DRV in order to install a pro-Chinese and non-communist Vietnamese government was particularly worrying for the DRV. No matter how much DRV leaders might have detested occupation by an age-old enemy, Chinese reluctance to allow the French to retake northern Indochina in late 1945 allowed the Viet Minh to consolidate their hold on power in northern Vietnam. In the end, KMT warlords in Vietnam preferred to leave the DRV’s administration in place in order not to destabilising Franco–Vietnamese hostilities, which would have certainly endangered their own economic interests in Vietnam. This is probably the main reason why the Chinese did not overthrow the DRV to replace it with a VNQDD–DMH government.

In southern Indochina, the British did not share this view. Already pledged to help restore French authority in Indochina, in early September British and Indian troops under the command of General Douglas Gracey began arriving in the south to accept the Japanese surrender and to maintain order. Although this was the extent of Gracey’s task, a series of complex events led him to release and rearm French troops who had been interned since March and to order the Japanese to disarm the Viet Minh. Subsequence bloody clashes occurred between the French and Vietnamese in Saigon. On 21 September Gracey declared martial law and two days later the French, with British collusion, engineered a coup that pushed the Viet Minh eventually out of Saigon and into the countryside. By late September 1945 war had effectively begun in Vietnam below the 16th parallel.

During a hastily convened meeting on the morning of 23 September, Hoang Quoc Viet presided over the formation of the Nam Bo Resistance Committee (Uy ban Khang Chien Nam Bo). On 15 October Vietnamese communists met again, this time near My Tho, to try to unify southern communists once and for all. The two independent Territorial Committees (Xu uy) of the Tien Phong and Giai Phong groups were combined, at least on paper, into one unified Xu uy for all of Nam Bo. In April 1947 Duan, one of the top communists stationed in the south, formed an ‘official Xu uy’ for the Communist Party in Nam Bo. He served as its Secretary. In that same year the Nam Bo Resistance and Administrative Committee (Uy ban Khang Chien Nam Bo) emerged to administer non-Party matters under the direction of Pham Van Bach, the President. To make sure that military matters did not degenerate in such chaotic ways, the ICP Central Committee sent Nguyen Binh (Nguyen Phuong Thao) to the south to establish order in matters of war. This did not from the day of his arrival at Thu Dau Mot in November 1945, but not without challenges from Nguyen Thanh Son, Tran Van Tra, and Le Duan.

Creating an army, however, was no easy task given the strength of the French Expeditionary Forces. In late 1945 main Viet Minh groups were forced to retreat to remote areas in the Plain of Reeds and areas along the Vietnamese–Cambodian border, as Leclerc’s land and river forces took control of the major urban centers and roads in much of southern Vietnam. It was only when Leclerc transferred the bulk of his troops to Tonkin in April 1946 that Binh found enough breathing space to begin building southern forces into what became an impressive guerrilla army by 1949.

As for Cambodia, on 10 October the French entered Phnom Penh and, with the help of the British, overthrew the newly independent government led by Son Ngoc Thanh. A French-backed government was quickly installed. In January 1946 King Sihanouk recognised French sovereignty over Cambodia. By early 1946, much of southern Indochina was back in French hands. However, the situation in northern and southern Indochina in 1945–46 was clearly different. These divergences would have important implications for the subsequent evolution of the DRV’s relations with Laos, Cambodia and Thailand.

LINKING NORTHERN INDOCHINA TO NORTHEASTERN THAILAND VIA LAOS

The dangerous strategic situation confronting DRV’s leaders in all of eastern Indochina after World War II forced them to take an entirely new view of Laos and Cambodia. In contrast to the prewar period, the ICP and the Viet Minh now needed these two countries to protect Vietnam’s western flank against a French attack from the west.9 They also needed them to reach Thailand. Of particular worry to leaders of the DRV immediately after the war were French attempts to retake all of Laos, despite the fact that most of them lay above the 16th parallel, where the Chinese were designated to accept the Japanese surrender. In September, the French, with the help of the British, retook the southernmost portion of Laos falling below the 16th parallel, including an important airbase. The French were also in a position to strike from the north. Following the March 1945 Japanese coup d’état, over 5,000 colonial troops under the command of General Major Marcel Alessandri had fled to Yunnan province in southern China. Positioned along the Chinese side of the Indochinese border in August, these troops were awaiting permission to return to Indochina to help re-establish French authority.10 Even in areas in Laos above the 16th parallel, the delayed arrival of the Chinese encouraged French guerrilla teams parachuted into Laos at the end of the Pacific War to try to retake all of Laos.11 On 16 August 1945, for example, French commands in Laos had received instructions to occupy administrative centres. On 28 August French guerrilla commanders entered the royal capital of Luang Prabang, gained the pre-French monarch’s recognition of French sovereignty, and took over the administration of the city, despite warnings from an OSS team that they were acting in violation of the Potsdam Accords.

The situation changed in late September, when the Chinese began to arrive in Laos, reaching Luang Prabang first and then slowly moving their way southwards.14 In charge of accepting the Japanese surrender and administering affairs in Laos was the 93rd Division, a force numbering around 20,000 men.15 This division was a collection of regular and irregular troops, civilians and soldiers who, as in northern Vietnam, were often more interested in profiteering than in attending to the matter of disarming the Japanese. Of particular interest to them was the opium trade running between northern Laos and southern China.

While the Chinese allowed the French to remain in Luang Prabang until December, local French commanders found Chinese officers in Laos unwilling to help them restore French authority. At the end of the year, the Chinese looked the other way as Laotian and especially Viet Minh armed militias encircled the small French force barricaded in Luang Prabang. Following unsuccessful attempts to gain Chinese intervention, on 4 January the French abandoned Luang Prabang, leaving the major towns of Laos above the 16th parallel under Chinese supervision. Though the French could dispatch representatives to tend French citizens in these locations, their attempts to take central and northern Laos by force were hindered by opposition from the OSS, Viet kieu military forces and the Chinese. Of these three factors, the Chinese presence in northern Indochina in late 1945 was most important. Ho Chi Minh conceded this publicly in a letter published in November 1945. The Chinese Army took little interest in suppressing the Viet Minh’s anti-French activities and in many cases local Chinese commanders actively aided the Viet Minh. Under Chinese occupation, Viet Minh operatives in Laos expanded their military presence in Laos, built stronger links with Laotian anticolonial groups, and strengthened their hold on Viet kiêu communities along the Mekong.

The Viet kieu of the Mekong and the Defence of the DRV

The DRV’s policy towards Laos in 1945 was dominated by the need to control the large Viet kieu communities as a way of protecting upper Vietnam’s western flank. Concentrated in urban centres, the Vietnamese presence in Laos had reached over 30,000 by 1945. Since the Japanese capitulation, the Viet Minh had been particularly active among Vietnamese populations in Savannakhet, Thakhek, Paksane and Vientiane. Around 1,000 Viet kieu guerrillas controlled Thakek by early September. In Savannakhet, Vietnamese were being trucked in from central Vietnam by way of Route 9. One of those in charge of the Viet Minh’s military operations among the Mekong Viet kieu after World War II was Vu Huu Binh. Under his command in Viêntean, many of the 10,000 Viet-Vietnamese men and women there were enrolled in guerrilla armies and people’s self-defence forces (tu ve). By late 1945, according to Tran Huy Lieu, there were 1,600 Viet kieu combatants and 2,000 tu ve in Vietnam.

In mid-September Ho confirmed to an OSS representative in Hanoi, Major Archimedes Patti, that Viet Minh leaders were deeply worried by French military actions in Laos. A former Viet Minh military officer who began working in Laos in October 1945, said in an interview in 1989 that he considered Laos to be a strategic ‘buffer for northern Vietnam’. According to Patti, Ho believed that French forces in Laos were “attempting to infiltrate northern Vietnam through that rear area” and, as far as the new DRV President was concerned, an ‘undeclared war’ had begun between the French and Vietnamese in Laos.

We know from the previous chapter that since mid-1945 the ICP had been directing the Viet Minh’s activities among the Lao Viet kieu via the Party’s Laotian Territorial Committee (Xu uy Ai Lao) and the Viet kieu Special Committee (Dac uy Viet kieu) in Thailand. From late August 1945 General Giap was monitoring events along the Mekong from his radio post at the Ministry of Defence in Hanoi. Functioning telephone and telegraphic grids still manned by Viet kieu bureaucrats helped Viet Minh leaders in Hanoi communicate with their comrades in Vietiane and Luang Prabang. Route 9 allowed Vietnamese leaders in Hue to remain in closer touch with events in Laos and to send reinforcements from central Vietnam.

The ICP sent Tran Duc Vinh to the Mekong to implement its Laotian policies (see Chapter 3). In Thailand in the 1930s, Tran Duc Vinh arrived in Savannakhet on 28 August as the ‘Tong Bo’s special delegate to Laos’. Vinh immediately began to meet a variety of Laotian nationalists, explaining the Viet Minh’s foreign and military policy and discussing areas where joint cooperation could be developed against the French. Military liaison and combined defence units were soon in place. On the night of 28 August Vinh presided over a meeting of Vietnamese leaders from the Viet kieu National Salvation Association (Hoi Viet kieu Chu Quoc) and the Viet kieu Friendship Association (Hoi Viet kieu Than Ai) from Thailand and Laos. Participants considered ways in which their organisations could be combined into a single, more effective, Mekong-wide grouping. After some discussion, it was decided that the older Viet kieu Friendship Association would be incorporated into the newer Viet kieu National Salvation Association. Further reforms brought this larger body into line with the Viet Minh guidelines. Vietnamese communities in both Laos and Thailand began providing men and money to Viet kieu defence forces (tu ve) in Laos (see Figure 6). On 25 November the Viet Minh announced a three-fold plan for strengthening the Viet kieu National Salvation Association in Laos and Thailand. First, Vietnamese in these two countries were called upon to link together more closely in the resistance against the French. Second, the Association was instructed to protect the interests of the Vietnamese in Laos. Finally, the Vietnamese were directed to assist the Lao independence movement.

This was easier said than done. Despite their mutual opposition to the return of colonialism, Prince Phesarat, a leading Laotian nationalist opposed to the return of French colonialism, remained reluctant to enter an alliance with the Vietnamese, communist or otherwise. Since the early 1930s, he had been a leading advocate for controlling Vietnamese immigration and putting an end to their domination of Laotian urban centres, precisely where Laotian leaders now sought to exert their nationalist leadership. The outpouring of Viet kieu support for the ‘August Revolution’ had done little to assuage Phetsarath’s amour-propre. Many Laotian nationalists resented the ease with which the Tong Bo’s representatives and the larger Viet kieu populations they commanded decided to call the shots in Laos. Prince Phetsarath had entered negotiations with the Japanese since 23 August in a bid to stop the latter from arming the Viet Minh into what he feared could become a Vietnamese takeover.

Reacting to this increasingly explosive situation, on 30 August the Tong Bo ordered a number of Vietnamese who had previously worked in the French colonial bureaucracy to turn their jobs over to Laotian counterparts. The idea was to allay Laotian animosity towards the Vietnamese, who had long dominated the French Indochinese bureaucracy. On that same day, Tran Duc Vinh met with his (unnamed) Lao leaders in Savannakhet to preside over an organised demonstration to show Laotian–Vietnamese solidarity. Around a thousand people gathered under banners proclaiming ‘Long Live Laoian Independence’ and ‘Laotian–Vietnamese Cooperation’. On behalf of the Tong Bo, Tran Duc Vinh reiterated the need for increased cooperation between the two peoples (hop tac gia hai dan toc). Also present were Laotian leaders and representatives of the Viet kieu associations from both sides of the Mekong.

The Viet Minh did not want to alienate Phetsarath. The Prince was the leading anticolonialist and Laotian nationalist at the time. He had long worked for greater Laotian unity and had briefly taken charge of an independent Laos following the Japanese overthrow of the French in March 1945. Following the Japanese capitulation, Phetsarath informed Lao­tian bureaucrats that they would remain in their places; for the Allied victory had in no way changed the independence declared since March. Phetsarath informed the pro-French King that Laos would not return to the French. To strengthen him, he met with members of the ‘Lao-pen-Laos’ movement, who informed him Americans (in the OSS) would support his bid against the French. As for the Vietnamese, Phetsarath realised by October that he needed them, given the DRV’s anti-colonial stance in Vietnam and the Viet Minh’s control of the majority of Viet kieu living in Laos. Phetsarath had no Lao­tian army, given Vietnamese domination of the colonial Garde Indigène and the decision by those few remaining Laotian soldiers to fight with the French commands in the countryside. Phetsarath had no choice but to put aside his antipathy for the Vietnamese in order to concentrate on opposing the return of the French.

Early Laotian–Vietnamese Relations

As Tran Duc Vinh was re-establishing the ICP’s control of the Viet kieu, Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap tried to strengthen their diplomatic position in Laos through an alliance with Prince Souphanouvong in Hanoi. Educated in France and trained in Vietnam, Souphanouong supported the idea of combined Laotian– Vietnamese cooperation against the French. Instead of returning to Laos after his studies, Souphanouvong chose to work in the Indochinese administration in Vinh, where he married a Vietnamese. The prince’s name had been forwarded to Ho Chi Minh in late August 1945 by the DRV’s new Minister of Transportation, Dao Trong Kim. The latter was a long-time friend of Souphanouvong. They had studied together in France before the war.

Ho Chi Minh telegraphed his Viet Minh representatives in Vinh in late August or early September, ordering them to contact the Prince concerning possible collaboration with the Vietnamese. According to one of the members of the entourage that escorted Bao Dai to Hanoi, the Viet Minh’s People’s Committee of Trung Bo (Uy ban Nhan Dan Trung Bo) presented Souphanouvong to the Viet Minh delegation escorting Bao Dao to Hanoi via Route 1. In fact, Prince Souphanouvong travelled to Hanoi in the same car as Bao Dai. In Hanoi, they both met with Ho Chi Minh and other ranking Vietnamese leaders concerning the need for opposing the return of French colonialism to Indochina.40 In a meeting with an OSS officer, Souphanouvong conceded openly that he was in Hanoi to make arrangements with Ho Chi Minh to support the Viet Nam government.41 Having agreed to Ho Chi Minh’s suggestion of creating a joint Laotian– Vietnamese military force,42 on 30 September Souphanouvong returned to Hue with a letter from the DRV government to the ‘People’s Committee of Trung Bo’. Before leaving, however, the Laotian Prince had gone on air in Hanoi to call upon the Laotians to reject the French protectorate. He even sent a (radio) telegram to Phetsarath, informing the latter that he had entered into negotiations with the DRV government aimed at forming an Indochinese bloc opposed to the return of colonialism. Phetsarath shot back to his half-brother: ‘You have been away from Laos for 16 years. You know nothing of its problems. Do not do anything without a formal order on my part’. On 13 September Ho Chi Minh cabled Phetsarath to inform him that the Vietnamese sympathised with his ‘Laotian liberation movement’. He pledged his ‘support’ and ‘collaboration’. The Vietnamese President concluded by asking Phetsarath to protect the Viet kieu populations in Laos so that the ties between the two countries would develop in a friendly manner. Phetsarath assumed him of this. The French claimed that the DRV also provided Phetsarath with a credit of 3,000,000 piastres at this time.

Although the Viet Minh did not cut their ties to Phetsarath in late 1945, the Vietnamese placed their hopes in Souphanouvong. On instructions from Ho, a small contingent of Viet Minh officers was chosen to escort Souphanouvong to Laos. Among those selected was a young Vietnamese non-communist from Hue named Tran Van Dinh. On 7 October Dinh, Souphanouvong and no doubt others arrived in Savannakhet to begin work on creating a “Laotian Liberation Army”.

This was not an easy task. Neither Souphanouvong nor Tran Van Dinh had any training in military affairs, let alone experience in the rough and tumble world of clandestine revolutionary operations. Moreover, leading Laotian leaders were annoyed by the outpouring of Vietnamese support for the DRV in major Laotian towns following the August Revolution. According to Dinh, Thao Soon Sananikon, a Laotian nationalist who had maintained close links with the Royal Thai Army since the early 1940s, was particularly suspicious of Souphanouvong and his entourage of Viet Minh advisers. Having taken control of Savannakhet, Oun was reluctant to turn over leadership of the Laotian independence movement to a pro-Vietnamese Laotian leader. A shift to

Souphanouevong and the Viet Minh would have left him outside of the newly evolving decision-making process, especially in the light of the weaker position of his Thai supporters since 15 August and the growing influence of the Viet Minh in internal Laotian affairs since the end of the war.

Oun’s reluctance to support Souphanouvong left the Viet Minh considerably isolated from Laotian national leaders under Oun’s leadership. This also denied the Viet Minh access to Oun’s contacts in the Thai military, the north-eastern bureaucracy, and among arms traders active along the Mekong and beyond. Souphanouvong had none of these Thai connections; his prewar ties were in Vietnam.

To solve this problem, Dinh says he arranged a meeting between Oun and Souphanou­vong shortly after arriving in Savannakhet. Dinh stressed the importance of unity among the Laotian leadership and between the Laotians and Vietnamese. He claims he proposed the formation of a ‘general staff’ to administer to one, unified Laotian army. On 8 October, during a meeting in Thakek, the ‘Army for the Liberation and Defence of Laos’ was formed, with Souphanouvong and Oun’s men forming the command and staff. Souphanouvong became the Commander-in-Chief of the army, while Oun took over as second-in-command. As for Dinh, he became an adviser to Souphanouvong’s Intelligence Service, a group which soon grew into an almost independent agency.

On 8 October Princes Souphanouvong and Phetsarath, working with Laope n-Laot partisan and the Viet Minh, came together to form the Lao tian Independence Committee or the Comité du Laos Indépendant as it was also referred to in French. It was based in Savannakhet. Like the Viet Minh, it aimed to win Laotian independence from the French, to strengthen and unite the Laotian nation, and to promote the eventual formation of a Federation of Indochinese Peoples through closer moral, cultural and economic ties. It is unclear how Phetsarath felt about this, but his weak military position must have obligated him to cooperate with the Viet Minh and Souphanouvong. Four days later, on 12 October, the various factions came together to form the Provisional Government of the Lao Issara. Phetsarath became the Président d’honneur. Laotian– Vietnamese military collaboration was the hallmark of the new Laotian government’s foreign policy.

In late October the Tong Bo’s representative to Laos sealed the Viet Minh’s Lao tian policy with a military agreement. After discussions between Laotian and Vietnamese officials, on 30 October, Tran Duc Vinh and the Lao tian Prime Minister, Phaya Khammam, concluded a joint Lao tian–Vietnamese military treaty on behalf of their representative governments. This agreement allowed the DRV to maintain troops in Vientiane, Thakek and Savannakhet (clause 1); to administer to the Viet kieu in Laos (clause 2); to form combined Lao tian–Vietnamese operations against the French (clause 3); and to administer combined resistance committees (clause 4). Prince Souphanouvong, who had the most to gain from the reactivation of the ICP’s Mekong operations at this juncture,

announced that because of this agreement ‘Laotian and Vietnamese military units would be combined to stand side-by-side against their mutual enemy, French colonialism.’54 The Prince also granted the DRV the right to select their own representative to run the Laotian government’s Bureau of Vietnamese Affairs and to double Laotian officers in the Laotian Defence Council. ‘The independence of Laos’, the Prince explained, ‘is inseparable from that of the Vietnamese’.55 On that same day Souphanouvong took over the Command of the Lao Issara Army with Nguyen Chuong at his side and six other Vietnamese on his command staff .

A Laotian source says that the combined Laotian–Vietnamese Army fielded around 600 men by late 1945,57 backed up by several thousand well-armed Viet kieu military forces. Tran Van Dinh reorganised Souphanouvong’s ‘Intelligence Service’ in order to coordinate Laotian–Vietnamese military operations better. This resulted in the creation of the ‘Laotian–Vietnamese Allied General Staff’ based in Vientiane. Dinh became an adviser to the General Staff, but he claims he was the actual head.58 Tran Van Dinh went so far as to cable his superiors in Vietnam that ‘all the aliens are ready to sign’ what he gave them.59

In the photo commemorating the formation of the Lao Issara government on 1 November 1945, standing next to Prince Souphanouvong and Phya Khammao are Vu Huu Binh, Tran Van Dinh, and Tran Duc Vinh. Serving as the DRV’s official representative to Laos, Tran Duc Vinh himself became a member of the Laotian Independence Committee (see Figure 7).60 A few days later Souphanouvong published an open letter to the French government in Cu Quo, in which he condemned French efforts to retake Laos and advised the Vietnamese and Lao.61 By early November 1945 the Viet Minh had succeeded in reorienting an important part of the early Laotian anti-colonial movement from its wartime Thai bias to a postwar eastern alliance with the Vietnamese.62 One Vietnamese in Laos went so far as to claim that ‘the Laotian people were preparing to advance towards [the creation] of a Democratic Republic, realising that the monarchy was no longer in step with the times’.63 What is clear is how DRV nationalist leaders reconciled their leading role in Laos politics in late 1945 with their simultaneous disdain for Chinese meddling in their own internal politics at precisely the same time in Hanoi.

The French Reoccupation of Laos

The Viet Minh knew that an agreement between the French and the Chinese to allow the Corps Expéditionnaire to return to northern Vietnam would open the way to a French offensive on the whole of Laos. In early 1946 the French adopted a two-track policy that pressed the Chinese diplomatically to withdraw their troops from Indochina (so that they could move their forces in) and begin political action towards the Vietnamese.64 Having increased their military presence in southern Indochina by late 1945 and early 1946, the French stepped up their diplomatic campaign to gain Chungking’s agreement to let French troops replace their Chinese counterparts in northern Indochina. Competing for control of North China with the Chinese Communists, Chiang Kai-shek was increasingly receptive to a deal with the French. He knew it would allow him to divert much needed troops from Indochina to northern China. The French prodded Chungking by offering to abandon their colonial concessions in China. One of the first significant signs of a change in Chinese policy came in early 7 China to cross into northern Laos.65 By 8 February these French-led troops occupied the northwestern town of Lai Chau.

As the French intensified their diplomatic negotiations with Chungking, the Viet Minh countered by trying to postpone the Chinese withdrawal in Laos. As Dinh put it: “We wanted their departure postponed, and used them to delay the return of the French and [to] allow us more time to consolidate.”67 Dien does not say how they planned to do this; but on 20 February 1946 Prince Soup​hanouvong sent a telegram to Lu Han in Hanoi, decrying the Franco—

British presence in Laotian areas north of the 16th parallel. A week later a French officer met with Lu Han in Hanoi concerning the refusal of General Lu, Commander of the 93rd Division in Laos, to pull out of northern Laos. 

These French actions may explain why, before the conclusion of the 28 February Franco–Chinese accord, branches of the ICP in Thailand and Laos held a meeting in Thakkek to discuss the possibility of a French offensive on all of Laos in view of the imminence of this accord. Dinh, who was not a Communist Party member or a participant in this meeting, said that ICP members Mai Van Quang, Tran Duc Vinh and Vu Huu Binh attended this conference. Thai officials were also there. According to Dinh, Thai participants at this meeting told their Vietnamese counterparts that in the event of a premature Chinese withdrawal from Laos, the Thai military would intervene to delay the return of the French. 

It is unclear what kind of action the Thais had in mind, but I doubt seriously that they could have done much, judging from their weak military position after the war and their delicate diplomatic relationship with the West. There is, however, evidence that in late December 1945 Prince Souphanouvong tried to contact Tiang Sirikorn for increased Thai military and diplomatic support. The Thais provided the Laotians with 100,000 baht for administrative supplies as well as 70–100 arms and breezes. The French reported on 5 February that the Lao Issara had been trying to recruit 200 Thais into their ranks and that Thao Oun had made similar overtures to his former colleagues in the Seri Thai. The idea behind this Thai aid was to ‘complicate the task of French troops and the time of [their] reoccupation’ of Laos. Meanwhile, Thao Katay begged the American Legation in Bangkok to help him arrange an official delegation to the US to plead for some sort of American intervention.

An accord was signed between the French and Chinese on 28 February. In this agreement, Chungking agreed that its forces in all of northern Indochina would be replaced by French troops. In exchange the French renounced their economic concessions and extra-territorial rights in China and granted the Chinese special trading privileges in Vietnam. In Laos, the withdrawal of the Chinese meant war with the French. Shortly thereafter, the ICP’s Territorial Committee in Laos decided to defend Thakkhet.

First the French had to deal with the Vietnamese. On 6 March, Jean Saintieny signed an agreement with Ho Chi Minh in which both sides agreed to hold a referendum on Vietnamese unification. The French recognised Vietnam’s status as a “free state” within the French Union, while the Vietnamese agreed to remain within an Indochinese Federation. The Vietnamese allowed, among other things, the French to station 15,000 troops in northern Vietnam, many of them transferred from the south. On 3 March 1946 the ICP also decided inter alia to hold the French to granting political freedoms to the Laotians and Cambodians.

According to Vietnamese communist sources, the ICP was faced with two choices immediately after 28 February: either they could take up arms against the French or they could pursue a peaceful course of action by negotiating. One reason for advocating dialogue was that the Vietnamese were militarily unprepared to begin an armed struggle against the Corps Expéditionnaire in March. Second, it was felt that if a policy of nationwide resistance were adopted, it would encounter combined Franco–Chinese military opposition. By gaining a reprieve through negotiations, the Party could concentrate on strengthening its military and political position in Nam Bo, facilitating the withdrawal of the Chinese, and destroying the anti-Viet Minh nationalist groups like the DMH and VNDD. On 5 March a meeting of the ICP Central Committee approved a policy called ‘peace in order to advance’ (hoa de tien). The next day Ho Chi Minh signed the 6 March Accord.

Although Souphanouvong appears to have tried to negotiate an accord with the French similar to the one hammered out by Ho Chi Minh, diplomacy probably damaged relations with other Laotian nationalists suspicious of the Vietnamese. In the end, the best Laotian Independence Bureau at Hanoi could report to its leaders back home that was the 6 March Accord only affected Vietnam. Diplomatically this was certainly true. But militarily, Ho Chi Minh’s signing of the 6 March Accord had opened the way for the French military reoccupation of the whole of Laos.

Three days later, on 9 March, Tran Duc Vinh sent a cable to Vo Nguyen Giap imploring him to explain ‘what our policy towards the Laotian people and government will be? And [especially] with respect to the Vi etnamese–Laotian military alliance?’ On 17 March the Minister of the Interior, Hoang Huu Nam, indeed stated that ‘vis a vis the Laotians, we must aid them with all our forces on the condition that this is done entirely in secret’. Nam added that the DRV’s military forces would be used to “reinforce” his forces and be sure to monitor the lines of communications. 

Vinh hardly needed to be told this on 17 March! Four days after the 6 March Accord, Major General Alessandri, who the defence designed to recoup all of Laos north of the 16th parallel. With troops, tanks and planes arriving from Saigon, he quickly retook Savannakhet on 10 March. Although Viet Minh and Lao Issara forces tried to defend the cities they had loosely occupied since the end of World War II, their concentration in urban centres made them easy targets for superior French firepower. On the 17th, French Colonel Crèvecoeur and his Chinese counterpart Liu Tsing Koue signed an agreement allowing the French to recapture the French to recapture the French. On the morning of the 21st, the French began their attack. According to several accounts, French-flown Spitfires strafed the city in support of a ground attack. Thousands of Laotians and Vietnamese inhabitants fled across the Mekong River to Thailand as Viet kieu and Laotian soldiers attempted to hold the city, but to no avail. Hundreds among the Viet–Laotian combined forces were killed in this battle, many of them machine-gunned while trying to flee across the river to Lao Phanom.86 The French moved on to retake Vientiane, to overthrow the Lao Issara government, and to establish a pro-French government in its place. With the capture of Luang Prabang by mid-May, the French had completed their reoccupation of Laos and handed the Viet Minh a costly defeat. In all, the offensive sent around 50,000 ethnic Vietnamese refugees fleeing into Thailand, as well as an estimated 4,000 Laotians.87 There were now only two obstacles blocking the restoration of French power to all of Indochina: Bangkok and Hanoi.

The Strengthening of the Viet Minh’s Presence in Northeast Thailand

Viet Minh representatives along the Mekong had already met with Thai representatives before the battle of Thakkhek to make contingency plans for the evacuation of Viet kieu populations in western Laos to northeastern Thailand. Le Manh Trinh, who may have been involved in these negotiations, said that the Thai government ‘agreed with this suggestion’. This was present, in the light of the ferocity of the battle of Thakhek and the large number of refugees it sent to Thailand. Following the French reoccupation of Laos, the new Prime Minister of Thailand, Pridi Phanomyoong, chose not to bow to French demands calling for their return. Instead, he instructed provincial authorities to set up more shelters along the Mekong and to find jobs for them. Viet Minh adherents acquired permission to appoint their own representatives in areas with large Vietnamese immigrant communities; to form employment headquarters; to assemble openly; and to broadcast DRV radio emissions.

The acting Minister of the Interior, Tiang Sirikhan, travelled to northeast Thailand to meet with provincial authorities concerning the means by which the government would assist the Vietnamese refugees. Tiang informed border authorities that the Vietnamese refugees were entitled ‘to freedom of movement, residence, and the right to make a living.’ A Thai study of the Vietnamese in Thailand confirms that the Ministry of the Interior allowed these refugees to enter Thailand and without having to go through official immigration channels (though it remains unclear what kind of legal status they were given). The Ministry of Communications and Transportation exempted the refugees from entry fees in exchange for their labour on highways in the northeast. The Thai government permitted the Vietnamese to work as lumbermen in forests around Nong Khai and Ubon, while others found employment as carpenters and mechanics or took up jobs as local traders. Thanks to Tiang Sirikhan, Nguyen Duc Quys was able to procure 700,000 baht from the Thai parliament to aid the Viet kieu.

Another important contribution of the Priti government was the allocation of several plots of land to Vietnamese cultivators. Beginning around April 1946, Hoang Van Hoan says in his memoirs, the Viet kieu General Association took advantage of this Thai-allocated (presumably leased) land to establish what he 

calls Viet kieu “collective farms” (trai tap the). Tiang Sirikhan made a personal tour of this farming camp on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior. According to two Viet Minh leaders working in the area at the time, Thai assistance greatly ameliorated the plight of the refugees within a short period of time and contributed to the strengthening of Vietnamese resistance work in Thailand. 

General Alessandri's heavy-handed reoccupation of Laotian cities also helped by sending thousands of French-trained Viet kieu into some of the ICP's best bases in all of Southeast Asia. Many of these Vietnamese were secretaries, radio and telegraph operators, mechanics and traders, who could often speak Lao and French fluently. With 50,000 new Vietnamese living on the Thai side of the Mekong, the ICP's Viet kieu Special Committee and the Viet kieu National Salvation Association were in a much better position to rebuild. Radio Vietnam (Tieng Noi Viet Nam) from Hanoi was broadcast daily. Echoing policies instituted by Ho Chi Minh in the late 1920s, a weekly newspaper, Doc Lap [Independence], was published and disseminated widely among the Vietnamese communities in northeastern Thailand. Letters from Ho Chi Minh, the government, and soldiers fighting in Vietnam were conveyed to the Vietnamese in Thailand. Books, such as President Ho Chi Minh in the Memory of the Viet kieu, were used to increase Vietnamese awareness of the national movement for independence and to reinstil in them their ties to Vietnam and its bid for independence. Even special educational classes were organised, including a session on the patriotic activities of Dang Thuc Hua among the Viet kieu.

The Thais allowed the Viet Minh to keep their Laotian military teams alive on Thai soil. Even the ICP’s Laotian Territorial Committee (Xu uy Lai) was transferred to northeastern Thailand again. The Viet Minh in Thailand got to keep their guns. The Thai government had not, according to a sympathetic American official, ‘made any real attempt to disarm the majority of the refugees’. The Thais provided the Viet Minh with military intelligence on French positions in western Indochina and Bangkok. Vietnamese working in Thailand were allowed to wear Thai military uniforms. Thai officials gave the Viet Minh helmets, medical supplies, leftover OSS radio sets and supplied the soap used by Viet Minh officers stationed in Laos. They even shared secret radio codes to guide the transport of arms safely across the Mekong. In late May, Giap received a telegram from Thailand indicating that the Thai Army was now ‘intimately allied with us’ (see Chapter 5). Although this was a patent exaggeration, it was about all the Viet Minh had as far as foreign assistance.

None of this, however, made refugee life in the northeastern Thailand any easier. The Viet kieu from Laos suddenly found themselves cut off from the pre-1945 Indonesian world which had allowed them to travel back and forth freely between their jobs in Laos and their native villages in Vietnam. Pushed into Thailand from 1946, many of these refugees would never see Laos again (see Chapter 8). For others, the communist core running the Viet kieu associations in Thailand was a source of even greater worry.

Moreover, on several occasions, local villagers voiced resentment over the fact that the Vietnamese often came to control small-scale trade in various northeastern cities. An American military observer recorded that the Governor of Nong Khai privately feared that the Vietnamese refugees arriving in northeast Thailand ‘might eventually control all the business in the area as they were much more shrewd than the Siamese’. The Governor also felt the Vietnamese were ‘clannish’ and probably would not be able to ‘be absorbed into the native population’.103 Thus, despite the close cooperation between Vietnamese and Thai officials, at a local level Viet Minh leaders had to emphasize repeatedly to their nationals the importance of respecting Thai laws and ethnic sensibilities.

The interview given by a Viet Minh official to journalist and well-known Thai novelist, Kulap Saipradit, demonstrates this. A few weeks before the French returned to Laos, Kulap travelled to disputed territories in Battambang to interview Dr Hai, the Editor of the Vietnam News Service who was also in the area. Speaking in halting Thai, Hai described to Kulap the sacrifices of the Vietnamese and explained the righteousness of the Vietnamese independence movement.105 Absorbed by his Vietnamese interviewee, Kulap asked Hai to describe to his Thai readers the significance of Vietnam’s new flag. Kulap recorded Hai’s description in a front-page article in Suphat Burat as follows:"

  Dr Hai explained to me that the red background symbolised the blood of the people and the yellow star signified the people of the yellow race. The five sides of the star symbolised the five types of people who constituted the Vietnamese nation: soldiers (thahan), students (naksuks), merchants (phokha), farmers (chauna), and workers (kammakon)."

But Thai goodwill could still not be taken for granted by the Vietnamese. In a clear reassurance to Thai sceptics, Hai insisted to Kulap that although the Viet Minh had made some ‘mistakes’ in Thailand in the past, Bangkok should rest assured the Vietnamese independence struggle would not result in an ‘invasion of anyone.’

LINKING SOUTHERN INDOCHINA TO SOUTHEASTERN THAILAND

Viet Minh leaders in Nam Bo in late 1945 were not in the same favourable position as their counterparts in Laos. The French military occupation of southern Vietnam and Cambodia in September and October 1945 forced southern Vietnamese to implement their Cambodian policies in southeastern Thailand, and not in Cambodia. Moreover, as the ICP’s journal revealed in October 1945, Vietnamese leaders were clearly worried by ethnic violence against the Viet kieu in Cambodia and nationalist calls for the return of Nam Bo (Kampuchea Krom) to Cambodia."

The Beginning of Southern Vietnameseese—Thai Contacts

To take advantage of the sympathy Thai leaders had shown for the Vietnamese anticolonial struggle thus far, in early 1946 several ranking members of the People’s Committee of Nam Bo (Uy ban Nhan Dan Nam Bo) travelled to Thailand. One of the first representatives sent was the former Chairman of the People’s Committee established in September 1945, Tran Van Giau. He was born on 11 September 1911 in Gia Dinh in southern Vietnam. He had attended the elite lycée Chasseloup-Laubat until 1928, when he left for France to continue his studies in Toulouse. Converted to communism, in May 1931 he travelled to Moscow where he finished his studies. Back in Saigon in 1933, Giau played an important role in creating the ICP’s clandestine organisation in the south. During this period, the Sûreté reported, he also travelled twice to China, to Hong Kong and Macao where he met with the leadership of the ICP’s Overseas Directing Bureau (see Chapter 2).

In the wake of the defeat of the Japanese in August 1945, Giau tried to hold a volatile coalition of communists, nationalists and religious groups together in the name of the Viet Minh, but to no avail. Besides the immense difficulties caused by the return of French troops to the south, Giau also had serious problems with the non-communist groups. Summoned to the north, Tran Van Giau and Pham Ngoc Thach arrived in Hanoi together on or around 8 November 1945. There, Giau came under stinging verbal attacks from northern non-communist opposition leaders. He may also have encountered internal party criticism for his handling of affairs in the south. According to French sources, part of Giau’s mission to Hanoi in November 1943, Nam Bo, southern requests for troops from the north, and above all the need for arms and supplies.110 On 26 December 1945 the Viet Minh’s official mouthpiece, Cuu Quoc, confirmed the formation of a Bureau of Nam Bo Affairs (Phong Nam-Bo). It was attached to the DRV’s Ministry of the Interior and was in charge of administering military, internal and propaganda affairs in Nam Bo.Giau’s mission to Hanoi in November–December 1945 must have served as the opportunity for northerners and southerners to discuss the need to expand their military, supply and propaganda links to Thailand. And using the Viet kieu to these ends must have been high on their list. It is also worth noting that coinciding with Giau’s trip north was the arrival of the Thai Minister of Defence, Sin-Vat-Sin, in Thuan Hoa on 4 November 1945. There, according to the Tong Bo’s official newspaper Cuu Quoc, he met with leaders of the Trung Bo People’s Committee before he was to continue on to Hanoi to exchange views with the government of the DRV.113 Giau appears to have returned briefly to Nam Bo before arriving in Bangkok in early 1946, possibly before the 28 February 1946 Franco–Chinese accord was signed. In Thailand, he used the nom de guerre “Hoon Hong.”

 In Bangkok, Tran Van Giau created a secret supply organisation known as the Nam Bo Supply Committee (Uy ban te Nam Bo), which would later be fully studied in detail in Chapter 5. It was initially housed in the DRV’s South East Asia Delegation at Bangkok (see Chapter 6) and was an entirely independent southern operation in charge of commercial relations with Southeast Asia and beyond. This supply section started operations some time in mid-1946.116 It was later moved outside Bangkok.

Giau said in an interview in 1989 that his main tasks in Thailand were to contact Pridi Phanyomg; to tend to the acquisition and shipment of arms and equipment back to southern Vietnam; to strengthen the Cambodian resistance movement; and to expand links to and integrate the Vietnamese in Thailand and western Indochina into Viet Minh operations.117 The DRV needed at least tacit approval from Pridi Phanyomong and his allies to allow Giau to do this. If we can believe Giau, his friendship with Pridi was such that he could call upon the Thai leader at any time he wanted. In contrast to Hoang Van Hoan, who relied upon his prewar connections to Asian-trained cadres in the northeast and southern China, it is likely that Giau preferred to draw upon French-educated Thais like Pridi and Hoang Ahuong. The simultaneous displeasure of Nguyen Van Tao and Pham Van Bach, both educated in France at the same time as Pridi, may have been a calculated move to win over Pridi's support through French connections from the 1920s. Giau may also have endeavoured to take over the Thai contacts of Duong Van Giao, a Vietnamese lawyer and friend of Pridi from their days together in France. Duong Van Giao had also lived in Bangkok in the early 1940s, where he met with both Pridi and Phibun (see Chapter 3).118 However, Giau did not mention the mysterious death of Duong Van Giau and Ta Thu Thau in September 1945 may have soured Giau's relations with Pridi.

Even if Giau is playing up his relationship with Pridi Phanomyn... in a bid to recast himself in a more favourable, post-Cold War ‘ASEAN’ light, or is trying to deflect scrutiny from the real reasons for his eviction from Nam Bo, Thai–Vietnamese contacts certainly existed. Meetings between Tran Van Giau and Pridi Phanomong were usually held at Pridi's home in Bangkok, where (according to Giau) discussions covered a wide range of topics, but focused mainly on Thai military assistance and cooperation with the Viet Minh. As Giau put it, the Vietnamese received Pridi's strong support. More important to Giau were two of Pridi's Seri Thai associates, Tiang Sirikhan and Thongin Phurihat. Each was singled out by Giau as Thai officials with whom he often worked closely during his tenure in Thailand. Tiang was the Minister of the Interior in the Kuang Aihphaing Cabinet from January to February 1946 and Deputy Minister of the Interior in the Pridi Cabinet from March to August 1946. In mid-1946 Phuriphbat became Minister of Industry in the Thamrong Cabinet. In September 1946 the Viet Minh's official mouthpiece, Ca Duc Quoc, confirmed a telegram from Tran Van Giau to General Giap in Hanoi in which Giau explained that he had invited an ‘official’ Thai representative to come to Hanoi. According to Giau, this unidentified Thai had accepted the invitation, but he did not know the date of his arrival.

Giau was not the only Viet Minh representative from Nam Bo to work in Thailand in early 1946. Joining him intermittently was Pham Van Bach, the lawyer who had replaced Giau as Chairman of the People’s Committee in September 1945. In early 1946 Bach arrived in Bangkok, leaving his wife and at least some of his children there until 1951. Although the details surrounding his work in Thailand are difficult to ascertain, as a top-ranking member of the southern resistance, his activities no doubt related to the procurement and shipment of arms and equipment back to Nam Bo, as well as the recruitment of Vietnamese in Thailand for service in the war against the French in southern Vietnam.

Two other senior officials known to have been in Thailand in 1946 were Nguyen Van Tao and Nguyen Thanh Son (Nguyen Van Tay or Oai). The latter was born in 1910 in the province of Can Tho. His father was shipped off to Poulo Condor when Thanh Son was young, but not before imparting to his son a profound sense of Confucian patriotism. Following his participation in student strikes in Vietnam in 1926, Thanh Son fled to Canton where he enrolled in the Whampoai Military Academy and was personally trained by Ho Chi Minh. After intensive training in Asia, he returned to work in Vietnam, where was arrested and incarcerated at Poulo Condor in 1930 with other important militants. Thanks to the intervention of the well-known French communist writer, André Villois, Son regained his liberty in 1936 and turned his attention to translating works on the Chinese Revolution and guerrilla tactics with Nguyen Duc Thuy.122 In 1945 he was a member of the southern party ‘Territorial Committee’ (Xua uy) and a Vice-President on the People’s Resistance Administrative Committee for Nam Bo. In February 1946, Giap recalled him to Hanoi to organise the provisions for the south. On his return to the south in 1947, Son began developing maritime and land routes to supply Nam Bo from central Vietnam and Thailand. It was also at this time that Pham Van Dong, the ICP’s representative for the south, arrived in Bangkok to work with Son in the 'Cambodian Front' to protect Nam Bo’s western flank.123 Son travelled periodically to Thailand to implement these tasks."

"As for Nguyen Van Tao, he was an influential ICP member who had long been active in the south. But if Son had gone to China in the 1920s, Tao had travelled to France in 1926 and joined the Central Committee of the French Communist Party a year later. In August 1945 he joined the People’s Committee of the South and was said to be the President of the People’s Committee of Rach Gia in late 1945. In either case, he would have been attuned to the need to establish supply links to Thailand. He arrived in Bangkok in early 1946 and probably attended to tasks similar to Bach’s. However, shortly thereafter he left Thailand for northern Vietnam, where he became the Minister of Labour in the DRV government in 1947. His wife, however, remained in Bangkok with their two daughters until 1951 (see Chapter 8)."

The Thai origins of Contemporary Vietnamese-Cambodian Relations

As in Laos, the Vietnamese needed to form alliances with the Cambodians and build bases among the Vietnamese communities scattered along the Gulf of 

"Thailand in order to protect their western flank. Southern communists had only a rudimentary prewar revolutionary network on which they could build the postwar activities. For the ICP had little, if any, attention to building prewar bases among the large Viet kieu populations in western Cambodia in the 1930s, let alone among the Cambodians. Buddhism and Catholicism had worked against them (see Chapters 1–2). Indeed, it was the Thais who had presided over the formation of the first Khmer Issarak group in late 1940 (see Chapter 3). Five years later, with open hostility from the French underworld, the Vietnamese hoped to use the Thai-formed Cambodian groups to build their own alliances against the French.

To our knowledge there was no Cambodian ‘Soupanhouvong’ in Saigon or Dalat for Tran Van Giau to recruit in late August 1945. However, Vietnamese communists would later claim that Son Ngoc Thanh had sent a delegation to Saigon in 'mid-September' to contact the Nam Bo People’s Committee. The same source claims that at the time of Son Ngoc Thanh’s arrest in October 1945, Viet Minh secret agents entered the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh in a bid to convince Prince Sihanouk to leave with them. The Prince refused. These agents did, however, succeed in escorting Pacheoun to Nam Bo, where the latter helped form the Cambodian Independence Committee to match the one recently formed in Laos with the help of Prince Soupanyouvong. Unlike Phasarat and Soupanhouvong, though, Sihanouk stayed in Phnom Penh. Compared to their northern counterparts, at the end of World War II the southern Vietnamese were largely out of touch with events and potential royal collaborators in Cambodia or southern Vietnam (where violence with deep historical roots had badly complicated relations between the Viet Minh and the Khmer Krom)."

"This changed somewhat following the outbreak of hostility between the French and the Viet Minh in Nam Bo on 23 September. In late 1945, the Territorial Committee of Nam Bo (Xu uy Nam Bo) dispatched a representative to Cambodia with orders to increase the Viet Minh's cooperation with anti-French Cambodian groups.126 However, the rapid French reoccupation of Cambodia sent such groups fleeing either into the dense jungles of southwestern Vietnam or into eastern Thailand.127 According to several Vietnamese experts on Cambodia (writing with the events of the late 1970s clearly in mind), some of those Cambodians who went to Nam Bo were helped by the Viet Minh's Southern Resistance Administrative Committee and the Xu uy Nam Bo in the creation of the Cambodian Independence Committee (CIC). This Nam Bo-based committee was said to have had 100 Cambodian members who received military, political and financial aid from the Southern Committee, as well as the support of the large Khmer population residing in southern Vietnam.128 This coincided with an ICP directive calling for the 'immediate establishment of a joint Vietnamese–Cambodian military commission' which would bring about a guerrilla war on Cambodian soil.

This never happened. At the end of that year the CIC collapsed in the face of French military advances in the south.130 The timing of its disintegration helps"to explain why southern Vietnamese cadres travelled to Thailand in early 1946 with instructions to build better ties with the Cambodians. Tran Van Giau explained in 1989 that he had orders from the government 'to organise the Cambodian resistance movement in Cambodia and the Laoian movement in a part of southern Laos' during his mission to Thailand.131 This order probably came from one of the DRV's special delegates to Nam Bo in late 1946, Vo Van Duc (Vu Duc). An ethnic Tay, Duc arrived with Nguyen Binh in late 1945, where he took charge of interwar zone IX covering southwestern Nam Bo facing the Gulf of Thailand. He immediately sent two delegates to Battambang via Bangkok to contact the Cambodian Independence Committee on the matter of increased cooperation against the French.1 The idea was the same as in Laos: without a viable Khmer resistance movement in Cambodia, the French were free to attack southern Vietnam from the west.Unsurprisingly, forming commercial ties to Thai markets was also high on Vu Duc's list. On 3 April 1946 he authorised delegates to approach the Thai government on the matter of procuring arms.134 Duc provided the papers and sent Vietnamese and Hoa kieu traders to Thailand to sell agricultural products in exchange for war supplies and equipment. These were the same delegates sent to contact the Khmer resistance. The DRV's postwar diplomacy and commerce went hand in hand."

Thai sympathy for the Viet Minh in 1946 made the idea of building contacts with Khmer anti-French groups all the more attractive, especially in the light of Bangkok's simultaneous reluctance to return to the French Cambodian territories ceded in 1941. Second, because the Thais still occupied the Cambodian territories of Battambang, Sisophon and a considerable portion of Siemreap, these territories were, by and large, safe from direct French military interference.136 Third, by working with the Khmer resistance in Thailand, the Viet Minh would have access to the financial and military resources of the Viet kieu. From the outset, Giau said, Viet Minh leaders in Thailand had relied upon the Vietnamese populations in Thailand and Cambodia to support their efforts to build a Cambodian resistance movement.137 Using statistics from 1938, the French estimated that there were a total of 6,157 Vietnamese living in the Cambodian territories ceded to the Thais in the 1941. Some 1,385 lived in the town of Battambang, while 2,496 in the srok (district) of Sangker; 598 in Mongkolborei; 666 in Moung Russay; 495 in Tuk Chor; and 197 in Sisophon. The remainder were scattered.

Tran Van Giau's postwar work among the Viet kieu in lower Thailand and Cambodia was further facilitated by the support of such men as Nam Hong Chung and Ho Vinh Long. Both had served in Duong Van Giao's Bangkok-based revolutionary organisation in the early 1940s, the League for the Restoration of Viet Nam (Viet Nam Phuc Quoc Dong Minh Hoi, see Chapter 3). The fact that Nguyen Van Long, one of the ICP's Thai veterans (see Chapter 7), and Vu Huu Binh had penetrated the interior of this pro-Japanese organisation in Thailand certainly helped Tran Van Giau in his own work among the Viet kieu for the DRV.

"Some time at the beginning of 1946, after meetings between DRV and Cambodian resistance representatives in Bangkok, the Khmer National Liberation Committee (Kana Cheat Mouta Keaha Mocchim Nokor Khmer, KNLC) was set up in Thai-controlled Battambang. A French source claims that this occurred in June 1946, when a Cambodian Liberation Committee was formed in Battambang province, modelled along the lines of the Viet kieu Association in Bangkok. With the assistance of the Viet Minh and ‘Viet kieu resistance forces’ operating in the area, the KNLC was designed to help Cambodian groups organise an effective resistance force to fight the French in conjunction with the Viet Minh. The KNLC was reportedly led by Acan Duong, Son Ngoc Minh, a Khmer Issark member, Me Muon and possibly Dap Chuon. The French claim the President was Pokhun and the Vice-President, Ros Yoengu.141 Hoang Van Hoan tells us in his memoirs that when this committee had consolidated its strength adequately, it ‘brought its forces into Cambodia to work in the areas of Tonle Sap, Battambang and the area of northwestern Cambodia’. However, it appears that until the committee could stand on its own feet, it remained on Thai soil or in Bangkok-controlled Battambang or Siemreap.

Vietnamese anticlonial cooperation with the Cambodians never matched the Viet Minh’s collaboration with the Lao Issara at the same time. In early August 1946, 300–400 fighters, a combination of Khmer Issarak, KNLC and Viet Minh adherents, briefly occupied the French-administered town of Siemreap before being driven back by French troops sent from Saigon.143 Giau, who said he was directly involved in the Siemreap operation, explained that the attacking

force was part of Viet Minh supply convoy crossing Siemreap from Thailand on its way to Vietnam. The French were aware of this operation and pursued it, evidently leaving the town of Siemreap vulnerable to a combined Vietnamese–Khmer attack.144 Nguyen Thanh Son claims that the Viet Minh’s Mekong I and II units (see Chapter 5) participated in this attack, marking what he sees as the first example of combined Viet Minh-Cambodian resistance efforts and the beginning of the Cambodian ‘armed uprising’ against the French. However, this attack on Siemreap was no ‘Battle of Thakhek’. A Bangkok Post investigation revealed that many Khmer Issarak partisans failed to pull the pins out of their grenades when they attacked. Hoan concedes that the KNLC soon crumbled because of internal fighting, without making any mention of the state of Vietnamese–Cambodian relations.

Nevertheless, according to a French report on the situation in the Thai-controlled Cambodian provinces as of 25 October 1946, the Viet Minh still commanded around 4,000 Khmer Issarak men. Of this total, around 30–35 per cent were armed.146 While it is clear that Vietnamese–Cambodian cooperation was still far weaker than the Lao–Vietnamese relationship to the north, what is noteworthy is that it was in Thai-occupied Cambodia and Thailand – not southern Vietnam – that Vietnam's postwar relations with Cambodia began. Moreover, the different strategic conditions existing between northern and southern Indochina in 1945 foreshadowed the different directions that would emerge in Vietnamese–Laotian and Vietnamese–Cambodian relations."

Converging Interests: The Franco–Thai and Franco–Vietnamese Disputes

To this point we have examined how, from 1945, the Vietnamese began to conceive the importance of Thailand in terms of consolidating their activities in Laos and Cambodia. Before concluding this chapter, we need to review briefly the Thai and Vietnamese cases against the French in 1946 to show how a shared antipathy for the reconstruction of French Indochina would lead the Thais to support the Viet Minh against the French well into the early 1950s. In 1946, as in the 1880s, it was French Admirals who drove the Thais and the Vietnamese together.

The Thai Case against the French

Having pacified southern Vietnam, signed the 6 March Accord, and retaken Laos by late May 1946, French attention shifted immediately from the Franco–Laotian and Franco–Vietnamese conflicts to the Franco–Thai dispute. In April, Thai representatives traveled to Dalat to discuss the future of the western Indochinese territories with the French High Commissioner, Admiral Georges Thierry D’Argenlieu, who was himself involved in complicated negotiations with the Vietnamese. D’Argenlieu demanded the return of the Cambodian and Laotian territories that Bangkok had gained through Japanese mediation in 1941. The Thais insisted the territories were ‘historically’ Thai, not Indochinese.

"This was especially the case for Thais with family links to these areas. As Khuang Aphaiwong told The Thai National Assembly in early 1946, ‘there is no one among the 18 million Siamese who desire more fervently than I do that the territories in question should remain with us, and you all probably know why.’147 Khuang was of royal Khmer blood, a direct descendant of the Aphaiwong branch of the Cambodian throne. Through marriage and business interests, he had maintained strong ties to Battambang and Siemreap provinces since 1941. As the head of the Democratic Party, Khuang lobbied hard against returning the western Cambodian provinces to the French on the grounds that it was an indelible part of ‘Thailand’. Until 1946 Khuang’s brother, Chaowalit Aphaiwong, worked in a ‘Special Commission’ in Battambang and was considered the ‘Nominal Head of the Khmer Issarak Movement’ until he was displaced by Pokhun (see Chapter 3). Even Pokhun, the leader of the first Khmer Issarak group of 1940, had a direct line into the Aphaiwong family through marriage: he was Khuang’s brother-in-law.148 As a French report put it: ‘The Khmer Issarak movement is both a political and commercial affair of the Aphaiwong family and the Democratic Party.

While the Thais agreed eventually to negotiate the question with the French, they called for a readjustment of the border according to ‘historical considerations’ and proposed that a referendum be held to determine the future status of the disputed territories. The talks broke down at the end of April. A few days later, the first of two border incidents occurred along the Thai–Laotian frontier concerning French and Viet kieu attacks across the Mekong.

In the wake of these serious incidents, the timing of which coincided with the end of Franco–Vietnamese negotiations at Dalat and the complete reoccupation of Laos, Pridi asked the US embassy in Bangkok whether 'the time had come to resist these incursions by force'. In the Thai view, the French were provoking incidents along the border in order to hasten the return of the contested territories.150 While we have no reliable proof of French provocation, there is documentation showing that in early June 1946, Admiral d’Argenlieu did indeed consider sending French troops against the Thais, not only into the contested Cambodian territories, but even into Thailand proper to make sure the French got the 'lost territories' back.

Although subsequent US intervention secured better negotiations between Paris and Bangkok and the possibility of UN arbitration, the Siemreap incident in August (see above) derailed temporarily Franco–Thai negotiations in Washington. French authorities in Saigon were able to use this incident as grounds for moving at least 1,000 Foreign Legion troops to the Thai–Cambodian border, as Radio Saigon broadcasts warned that troops would retake the Lao-tian and Cambodian territories by force. Saigon authorities alleged direct Thai complicity in the Siemreap affair, an allegation denied by the Thais. Faced with the choice of fighting for the territories or returning them, in early October Bangkok authorities yielded by agreeing to return the territories to the French in exchange for the formation of a Concilation Commission to consider, at a later date, Thai historical claims to the territories. On 17 November an accord was signed by the two sides in Washington, and on 9 December France reoccupied yet another piece of her Indochinese colony. The DRV government located above the 16th parallel was now the last remaining obstacle blocking the French return to all of Indochina, ante bellum.

What interests us here is that D’Argenlieu’s hard line towards the Thais from May 1946 must have reinforced Thai-Vietnamese relations considerably. D’Argenlieu’s actions are no doubt at the heart of the Thai decision to allow the DRV to form a delegation in Bangkok at this precise time and their willingness to allow the Viet Minh to train troops in and ship arms from Thailand to Vietnam. Had the Admiral reoccupied the Thai-held provinces by force in mid-1946, it is not hard to imagine the birth of a military and diplomatic alliance between the Thai and Vietnamese governments. The Vietnamese would have been able to bog the French down in a two-front regional war, thereby allowing them to hold on to Bac Bo a little longer.

This scenario is not as far-fetched as some might think. On 21 July 1946, a DRV paper, Doc Lap, published a front-page editorial saying that the Thai case against the French was a ‘truly reasonable, clear-cut, and deserving one’. In that same month, Tran Van Giau reported to the National Defence Council in Hanoi that he had achieved ‘a kind of accord’ with the Thais, allowing the Viet Minh to transfer arms to western Indochina and to take refuge in Thailand. I doubt this alleged ‘accord’ amounted to much, given Bangkok’s decision to return the contested territories. As Pham Ngoc Thach explained Bangkok’s view of the DRV to Vo Nguyen Giap in mid-1946: ‘Thai policy is very cautious’.

The Vietnamese Case against the French

To DRV diplomats and strategists, d’Argenlieu’s piece-by-piece reoccupation of French Indochina, ante bellum, left little doubts that, with the western Indochinese territories back in French hands, Saigon authorities were now going to turn their full attention to Tonkin/Bac Bo. Since the 6 March Accord of 1946, the Vietnamese had adopted a policy called ‘peace in order to advance’ to deal with what was truly an extremely complicated situation in local and international terms.155 Although the French had been forced to make substantial concessions to Hanoi in March, French authorities in Indochina had not abandoned plans to retake northern Vietnam by force.156 In late May, Ho Chi Minh left for France at the invitation of the French government and would stay there for almost four months while a Vietnamese delegation led by Pham Van Dong negotiated at Fontainebleau. During these negotiations, Vietnamese diplomats tried to hold Paris to the promises it had made in March, while Giap turned to destroying Vu Hong Khanh’s VNQDD, Nguyen Hai Than’s DMH and Truong Tu Anh and Nguyen Tuong Tam’s Dai Viets.

Meanwhile, the French position had begun to harden and the imbrogilo of French politics precluded clear-cut decisions. Paris rejected the Vietnamese demand to set a date for the referendum. The French knew that the DRV would probably win the overwhelming support of the people. Back in Saigon (and courant of the DRV’s cable traffic between Hanoi and Fontainebleau), d’Argenlieu formed a separate Cochin-Chinese Republic, a move that was perceived to be in direct violation of the March Accord but done with the approval of Paris. In June the Chinese pulled the majority of their troops out of northern Indochina. The remainder had left by September.

On 10 September 1946 negotiations collapsed in Fontainebleau. Not wanting to leave without some sort of agreement, Ho remained and on 14 September he signed a modus vivendi. Four days later, the last remaining Chinese troops pulled out of Indochina and about two weeks after that the Thais agreed to return the Indochinese territories. French authorities in Indochina objected to Paris’s agreement to the modus vivendi and a ceasefire, feeling both would undermine their position in the south. As Norwegian historian Sven Torrneson has shown, to deflect attention from the complete failure of the newly proclaimed Cochin-Chinese Republic and from the resurgent strength of Viet Minh guerrillas in southern Indochina under Nguyen Binh’s direction, Saigon authorities began a more aggressive policy towards the north.157 On 15 October the French set up a customs agency in Haiphong without Hanoi’s approval, as Thierry d’Argenlieu instructed his subordinates to draw up plans for a coup de force. On 23 November, after the French had delivered an unacceptable ultimatum to the Vietnamese and as the Thais were preparing for the French reoccupation of the Lao­tian and Cambodian territories, the French forcibly took control of Haiphong.

In the wake of this incident and others, the Vietnamese prepared themselves militarily and psychologically for war, although Ho refused to close the door to a diplomatic solution. Tension mounted in Hanoi as armed skirmishes proliferated and the Vietnamese and French each anticipated the other making an imminent attack. On the evening of the 19 December 1946, war broke out between the Vietnamese and French.159 That night the general resistance against the French was announced.

General Giap had already turned westwards for a diplomatic opening to the region, for access to Sino–Vietnamese trading networks and for help from the Viet kieu located to the west – just across the Mekong."

1. David Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

2.Lich su Sai Gon-Che Lon-Gia Dinh Khang Chien (1945–1975) [A History of the Resistance in Saigon, Cholon and Gia Dinh (1945–75)], Ho Chi Minh City: Nha Xuat Ban Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh, 1994, pp. 32, 34, note 1, p. 42. A 1945 source refers to Giau as the President of the uy ban hanh chinh lam thai or provisional administratice committee " nam Bo se co su doan dan quan cach mang dan quoc ( 5 september 1945 )