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Canada’s Role in the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2016
Extract
The search for some means to terminate the Vietnam conflict by negotiation has given rise to certain anomalies in the application of the law and procedure of the United Nations and of the existing regional arrangements affecting Southeast Asia. It has also revealed the existence of a lacuna in the provisions of these international instruments governing the discharge of peacekeeping functions. This, however, is not the case in respect of the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam which constitutes the only tangible instrument of the Geneva settlement specifically created to fulfil, on a continuous basis, the tasks of control, observation, inspection, and investigation connected with the application of the Cease-fire Agreement for Vietnam.
- Type
- Notes and Comments
- Information
- Canadian Yearbook of International Law/Annuaire canadien de droit international , Volume 4 , 1966 , pp. 161 - 177
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Canadian Council on International Law / Conseil Canadien de Droit International, representing the Board of Editors, Canadian Yearbook of International Law / Comité de Rédaction, Annuaire Canadien de Droit International 1966
References
1 See Report of the Security Council, July 16, 1964 — July 15, 1965, Supplement No. 2, A/6002, at 3–7 and 151–54; and Security Council Verbatim Record, S/PV 1119, 1120, 1121, 1122, 1124, 1271, 1272 and 1273. Also Chou En-lai has declared: “The United Nations has nothing to do with the Vietnam question. It was outside the United Nations that the 1954 Geneva Conference was held. Therefore the United Nations has no right at all to meddle in this question.… The Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam has expressed on more than one occasion its opposition to U.N. interference in the Vietnam question. The Chinese Government firmly supports the stand of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.” Peking Review, September 17, 1965, at 8.
2 6 UST 81; TIAS 3170; 209 UNTS 28. See also the Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations on the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, Senate Document, Executive Report No. 1, 84th Congress, ist Session.
3 3 UST 3420; TIAS 2493; 131 UNTS 83.
4 Text of the Geneva Accord supplied by courtesy of the Dept. of Ext. Aff., Ottawa, entitled Geneva Conference, Indo-China IC/42 Rev. 3, 20/7/54. Also Royal Inst, of Inter. Aff.: Documents on International Affairs 1954 at 138–41 and New York Times, July 22, 1954. The United States issued a statement on July 21, 1954 taking note of the Geneva Agreements and declaring that “it would view any renewal of the aggression in violation of the aforesaid agreements with grave concern and as seriously threatening international peace and security.” At the 8th and last session of the Geneva Conference, the Vietnamese Delegate, Tran Van Do, made separate declaration protesting “the fact that this armistice agreement abandons to the Vietminh some territories still held by Vietnamese troops, and which are at the same time essential to the defence of Vietnam against a greater Communist expansion.”
5 Article 1 of the Agreement speaks of “a provisional military demarcation line.” This was drawn approximately at the 17th parallel across Vietnam. During the Geneva Negotiations, Mendès-France had argued for the 18th parallel and the Communists at one time had insisted on the 14th. This final line has placed about 12,750,000 people under the rule of the Vietminh in the north and about 9,300,000 under the non-Communist Republic of Vietnam in the south. The Final Declaration of the Conference however states that “the military demarcation line should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary.”
6 See supra note 4.
7 Text of Vietminh Proposal, New York Times, May 11, 1954.
8 Text of Eden speech of June 23, 1954, New York Times, June 24, 1954.
9 Text of Molotov speech, New York Times, May 15, 1954. The neutral countries were reported to include India, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Pakistan.
10 Text of Chou’s speech Documents on International Affairs, 1954 at 131. (Royal Institute of International Affairs).
11 See Eden, , Full Circle 141.Google Scholar This narration is corroborated by the account in Eisenhower, Dwight D., Mandate for Change 447.Google Scholar
12 H.C. Deb. (Can.) 1953–54, Vol. IV, at 3327.
13 Statements and Speeches, Dept. of Ext. Aff. No. 54/36.
14 Ibid.
15 Mr. Sherwood Lett was appointed first Canadian Representative to the Commission with the assistance of some 70 army officers. The cost to Canada was estimated by Paul Martin as “over a million dollars a year.”
16 External Affairs, March 1957, at 114.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid., 115.
19 Texts of the Third and Fourth Interim Reports of the I.S.G.C., External Affairs, Supplementary Papers 55/6 and CMND 31, Vietnam No. 3 (1955). According to the Canadian statement, the reports of the Commission’s teams showed that “individuals wishing to move south were actually prevented from moving. An atmosphere of fear and suspicion… had not been dissipated, and served to inhibit and restrict effective investigation by the teams.” See also External Affairs, Vol. VIII, Nos. 2 & 3, February and March 1956, at 56–57.
20 “Pacificus,” “Canada in Indo-China,” (1957), International Journal, Vol. XI, No. 4. The Note by the Canadian Representative dated April 25, 1955 attached to the Third Interim Report of the Commission already stated that the “progress in the implementation of Article 14(d) will continue to be unsatisfactory… [and] that the delay in respect of Article 14(d), which has a specific time limit within which the implementation must be completed, has been a matter of serious concern to the Commission.” See External Affairs, Supplementary Paper 55/6.
21 For text of the Majority Report of the Commission and of the Statement by the Polish Representative to the Commission, see Cmd. 1755, Vietnam No. 1 (1962) London, at 7–11 and 21–22.
22 See Statement by Hon. Paul Martin, Sec. of State for Ext. Aff. March 8, 1965, Statement and Speeches, Dept. of Ext. Aff. No. 65/8.
23 Text of Report and Statement supplied by courtesy of Dept. of Ext. Aff. Mr. Martin also stated the following before the Standing Committee on External Affairs of the House of Commons:
“The sole purpose of the Canadian statement was to augment the presentation of facts in the Indian-Polish report with other and equally significant material including a direct reference to the South Vietnamese authorities’ explanation of the events in question.
“Our Commission colleagues had been unwilling in the opinion of the Canadian minority report to take these relevant facts into account; this made it necessary for us to do so in order to restore the sense of balance on which the 1962 report was based, but which the majority report in the 1965 message lacked.
“If we had signed the Indian-Polish documents — and we did not disagree with the facts which it reports — without augmenting it, we might have run the risk of having the Commission convey the impression that the situation described in the 1962 report had changed; that the only violations of the Geneva Agreement since 1962 had been the air strikes against North Vietnam, and that therefore responsibility rested on South Viet Nam and the United States for the danger of wider hostilities.
“Well, in our statement I think we have indicated that this would clearly present a false impression. There is no change in the nature of the situation, but rather there has been an intensification of the same factors as were noted in the 1962 report.”
H.C. Standing Committee on Ext. Aff., Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, No. 1, June 9 and 10, 1965, at 21.
24 He added that “what is at stake in Vietnam… is no local rebellion arising mainly out of agrarian discontent with an unpopular government, although undoubtedly it contains some of these elements.” He also commented that the leader of the Liberation Front “is a shadowy figure … has no acknowledged headquarters” and repudiated the assertion that “Hanoi had no more control over the Viet Cong than Stalin had over Mao Tse-tung” insisting that “evidence available suggests that precisely the reverse conditions obtain.” H.C. Standing Com. on Ext. Aff., Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, No. 1, June 9 and 10, 1965, at 11 and 23.
25 H.C. Deb. (Can.) Feb. 3, 1966, at 667.
26 See text of Canadian reply to the British Foreign Secretary acting as Co-chairman of the Geneva Conference, dated April 27, 1965, Statement and Speeches, Dept. of Ext. Aff. No. 65/14.
27 See text of Mr. Martin’s statement in House of Commons January 25, 1966, Statement and Speeches, Dept. of Ext. Aff. No. 66/1. Also Prime Minister Pearson’s statement of January 24, 1966: H.C. Deb. (Can.) Jan. 24, 1966, at 142.
28 H.G. Deb. (Can.) Feb. 21, 1966, at 1513. He had earlier reviewed other peaceful efforts undertaken by Canada as follows: “Right at the beginning we urged a cease fire. We urged a pause in the bombing. We urged a convocation of the Conference of Laos. We urged the convocation of a conference in Cambodia. We have agreed to any kind of conference that will bring the parties together. We have made suggestions that we think could refine some of the conditions that the North laid down. We have just thrown out the suggestion that the North ought to be allowed to select their own delegation at a conference aimed at a settlement. We have subscribed to the 17 unaligned nations’ appeal for a cease fire and for peaceful negotiations. We are now engaged in what I hope might be fruitful talks with other countries.” H.C. Standing Committee on Ext. Aff., Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, No. 1, June 9–10, 1965, at 41.
29 See Martin’s statement, H.C. Deb. (Can.) March 2, 1966, at 2052.
30 H.C. Deb. (Can.) March 7, 1966, at 2283. Endorsement of Mr. Martin’s initiative was also given by Mr.Goldberg, Arthur, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, New York Times, March 29, 1966.Google Scholar
31 H.C. Deb. (Can.) Feb. 21, 1966, at 1512. (Mr. Martin, however, asserted that Mr. Moore’s “conversations in Hanoi had nothing to do with the proposal that we have been discussing with India and Poland.”) On Mr. Ronning’s visit, see H.C. Deb. (Can.) March 8, 1966, at 2355, and March 16, 1966, at 2275. On the eve of intensified bombings of oil installations in North Vietnam by American aircraft toward the end of June 1966, the Canadian government dispatched Mr. Ronning on a second mission to Hanoi. As explained by the Secretary of State for External Affairs, Mr. Paul Martin, in the House of Commons, Mr. Ronning’s “visit represents only one phase in what is a continuing effort on our part to see whether some mutually acceptable basis for a peaceful settlement of the conflict can be established. We are under no illusion about the magnitude of the obstacles. On the other hand, we are in no way deterred from persisting in the process of patient exploration of positions, of opening channels and establishing contacts. That is what I think the Canadian people want this government to do.” The mission, however, seemed to have yielded no immediate tangible result: see H.C. Deb. (Can.) June 22, 1966, at 6756–57.
32 Text supplied by courtesy of Dept. of Ext. Aff.
33 The Montreal Star, April 5, 1966.
34 H.C. Deb. (Can.) April 4, 1966, at 3785.
35 Ibid., April 6, 1966, at 3951. Mr. Martin had earlier elucidated his intent more clearly in the House of Commons Standing Commitee on External Affairs, saying that “what we have in mind is something a good deal more modest and informal. It is really in the nature of a good offices assignment which could be undertaken not necessarily by the Commission as such but by the three Commission powers acting as sovereign nations which have been associated with the Vietnam problem for the past 11 years.…” He also added that “in the meantime we are continuing our exchanges with our Commission partners in response to their own indications that they would like to see this dialogue carried forward.” Text of Statement in Press Release, Dept. of Ext. Aff., No. 19, April 4, 1966.
36 United Nations, Security Council, Verbatim Record, S/PV. 1122, at 7.
37 Mr. Martin’s address to the editors of the Foreign Language Press, Toronto, March 26, 1965. Statement and Speeches, Dept. of Ext. Aff. No. 65/9.