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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 10. 23rd May 1973

How can we Undermine our Victory?

How can we Undermine our Victory?

When we asked the delegation about the charge that the D.R.V. and the P.R.G. were violating the agreement as much as the Americans and the Thieu Administration, the leader of the D.R.V. delegation, Nguyen Van Chi, answered in the following way. "I think we should bring to the notice of people throughout the world that the agreement was the initiative of the D.R.V. and the P.R.G., and we pushed for that initiative at the peace talks in Paris even in early October 1972. We have to implement the agreement strictly and correctly because to do otherwise would be to negate our own initiative! The United States and the Saigon Administration tried to sabotage the negotiations and tried to avoid signing the agreement. In order to put pressure on us and frighten us they sent their B52 planes to bomb North Vietnam for twelve days in December and early January. Although this was the heaviest bombing of the war they failed in their efforts to intimidate our people, and in the end they had to sign the agreement. However many provisions in the January agreement were more profitable for us than those in the October draft agreement. We say the agreement was a victory for us, the D.R.V. and the P.R.G., not a victory for the United States or the Saigon Administration. How can we violate an agreement which is a victory for us and a defeat for our opponents?"