Through the event, the organizing panel created an opportunity for members of the Liaison Board of the “Davis Camp” Joint Military Group to recall stories about the victorious history of Vietnam 50 years ago and the implementation of the Paris Peace Accords, thus raising public awareness and responsibility for upholding traditions and spreading patriotism.
During the event, witnesses to history, including Senior Colonel Dao Chi Cong, an officer for external affairs at the office of the military delegation of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam and head of the Liaison Board of the “Davis Camp” Joint Military Group; Senior Colonel Dinh Quoc Ky, a liaison officer of the delegation; Nguyen Hung Tri, an interpreter of the delegation, shared stories related to the implementation of the Paris Peace Accords.
After five years of negotiations, the Paris Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam (Paris Peace Accords) was signed on January 27, 1973.
In the nine-chapter, 23-article agreement, the U.S. and other countries pledged to respect the independence, united sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Vietnam. The U.S. would completely end its war of invasion, military engagement, and interference in the internal affairs of South Vietnam while respecting the right to self-determination and guaranteeing the rights to freedom and democracy of the people in South Vietnam.
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Camp Davis was an abandoned military camp of the U.S. located in the Southwest of Tan Son Nhat Airport. |
Camp Davis was an abandoned military camp of the U.S. military located in the Southwest of Tan Son Nhat Airport (now in Ward 4 of Tan Binh district of Ho Chi Minh City). It was chosen to be the headquarters of the liaison board of Camp Davis and the two military delegations of Vietnam.
The Saigon administration surrounded Camp Davis with layers of barbed wire to isolate the two delegations, which were located deep inside the airport. It also erected 13 watch towers and pointed guns at the camp around the clock.
They said that the head-on, strong, and subtle struggle by members of the liaison board and the two Vietnamese delegations helped accelerate the release of military and civilian prisoners of the parties concerned who had been arrested during wartime and forced the militaries of the U.S. and its allies to completely withdraw from the South within 60 days. This was the most important factor that changed the balance of forces on the battlefield in a way benefiting the Vietnamese revolution and created the decisive turning point and the main condition for the South liberation and the national reunification in 1975.
In the coming time, National Archives Center No.3 expects that the Liaison Board of the “Davis Camp” Joint Military Group to continue to cooperate with the center to collect and promote values of documents and artifacts related to the implementation of the Paris Peace Accord.
Translated by Tran Hoai