Ngo Dinh Diem Influence On Vietnam

On June 11, 1963, people watched in horror as a man burned himself in the middle of a busy Saigon road as people passed flyers around him. The Buddhists had asked for volunteers to commit suicide in order to show the world how they felt about President Ngo Dinh Diem’s way of governing South Vietnam. The man was one of four people who immolated themselves. Several months later, Diem was assassinated by his own military forces in a coup d’état that was funded and supported by the United States on November 2, 1963. The assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem was just because he was a dictator who arrested his political opponents and was biased against people based on their religion; however, some believe that Diem would have changed Vietnam for the better. Although Diem was appointed into his chair as President, he was a dictator. Prior to his term as President, he visited the United States and met influential people like John F. Kennedy during the French-Indochina War. Diem opposed communism and French rule, declaring …show more content…
Many of the government officials were Catholics. Diem showed favoritism, being a “devout Catholic” himself. He only appointed people who share his religious beliefs. However, roughly 70% of the population was Buddhist, and many monks were angered and started protesting against his preference towards Catholics. In response, Diem started imprisoning thousands of Buddhist monks and sending them to prison camps, often sending them to their deaths. However, some people believed that Diem would change Vietnam for the better. Diem was able to resettle many refugees from North Vietnam into to South Vietnam with financial aid from the United States. However, he was too brutal with dealing with the protests, and “further alienated the South Vietnamese populace”. People committed suicide to demonstrate how much they opposed Diem. However, many government officials condoned it, “Let them burn, and we shall clap our