SPLIT DEVELOPS IN VIETMINH

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27435, 23 August 1954, Page 11

SPLIT DEVELOPS IN VIETMINH

Party Purists And Patriots (Rec. 8 P.m.) LONDON, August 21. “The Times” said today that a split is developing in the Communist Vietminh in Indo-China between patriots and party purists. “Chinese commissars and organisers, welcomed while the fighting was going on, are losing popularity as traditional Vietnamese suspicion of China gains the upper hand,” “The Times” said. “Now that the Vietminh is no longer held together by a common revolutionary objective in destroying French influence and must face the problems of civil administration, differences inside the movement seem inevitable. “The patriots are led by the popular idol, General Vo Nguyen Giap and the party purists by Truong Chinn, head of Loa Dong (the Vietminh Communist Party). “Among the non-Communist Vietnam three distinct schools of thought are developing. One school bitterly criticises the division of the country along the seventeenth parallel as a betrayal of Vietnamese nationalism and wishes to form an independent republic like South Korea, to serve as a base for the future reconquest of the whole country. “At the other extreme are those who think the future of Vietnam lies in gradual co-operation with the Vietminh. The third group Wants to hold aloof from the Vietminh and give the southern territories model democratic government”