3.9.11

VIETNAM DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

President Ho Chi Minh delivering
his address in Hanoi on 2 September 1945.


(SEPTEMBER 2, 1945)

"All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness"

This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America m 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.

The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man and the Citizen also states: "All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights." Those are undeniable truths.

Nevertheless, for more than eighty years, the French imperialists, abusing the standard of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, have violated our Fatherland and oppressed our fellow-citizens. They have acted contrary to the ideals of humanity and justice. In the field of politics, they have deprived our people of every democratic liberty.

They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, the Center and the South of Vietnam in order to wreck our national unity and prevent our people from being united.

They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly slain our patriots- they have drowned our uprisings in rivers of blood. They have fettered public opinion; they have practised obscurantism against our people. To weaken our race they have forced us to use opium and alcohol.

In the fields of economics, they have fleeced us to the backbone, impoverished our people, and devastated our land.

They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have monopolised the issuing of bank-notes and the export trade.

They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a state of extreme poverty.

They have hampered the prospering of our national bourgeoisie; they have mercilessly exploited our workers.

In the autumn of 1940, when the Japanese Fascists violated Indochina's territory to establish new bases in their fight against the Allies, the French imperialists went down on their bended knees and handed over our country to them.

Thus, from that date, our people were subjected to the double yoke of the French and the Japanese. Their sufferings and miseries increased. The result was that from the end of last year to the beginning of this year, from Quang Tri province to the North of Vietnam, more than two rnillion of our fellow-citizens died from starvation. On March 9, the French troops were disarmed by the lapanese. The French colonialists either fled or surrendered, showing that not only were they incapable of "protecting" us, but that, in the span of five years, they had twice sold our country to the Japanese.

On several occasions before March 9, the Vietminh League urged the French to ally themselves with it against the Japanese. Instead of agreeing to this proposal, the French colonialists so intensified their terrorist activities against the Vietminh members that before fleeing they massacred a great number of our political prisoners detained at Yen Bay and Cao Bang.

Not withstanding all this, our fellow-citizens have always manifested toward the French a tolerant and humane attitude. Even after the Japanese putsch of March 1945, the Vietminh League helped many Frenchmen to cross the frontier, rescued some of them from Japanese jails, and protected French lives and property.

From the autumn of 1940, our country had in fact ceased to be a French colony and had become a Japanese possession.

After the Japanese had surrendered to the Allies, our whole people rose to regain our national sovereignty and to found the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The truth is that we have wrested our independence from the Japanese and not from the French

The French have fled, the Japanese have capitulated, Emperor Bao Dai has abdicated. Our people have broken the chains which for nearly a century have fettered them and have won independence for the Fatherland. Our people at the same time have overthrown the monarchic regime that has reigned supreme for dozens of centuries. In its place has been established the present Democratic Republic.

For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government, representing the whole Vietnamese people, declare that from now on we break off all relations of a colonial character with France; we repeal all the international obligation that France has so far subscribed to on behalf of Vietnam and we abolish all the special rights the French have unlawfully acquired in our Fatherland.

The whole Vietnamese people, animated by a common purpose, are determined to fight to the bitter end against any attempt by the French colonialists to reconquer their country.

We are convinced that the Allied nations which at Tehran and San Francisco have acknowledged the principles of self-determination and equality of nations, will not refuse to acknowledge the independence of Vietnam.

A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.

For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, solemnly declare to the world that Vietnam has the right to be a free and independent country�and in fact it is so already. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilise all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.


Source: Ho Chi Minh, Selected Works (Hanoi, 1960-1962), Vol. 3, pp. 17-21.

* Note, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam has been renamed The Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

27.8.11

Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Moldova

THE PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA, constituted after free and democratic elections,

taking into account the millenary history of our people and its uninterrupted statehood within its historical and ethnic area of its national making,

considering the acts of dismemberment of its national territory between 1775 and 1812 as being contradictory to the historical right of its people and the judicial stature of the principality of Moldova, acts recalled by the entire historical evolution and the free will of the population of Bessarabia and Bucovina,

underlining the existence of Moldovans in Transnistria, a component part of the historical and ethnic territory of our people,

acknowledging that declarations by many parliaments of many states consider the agreement of August 23, 1939, between the government of the USSR and the government of Germany null and void ab initio and demand that the political and judicial consequences of the above be eliminated, a fact revealed also by the declaration of the international conference "The Molotov- Ribbentrop pact and its consequences for Bessarabia", adopted on 28 June 1991,

pointing out that, without the prior consultation of the population of Bessarabia, Northern Bucovina and Herta District, occupied by force on June 28, 1940 as well as the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Autonomous Republic (Transnistria) established on Oct. 12, 1924, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, by infringing its constitutional prerogatives, adopted the "Law of the USSR on the establishment of the Moldavian SSR" on August 2, 1940, and its Presidium issued "The Decree concerning the frontiers between the Ukrainian SSR and the Moldavian SSR", on November 4, 1940, judicial acts whereby, in the absence of any real legal basis, it was attempted to justify the dismantlement of those territories and the incorporation of the new republic into the USSR,

recalling that during the recent years the democratic national liberation movement of the population of the Republic of Moldova reaffirmed its aspirations for freedom, independence and national unity, expressed in final documents of the Great National Reunion of Chisinau on 27 August, 1989, 16 December, 1990 and 27 August, 1991, laws and decisions of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova concerning the laws reintroducing Romanian as the state language and the Latin alphabet on August 31, 1989, the state flag on 27 April, 1990, the state emblem on November 3, 1990 and the change of the official name of the republic on May 23, 1991,

taking as a basis the declaration concerning State Sovereignty of the Republic of Moldova, adopted by the parliament on June 23, 1990, and the fact that the population of the Republic of Moldova, in its own right as a sovereign people, did not participate at the referendum on the preservation of the USSR, held on March 17, 1991, in spite of the pressures exercised by the state organs of the USSR,

taking into account the irreversible processes taking place in Europe and elsewhere in the world calling for democracy, freedom and national unity, for the establishment of a state of law and the transformation towards a free market,

reaffirming the equal rights of peoples and their right to self-determination, as laid down in the UN Charta, the Helsinki Final Act and the norms of international law pertaining to the above,

considering, in view of all of the above, that the time has come for the proclamation of a judicial act, in accordance with the history of our people and moral norms of international law,
PROCLAIMS SOLEMNLY,

in the virtue of the right of self-determination of peoples, in the name of the entire population of the Republic of Moldova, and in front of the whole world, that:

THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA IS A SOVEREIGN, INDEPENDENT AND DEMOCRATIC STATE, FREE TO DECIDE ITS PRESENT AND FUTURE, WITHOUT ANY EXTERNAL INTERFERENCE, KEEPING WITH THE IDEALS AND ASPIRATIONS OF THE PEOPLE WITHIN ITS HISTORICAL AND ETHNIC AREA OF ITS NATIONAL MAKING.

In its quality as a SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE, THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA, hereby

requests all states and world governments to recognize the independence of the Republic of Moldova, as proclaimed by the freely elected parliament of the republic and is willing to establish political, economic and cultural relations and any other relations of common interest with European countries and all other countries of the world, and is ready to establish diplomatic relations with the above, in accordance with the norms of international law and common practice on the above matter,

requests the United Nations to admit the Republic of Moldova as a full member of the world organization and its specialized agencies,

declares that it is ready to adhere to the Helsinki Final Act and the Paris Charta for a new Europe, equally asking to be admitted to the CSCE and its mechanisms, with equal rights,

requests the USSR to begin negotiations with the government of the Republic of Moldova to terminate the illegal state of occupation and annexation and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from its national territory,

decides that no other laws should be respected on its territory but those that are in conformity with the republic's constitution, laws and all other legal acts adopted by the legally constituted organs of the Republic of Moldova,

guarantees the exercise of social, economic, cultural and political rights for all citizens of the Republic of Moldova, including those of national, ethnic, religious and linguistic groups, in conformity with the provisions of the Helsinki Final Act and documents adopted afterwards, as well as the Paris Charta for a new Europe.
SO HELP US GOD!

Adopted in Chisinau, by the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova on this day, the 27th of August, 1991.

9.1.11

AFERS EXTERIORS

Els darrers dies he seguit amb un cert detall els canvis en l'organigrama de la Generalitat que s'està portant a terme arran de l'arribada de l'Administració Mas-Duran i Ecspanya (deixem-nos de punyetes).
Un dels elements que més m'ha desil.lusionat ha estat que el sr. Mas no ha mantingut la promesa que va fer en la campanya electoral del 2006 de crear una Conselleria d'Afers Exteriors. Aquest àmbit competencial ha quedat inclòs dins la nova Secretaria d'Afers Exteriors, amb rang de secretaria general, i que depèn directament del macro Departament de la Presidència, encapçalat pel mateix Artur Mas , a través de la Secretaria del Govern, el titular de la qual és en Germà Gordó.
Es tracta d'un rang insuficient. Amb poca visibilitat mediàtica i política. Fa la impressió que no s'és conscient de la importància que tenen els Afers Exteriors per a la Catalunya actual. És una dimensió clau, estratègica.
Tant és així que hauria de tenir un Departament específic, i hauria de comptar amb un responsable polític, de rang de Conseller, de primera línia, al mateix nivell que el d'Economia, Interior, Cultura o Política Territorial, per dir-ne alguns.
L'administració Mas-Duran i Ecspanya, sembla més preocupada per mirar cap Ecspanya que cap al món. La prova és que en Mas, si més no fins on una servidora sap, encara no ha fet cap signe de complicitat envers la comunitat internacional. (Tret de si es considera aquella expressió ridícula, pròpia de primera sessió d'un seminari d'MBA, de ser un govern business friendly, com a tal... ).
La ratificació de la titular d'Afers Exteriors del govern tripartit, s'ha venut com un altre exemple d'obertura ideològica del nou govern. En tot cas, caldrà veure si això serveix per impulsar o no una de les poques iniciatives positives que l'anterior administració va portar a terme, com fou l'impuls decidit de les Delegacions del Govern de la Generalitat a l'Exterior. Si aquesta línia s'abandona, llavors tot plegat serà una aixecada de camisa.
Cal seguir sense complexos els exemples del Quebec, que té un veritable Ministeri de Relacions Internacionals, amb una xarxa d'Oficines arreu del món. Fins i tot l'Oficina del Quebec a Paris, té status diplomàtic, reconegut pel propi govern francès.
En aquest sentit, em sobta la supressió de la Secretaria per a la Unió Europea... espero que no la canvïin per la Secretaria per a l'Aragó o per a Extermadura, que ja se sap que en Duran i Ecspanya això de "los cantos regionales" el posa. Vol dir això que per al nou govern, els afers de la UE no són rellevants? O que només l'importen les conferències sectorials ecspanyoles, i prescindeix de les cimeres europees i internacionals?
El nou govern, continua sense adonar-se que la dimensió internacional és clau pel futur de Catalunya com a país... i anava a dir per la Independència, però és clar ara caic que aquest govern de morrió i tocs teològics, està més aviat per la dependència...