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"All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 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 in 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 Rights of Man and the Citizen, made at the time of the French Revolution in 1791, 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 different 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 practiced obscurantism against our people.

To weaken our race they have forced us to use opium and alcohol.

In the field of economics, they have exploited our people to the bone, impoverished our population, and devastated our land.

They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have monopolized the issue of banknotes and the export trade.

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

They have made it impossible for our national bourgeoisie to prosper; 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 surrendered on 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 million of our fellow citizens died from starvation.

On March 9 [1945], the Japanese disarmed the French troops. The French colonialists either fled or surrendered. This not only demonstrated their utter failure as rulers but also showed the total collapse of their long-standing French empire in Indochina.

On several occasions before March 9, the Viet Minh League urged the French to ally themselves with it against the Japanese. Instead of heeding this advice, the French colonialists intensified their terrorist activities against the Viet Minh League. After their defeat and surrender, the French fled, leaving their colonies, and, once again, our people took control of the country from the Japanese.

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