National Liberation Front of South Vietnam

(NLF) a political organization founded on Dec. 20, 1960, at a constituent congress in a liberated region of South Vietnam. In 1973 the NLF comprised more than 30 patriotic political parties and public and religious organizations.

In 1961 the NLF created its own armed forces. The First Congress of the NLF, held in February and March 1962, adopted a manifesto and a program calling upon the people to resist the Saigon regime and struggle for the establishment of democratic rule in South Vietnam, for a policy of neutrality, and for the peaceful unification of the motherland. The Second Congress of the NLF, held in January 1964, discussed the situation in South Vietnam after the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem’s dictatorship in 1963. An extraordinary congress of the NLF, held in August 1967, adopted a new program outlining ways to broaden the South Vietnamese people’s struggle to drive out the US imperialists, overthrow the Saigon government, and create a peaceful, independent, democratic, neutral, and prosperous South Vietnam. The program also provided for democratic reforms and the development of the national economy and culture. Organs of people’s rule were established in the liberated regions of South Vietnam. Democratic changes were instituted, including agrarian reform, and measures were taken to develop the national economy and culture.

In 1964 the NLF established diplomatic missions in several socialist and other countries. In January 1969 representatives of the NLF participated in the four-party negotiations in Paris on the Vietnam question. When the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam was formed in June 1969, it assumed all the administrative functions of the Central Committee of the NLF in directing domestic and foreign policy, including representation at the Paris negotiations on Vietnam. The NLF remained the ideological and political leader of the patriots of South Vietnam. The NLF’s missions abroad became embassies of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam.

Since the signing on Jan. 27, 1973, of the Paris agreement to end the war and restore peace in Vietnam, the NLF has worked for the strict fulfillment of the Paris agreement and for democratic changes in the country. The NLF works in close cooperation with the Union of National, Democratic, and Peace-loving Forces of South Vietnam, founded in 1968. Nguyen Huu Tho is chairman of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the NLF, and Huynh Tan Phat is the general secretary.