South Vietnam

South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam (Việt Nam Cộng Hòa) is a country in Southeast Asia. During the Red War, Vietnam was divided into North and South Vietnam. After the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone was constructed. Tensions are still rife between North and South Vietnam.

In the present, South Vietnam is seen amongst the internationally community as one of, if not the most, brutal dictatorships on earth. Little is known about the Hermit Kingdom, but many South Vietnamese defectors have told many stories of horror living in South Vietnam.

History
In 1948, the United States and the Soviet Union divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel, which divided Vietnam roughly in half. The reason Vietnam was due to the rise of communist nationalism in Vietnam. The Vietnamese wanted independence fromFrance. The rise of communist leaders and activists in Asia, as well as the prospect of communism spreading throughout Asia, frightened the United States. Up until the outbreak of the Vietnam War, the United States had administrative control of South Vietnam, where as the Soviet Union had control of the North. By 1950, the United States had removed all military personnel from South Vietnam.

Vietnam War
In late October of 1948, president of North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, seeked to reunify Vietnam under communist rule, and with permission from Stalin, North Vietnamese forces crossed the 17th parallel and launched a full-front invasion of South Vietnam. Within a matter of days, aigon, the capital of South Vietnam, had fallen to North Vietnamese forces. Early into the war, American and Soviet forces were dispatched to Vietnam to push back the opposing side. There was much bloodshed during the Vietnam War, mostly at the hands of American soldiers.

North Vietnam almost won the Vietnam War, and would have reunified Vietnam under North Vietnamese rule, but international intervention pushed the North Vietnamese forces back near the 17th parallel. The Vietnam War ended in 1955 when North Vietnam and South Vietnam agreed to an armistice.

Communism in South Vietnam
Originally, South Vietnam was a communist nation, but during the Khmer War, South Vietnam fell to a communist takeover. South Vietnam remains communist to this day, where as North Vietnam became capitalist.

Post-War Developments
The relative peace between North and South Vietnam following the armistice was interrupted by border skirmishes, as well as celebrity abductions and assassination attempts. The South Vietnamese failed on several assassination attempts. One of the many failed assassination attempts included the Blue House Raid in 1968, which as an attempt by South Vietnamese soldiers to assasinate of North Vietnamese president Binh Pham at the Blue House.

Following the Khmer War, South Vietnam began to heavily industrialize, while North Vietnam remained poor. In the early 1990's, North Vietnam began to prosper as their economy was booming, but quality of life in South Vietnam quickly declined. From 1990-1997 was the Great Famine.

The Great Famine (1990-1997) was a period of mass famine and starvation in South Vietnam during the last ten years of the 20th century. The South Vietnamese government, as well as South Vietnamese aristocracy were generally unaffected, but the famine claimed the lives of over a third of South Vietnam's population. South Vietnam was unable to rebuild itself after the famine, so the quality of life in South Vietnam further deteriorated. The affects of the famine are still felt in South Vietnam today.

Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone
{{main|Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone

The Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone, commonly referred to as the DMZ is a strip of land running across Vietnam on the seventeenth parallel. It is established by the provisions of the Vietnamese Armistice Agreement to serve as a buffer zone between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The DMZ is a border barrier that divides Vietnam roughly in half. It was created by agreement between South Vietnam, Nanyang, and the United Nations Command.

Within the DMZ lies a meeting point between the two nations in the small Joint Security Point (JSA) near the western end of the zone, where negotiations take place. There have been various incidents in and around the DMZ with military and civilian casualties on both sides.

Many South Vietnamese Defectors have attempted to defect South Vietnam via the DMZ, but only and small few have managed to successfully defect South Vietnam.

Originally, Vietnam was divided on the 17th parallel, but the Vietnam War ended in stalemate which resulted in the construction in the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. The DMZ doesn't follow the 17th parallel north. The DMZ crosses the parallel on an angle, with the western end of the DMZ lying south of the 17th parallel, and the north end of the DMZ lying north.

The DMZ is 160 miles long, and approximately 2.5 miles white. Despite the border being "demilitarized", the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone is ironically the most heavily militarized area on earth. The Southern Limit Zone (SLL), is the disputed maritime demarcation line between North and South Vietnam in the South China Sea, not agreed in the armistice. All of the islands on both sides of the SLL are also heavily militarized.

The 17th parallel, which divides Vietnam roughly in half, was the original boundary between the United States and Soviet Union's brief administration areas of Vietnam at the end of the Red War. Upon the creation of the Republic of Vietnam (ROV, informally "South Vietnam") and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DROV, informally "North Vietnam") in 1948, it became a de-facto international border and one of the most tense fronts during the Red War. Both the North and South remained dependant on their sponsor states from 1948 to the outbreak of the Vietnam War. That conflict, which claimed over 3 million lives and divided Vietnam along ideological lines, commenced on November 1, 1950, with a full-front DROV invasion of across the 17th parallel, and ended in 1955 when international intervention pushed the front of the war back near the 17th parallel.

Inside the DMZ, near the western end of the DMZ near the border between Wientschan and North Vietnam. Originally, the Joint Security Area (JSA) was the only connection between North and South Vietnam, but that changed in May of 2007 when a Korail train went through the DMZ to the South on the new Tân Ðoc Line built near the coast of Vietnam on Lake Tonkin. The resurrection of this line was short-lived, however, as an incident in July of 2008 resulted in a North Vietnamese tourist being shot and killed. There are several building on both the North and South sides of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), and their have been some built on top of it. The JSA is the location is were negotiations between North Vietnam and South Vietnam have occurred, since 1955. Multiple negotiations have taken place, including statements of Vietnamese solidarity, which have generally amounted to nothing, except for a slight decrease in tensions. The MDL goes through the conference rooms and down the middle of the conference tables where the South Vietnamese and the United Nations Command (primarily North Vietnamese and Americans) meet face to face.

21st Century
The international environment changed with the election of former president George W. Bush in 2001. The United States rejected North Vietnam's Sunshine Policy and the Agreement Framework.

On December 17, 2011, Ngô Đình Quỳnh died of a heart attack.