The Provisional Revolutionary Government was preceded by the
Vietnam Alliance of National, Democratic, and Peaceful Forces (VANDPF) made up of anti-government forces and headed by Trinh Dinh Thao. The Alliance was a collection of individuals who wanted a new South Vietnamese government but disagreed with the ever-present Northern Communist presence. Discussions about forming an alliance had begun as early as 1966, but plans were disrupted when South Vietnamese intelligence agents apprehended a prominent anti-government figure, Ba Tra. Ba Tra gave the South Vietnamese government extensive information on anti-government forces working in the city. This setback was compounded by his identification of one of the key cadre in the financial division. In early 1969, the then-new American president,
Richard Nixon, started a process of
Vietnamization to allow the
American Armed Forces to withdraw from South Vietnam.
1969–1975 On 8 June 1969 delegates from the Vietcong, the VANDPF, the
People's Revolutionary Party (the South Vietnamese communist party) and "the usual assortment of mass organizations, ethnic groups, and geopolitical regions" met off Route 22 in
Cambodia's
Fishhook region and formed the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG). Included in this strategy was the pursuit of a negotiated settlement to the war leading to reunification, organized during the initial phase of Vietnamization. According to Justice Minister
Trương Như Tảng, the new group's main purpose was to help the NLF "acquire a new international stature." During 1969–70, most of the PRG's cabinet ministries operated near the Cambodian border. Starting on 29 March to late April 1970, the US and South Vietnamese offensives forced the
PRG to flee deeper into Cambodia. The stressful escape caused many of the PRG officials (such as Trương Như Tạng) to need extensive medical
furloughs. After Trương Như Tạng returned, he noticed that new cadres from the north were causing problems for the non-communist members of the PRG. One member in particular, Ba Cap, harshly denounced most of the PRG as
bourgeois. Tạng complained to the higher members of the DRV government, but was rebuffed. Tạng later saw this as the point when the PRG turned from being an independent South Vietnam-based alternative government to being a mouthpiece for the communist movement. The central bodies of the PRG functioned as a
provisional government. The PRG maintained diplomatic relations with many countries of the
Non-Aligned Movement, such as
Algeria and
SFR Yugoslavia as well as with the
Soviet Union and the
People's Republic of China.
1975–1976 After the
Fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975, the PRG assumed power in South Vietnam and subsequently participated in the reunification of
Vietnam. According to professor
Ngô Vĩnh Long (
University of Maine), in mid-July 1975, the delegates of the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam (
Nguyễn Văn Lưu) and the Republic of South Vietnam (
Đinh Bá Thi) applied to join the United Nations (UN) as two independent member states. However, both countries failed in joining the United Nations due to American vetoes on 11 August and 30 September 1975 as the
USSR and China refused to allow
South Korea to join the organization on 6 August. However, North Vietnam and North Vietnamese-occupied South Vietnam became two UN observers in 1975.
Kuwait was the last country to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with the Republic of South Vietnam on 22 and 24 January 1976, before North and South Vietnam were eventually
reunited on 2 July 1976. ==Government and politics==