Viet Quoc is the shortened form of Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (VNQDD), meaning Vietnamese Nationalist Party, which was formed in 1927. Its primary objective was an armed uprising aimed at toppling the French rule of Vietnam, which was part of French Indochina. In 1930, the Viet Quoc were involved in an unsuccessful uprising in Yen Bai, near Hanoi. The leaders were sentenced to death by the French government and most of other participants were imprisoned, many of them as far as in French Guiana. The flag adopted in 1929 during the preparations for the uprising was a red-yellow horizontal bicolor, symbolizing the Vietnamese people and their struggle for independence.

The Dai Viet Nationalist Party was a Vietnamese party, originally formed in Hanoi in 1939, whose goal was restoring the independence of Vietnam (for which they used the pre-1804 name Dai Viet). During this time they took part in several uprisings against the French colonialists.

In the 1920s the Binh Xuyen started as a loosely organized criminal coalition consisting of hundreds of armed gangs led by various leaders, extortionist and contract killers. Their history consisted of tapestry of piracy, protection services, kidnappings and extortion of rich families, operating brothels, drug smuggling, and assassination. The Binh Xuyen have sometimes been miscalled a sect, but they were not religiously oriented and don't seem to have had much of an actual political ideology outside of a vague Vietnamese nationalism.

The Viet Minh were communist freedom fighters seeking the liberation of Vietnam from the French who ruled all of Indochina. The movement started in 1941, first to fight the French, and later to opposed the Japanese occupation.

In 1950 Laos was granted semi-autonomy as an "associated state" within the French Union. However, the French remained in de facto control until 1954, when Laos gained full independence as a constitutional monarchy. A long Laotian Civil War between the Royal Laotian government and the communist Pathet Lao ended officially when the communists won in 1975, removing the king from power (he died in captivity), and forming a strict socialist regime closely aligned to Vietnam. A gradual return to private enterprise and the liberalization of foreign investment laws has taken place in recent years.

Cambodia gained independence from France in 1954, when the United Nations divided up French IndoChina. It became a constitutional monarchy under King Norodom Sihanouk. In 1975, the Communist Khmer Rouge rebels took power and approximately one to three million people were killed by them. Violence and warfare continued throughout the 1980s. United Nations Peace efforts began in 1989, culminating two years later in 1991 in a comprehensive peace settlement. The United Nations was given a mandate to enforce a cease fire, and deal with refugees and disarmament. The stability thus established has mostly remained in place. Money raised in schools and community groups in more developed nations like Japan, France, West-Germany, Canada, Australia and the United States, has gone toward the rebuilding of infrastructure and housing.

The name of this movement is an acronym standing for the Banar, Jarai, Rade and Kaho, four main ethnic groups from the Central Highlands, inland mountainous area which had belonged to South Vietnam. The indigenous inhabitants of this region were previously known as the Montagnards (French for the "mountain people"), the name which is now generally replaced by the self-designation Degar (or Dega). The influence of central government in the area was small until formation of South Vietnam in 1954, when the regime of Ngô Đình Diệm began introducing stronger control, combined with the colonization of ethnic Vietnamese (mostly refugees from the Communist-controlled North) and repression against the Degar. In response to that, BAJARAKA was founded in 1958 to struggle for the autonomy of Central Highlands, under the leadership of Y Bham Enuol, a French-educated Rade civil servant. During next several months, the organization held protests in several towns, only to be banned and its leaders imprisoned.

The flag of BAJARAKA is depicted differently in various sources. While they all agree on the black cross over a green-red horizontal field and the large red-white-green-yellow quartered disc over all, the arrangement of these quarters, precisely green and yellow ones, varies. Version with green above yellow is better known, but probably erroneous, for green quarter merges with the field into a meaningless design there. With yellow above green, the meaning is obvious: the quarters stand for the four represented peoples.

Champa was the name of once powerful kingdom founded in the 2nd century by the Cham people, which comprised central and southern parts of present Vietnam, including the Central Highlands. Through the centuries, it waged wars for the control of Indochina with its Khmer and Vietnamese neighbors, to be destroyed by the latter in the 15th century and reduced to a small vassal principality, eventually annexed by Vietnam in 1822. Many Chams, fleeing from the destruction of their country, settled in Cambodia and other countries, while the remaining population became a minority in Vietnam. Still the gloriuos past was not forgotten and in the late 1950's, with the increasing repression over the minorities in South Vietnam, Champa Liberation Front was founded with the aid of Cambodian Chams, who had also secured the support of Sihanouk government. The leader of FLC was Les Kosem, a Cham officer in the Cambodian Army, who later also played a great role in creation of the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races.

While the details of design vary depending on the sources, the FLC flag is always shown with the field composed of five red and four white stripes and a blue vertical field at the hoist, charged with white crescent and star, the symbols which might stand for Islam, the religion followed by many Chams, although many, especially those in Vietnam, still follow Hinduism, their original religion. It resembles the flag of the Federation of Malaya (1950-1963), which may have provided the inspiration for design, as the two peoples have, beside the religion, other common features as well, most notably similar languages. In turn, the FLC flag may have inspired that of the Highlands Liberation Front.

Kampuchea Krom means "Lower Cambodia" in Khmer. This name is used for the southernmost part of Vietnam, including the city of Saigon. It had originally been part of Cambodia until early 18th century, when it was conquered by Vietnam, which lost in to France in 1862. Under the name of Cochinchina, the territory remained French colony until 1946, when a puppet state was proclaimed, which united with the rest of Vietnam in 1949. At that time, Khmer people were still a sizable community despite long-lasting Vietnamese assimilation and colonization, and White Scarves (Kaingsaing Sar), a resistance group which was both a religious order and a militia, were founded in the late 1950's by Buddhist monk Samouk Sen. Under the leadership of former monk Chau Dara, they had reorganized as the Kampuchea Krom Liberation Front (KKLF) by 1964, when they joined the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races.

The KKLF/FLKK flag was derived from that of Cambodia by replacing the depiction of Angkor Wat temple with two crossed swords and two initials in Khmer script.

After the overthrow of Ngô Đình Diệm in 1963, leaders of BAJARAKA were released and several of them given government posts, as the new regime tried to approach the Degar. In 1964, BAJARAKA was reinforced by activists from all Degar peoples, as well as the neighboring Chams, and reorganized as the Highlands Liberation Front. Part of the members, including the leader Y Bham Enuol, were for the peaceful activities, but the others, led by Y Dhon Adrong, wanted the armed struggle and set up a base in Cambodia. There they were approached by the Champa Liberation Front and the Kampuchea Krom Liberation Front, whose calls for co-operation resulted in the creation of the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races.

FLHP Flag - Type #2		FLHP Flag - Type #3

The FLHP flag consisted of three fields: in the hoist, white crescent and star on green; in center, blue and white stripes; and in the fly, plain red. Many details varied, as can be seen in contemporary photos: flag ratio, size, shape and orientation of crescent and star, and number and relative width of blue and white stripes. The design may have been inspired by that of the Champa Liberation Front, or by some other flag used by Cham people.

In 1964, the contacts were made between the Highlands Liberation Front dissidents in Cambodia and the Champa Liberation Front and Kampuchea Krom Liberation Front. These quickly led to the formation of FULRO, which gathered all of these groups. This was backed by Cambodian government, which hoped both to counter dissident groups attacking from Vietnam, as well as to eventually reconquer Kampuchea Krom area. Shortly afterwards, a mutiny had begun amoong the US-trained military units composed of the Highlands people, the deserters joining the FULRO. Republic of the Highlands and Champa was proclaimed, with Y Bham Enuol as the President and supreme commander. The uprising continued with varying intensity and the negotiations with Saigon government began in 1967, the agreement on recognition of minority rights being reached the next year. Still the opponents of negotiations continued the fighting, putting Y Bham Enuol under house arrest in Phnom Penh. Another agreement, signed in 1969, did not end the conflict and neither did the 1970 coup in Cambodia, for the Lon Nol government supported reconquest of Kampuchea Krom and creating a renewed Champa out of the rest of South Vietnam. The uprising was much more harmed in 1975, by the victory of Viet Cong, which the FULRO also opposed, and by the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia, when the FULRO fighters fleeing from Vietnam were systematically massacred, as well as those already in the country, Y Bham Enuol even being pulled out of French embassy by force to be executed. Still the weakened insurgency continued, now with the support by Khmer Rouge during their war against Vietnam, even securing some aid from China, but that did not last long. Lacking supplies, the number of insurgents kept decreasing until 1992, when their last base in Cambodia was visited by American journalist Nate Thayer, from whom they eventually learned of Y Bham Enuol's death 17 years earlier. Only then did they decide to give up armed struggle, surrendering their weapons to the UN peacekeepers in Cambodia. Many of them were subsequently given asylum in the USA.

In the FULRO flag, blue originally stood for the sea and green for the mountains, while red symbolized the struggle of Montagnards/Degar, Chams and Khmer Krom, who were represented by three white stars. Blue was later changed into black to symbolize the loss of coastal areas and restriction of minorities to the inland mountains.

Following the partition of Vietnam in 1954, Communists led by Ho Chí Minh gained control of North Vietnam, and thousands of Vietnamese began migrating either north or south. Those moving north aligned with Ho Chí Minh in Hanoi (Hà Noi), while those moving south joined the Saigon government of the Catholic leader Ngo Ðinh Diệm. Warfare broke out between the two new countries, and the United States soon became involved. With the fall of Saigon in 1975, South Vietnam merged with North Vietnam to form a single nation officially called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, or more commonly simply called Vietnam.

North Vietnam Flag 1955

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN) Vertical Banner between 1955-1975 (The Socialist Republic of Vietnam SRV Banner 1975-present) was and is used as a decorative hanging on walls during ceremonies and official events. The ratio is approximately 2:1, the star's center is more or less at the bottom of the first quarter.

The Viet Cong, or National Liberation Front, was the patriot/rebel army based in South Vietnam that fought the South Vietnamese government and the supporting United States troops during the Vietnam War (1959-75). They fought mainly as guerrilla units and rarely as regular army units. They also provided a network of cadre who organized the peasants against the government in the territory they controlled.

The Open Arms Program, first created by the U.S. Marine Corps in 1966, was part of a campaign attempted by the American military and the South Vietnamese government to encourage defection of Viet Cong and their supporters during the Vietnam War. The results were mixed, by 1967 approximately 75,000 defections had been recorded, but critics of the program speculate that less than 25 percent of them were genuine. By the programs end, however, the number of Viet Cong that did defected under the Chieu Hoi program reached over 100,000.

Until 1975, South Vietnam was the part of Vietnam south of the 17th parallel. Although, in the popular press, the Republic of Vietnam was called "South Vietnam" and the People´s Republic of Vietnam called "North Vietnam," both governments actually claimed all of Vietnam as their territory. The Republic of Vietnam as proclaimed in 1954 and led by Catholic leader Ngô Ðînh Diệm. It soon was under attack from the North Vietnamese in the north and the Viet Cong from within. American support began in 1954 and then escalated into the Vietnam War in 1958. After Diệm was deposed in a military coup in 1963, there was a series of short-lived military governments, ending with General Nguyen Van Thieu leading the country from 1967 until 1975.

The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1959 to 1975. The war was fought between the communist North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and others.

U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search-and-destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery and air strikes.

New Zealand		Republic of the Philippines
Thailand		Kingdom of Laos

The Vietnam War, one of America's longest modern wars, ended in 1973 with the United States withdrawing their troops and abandoning their allies to the northern forces. Fighting continued until 1975 when North Vietnamese forces overran Saigon and gained control of all of Vietnam. Before long, all of Indochina was under Communist rule.

The Viet Cong, the lightly armed South Vietnamese communist insurgency, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The North Vietnamese Army engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large-sized units into battle. Usually, conventional tactics led to American and South Vietnamese victories.

Lao People's Democratic Republic Pathet Lao		Democratic Kampuchea Khmer Rouge

This struggle proved once again that determination to persevere no matter how long it takes or costs, will always prevail over government policy without popular public support. The British learn this in the American Revolution, the Spanish learned it in the Netherlands, the French learned it in Spain, the USSR learned it in Afghanistan, and the Americans learned it in Vietnam. In the end, the dissatisfaction of the American people with their governments policies and leaders led to the American withdrawal and North Vietnam's victory. It is unfortunate that the results for the Vietnamese people would be so costly.

The Tan Dai Viet was founded in 1964 after a split in the Dai Viet Nationalist Party. Since 1975, this party also operates in exile. They have a close relationship with the Dai Viet Revolutionary Party, another breakaway group of the Dai Viet Nationalist Party.

The Dai Viet Cach Mang Dang Party was founded in 1965 after a split in the Dai Viet Nationalist Party. Since 1975, this party also operates in exile. The Dai Viet works closely with the New Dai Viet Party, another breakaway group of the Dai Viet Nationalist Party.

The Four Power Joint Military Commission (JMC) was set up to monitor the 1973 Vietnam cease-fire. For the critical transition from war to peace, the Paris Peace Accords empowered the commission to oversee the implementation of the cease fire and resolve any differences. The JMC represented each belligerent: the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Viet Cong. After the initial 60 days this commission was replaced by the more international Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS) consisting of four members: Canada, Hungary, Poland, and Indonesia.

This movement seems to have been founded after 1975 and probably has no connections with the original Kampuchea Krom Liberation Front, whose members mostly withdrew to Cambodia after the fall of Saigon, only to be massacred by the Khmer Rouge; the fact that two movements used different flags also speaks in favor of this. The KKNLF maintained a website from 2004 to 2008, which was also presenting news reports from earlier years (2002-2003), and claimed to have a military camp in Cambodia and office in the USA. The year when its website was closed down is probably also the year when the movement ended its activities.

On the KKNLF flag, blue stands for freedom and democracy and red for the blood spilled in fighting for these ideals. The circular device is chakra, an ancient weapon used as the symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism, and symbolizes strength of the people. The stars represent the provinces within the Kampuchea Krom region.

In 1969 this flag was adopted for the Communist Republic of South Vietnam and actually became a short lived, but transitional flag of South Vietnam in June of 1975 when the anti-communist regime collapsed. It was quickly replaced a month later when North and South Vietnam were united as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. At that time the present SRV Flag (plain yellow five-pointed star on red field) replaced it. The Transitional Flag of South Vietnam was again seen briefly in 2005 in news photos of an event marking the 30th Anniversary of the Communist victory.

In 1968, the Alliance of National Democratic and Peaceful Forces (ANDPFV), created under sponsorship of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Viet Cong), was formed for propaganda purposes in order to attract mainly urban population and to participate in free elections if these were to be held in the South Vietnam. Having decided that it was unlikely to happen, it joined the National Liberation Front in 1969 to form the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. After the unification of the country, ANDPFV merged in 1977 with the National Liberation Front and the Vietnamese Fatherland Front (of North Vietnam) to create the present Vietnamese Fatherland Front, which is the Communist-led umbrella organization for all political and other mass organizations in Vietnam.

Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) is the successor of Indochinese Communist Party (Dong Duong Cong San Dang), which was founded in Hong Kong in 1930 by fusion of several earlier Vietnamese Communist groups. At the Second Party Congress in 1951, it was renamed into the Workers' Party of Vietnam (Dang Lao Dong Viet Nam) in anticipation of founding new Communist parties in Cambodia and Laos. After the partition of country in 1954, the party governed the North as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, while a People's Revolutionary Party of Vietnam (Dang Nhan Dan Cach Mang Viet Nam) was founded in 1962 to provide the leadership for the revolution in the South. After the reunification in 1976, two parties merged into the Vietnamese Communist Party at the Fourth Party Congress same year.

At the Sixth Party Congress held in 1986, a candid acknowledgment of existing economic problems, and a willingness to change in order to solve them, resulted in a series of reforms aimed at creating a "socialist-oriented market economy". As the result, Vietnam was transformed into one of world's fastest growing economies. Previously a rather isolated country, it has also established diplomatic relations with most nations of the world.

In 1884, the Buddhism Protection Committee was formed in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in order to oppose the pressures for Christianization by British colonial authorities. The next year they restored the Vesak holiday celebration, and adopted a flag, which was modified the next year by Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, the President of the Theosophical Society and a patron of the Buddhism Protection Committee. The flag in its final form was first hoisted for the Vesak celebration of 1886. Its colors are believed to be those of the aura which emanated from Buddha's body when he attained Enlightenment - blue, yellow, red, white, orange and pabbhassara (the "essence of light" - a compound color made up of the other five and represented by the multi-colored stripe). When the World Fellowship of Buddhists was founded in 1950 in Colombo, it adopted this design as the International Buddhist Flag.

This flag was in widespread use in Vietnam by the 1960s, when Buddhists in South Vietnam were facing severe repressions by the Diệm regime. President Ngô Đình Diệm, raised as a Roman Catholic, was intent to make his minority religion dominant in the country. There followed forcible conversions, especially in the military, and a general harassment of Buddhists. In 1963, the use of all religious flags were banned in South Vietnam except that of the Vatican, which was classified as a national flag. Violent demonstrations were suppressed by the use of firearms by the police and army. Shortly afterwards, a series of self-immolations by Buddhist monks raised both the people's will to resist and the level of repression. The resulting government attempts to attribute the protests to Vietcong infiltration were not successful, and soon they faced growing pressure from the US government to end the repression. President Diệm, supported by his brother Ngô Đình Nhu (head of the notorious secret police) and Nhu´s wife, who was the acting First Lady, refused to change his policies. The refusal of President Diệm to end the repression eventually led to a coup resulting in the deaths of Diệm and Nhu. The country fell under the control of a military junta until 1967, when its leader Nguyen Van Thieu was elected President, and he remained in that office until 1975.

Although Thieu did not follow his predecessor's policies, and freedom of religion was fully established after the 1963 coup, the damage was done. The new regime´s further inability to establish a truly democratic system, without corruption, was successfully exploited by the Communist and led to their eventual victory. President Thieu resigned shortly before the fall of Saigon and spent the rest of his life in the USA.

Scouting was brought to Vietnam from France shortly before 1930, when a national association was founded. The movement grew, although during World War II and the First Indochina War, its activities were almost completely stopped. It revived in South Vietnam afterward, but was banned in North Vietnam in 1954. In 1975, with the unification of the country under the Communists, its activities in Vietnam were completely stopped.

The Chams, or Cham people, are an ethnic group who settled between the 2nd and 15th Centuries in central and southern Vietnam and later in parts of Cambodia. In 1832 the Vietnamese Emperor Minh Mang annexed the last of the Champa Kingdoms and many Cham fled to Cambodia. The Cham community then suffered a major blow during the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia when over 100,000 of the remaining Cham population was killed in a senseless attempt at genocide.

The National Party of Vietnam, or Vietnamese Nationalist Party (VNP), should not to be confused with the Vietnamese Nationalist Party of 1927-1941 or the Dai Viet Nationalist Party of 1939-1975. The VNP is a political organization formed in Anaheim, California, by members of the Vietnamese diaspora living in the United States. It was founded by Nguyen Huu Chanh in 2003. These Vietnamese Americans protest against the Communist Vietnamese government, its human rights policy, and those whom they perceive to be sympathetic to it. It is unclear if the NPA still exists.

The Democratic Alliance of Vietnam (DAV) is another political organization of Vietnamese diaspora.

The Montagnards (French for the "mountain people") or Degar (the self-designation) are indigenous inhabitants of the Central Highlands, inland mountainous area in southern Vietnam; both names are used indiscriminately for a variety of ethnic groups. Having struggled for a self-government during the Vietnam War, they fought against both the anti-Communist government of South Vietnam and the Viet Cong, under the leadership of a series of movements such as the BAJARAKA, the Highlands Liberation Front and the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races. These hostilities, along with the increasing American support towards the end of war, which was intended to make them a barrier to advance of Communism, have led to continuing persecution after the unification of Vietnam, forcing many people to emigrate, mostly to the USA. In present Vietnam, although the Central Highlands peoples are officially recognized as ethnic minorities, there are still numerous reports of human rights abuses, while the area is generally off limit to human rights organizations and reporters.

The Montagnards/Degar in diaspora have founded a number of organizations which seek to alert the world about the problems of their compatriots in Vietnam. The Degar Foundation is probably the best known among these. Founded as the Montagnard Foundation, Inc. in South Carolina in 1990, it officially represented the Degar in the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) from 2003 to 2016. Its flag is diagonally divided red above green, with a white off-center saltire over all, combined with a white disc bearing several traditional tools and weapons. The UNPO connections have made it probably the best known among the Degar flags.

Despite its name, the United Montagnard Republic is probably a fully USA-based organization, without an actual presence in Vietnam. On its flag, red, white and green colors are arranged in horizontal stripes. The yellow symbol on blue canton includes a cross, standing for both the Catholicism, brought by the French in 19th century, and the Protestantism, introduced by the American missionaries in the 1930s. Widespread presence of " foreign" religions among the Degar is an important factor of their integration in American society, but also of their compatriots' difficult situation in Vietnam.

United Montagnard People (UMP) is another USA-based organization of Montagnard/Degar diaspora. Its flag is clearly derived from that of the Highlands Liberation Front, but modified under the influence of USA flag: blue and green colors reversed, number of stripes increased to thirteen and crescent omitted, leaving only the star on blue field. This flag is increasingly being used as a symbol of Degar in general, with many examples of its use unrelated to the UMP or without a clear affiliation.