Swedish Committee for Vietnam
The Swedish Committee for Vietnam was a pacifist non-governmental organization founded in Sweden in 1967 that supported North-Vietnam in the Vietnam War. The SKfV was a restructuring of the former Swedish Vietnam Committee . The committee was aimed at supporting North Vietnam and strongly opposed American involvement in Vietnam with the slogan "Peace in Vietnam" through monetary aid, the torchlight procession, providing asylum for draft evaders, and letters to the Swedish government. Politically left leaning, the SKfV was tied to the Social Democratic Party. The SKfV aimed to increase public focus and involvement in Vietnam. The SKfV pushed the Swedish government to critique the United States over its involvement in what was formerly French Indochina and organized campaigns to raise support for North Vietnam. This campaign exacerbated the worsening Swedish-United States tensions over the American War in Vietnam. In 1974, the SKfV increased its scope to include Cambodia and Laos, marking its second rebranding, prior to the American withdrawal from Vietnam in 1979 and the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. The Swedish Committee for Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia continues to operate today.
Notable figures
Various prominent figures were members of the Swedish Committee for Vietnam.Chairmen
Other notable members
- Hans Göran Frank
- John Takaman
- Hjalmar Mehr
- Per Anders Fogelström
History
Swedish-United States relations
Even with trade between the two nations at an all-time high, many American diplomats viewed Sweden as suspicious due to their neutrality in the First and Second World wars and their relations with the German Empire and Nazi Germany. In 1965, government officials in Stockholm openly critiqued American policy in the Vietnam war. Later, in 1968, the then Swedish Minister of Education and later Prime Minister Olof Palme participated in a protest in Stockholm. He protested with the North Vietnamese ambassador to the Soviet Union, Nguyễn Thọ Chân against US involvement in Vietnam. Sweden was the only Western nation to openly grant asylum to draft dodgers, such as former soldier Terry Whitmore. Relations would only begin to improve after Thorbjörn Fälldin came into office in 1976 and the later inauguration of Ingvar Carlsson in 1986.Background
Olof Palme was a key politician in the Swedish government surrounding the Vietnam War. In the summer of 1965, Palme gave an influential speech highlighting the increased political tension in the world and that the struggle for national freedom was "inextricably linked to the quest for social and economic emancipation." Palme expressed Swedish responsibility to stand up for the oppressed against their oppressors. Although Palme only mentioned Vietnam at the end of his speech, the public eye interpreted Palme's words as an indirect criticism of US involvement in Vietnam. The bourgeois press interpreted Palme's speech as furthering his own political agenda while the Foreign Minister Torsten Nilsson was away on government business. Upon returning a few weeks later, Nilsson gave a speech to ease tensions, criticizing both the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Nilsson described Sweden's line of neutrality as "best expressed if we speak bluntly in either direction".For Sweden's Social Democrats, the Vietnam issue posed a risk that younger, radical groups would go farther left on the political spectrum. Within the Social Democrats, then Prime Minister Tage Erlander expressed that it had always been natural for radical left-wing groups to be channelled by the party, and that this should continue to be the case. The National Liberation Front (NLF) movement was seen by the Social Democratic leadership as an expression of youth revolt, and it was precisely young people that the party was afraid of losing when they offered the lowest development aid strategy of all parties.
Establishment
The Swedish Committee on Vietnam was a formal restructuring of the pre-existing entity, the Swedish Vietnam Committee . The committee was created and operational in 1967. The SKfV primarily received funding through Social Democratic organizations and unions.After the first Swedish demonstrations protesting the US in Vietnam in 1964, several committees such as the SKfV, National Vietnam Fund, and the Support Committee for the Stockholm Conferences on Vietnam became the organizational background to the formation of the SKfV. The SKfV's official purpose was to lead public opinion on the Vietnam war while preventing extremists from usurping the antiwar movement.
The SKfV consisted of political, trade unions, and free church organizations elected to its board. By 1971, 33 national organizations and 212 local organisations were members of SKfV, with the majority being either trade unions or social democratic associations.
The United NLF-Groups (DFFG) and Swedish Committee on Vietnam (SKfV) Relations
The United NLF-Groups saw the formation of the committee as an attempt by the Social Democrats to gain control of the Swedish NLF movement. They viewed the Swedish Committee on Vietnam as a bureaucratic organization dependent on the Swedish government for its activities.By the end of 1969, the SKfV and the DFFG were planning to hold a joint demonstration. While it was initially promising, this cooperation broke down when the SKfV presented a draft resolution on providing government aid to North Vietnam. The DFFG expressed opposition to the resolution on the grounds that it was presented in a politically incorrect manner.
Over time, the DFFG became increasingly convinced that the best way to support the people of Indochina was for the two organizations to work together. Instead of complementing each other, they would cooperate to strengthen popular Swedish anti-war sentiment. During the autumn of 1972, the two organizations worked together at the local level, although not always without conflict due to the SKfV's scepticism of the DFFG.