ABSTRACT
During the successive Indochina Wars, the mountain areas of Vietnam have been seen as strategically crucial areas for the control of Indochina. Control of the indigenous populations was considered the key element in any political struggle for Indochina. In the context of guerrilla warfare, the support of local populations was seen as an important asset, both for the employment of guerrilla tactics and for most counterinsurgency schemes. During the First Indochina War, both the Vietnamese communists and the French colonial regime developed specific minorities policies. The minorities policy of the Vietnamese Communist Party has often been described as a coherent effort to appease ethnic minorities in order to attain their support. For the mountain regions of northern Vietnam, the results showed in the battle of Điện Biên Phủ Thành phố ở Việt Nam, according to both Vietnamese and Western studies. Analysts like Chesneaux, Fall and McAlister attributed the ultimate French defeat at Điện Biên Phủ Thành phố ở Việt Nam in 1954 to the qualitative difference of the Việt Minh's ethnic policy as compared to French ethnic policy there, although recent testimonies point at massive Chinese assistance as a major cause for the Việt Minh victory. 2
