For anyone's personal interest, since there is so much talk of religion and politics/ warfare, I thought I should state that this is not the first time it has happened. Religion was perhaps one of the strongest forces at play in Vietnam prior to the US invasion. The South Vietnamese government released leaflets claiming that Catholic would be discriminated in Communist North Vietnam, including pagse that read "Virgin Mary is fleeing South". But the US-backed dictatorship was not in favour of religious freedom whatsoever: his regime slaughtered 9 Buddhist for celebrating Lord Buddha's birthday; they arrested thousands of Buddhist monks and destroyed countless Pagodas. To protest this discrimination, on June 11, 1963 Buddhist Monk Thich Quan Duc committed self-immolation (burned himself to death). 6 other Buddhists followed suit later that year. This lead to widespread outrage with Diem's regime, and eventually to his overthrow and assassination in November.