Ramchundur Goburdhun (15 August 1911 – 29 November 1992) was an Indo-Mauritian diplomat best known for his role in the "Maneli Affair" of 1963, an attempt to end the Vietnam War.
Goburdhun was born in a middle class Indo-Mauritian family in the Rivière du Rempart District of the Mauritius, an island archipelago in the Indian Ocean where French is widely spoken.
[4] While attending the University of Lille in France in the 1930s, Goburdhun befriended a young Vietnamese Catholic student named Ngô Đình Nhu, who remained a lifelong friend.
[8] In 1951 his name briefly hit the headlines when the Czechoslovak police arrested and charged with espionage an American journalist, William N. Oatis.
[9] After Oatis was released in 1953, he retracted his confession as being induced by torture, and stated he merely sometimes cross-checked information with Goburdhun, engaging in standard journalistic practice, before writing a story.
The American historian Ellen Hammer called Goburdhun an "exuberant and assertive" man with a strong interest in finding a way to end the Vietnam war.
[13] Just after Goburdhun's arrival in Vietnam, the Sino-Indian War of October–November 1962 saw China defeat and humiliate India in a sharp, short campaign in the Himalayas.
[14] The British ambassador in Saigon, Henry Hohler, reported the Sino-Indian war was having "repercussions" on the Indian delegation to the ICC.
[15] Hohler reported to London after talking to Goburdhun that he had previously maintained that the ICC needed "positive objectivity", but after India's defeat, "he now considers it his duty to use his influence discreetly on the side of the free world-encouraging any activity which favors Western interests".
[15] However, the conclusion Goburdhun reached was that the war was pushing North Vietnam closer to China, and that ending the war would allow the traditional Sino-Vietnamese antagonism to reassert itself as Goburdhun knew from his contacts within Hanoi that North Vietnamese leaders were willing to accept Chinese help only because the United States was supporting South Vietnam.
[17] Unlike the Americans who knew little about Vietnamese history, the Indians were more familiar with the histories of near-by Asian states, and appreciated the full depth of the profound mistrust the Vietnamese had of China, a state had conquered Vietnam in 111 BC and ruled it as a Chinese province for the next thousand years.
[19] Instead of taking the expected pro-American positions, Hohler reported in late 1962 that Goburdhun was engaged in "masterly inactivity" while "marking time for an infinite period".
[19] His daughter described Vietnam as the most difficult of his diplomatic assignments, recalling that he "spent long hours in his office and often returned in a bad mood or imprisoned in a pregnant silence.
c) They are against the American-English conception of removing them from power by means of a possible coup, because they do not want an official government run by a military junta.
[24] Maneli later wrote that he had the impression that the North Vietnamese were still angry with the outcome of the Geneva conference in 1954, believing that the Soviet Union and China had imposed an unfavorable settlement on them for the sake of better relations with the West.
[28] Through Goburdhun, Lalouette and Maneli all believed there was a chance for peace, the coup of 1–2 November 1963 that saw the Ngo brothers killed put an end to their plans.