Princeton's WordNet(3.00 / 6 votes)Rate this definition: et al., et al, et alii, et aliae, et alia(adverb) and others ('et al.' is used as an abbreviation of `et alii' (masculine plural) or `et aliae' (feminine plural) or `et alia' (neuter plural) when referring to a number of people)
The 17th parallel division between North and South Vietnam was the  result of a Chinese proposal at the Geneva Conference of 1954 which  ended the French war in Vietnam. Chi â¦ na did not want a strong,  unified Vietnam on its southern border and easily convinced the  great powers to go along with their proposal.
(Some in the North Vietnamese government thought the course of war in the south was unwise, but they were overruled.) Although publicly the war in the south was described as a civil war within South Vietnam, it was guided, equipped and reinforced by the communist leadership in Hanoi. The insurgency was called the National Liberation Front (PLF); however, its soldiers and operatives became more commonly known by their opponents as the Viet Cong (VC), short for Vietnamese Communists.