The 30th April 1975 victory is an epoch-making milestone of global influence in the 20th century. That is the victory of justice over tyranny and hegemony; a shining symbol of indomitable persistent will, desire for peace and freedom of the Vietnamese people and civilized human beings. It is the history with the truths that cannot be distorted by any hostile forces.
It has been 40 years since that historical moment, however, its significance and values remains forever, especially for nations that have fought for progress, civilization, and happiness. Praises and positive evaluation of the event have always been the mainstream worldwide recognized over the past years. Ironically, besides those, there remain stray voices trying to deny the historical truth with prejudiced, hostile incentives and purposes. They not only try to equalize role of belligerents, but also brazenly justify the invaders who caused numerous atrocities for Vietnamese people, then deny the people who sacrificed their lives for national peace, independence, freedom, and reunification. The war ended a long time ago, the identification between justice and injustice, victory and defeat has been apparent. Vietnam is now a strategic and comprehensive partner of many countries; among which there are countries which directly engaged in the war in Vietnam previously. Nevertheless, in somewhere, a small number of people, on April 30th annually, incite hatred with completely unreasonable arguments. Recently, there have been crude justifications around the war’s nature, which voice that the US brazen and inhumane intervention into Vietnam’s sovereignty was to defend democracy. Those who followed the U.S. to divide the country into two and massacred their people, were pleaded for their “different political choice” and “different ideal”. There are even opinions that: the North invaded the South, and that the war 1954-1975 in Vietnam was just a civil war. Feeling sorry for millions of people who lost their lives in the war, some people believe that it was not necessary to launch a war, sooner or later the invaders had to leave and our national sovereignty would be restored. How ridiculous they are! Also, a number of people, who themselves claim to have “enthusiasm for the country and the people”, had arbitrary justification; however, in this regard, there is only one truth. History and its performance is the best accurate measure for the truth, denying all distortions.
Looking back on the history, there is an obvious truth that the invasion of Vietnam, launched by the U.S., backed by the Sai Gon puppet regime, failed ignominiously in April 1975, which was inevitable. The main reason for their failure, first and foremost, is that it was such a brutal, nonsense war. At that time, the U.S. considered Vietnam a strategic area to block the Socialism’s influence in the Southeast Asia. Thus, it needed an anti-Socialist government to best serve its world hegemony plot. On realizing the Geneva Accords in Vietnam and Indochina, while the Democratic Republic of Vietnam tried to pursue peaceful measures, the U.S. and Ngo Dinh Diem’s government, followed by Nguyen Van Thieu’s, intentionally destroyed the establishment of peace and national reunification. Requests for negotiations and a General Election to unify the South and the North, were continuously made by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam but turned down in June and July 1957, March and December 1959, and July 1960. Instead, they dragged their guillotines all over the South to behead the communists, violently suppressing the former revolutionary activists, and people who supported national reunification. Then, they carried out strategies, namely “Special war” (1961-1965), “Limited war” (1965-1966), and “Vietnamization war” (1969-1973) devastating the South and wiping out mass movements of resistance.
Having experienced challenges and loss in wars, regional division, and foreign domination, more than anyone else, the people of Vietnam treasure the values of peace, national independence and unification. The people and government of Vietnam seized every opportunity to preserve and protect those values, but the U.S. and the puppet regime of Sai Gon trampled on and went against our sacred and legitimate aspirations, which left us no other choices than carrying on our struggle to liberate the South and unify the country. In more than 20 years, overcoming hardships and sacrifices, the people of Vietnam defeated a world-class military and economic imperialist. There were a variety of factors making this miracle; in which the promotion of patriotic tradition, the raise of justice flag, the Party’s creative, independent, self-reliant guidelines, people’s desire for peace and national liberation played decisive roles. There were many explanations for the US failure in Vietnam, but the most common one was about the injustice of the war waged by them. In his article “Looking back the two wars in Vietnam”, Professor Tran Chung Ngoc - a Vietnamese American - wrote “the U.S. had no legitimate reasons for their intervention in Vietnam - an undeveloped, poor, and small country – which had no capability to affect the US interests”. The US intervention in Vietnam, in defiance of public opinion and even international laws, could be seen as “hegemony over justice”. Mc Namara, the former US Minister of Defense, bitterly acknowledged that “we underestimated their power of national spirit”; he was also disappointed at the US ignorance of Vietnamese history, culture, and politics. Frances Fitzgerald stated that “their victory belongs to the people of Vietnam- Northerners as well as Southerners. Unlike a civil war, the struggle of the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam was the obedience to national unification principle which the government of Sai Gon voiced its support for, but betrayed afterwards”.
The unjust war launched by the U.S. and its allies in Vietnam was condemned not only for the nature of its goal, human and money loss, but also for its extreme brutality and inhumanity. It is one of the most money-consuming wars in the US history with 686 billion US dollars in total (calculated with current price of 2008). That is the second largest sum of money that the U.S. spent on a war, only after the Second World War. According to Mr. Nguyen Tien Hung, former Minister of plans of the Republic of Vietnam (1973-1975), the US wave of aid for Vietnam reached its peak from 1966 to 1970 with 25 billion US dollars per year. The mapping out of Sai Gon regime’s policies was frequently based on the estimation of the US aid for its economy and the level of its dependence on the U.S. Together with the US and Sai Gon regime troops, there were the direct participation of 5 allies’ troops and indirect participation of 29 others’ with around 6 million combatants. During that period, the US and Sai Gon troops conducted a series of operations for search, destruction, and massacre all over the South; at the same time, they launched 2 air operations to the North of Vietnam, devastating its economic and traffic infrastructure, schools, and hospitals, and so on to “bring Vietnam back to the Stone Age”. Vietnam became the battlefield for the U.S. to show and test most of its weapons and equipment, including the most modern ones. US aircraft dropped 7.85 million tons of bomb to Vietnam, three times as many as in the Second World War; sprayed about 75 million litres of dioxide all over the South. The war caused the death to millions of people, but the number of people who were wounded and suffered from paralysis in the both sides was much more. In that war, the U.S. even adopted barbarous measures exceeding the norms of a war, such as using agent orange/dioxide, using B52 aircrafts to devastate populated areas. Apart from casualties, the consequences in the fields of politics, economy, and environment are really serious, taking a lot of time and efforts to solve. It is worth noting that the war’s social consequences have led to deep and long-lasting division within the Vietnamese and the US societies. Hatred and inferiority complex put up a barrier to the process of national harmony after the war. All of which are consequences of the war waged by the U.S. and a warning for the people who bear the thought of hegemony in mind, claiming the rights to stand above the others.
The April 30th 1975 victory showed us a truth: the power of hegemony, violence, and money does not always defeat justice. In the war, Vietnam fought for peace, national independence and unification, thus it received material and spiritual support from international friends and progressive, peace-loving people. The unjust and brutal war launched by the U.S. and the puppet regime of Sai Gon was increasingly condemned and opposed by people all over the world, including progressive Americans. During the war, in the U.S., there were more than 200 anti-war organizations, 16 million out of 27 million young Americans opposed the war draft, 75,000 Americans fled abroad just to avoid being recruited. The nature of Sai Gon regime, its dependence on the U.S., and their relationship were increasingly exposed. Nguyen Van Thieu, head of Sai Gon regime, clearly stated his government’s ideal: “we fight the Viet Cong (Communist Vietnamese) only when the U.S. supports us”, “if the U.S. no longer supports us, not after 1 day, 1 month, or 1 year, but only 3 hours, we will leave the Palace”. Before that, to force Thieu’s Government to sign the Paris Accords (January 1973), US President R.Nixon talked with his inferiors that he did not know whether the US. threat went too far or not, but he would do anything, even bad thing like cutting off Thieu’s head. In his resignation speech, at the time of no possibility to avoid the collapse of his regime (April 21st 1975), Nguyen Van Thieu unceasingly blamed the U.S. as “a promise breaker, an unfair, incredible, inhumane, irresponsible ally”. It was too far different from the things they had usually propagated and extolled each other, misleading many people about their “alliance”, and making people believe that they were the representatives of “justice, the nation, and the people”.
40 years after the 20-year war, the truth was tested by history. Justification and distortions to serve some plots are illusions and sins, which go against the history and generations of Vietnamese people who devoted all their lives for the country’s peace and happiness. Any nation has its own pride of its historical tradition of fighting against the invaders and protecting its Homeland. The April 30th victory permanently ended North-South division and more than 100 years of colonialist and imperialist domination in our country. The country became independent and unified, marking a resplendent milestone in the country’s heroic history for today and future generations to preserve and promote.
Thuong Vu