Cuban engineers to supervise main section of Ho Chi Minh highway
HANOI -
Cuban engineers are to supervise construction of the biggest section of a planned 1,690 kilometre (1,050 mile) long highway
along the route of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the communists' Vietnam War supply route, the official VNA news agency said
Friday.
The 6.4 million dollar contract was signed with Cuban firm Quality Couriers International at a ceremony here Friday, it said.
The ceremony was attended by Cuban First Deputy Construction Minister Fidel Figneeroa de la Paz and Vietnamese
government special envoy Dong Sy Nguyen.
Under the deal, the Cuban firm will be responsible for the 985-kilometre (615 mile) section from Xuan Mai in the northern
province of Ha Tay to Dakpet in the central highland province of Kon Tum.
The project entails construction of more than 300 new bridges and is due to be completed within 42 months.
Cuban engineers have already been involved in construction work on the highway -- in May engineers from joint venture
construction firm VIC started work on a key 90 kilometre (55 mile) section in the mountainous central provinces of Quang Binh
and Quang Tri.
Ironically in 1973 in the last stages of the Vietnam War, Cuba sent a company of 13 engineers to concrete the same section of
the trail to lay the ground for North Vietnam's triumphant 55-day offensive which brought the conflict to a close two years later.
The sheer scale of the Ho Chi Minh highway project has forced the cash-strapped government to mobilize all the manpower
they can drawn on, including Vietnamese conscripts as well as engineers from communist ally Cuba.
A total of 119 workers on the project have already contracted malaria, despite the compulsory use of prophylactics and
mosquito nets, the Saigon Giai Phong daily reported Friday.
Australian military doctors have been working with their Vietnamese counterparts on the problem under a defence agreement
signed last year.
The government finally launched the long-mooted highway project as part of celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the end of
the Vietnam War in April after earlier schemes had been rejected as too expensive.
The authorities intend to use the new highway as a relief road for the coastal Route One which is currently the country's only
north-south trunk road and is regularly cut by seasonal flooding.
But foreign diplomats say the money would be better spent on upgrading the existing highway than on trying to revive memories
of military triumphs now more than a quarter of a century old.
During the war, US planes dropped thousands of tonnes of munitions on the 16,000-kilometre (9,930-mile) network of trails,
tunnels and canals which the communists built to transport supplies from north to south, without ever completely cutting it.
Agence France Presse - November 3, 2000.
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