Vietnam Commemorates Fall of Saigon
HO CHI MINH CITY - Vietnam--Amid memories of triumph
for some and pain for others, Vietnam marked the 25th anniversary
of Saigon's fall to Communist troops with a national holiday today,
extolling the virtues of patriotism and calling for a renewed spirit of
self-sacrifice.
"It was the happiest moment in my revolutionary life," Gen. Vo
Nguyen Giap, 87, Hanoi's former military commander, said recently
of the U.S.-backed Saigon regime's surrender on April 30, 1975.
"It was the total and comprehensive victory of Vietnam over the
United States--the victory of 100 years struggling against Western
colonialists."
Not surprisingly, U.S. diplomats steered clear of the Liberation
Day festivities. The American ambassador, former POW Douglas
"Pete" Peterson, was in the United States on official business. The
press officer at the U.S. Consulate here was out of the country on
leave, and the consul general, Charles Ray, a two-tour Vietnam
War veteran, said he could not attend the official ceremonies
because of their early starting time at 6:30 a.m.
But for old-guard Communists of Giap's generation, this was a
day to be celebrated. And to highlight "the lenient policy being
pursued by the Communist Party," the state announced that it was
freeing 12,205 prisoners, the nation's largest amnesty. Twenty-nine
of the prisoners were foreigners, including four unidentified
Americans.
In Ho Chi Minh City, as Saigon is now known, bunting
decorated the tree-lined boulevards, and municipal buildings
sported fresh coats of paint. Even the harshest critics had to admit
that this fabled metropolis--captured by the French in 1859 and
overrun by Americans in 1965--has reclaimed the glow and charm
of a bygone era and is abuzz with commercial inspiration and the
entrepreneurial spirit of a new generation.
Though Liberation Day, commemorating a war fought by
now-old men, does not much resonate with Vietnam's youth, Le
Duan Boulevard was lined by dawn with a few hundred spectators
who applauded respectfully as soldiers, veterans, and youth and
civic groups marched past.
The parade route was only five blocks long, and the event itself
was devoid of any spontaneity. One government worker, asked her
opinion of the celebration, said, "I'll have to check with my
department head."
Only those with special passes were allowed on the parade
route or onto grounds of the old Presidential Palace where Giap,
Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, Communist Party chief Le Kha
Phieu and other national leaders sat to hear speeches on what one
official called "the great epic of Vietnamese heroism."
"Our biggest relief 25 years ago was that the war was over,"
Chinh Trinh, 58, a former high school principal, said by telephone
from his home in Melbourne, Australia. "Hanoi announced there
would be forgiveness. We were brothers. We had a very positive
feeling rather than a negative one that day. But as time went by,
everything went vice versa."
Indeed, the government in Hanoi allowed the opportunity for
true reconciliation to slip by. Unlike the U.S. Civil War--which
ended at Appomattox with Grant letting Lee's soldiers keep their
horses and sidearms and return home to plant their
crops--Vietnam's internal conflict concluded with Hanoi seeking
retribution and control. The Viet Cong--the southern fighters allied
with the north--were pushed aside, the defeated southerners were
punished, and northerners came south to take the reins of power.
About 400,000 men like Trinh were sent off to reeducation
camps. More than a million were moved into economic zones so
unproductive that the newly reunified country edged to the brink of
famine. As economic and political conditions worsened, nearly a
million southerners--including many of the nation's best-educated
and brightest people--fled on foot and by boat.
One of them was
Trinh, who escaped on his seventh try.
"A lot of people, including my dad, wanted to stay in Vietnam
and help rebuild the country, but it was impossible if you'd
supported the wrong side," said Trinh's son, Hoi, 29, who was
named Young Vietnamese-Australian of the Year in 1999 and will
be a flag bearer at the Olympics in Sydney, Australia, in
September.
Still, differences between north and south have narrowed over
the years, and even those who consider communism irrelevant or an
obstacle to development have come to accept the course of history.
And undeniably, life for the 77 million Vietnamese, particularly
those in urban areas, has improved dramatically since the
government started moving cautiously in 1989 toward a
free-market economy.
According to an ACNielsen survey late last year of Vietnam's
six major cities, 95% of households had a color TV, 54% a
refrigerator, 42% a motorbike and 34% a telephone. Less than 20
years earlier, only senior Communist Party officials were permitted
to have a residential phone, virtually all private transportation was
by bicycle, and most homes did not have electricity, let alone a
refrigerator.
But ACNielsen also asked respondents, "How happy are you
with your current state of life?" And while 18% answered that they
were very or quite happy, and 32% felt very or quite unhappy,
50% said they were neither happy nor unhappy.
That may be because, despite rising living standards, there are
few countries where the gap between performance and potential
seems so great. Vietnam remains one of the world's poorest
nations, with a per capita income of about $350 and a plethora of
inefficient, incompetently managed state enterprises. At the same
time, it has a population that is literate, industrious, capitalistic in
spirit and obsessed with education.
National economic growth has been cut by about half from the
9% annual increases in the mid-1990s, and foreign investment fell
from $2 billion in 1996 to $600 million last year--a drop that
investors attribute to the government's sluggish moves toward
political and economic reform. The government replies that it alone
will decide the pace of reform and that it gives top priority to
political and civil stability, which rapid economic growth could
upset.
"I came away from meetings with government officials thinking
this is still basically a Communist country with a lot of distrust for
us," said Jules Bonavolonta, vice chairman of Delaware-based
MBNA America Bank and a war veteran who toured Vietnam last
week with 23 other influential businesspeople in a delegation
representing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. The group's
purpose was to scout investment opportunities and ways to assist
Vietnam's development.
"But on the other hand," he added, "you have to compare that
impression with what you see in the postwar generation here. The
young kids we met are hungry for information, for education, for a
chance to get ahead. You can see it in their eyes. That's the real
dichotomy of Vietnam."
By David Lamb - Los Angeles Times - April 30, 2000
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