Tight security as Vietnam mourns one of its last historic
leaders
HANOI - A tight security cordon kept back ordinary Vietnamese Friday morning as the whole of the country's top leadership turned out
to pay its last respects to veteran leader Pham Van Dong who died last weekend.
Party General Secretary Le Kha Phieu -- the number one in the country's hierarchy -- led the first delegation to file past Dong's
coffin as it lay in state at the Tran Thanh Tong mortuary.
He heads the organizing committee for the two days of national mourning and will give the oration at Saturday's state funeral --
the biggest here since the 1980s.
Phieu was accompanied by members of the party's aging central committee. Some, in declining health themselves, had to be
helped by the arm as they shuffled around the coffin draped in Vietnam's red and yellow star flag.
Exceptionally they were joined by General Vo Nguyen Giap, architect of the communist government's military victories over
France and the United States, who has long since been dropped from the party leadership because of his opposition to the
1978 invasion of Cambodia and the subsequent border war with China.
With Dong's death, only Giap now survives of the first comrades in arms of communist leader Ho Chi Minh.
The party leadership was followed by delegations led by parliament speaker Nong Duc Manh, state president Tran Duc Luong
and Prime Minister Pham Van Khai, representing the three branches of government.
An honour guard of soldiers in white dress uniforms lay down each delegation's wreath before goosestepping aside to allow its
members to approach the coffin as a military band played a solemn funeral march.
Incense burned at the front of the hall below a picture of Dong in his prime as Hanoi's first and longest-serving prime minister
above a display case containing his many medals from his years in the communist guerrillas.
After the top leadership, hundreds of delegations representing Vietnam's provinces and state agencies took turns to lay their
wreathes.
Officials said ordinary people would be allowed in to pay their last repects in the afternoon, but only if they had first registered
with the organizing committee.
"Dong's family is the whole country -- we all deeply mourn his passing," said a voice over the loudspeaker.
Around 50 members of Dong's actual family, dressed in black and wearing the white headbands traditionally worn by the
bereaved in Vietnam, watched on as the succession of official delegations passed.
The family have been maintaining a nightly wake by his side since his death after a long illness at the age of 94.
A delegation from the commercial capital of Ho Chi Minh City was headed by its mayor, Vo Viet Thanh, who last Sunday
delivered the keynote speech at the authorities' triumphant celebrations for the 25th anniversary of their victory in the Vietnam
War.
Dong died the previous day, but his death was kept a secret from ordinary Vietnamese until Tuesday evening so as not to mar
the four-day holiday.
During the week the mood here has changed dramatically -- workers have been visible around the city taking down the ballons
left over from the celebrations while the authorities have ordered all nightclubs to remain closed during the two days of official
mourning.
One of the few ordinary people admitted through the double security cordon on Friday morning to pay his last respects to
Dong was one of the veteran leader's secretaries, Vu Quay Trieu.
"Like everyone in Vietnam, I deeply regret the passing of our great leader and teacher, and oldest brother," Trieu told AFP.
AFP - May 5, 2000.
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