~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

[Year 1997]
[Year 1998]
[Year 1999]
[Year 2000]
[Year 2001]

Vietnam says adieu to hero of revolution

HANOI - Thousands of people lined the streets of the Vietnamese capital yesterday to pay final respects during a state funeral for Pham Van Dong, their first prime minister and one of the architects of Vietnam's Communist revolution.Traffic came to a halt as Dong's flag-wrapped coffin, mounted on a gun carriage, was hauled by a military truck through the capital's streets to Mai Dich cemetery, where Vietnam's revolutionary heroes are buried.

Dong served from 1954 as prime minister of North Vietnam and from 1975-1987 as prime minister of a unified Vietnam. He had been in hospital on life support systems for several months before his death on April 29. He was 94. His death was not announced until Tuesday because Communist Party officials and government leaders did not want to mar the April 30 national celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the liberation of the South and reunification of the country. Some 3,000 Vietnamese leaders and relatives gathered earlier yesterday where Dong's body has lain in state to pay their respects while an army band played a funeral dirge.

``Comrade Pham Van Dong has devoted his whole life for national liberation and reunification, for the people's happiness and socialism,'' said Communist Party General Secretary Le Kha Phieu in his eulogy. ``His death is a great loss to the party, state and people.'' In his retirement, Dong was given the title of party adviser and used occasional speeches and essays to blast rampant government corruption and warn of the dangers of free market economic reforms.

Associated Press - May 7, 2000.


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.