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Mass ceremonies held to mark 25th anniversary of war's end in Vietnam

HO CHI MINH CITY - Triumphant but tightly guarded ceremonies were held here Sunday to mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the unification of Vietnam after decades of war. The main event -- speeches and mass parade under a blazing sun at the old southern presidential palace, the scene in 1975 of the American-backed South's surrender -- was for invited guests only. Anyone else interested, and not many appeared to be, had to make do with watching television. Before dawn authorities threw a massive security cordon around the barricaded approaches to the venue.

The old white-facaded palace was decked with red party banners and the same tank that smashed through the iron entrance gate on April 30, 1975 stood in the grounds with a fresh coat of olive-green paint. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the ageing architect of the successive victories over the French and Americans, headed the lineup of dignitaries seated under a huge portrait of Ho Chi Minh, but did not speak. Ho, the country's leading revolutionary, died before the war ended. Flanking Giap on the podium were Communist Party of Vietnam secretary general Le Kha Phieu, vice president Nguyen Thi Binh, and prime minister Phan Van Khai.

In the vast double-laned avenue in front of the palace, where mass parades were held to the blare of martial music, popular hits and revolutionary songs, only invited guests mingled with plainclothes men, waving small red flags. The ceremony kicked off on schedule at 6.30 a.m. (2330 GMT) with a far-from-triumphant speech read by Vo Viet Thanh, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh people's Committee, who used the occasion to warn of a crackdown on drugs and crime. Thanh first paid tribute to the millions who fought and lost their lives in the 30-year struggle for reunification, and said the corruption and social evils plaguing the city now should make people ashamed.

"Arbitrary and imperious behaviour, wasteful spending, embezzlement, bribery and other social evils such as the increasingly widespread scourge of drug addiction... "Those problems make each and every one of us feel restless and guilty at heart for those who laid down their lives," he said, warning of a "degradation of law enforcement and moral and spiritual values." Listing the city's achievements since the communist takeover 25 years ago, he warned against complacency and urged participation in a "party regeneration campaign."

Addressing foreign investors including overseas Vietnamese, some two million of whom fled the country after the fall of Saigon, Thanh said the city welcomed "with open arms foreign investment, businessmen and multinational corporations." Hundreds of clusters of multi-colored balloons rose into the air as huge contingents of military, minorities, laborers, social groups, state companies and veterans succeeded one another in a massive march-past interspersed with crude floats. Included was one group waving the blue and red flags of the Viet Cong -- the southern guerilla fighters whose role in the decades-long war is now all but ignored by Hanoi.

Another was made up of some 50 be-medalled and ageing Viet Cong spies, men and women, who had served as infiltrators into the southern government. Some carried huge portraits of Ho Chi Minh. A mockup of the famous first tank to enter the palace carried girls waving bunches of flowers. A 75-year-old veteran of the liberation of Saigon, Nguyen Van Nhung, who served 35 years in the North's 5th military Corps, said he thought it was "a good thing" the Viet Cong had been honored in the parade. "The NLF (National Liberation front) made an enormous contribution," he said, adding that it was the first time he had been invited to an anniversary.

A huge red Chinese dragon was carried on poles by children of the city's ethnic-Chinese community, and ethnic minority children tried but failed to release scores of white doves from cages. The doves would not budge from the ground. The tank was preceded by groups of Buddhists in their yellow robes and Catholic priests and nuns. A 55-year-old nun said afterwards that each of the six convents in the city had been told to provide five sisters each for the parade.

"I cried a lot and was very worried on this day 25 years ago," she told an AFP reporter. "But things are getting better now. Despite Thanh's welcome to foreign companies, not one was represented in the parade. Outside the cordon, life appeared to be unaffected with coffee shops and breakfast stalls opening on the sidewalks, and few paying attention to the televised communist party extravaganza seen on some screens in the central market, which was crowded with holiday shoppers. "It's another work day for me," said one sidealk vendor.

But later in the day the atmosphere changed. The avenue in front of the palace filled with thousands of ordinary people who rushed there to see the arrival of 61 of 75 cyclists who started out from Hanoi 19 days ago on a marathon 1,742 kilometers (1,089 mile) reunification race modelled on the Tour de France. The boisterous crowd was in sharp contrast to the formal ceremonies of the early morning, as was the state-sponsored marriage at the foot of a statue of Ho Chi Minh in the city center, of 25 couples born in 1975. And at nightfall the city center filled with crude lighted floats bumping through the streets to the blare of canned music.

In Thu Duc, some 130 kilometers north of the city, 412 prisoners were among the 12,000 released nationwide in a "liberation day" amnesty. Officials told AFP that foreign passport holders were among those freed for good behaviour, but could not give their numbers or further details.

AFP - April 30, 2000


Vietnam has made the tank an icon but no red carpet for crew

HO CHI MINH CITY - Their tank has become an icon of the fall of Saigon celebrated in posters across Vietnam, but the crewmen who crashed through the gates of the presidential palace 25 years ago have received little reward from the communist authorities. As the government marked the anniversary of its great victory Sunday with a lavish parade attended by top officials, Tank 843 took pride of place in the palace grounds, spruced up with a new lick of paint.

But for the four crewmen there was no VIP treatment or heroes' reception, just the five-yearly call to be among the thousands of veterans and other invited guests allowed inside the tight security cordon for the celebrations. As the four men watched on, image after image of their tank went past in the procession of floats representing government agencies and state-owned firms which followed the march-past by members of the armed forces and mass organizations. For the managers of state factories, Tank 843 was the obvious symbol to exploit to advertise what a banner at the start of the procession described as Vietnam's "high-quality products."

The state tourism agency even used a van encased in a crude mock-up of the tank to advertise a major promotion drive it launched this year. A man in a tank commander's uniform peered out of the cardboard turret surrounded by hospitality girls waving bunches of flowers. "Vietnam, the destination of the millennium," read the legend on the crudely painted armour on the van's side. But for the crewmen, their tank's renown has barely affected their lives. Now long since demobilized and in his 60s, the tank's commander Vu Dang Toan complained that while he has been feted in the international media, he has received nothing from the government.

"Everybody knows that we were the people who drove that tank but we've still received nothing from the state," Toan told AFP after Sunday's celebrations. "It's only on those occasions when the government wants to hold some celebration that they invite us along to attend." Toan told how since his demobilization from the army in 1985, he had struggled to make a living in his native village in Hai Giang, a poor upland province in the far north of Vietnam on the border with China. "We have a farm and raise some fish and do other work -- I do anything that I can to make a living," he said. Toan and fellow crewmen Ngo Sy Nguyen, Nguyen Van Tap and Le Van Phung -- like him rural northerners -- all commented on the newfound wealth of the old southern capital since its resurgence as the country's economic powerhouse in the 1990s.

"Now Saigon is a very beautiful city -- there are so many big buildings and new roads," said Nguyen. But despite their economic gripes about the government's treatment of veterans, the men are clearly no dissidents. All said they still valued the opportunity to come and pay their respects to comrades in the 203rd tank brigade who had lost their lives in the final advance. They mentioned in particular their brigade commander Ngo Quang Da who died crossing the Saigon River, which divides the city, in one of the last battles of the Vietnam War.

But they had no time at all for the most famous participant in the palace's seizure, Colonel Bui Tin, now one of the government's leading emigre critics. Following the line increasingly adopted by the authorities here in a bid to rewrite the defector out of history, Toan insisted that it was not Tin but his political commissar, Colonel Bui Van Tung, a diehard communist to this day, who accepted the south's final submission. "In history we have to tell the truth, we mustn't embroider the facts and Bui Tin is telling lies -- only the soldiers were there," claimed Toan. The tank commander was alluding to the fact that Tin, a journalist with the north Vietnamese army daily, only stumbled upon the responsibility of accepting Minh's surrender as the ranking officer at the scene. Such controversies are perhaps why the communist authorities prefer to celebrate the hard metal armour of a tank that can't criticise or defect.

AFP - April 30, 2000


Trans-Vietnam cyclists reach Saigon amid cheers

HO CHI MINH CITY - A group of 61 cyclists raced into this old southern capital from the northern city of Hanoi to the cheers of thousands Sunday, climaxing weeks of celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of Vietnam's reunification. Riot police had to push back the boisterous, cheering crowd massed along the avenue in front of the presidential palace as the first five cyclists appeared, led by a jeep bearing a huge national flag.

The route was the one used by communist tanks in 1975 when they smashed through the palace gates, in what is now seen as the end of the war in which the humble pushbike symbolized Vietnam's low-tech war effort. The outright winner of the marathon 19-day 1,742 kilometer (1,089 mile) was not named immediately. But officials said lap scores showed the provisional overall winner as Nguyen Huu Duc, from the agricultural department of An Giang province, who stands to win 20 million dong (some 1,500 dollars) in prize money. The frenetic scene in front of the palace was in sharp contrast to the rigid communist party celebrations earlier Sunday, where all but invited guests were kept away from the venue by an armed cordon. The helmeted riot police again had to use batons to beat back the crowd when former prime minister Vo Van Kiet, now an adviser to the communist party, and Sports Minister Ha Quang Du went to welcome the winners.

The winner of the last gruelling 130 kilometer lap of the race, followed closely on television, was Nguyen Van Chinh from the Tien Giang police team. Chinh led the first five to reach the finish line 200 meters from the palace at 11:05 am (0405 GMT) in sweltering heat as a brass band played a military march. The official winner was scheduled to be declared later in the day in a nationally-televised ceremony. The 61 were among 75 riders who started the "12th Hanoi-Hue-Ho Chi Minh City TV Cup" race in Hanoi on April 12.

The organizers said the race, modelled on the Tour de France, was the biggest cycling event staged in Vietnam since the independence of the North in 1954, and 1,000 kilometres longer than a similar race staged to mark the 20th anniversary of the end of the war. Three firms, French drug company UPSA.C, Vietnamese-Australian steel company Vinausteel and Vietnamese brewer Ben Thanh, met the bulk of the event's 300,000 dollar costs. At the height of the war, Hanoi employed 2,800 workers to turn out 150,000 bicycles each year and 200 tonnes of spare parts for its troops. But not one of the riders taking part in the race was riding a Vietnamese-produced bicycle. They were all using imported American, French or Italian models.

AFP - April 30, 2000