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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 April - 3 May 2000 Issue No. 479 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 April - 3 May 2000 Issue No. 479
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Vietnam's bitter harvest
By Faiza RadyOn 30 April, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, and the final retreat of the last US marines from the capital of South Vietnam. Renamed Ho Chi Minh City -- after the revered North Vietnamese military commander who led his people to victory and national unity after a 30-year civil war between North and South -- the city has come a long way from the war-torn Saigon of April 1975.
Today a booming commercial centre, Ho Chi Minh City may be soon competing with other thriving Southeast Asian cities like Bangkok or even Singapore. Considering the ravages of war and the economic stranglehold imposed by 19 years of US trade embargo -- finally lifted by the Clinton administration in 1995 -- Vietnam has done well.
Following the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Socialist bloc, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam lost its main trading partner and was left with no option but to partially liberalise its economy. Considered one of the fastest growing economies in the region until the Asian financial crisis took its toll in 1998, the country's economy grew at an annual rate of eight per cent between 1992 and 1997, but fell to four per cent in 1998.
Membership in the prestigious Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1995 consecrated Vietnam's recent macro-economic success story -- but macro-economic indicators are, as always, deceptive. Economic growth in Vietnam is, at best, uneven, and mostly limited to thriving urban centres like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Vast tracts of rural land that were heavily bombarded by US forces with deadly defoliants are still virtual wastelands and 50 per cent of the people live below the poverty level. Twenty-five years after the end of the war, the Vietnamese people are still paying a staggering price for the US aggression.
American strategic policy in Vietnam was formulated according to the logic of the prevailing Cold War. Based on carving out regional spheres of hegemony across the globe, US policy was designed to contain the so-called Communist threat supposedly spreading from China into the rest of Southeast Asia.
This was spelled out clearly in the National Security Council policy papers of 1952, which referred to Indochina as an area "of great strategic importance in the general international interest ... and as essential to the security of the free world, not only in the Far East but in the Middle East and Europe as well."
The US aim, explained the papers, was "to prevent the countries of Southeast Asia from passing into the Communist orbit." Beyond the Cold War jargon and the relevant clichés, it was President Harry Truman who explicitly addressed the more immediately material issues at stake -- namely, the political spheres of interest and market access and exploitation. "The loss of Indochina," declared Truman, "would mean the loss of vital raw materials."
Freedom fighters in love - during the fiercest fighting the young still found time for passion. Two Vietnamese freedom fighters, a man and a woman who grew up in the same village, met each other again by sheer chance along the Ho Chi Minh trail in May 1970
(photo:AP)
During the 1960s, the "Communist orbit" theory was expanded to include North America as hundreds of thousands of US soldiers were shipped to Vietnam to defend the American mainland from the alleged dangers of Communist expansion. This official propaganda theme was echoed in the media, and, more disturbingly, by the American intelligentsia -- with a few notable exceptions.
"In over thirty years, one would be hard put to find a single phrase in the voluminous mainstream literature that even acknowledges the possibility that the US attack was anything other than 'the defense of South Vietnam'," commented prominent linguist and political writer, Noam Chomsky.
The spectre of encroaching Communism effectively dates back to Indochina's war of independence against French imperialism. The northern part of Vietnam -- led by Communist military commander Ho Chi Minh -- declared independence in 1945 as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). In 1950, Moscow and Beijing both recognised the DRV. In retaliation, US President Harry Truman recognised the French-controlled state of Vietnam headed by Emperor Bao Dai.
Following the French army's final pull-out in 1954, the US started to insidiously assume control of the South. From 1955 to 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower was to pour $200 million in annual military aid to Saigon, making South Vietnam the second largest recipient of US arms after South Korea.
When President John Kennedy was sworn into office in January 1961, only 685 US "military advisors" were posted in South Vietnam. But when Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, an estimated 16,000 US soldiers were fighting an undeclared clandestine war in the small Southeast Asian country -- ostensibly to defend a regime described by Chomsky as a "Latin American-style terror state."
Kennedy had effectively bypassed the judiciary by sending US troops to fight a foreign war without congressional consultation or approval. The Kennedy administration also set the blueprint justifying the escalation of the war effort over the following decade. Following Kennedy's lead, various American presidents faithfully and untiringly toed the line that Saigon was always in dire need of ever-increasing US support.
"The Saigon government and its military forces always were reported to be getting better, but they never got good enough. Something was wrong somewhere; something was always wrong," commented The New York Times in 1975.
Under the successive Johnson and Ford administrations, US deployment jumped from 23,000 in 1963 to 184,000 in 1966 -- reaching its peak during Richard Nixon's presidency in 1969, with 542,000 North American soldiers fighting the Communist army, or Vietcong. It was John Kennedy's successor, President Lyndon Johnson who officially declared the war and ordered the first air strikes against North Vietnam in August 1963.
Meaning lethal business, Johnson launched the "Rolling Thunder" air assault in 1964 -- which alone dropped more bombs on the tiny country than were used in World War II. Over the following five years, Vietnam received the equivalent of 22 tons of explosives for every square mile of territory, or 300 pounds for every man, woman and child. Seven million tons of bombs and defoliants were dropped in total and 2.6 million Vietnamese were killed.
Despite the deadly onslaught and the fully deployed power of the US arsenal, the Vietcong would not be defeated. "Their leadership remained unified, their nation and armed forces disciplined and organised, and it was they who held the banner of nationalism," wrote The New York Times.
In contrast, the South Vietnamese regime was fighting a losing battle on shifting grounds. Wholly propped up by the sheer weight of the US military and lacking even the semblance of a popular base, Saigon was doomed. "Military power without political cohesiveness and support proved to be an empty shell. The non-Communist groups could never unify and gain legitimacy," explained The New York Times after the final exodus of American troops in 1975.
Meanwhile, as Hanoi -- the North-Vietnamese capital -- and its Vietcong allies in the South struggled for national unity and liberation from North American aggression, they mobilised sweeping nationwide popular support. Against all odds and despite tremendous losses, it was the Communists who fought and ultimately defeated the most powerful army in the world, and raised the banner of national liberation.
