The children of Uncle Ho, By Owei Lakemfa

Ho Chi Minh

The red flag  was emblazoned on the big screen. It did not signify any danger. It had a single star in the middle. Indeed, the flag belongs to a shining star in the firmament of resistance against practicably impossible odds.

In the Biblical story, there was a David who took on Goliath and brought the giant down. But the David I write about, militarily, brought three Goliaths; Japan from Asia, France from Europe and the United States from North America, down to their knees. This was done two decades apart!

This  Monday, 26 August, as I attended the National Day of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Abuja, these were the reminiscences that flashed through my mind.

I was at the reception not just to honour the country’s invitation extended to me by its friendly Ambassador Bui Quoc Hung, but also in a sense, to pay tribute to two of Twentieth Century’s greatest men, Ho Chin Minh, affectionately called Uncle Ho and, General Vo Nguyen Giap who taught the poor how to fight and win.

Uncle Ho was one of the founders of the French Communist Party in 1920 before returning home a decade later to establish the Communist Party of Vietnam. From then until he marched on 39 years later, he was physically at war with powers that sought to subjugate his country.

To stay alive, and a step ahead of the local and international powers who wanted to eliminate him, he had to adopt over 50  aliases. He also had to camouflage his past so much that despite the fact that he was president for 24 years from 1945, his exact names, birthday and basic dates about his early life could not be ascertained. In fact he used five birthdays: 1890, 1891, 1892, 1894 and 1895. As such, officials had to reach a consensus to adopt 1890 as his official birthday and accept Nguyen Sinh Cung as his real name.

But despite the wars he led, his being a brilliant strategist and, famous victories in the battlefield, Uncle Ho was a simple man. He was a journalist by profession and a consummate writer and poet who wrote in Chinese, Vietnamese and French. He also spoke English and Russian.

Ho’s life can be used to plot the graph of the three major wars this country of 90 million people had to fight to gain the independence it bequeathed to this generation.

France had colonised Vietnam in 1884. When the Second World War broke, Uncle Ho led the people to fight France for independence. In the process, Japan invaded and occupied the country. So Vietnam had to wage war against both the colonialists and the Japanese forces of occupation. With the international defeat of Japan in 1945, Vietnam proclaimed its independence, only for France to return, wanting to resume its colonial proprietorship.

France with its mighty arsenal  backed by its Western allies thought the war would be a walkover. But the issue was settled in one of the most famous combats in world history, the 1954  Battle of Dien Bien Phu. It took place from 13 March to 7 May, 1954 and showed the military brilliance of the Vietnamese led by Uncle Ho and  General Giap.

The major French military base was nestled in the seemingly impregnable valley of the Dien Bien Phu mountain. It could only be reached by air and the Vietnamese did not have air power. France never imagined that the Vietnamese could hurl heavy military equipment including artillery and anti-aircraft guns over the mountains and surround its military base. The Vietnamese employed both military attacks and starvation as the French military could not be resupplied food.

The defeat of France came at a very high cost to both sides. Vietnam lost over 200,000 people, France and its allies including the US lost over 70,000 soldiers, with 65,000 injured and 40,000 taken prisoner.

However, the US did not want the Vietnamese to exercise their sovereignty. First, they had just militarily defeated France, a super power with lots of colonies. This, the American establishment felt, could lead to copycat actions. Indeed, the Algerians did by picking up  the gun on 1 November, 1954 to chase France out. Secondly, and perhaps more serious, was the fact that Uncle Ho and his followers were socialists which in the Cold War era, was intolerable to the US. So in 1955, it began the invasion of Vietnam. But it need an excuse to declare a full scale war. As such, in August 1964, two US destroyers stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin claimed they had been fired upon by the Vietnamese. They were false claims, but that was all President Lyndon Baines Johnson needed to persuade Congress grant his government permission to increase US military presence in Indochina. The following year, the US had a full scale war going on in Vietnam.

It would turn out to be one of America’s costliest mistakes, as the anti-Vietnam War movement internally, shook it to its very foundation. More importantly, the mighty US military, despite committing a total 9,087,000 combatants, had to kiss the Vietnamese dust.

It was one of the most brutal wars the US has ever waged; Vietnamese villages, towns and cities were obliterated. After the Americans wiped out Ben Tre, a town with 35,000 Vietnamese, Associated Press journalist, Peter Arnett flew there. In surveying the obliteration of the town, he interviewed an American Major who infamously said: “We had to destroy the city in order to save it.”

A major characteristic of that war, was the USA’s wilful use of biological and chemical weapons. These included Agent White, Agent Blue, Agent Green, Agent Purple, Agent Pink, and, the worst, Agent Orange.

Agent Orange, was mainly, a very dangerous chemical contaminant called dioxin which causes diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and various types of cancer. It was so dangerous that any US soldier exposed to it, qualified for disability benefits.

Agent Orange  accounted for 61 per cent  of the chemical weapons US used. Decades later, the Vietnamese, including newly born babies still suffered from the effects.

When in 1973, the Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger who led the American peace negotiations, and his Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, the latter rejected it. Such was the ideological orientation, Uncle Ho had instilled in the Vietnamese.

Some two million Vietnamese were killed in the war, while 58,202 US soldiers lost their lives and 75,000 were severely disabled.

The Vietnamese rose from the ashes of that war to rebuild their country as a united entity, confident that for a long time, no country would dare invade their ancestral homes. This is why the children of Uncle Ho, deserve the star in their national flag.

Owei Lakemfa, a former secretary general of African workers, is a human rights activist, journalist and author.