Asia Times: Twenty-five years on, war stories pall


	May 02, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Twenty-five years on, war stories pall
By Nguyen Nam Phuong

HANOI - On the morning of April 30, 1975, an American jeep slipped between two burning tanks on the Thi Nghe Bridge across the Saigon River. Aboard the vehicle, which had been collected as booty from fleeing South Vietnamese forces a few weeks ago, was North Vietnamese infantryman Nguyen Huy Hoang.

Entering the defeated city, Hoang was struck by the silence that hung over the streets. He sat beside his commander, tightly clasping his AK-47 as the jeep drove toward the presidential palace. There, he would later escort the hastily-appointed chief of state of South Vietnam, General Duong Van Minh, to announce the final ceasefire. Arriving at the palace, the soldier's flood of emotions - the elation of victory, sense of awe at being history's witness and above all jangling nerves - was offset by an odd atmosphere of calm. He and fellow victors quietly puffed cigarettes. Dragonflies buzzed in the air.

Twenty-five years after the victory that put an end to the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh City, as it is now officially known, is a stranger to silence.

The post-war period, a time of impoverishment and repressive Soviet-style rule from Hanoi, has been followed by over a decade of market-oriented reforms. Gradually it has returned to what at heart it always was, a vibrant hub of enterprise, often illicit. International hotels dominate the skyline and streets are clogged with motor scooters. While Hanoi has retained something of its traditional austerity, Ho Chi Minh City - whose average per capita income is around twice that of the northern capital - combines pollution and squalor with neon and carefree spending.

The changes that Saigon has experienced in the last 25 years reflect the distance most Vietnamese - be they from the winning or losing side - now feel from the war. Most of those old enough to remember the struggle would rather look to the future than dwell on the past. ''Now people are in pursuit of the good life, everyone is chasing money,'' said Trinh Cong Son, one of southern Vietnam's best known songwriters, in a recent interview. ''The war is over for us, for me too.'' Most of Son's family fled to the United States before the war ended but Son decided to stay on, and suffered 10 harsh years in "reeducation camps" as a result. Looking back on the struggle, he likens Vietnam to a football field chosen by the Cold War powers.

It is an explanation few northerners that took part in the war would accept. For them, the "American War" was about ridding Vietnam of the last in a long line of foreign invaders. Bao Ninh, author of the acclaimed novel "The Sorrow of War," remembers the zeal with which northerners embraced the struggle. ''At that time, people didn't care about personal benefits or rewards, they only thought about the ultimate end - defeating . . . the Americans,'' he says. ''They could not be happy as long as they were dominated by foreign forces.''

Consequently, the 1975 "liberation" was vindication for the colossal sacrifices made. Most of those who were in service at the time speak of an overwhelming sense of pride tempered by grief for those who could not be there to relish the moment.

However, the victory did not bring the glory that many expected.

Bui Tin was a senior cadre and journalist who accepted the Southern surrender at the Presidential Palace on "Liberation Day". In 1991, disillusioned with the regime for which he had struggled since 1945, he moved to France where he now openly criticizes it. He writes in his memoirs how a government ''drunk with victory'' quickly became ''arrogant''. ''National reconciliation, which had been one of the cornerstones of our policy before our victory, soon turned into recrimination,'' he says. Thus, any southerner that had any involvement with the former regime was shunted off for reeducation, a grim process involving forced labor and political indoctrination. Later, a combination of poverty and discrimination drove thousands more overseas on perilous journeys aboard flimsy boats.

Prime Minister Pham Van Dong's assertion that ''waging war is simple, but running a country is very difficult'' was proved woefully correct as Vietnam plunged into crisis during the 1980s. With waning support from the Soviet bloc and a disastrous policy of agricultural collectivization, mass starvation loomed. Market-oriented reforms have done much to boost standards of living since, but, with average per capita income of $370 a year, for many veterans the fruits of victory have never been reaped.

Hoang claims that many of his comrades who shared the moment of glory in front of the palace 25 years ago are now scraping by as pavement barbers or motorbike taxi drivers.

''The ultimate aim of the war was to build a country of beauty,'' says Bao Ninh. ''Frankly speaking, Vietnam so far hasn't been able to achieve anything new or distinguished. The country hasn't been able escape the common run.''

Amongst many that fought on the winning side, there is also a resentment of the way the war has been used as a propaganda tool by the Communist Party. ''They have built the war into an arch of triumph,'' Duong Thu Huong, outspoken author of novels such as "Paradise of the Blind" and "Novel Without a Name", was recently quoted as saying. ''But behind that arch are mountains of bones and rivers of blood shed by Vietnamese people.''

General Vo Nguyen Giap, architect of the historic defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu and a key figure in the American War omitted - some say pointedly - to mention the role of the Communist Party in the 1975 victory at a recent press conference. Instead, he heaped praise on ''the people'', an entity that generally proceeds ''the party'' in official rhetoric.

While the government has used the anniversary to launch a grandiose "Ho Chi Minh Trail" highway project, plans for official celebrations in Ho Chi Minh City itself remain subdued. The modest nature of the celebrations may reflect a wish to balance patriotic pride with diplomatic interests.

On the one hand, the Communist Party never misses a chance to hold the war up as a trophy of its achievements to its own people. On the other, the government is keen to attract aid and foreign investment - much of which comes from former foes - and a "let bygones be bygones" attitude is struck. Thus, a recent confession by a South Korean colonel that his company slaughtered at least 100 civilians in a central Vietnamese province in 1966 met with little interest from Hanoi.

For the majority of Vietnamese, who were born after the war, the apparent decision to downplay the celebration will be come as no great disappointment. Eagerly consuming western fashion and popular culture, young people are more concerned with attaining the material standards enjoyed elsewhere in the region than looking back to darker days. Many, born not long after the victory, cannot name the year in which it occurred.

All in all, Vietnam is a country willing to lay to rest the war that killed 3 million of its own.

''Young people have become bored with stories of victory and older people have become disappointed,'' says Bao Ninh. ''Veterans begin to doubt the truth of what they hear.''

(Inter Press Service)

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