Viet Nam President Nguyen Minh Triet (from the south) delivers a speech at the ceremony.
Water taken from the country's northern and southern parts was poured into the Ben Hai River at a ceremony in central Quang Tri Province on April 30 as a symbol of the desire and resolve to maintain territorial integrity and national unification of all Vietnamese people.
The Ben Hai River was selected as a "temporary military demarcation line" under the Geneva Agreement of 1954, at the end of the U.S.-funded French War.
This was a "temporary division, not a territorial boundary" - so, contrary to the US war propaganda, the Geneva Agreement did NOT create two countries of North and South Viet Nam.
This temporary division was meant to be dissolved two years later in national democratic elections, under international supervision, to decide one government for the reunited country.
However, the U.S.-supported southern regime (which began as the French puppet State of Vietnam) refused to implement the national election, knowing they could not win against the vastly popular Ho Chi Minh.
Even US President Eisenhower later wrote that if the 1956 national elections had been held about 80% of the Vietnamese people would have voted for Ho Chi Minh, rather than the leader supported by America.
So, denied certain victory at the ballot box, the Vietnamese were forced into the criminal American War instead!
So much for the U.S. lie of supporting "freedom and democracy"!
The American War against Viet Nam, Cambodia & Laos was an illegal aggressive war for imperialist self-interest, control of vital resources, and to punish any independent state outside U.S. dominance as an example to others.
For the exact same reasons, there are imperialist wars now in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc., and perhaps against Iran next.
"Viet Nam is one country, one nation. Rivers may run dry, mountains may crumble, but this truth will never change."
- President Ho Chi Minh.
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On the offensive
Vietnam’s biet dong guerrillas gave everything they had to free the country from imperialism. And they’d do it all again
The attack upon the US embassy in Saigon during the 1968 Tet Offensive was one event that left an indelible impression upon the minds of the American public (File photo)
Vu Minh Nghia, a Viet Cong guerrilla who attacked the presidential palace during the Tet Offensive in 1968, says she never was the GI-Jane type.
Nghia, now a 65-year-old grandmother, says she was “small and rather weak” as the offensive approached. So much so that she had been denied the opportunity to participate in previous military operations and worked only as a messenger.
When she learnt about her mission, only an hour before H-hour, she was nervous. She says she and her comrades did not fear death, but as the only woman in a 15-man squad, she hesitated for a moment: “Am I up to this? Can I keep up with the men?
Her squad, led by To Hoai Thanh, opened fired on guards at the Independence Palace at around 1 a.m. on February 1, 1968, the first assault of the Tet Offensive in downtown Saigon, then the capital of the US-backed South Vietnam regime. A few minutes later, and a few hundred meters away, another squad blew a hole in the surrounding wall of the US Embassy and charged through. Three other targets in downtown Saigon – the South Vietnam Army General Staff, the Naval Headquarters, and the Saigon Radio Station – were also attacked.
 Vu Minh Nghia, one of the 15 biet dong combatants who attacked the presidential palace in the Tet Offensive. |
Of the nearly 100 combatants that staged the assaults for nearly three days, only a few dozens survived, most of whom were captured. The biet dong Saigon, as the squads like Nghia’s were known, incurred the greatest losses of their 30-year history during the Tet Offensive.
‘Invisible’
The Biet dong, or special task force, dated back to 1945 when the newly-born Democratic Republic of Vietnam, founded by Ho Chi Minh, fought to protect its newly-gained independence against the colonialist French army. Undercover biet dong agents were tasked with eliminating personnel and sabotaging military infrastructure in enemy-occupied areas. In the south, the force has transformed many times with different names, among them cam tu quan (Suicide Units) and doi vo hinh (Invisible Teams).
The Biet dong in Saigon regrouped after a hiatus period between 1954 and 1959 in which they had waited in vain for the implementation of the Geneva Accords on Indochina, which had called for national elections to unify the country. But knowing that Ho Chi Minh’s coalition would sweep any such polls, the leaders of South Vietnam, with US support, refused to allow the elections. During the period, many biet dong were killed under the brutal anticommunist policies of the South Vietnamese regime.
“We were an armed force of the people, from all walks of life, and everyone had his or her own position and task,” said Colonel Nguyen Duc Hung, aka Tu Chu, the biet dong Saigon commander.
Nguyen Van Troi’s attempt to assassinate US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in May 1963 made him the most well-known biet dong Saigon member
 “We were an armed force of the people, from all walks of life, and everyone had his or her own position and task,” said Colonel Nguyen Duc Hung, aka Tu Chu, the biet dong Saigon commander. |
At his execution, his famous last words were: “You are journalists and so you must be well informed about what is happening. It is the Americans who have committed aggression on our country, it is they who have been killing our people with planes and bombs… I have never acted against the will of my people. It is against the Americans that I have taken action.” A priest then offered him absolution and he declined: “I have committed no sin. It is the Americans who have sinned.” He would not have his eyes covered before he died – “Let me look at our beloved land,” he said. As the shots were fired, he yelled: “Long live Vietnam!”
The biet dong forces strengthened their activities 1964-1966, carrying out many operations that employed car bombs against South Vietnam and American military personnel.
Nghia’s husband Nguyen Thanh Xuan, aka Bay Be, was the biet dong behind several famous 1964 bombings targeting the Caravelle Hotel and Brink Hotel, where American army officers were billeted, and the assault on the US Embassy in 1965. Nghia said four of her own family members, including her mother, were also biet dong. She said that to this day visitors to her village in Cu Chi District who ask to meet the biet dong family will still be introduced to her relatives.
“We were tasked with carrying out ‘high quality yield’ attacks which could eliminate important enemy personnel,” Hung said. Operations were focused and specific with agents infiltrating or approaching as closely as possible to avoid collateral damage, according to Colonel Hoang Dao, aka Tu Sac, head of the Regional Intelligence Agency of the regional General Staff of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NFL), otherwise known as the Viet Cong.
In early 1965, the force prepared for a major offensive.
“I thought if the American ground troops hadn’t joined the war [in Vietnam in mid 1965], we could possibly have won in early January 1966. The Tet Offensive would have occurred in January 1966, not 1968,” said Hung.
“So, we continued preparing ourselves for the opportunity,” Hung said.
‘Once in a thousand years
In late 1967, Nghia’s squad was informed that they would attack the Saigon Military Command in District 5. They were all astounded to find out at midnight January 31, 1968 that they were to attack a target “hundreds of times larger” – the President’s residence: Independence Palace.
Ngo Thanh Van, aka Ba Den, commander and the only survivor of the 17-man biet dong squad that attacked the US embassy compound during the Tet Offensive.
The US embassy was also a surprise target for the biet dong commanders. They received orders to attack it less than 10 days before the offensive.
“Kiet [Vo Van Kiet, then Communist Party Secretary of the Saigon-Gia Dinh zone and later Prime Minister of Vietnam] said attacking Saigon without attacking the US embassy would be like no attack at all,” said Tran Minh Son, then the biet dong Saigon chief of staff. Since all troops and weapons had all been directed to other targets, a new unit was formed in haste, with eight out of 17 members being non-combat agents – messengers, secretaries, typists – who were then trained in a military crash course.
But Son said the new unit commander, Ngo Thanh Van, alias Ba Den, had no reservations. “He said the spirit was decisive,” Son recalled.
The day before the attack, Nghia said the squad ate very little, as they were too excited and focused to think about food. They also had to prepare all their weapons.
Twelve hours before H-hour, Son told the new unit that they would attack the US embassy and that “some of you may die.” He said that he would willingly let anyone who felt hesitant go back to the headquarters. “They cried, and I cried too,” Son said, bursting into tears. “They said that I was underestimating them, and that they were willing to die for the country.”
Nghia said all members of her unit were determined too. She said her comrades had joined the offensive believing that it was a “once in a thousand years” opportunity.
According to the plan, the squad would try to capture and hold their positions for a few hours, by which time reinforcements were to arrive to relieve them. However, the NFL troops were not able to pass the South Vietnamese defense lines on the outskirts of the city and the American and South Vietnamese troops were reinforced only a few hours after the offensive broke out. The biet dong squads suffered heavy casualties and a shortage of ammunition, and their enemy gradually regained control of the targeted facilities
“They cried, and I cried too... They said they were willing to die for the country,” said Colonel Tran Minh Son, then the biet dong Saigon chief of staff, of the biet dong squad that would later attack the US embassy compound during the Tet Offensive.
At the US embassy, more than six hours after the assault began, 16 biet dong agents were killed and commander Ba Den was arrested.
Sticks and stones
After penetrating the palace’s walls, Nghia’s squad was surrounded by enemy fire.
“I heard a heavy falling sound, and my commander cried, ‘Nghia, I’m hit’,” Nghia said. In his dying breath, the commander asked his comrades to hold their position and “fight to the last bullet.” They held out through the morning of February 3 – by then the seven exhausted and injured survivors had only bricks and sticks with which to fight back.
“None of us felt dispirited,” said Nghia, who lost three brothers and sisters in the liberation war. “We had all sworn to fulfill our task and never surrender, and the deaths of our brothers only strengthened our determination.”
Most of the Viet cong survivors were captured and later sentenced to life terms, including Nghia. But Nghia and most other biet dong returned to NFL in 1973 under the Paris Accords, which was signed in late 1972.
The biet dong Saigon expanded after the offensive until 1975, but “the quality was not the same because all the elite combatants had either been killed or jailed,” Colonel Hoang Dao said. But he doesn’t think the losses were for nothing.
“We did suffer heavy losses, but we brought the war to the enemy’s headquarters and made American leaders realize they could not win this war. And we gained precious experiences”
“Without ‘68, there wouldn’t have been [the Paris Accords in] ‘72, and without ‘72 there wouldn’t have been [the liberation day in] ‘75,” Dao said.
The new mission
After the war, the now 85- year-old man and his surviving comrades have moved on and assigned themselves another task: identifying their fallen biet dong brothers and recovering their remains. Both are extremely difficult endeavors. Biet dong agents mostly only knew only one another’s alias, and the South Vietnamese and American armies dumped the dead biet dong bodies into unmarked mass graves.
“We want to have the names of many of the fallen to get them their proper recognition as heros,” Dao said. “But we just can’t.”
Nghia, said that although many biet dong had died, the spirit of the corps was still alive.
“I would do the same thing if our country was invaded again.”
http://www.thanhniennews.com/2010/Pages/20100502172253.aspx
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