’68/’08 Vietnam: Victory or Defeat

posted by Genevi

Saturday, 05 July 2008

In the context of the US conflict in Vietnam 1968  is predominantly remembered for the Tet Offensive, which marked the beginning of both spring and the largest northern offensive in southern Vietnam. For the US government, the offensive coincided with increased opposition to the war at home, heightened expectations, and strategic miscalculations, all of which would ultimately turn global popular opinion against American involvement. A story that is often overlooked however is the internal struggle occurring in “southern Vietnam”. In the same year that Americans protested at Howard University, Columbia University, and the Democratic National Convention, and violent demonstration rocked London’s Grosvenor Square, the southern Vietnamese were facing their own repressive struggle. Though the ‘government crackdown’, as described by declassified CIA documents, occurred in all civilian sectors it was concentrated on academia, the media, and government. During 1968 several students, journalists, and civil servants were arrested and sent to labor camps, including Nguyen Dang Trung (Saigon Student’s Union Chairman), Trinh Dinh Ban (SSU second leader), Nguyen Truong Con (student editor) and Truong Dinh Dzu (oppositionist politician). Several newspapers were shut down and dissenters were charged with “undermining the unity” between South Vietnam and the US. Forced to choose between academic freedom and their patriotism, student unions throughout Saigon continually demanded basic civil rights from their government and its US allies. Letters from several southern Vietnamese organizations (including the SSU, Patriotic Teachers Association, South Vietnamese Liberation Students, and the Vietnamese Alliance of National, Democratic, and Peace Forces) to international organizations and students tell a story of fear, intimidation, and authoritarian rule. The southern Vietnamese organizations depended heavily on American students, journalists, and artists in order to foster international solidarity. One letter, An Appeal: to Student Unions Everywhere in a weekly newsletter published by Americans, outlines several incidents of government repression and the struggle of their Vietnamese counterparts. The student movement’s struggle for the possible was ultimately unsuccessful. While the Nixon administration began touting their ‘vietnamization’ project and ‘peace with honor’, the PR war had been lost with Nguyễn Văn Lém and My Lai. The Tet Offensive had exposed the chasm between the southern Vietnamese government and the people they ruled and no amount American military support could fabricate the fiction of a unified nation. Southern Vietnamese would continue to demand the liberties promised, but freedoms would be continually restricted, rather than restored. The war in Vietnam would continue for seven more years and by the time the communists took over in 1976 most activists had been exterminated or imprisoned. 40 Years after the launch of the Tet Offensive, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is serving its first non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and in July ascended to Presidency of the UNSC. The event marks a key step in its post-war global economic integration. In a historic shift, 3 years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of Vietnam implemented free-market reforms known as Đổi Mới (renovation). The authority of the state remained unchallenged, but private ownership of farms and companies, deregulation and foreign investment were encouraged. In 2008 the Vietnamese government, a single party state continuing to curtail academic freedom and denying its citizens rights as agreed to by the United Nations, is an active player on the international stage. The Vietnamese economy has continued to grow, though subject to the movements of international investors, with an increase in manufacturing, trade, and educational opportunities. International aid has assisted in building infrastructure and expanding market reforms. More than 4 million tourists annually, mostly American and Chinese, now travel to Vietnam to visit the Cu Chi tunnels or trek the Ho Chi Min trail often by way of cyclo rides from southern Vietnamese recently released from reeducation camps. The economic reforms however have done little to curb the authoritarian rule of The Vietnamese Fatherland Front, which continually responds to criticism by imprisoning and harassing activists, bloggers, lawyers, businessmen, students, farmers and workers. Journalists who stray from the party line are charged with "abusing their positions and powers while performing official duties" and internet freedom is unheard of. In January a court sentenced cyber-dissident Truong Quoc Huy to six years of imprisonment for distributing leaflets criticizing the Communist Party. He was charged with "abusing democratic freedoms of association, expression, assembly to infringe on the interests of the state." In March, police arrested a lawyer defending victims of land confiscation and involuntarily committed her to a mental hospital. The dramatic shifts in the development of southern Vietnam from 1968 to 2008, from capitalism to communism and back again, are substantial. The reformation has lead to the increased availability of goods, luxuries, and services as well as increased cultural exchange and international support. But in terms of the political climate, the change in Saigon was merely in name. The capitalist puppet of 1968, the communist nepotism of 1976, and single party market-socialist republic of today have continually adapted internal methods of control to stifle dissent.

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last updated ( Sunday, 06 July 2008 )

 

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