Your front-page picture (May 1) of a colourful display of pirouetting women soldiers in Vietnam should not mask the ugly side to the 1975 takeover by Stalinist communists of the nation. My late father-in-law was then a functionary in Saigon (today Ho Chi Minh City). He had graduated from the prestigious École des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris. He returned to work with his French wife who taught many of the current elite rulers of Vietnam. His brother was in the Vietcong. A devout Catholic, my children’s grandfather played no part in politics, just working as a railway engineer, then running a cement factory.
In 1975, he told us he was just happy the French and American colonial wars were over — his nation was united, and he could help rebuild it. However, the communists decided he needed re-educating, so he spent four years in a concentration camp.
His wife continued to press the French authorities and eventually he was released. En route to Hanoi to fly to France, he passed the city prison surrounded by a ditch. There was a giant notice proclaiming, “This night soil is the property of the state. Anyone removing it will be severely punished.”
The Vietnamese communists murdered 100,000 as they took control and sent 500,000 to concentration camps.
Today Vietnam is a delightful country to visit and a global economic success story in terms of exports. GDP per capita is about half that of Thailand. Workers are denied trade union rights. There are no elections. There is no press freedom and it would be fair to say Vietnam is a woke-free nation which will please some in the US or UK. But the dancing soldiers should not mask the sad fact that freedom as generally understood is unknown in Vietnam.
As a 1968 generation leftist, I marched and chanted, “Ho, Ho, Chi Minh. We will fight and we will win.” That victory has enshrined Vietnamese communism. One day perhaps my father-in-law’s descendants will be able to visit a democratic Vietnam.
Denis MacShane
Former Europe Minister,
London SW1V, UK
