Vietnam's Hero Still Grateful to Anti-War Americans

[darrels joy]

Vietnam's Hero Still Grateful to Anti-War Americans
Fri Apr 30, 2004 08:57 AM ET

By Christina Toh-Pantin
HANOI (Reuters) - Twenty-nine years after the end of the Vietnam war, communist military mastermind General Vo Nguyen Giap remains grateful to the Americans who opposed it.

The Vietnam War, known in Vietnam as the American War, has become a hot issue in the U.S. presidential race with Democrat John Kerry drawing attention to his service and President Bush's Republicans disparaging Kerry's later anti-war stand.

"I would like to thank them," the 93-year-old veteran said on Friday of those Americans who opposed the war.

Giap was speaking during a two-hour interview with foreign and domestic media on the 29th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, capital of the then U.S.-backed South Vietnam, that marked the end of the war.

The four-star general, who also led Vietnam to a stunning defeat against the French army 50 years ago at Dien Bien Phu, declined to be drawn on comparisons between the U.S. war in his country, that ended in 1975, and the U.S. involvement in Iraq.

But he sounded a note of warning.

"Any forces that wish to impose their will on other nations will surely fail," he said.

"Each nation should have the right to independence," he said, wagging a finger at reporters and Foreign Ministry staff in an ornate French colonial style government guest house in the capital, Hanoi.

The frail, snowy haired general, who was a teacher and dabbled in journalism before becoming revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh's top commander, peppered long stories about Dien Bien Phu with anecdotes and jokes.

Giap spoke mostly in Vietnamese, replying to questions submitted in advance as well as to four asked on the spot. But he broke into fluent French when a question was posed in that language.

Regarded as Vietnam's most famous living figure, Giap appears in public for a few national events, and this year has been promoting the anniversary of the victory of his Viet Minh forces, a coalition of communists and nationalists, over a much better equipped French force.

The culmination of the 56-day siege of Colonel Christian de Castries' forces in the valley town of Dien Bien Phu, about 490 km (300 miles) northwest of Hanoi, came on May 7, 1954.

Giap will be the star of the 50th-anniversary celebrations, which are expected to draw thousands of Vietnamese and foreign visitors to the battlefield.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=5001328