The death of wartime Vietnamese general Vo Nguyen Giap has triggered public mourning in Vietnam the likes of which have been unseen since former leader Ho Chi Minh passed away more than four decades ago. Given the current leaders, it may not be witnessed again, according to many of the 150,000 people who lined up to pay respects to the so-called “Red Napoleon.”
The Vietnamese Communist Party orchestrated the sendoff for Giap, emphasizing his leadership in the wars first against France and then the US. However, it ignored his later years, when the general’s popularity allowed him to air rare public criticism of the ruling elite.
Still, the death of the country’s last old guard revolutionary inevitably stirred reflection by some on the country’s current leaders, only one of whom fought against the US. Giap’s passing comes as the government is struggling against public dissatisfaction over corruption and a faltering economy.
Photo: AFP
“I’m not sure we will have a third leader like Giap and Uncle Ho,” said Tran Thi Thien, who rose at 3am to pay tribute outside the Giap family home in Hanoi this past week. “I hope the current leadership would look at how people love and respect General Giap to improve themselves and better lead the country.”
Yesterday, Giap’s body was laid in state in Hanoi. The country’s top leaders, along with veterans, diplomats and ordinary people paid their final respects ahead of Giap’s funeral today in his home province. The country’s flag was flown at half-mast and unrelated public events were canceled.
The mourning period has gone smoothly in a nation where little happens in public without the blessing of the ruling party. State media coverage projects a united nation, bolstering a government whose legitimacy still rests in part on its history of expelling foreign invaders.
News of Giap’s death first spread over Facebook, which would have underlined to the old guard how information now flows beyond their control. The public mourning was also unscripted. About 150,000 people lined up over five days outside Giap’s house to pay their respects, an outpouring of emotion that surprised his family, according to Giap’s personal secretary, Colonel Trinh Nguyen Huan.
Giap is best remembered for leading Vietnamese forces to victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
His Chinese advisers told him to strike elite French forces fast and hard, but Giap changed the plans at the last minute and ordered his jungle troops, clad in sandals made of old car tires, to besiege the French army. The French were defeated after 56 days, and the unlikely victory led not only to Vietnam’s independence, but hastened the collapse of colonialism across Indochina and beyond.
“He was an outstanding general, but he was a very simple man,” said Nguyen Chan, a 78-year-old who fought in Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and yesterday was in a park watching the coverage of the mourning on a big screen. “For us, he was a commander in chief, a teacher and also a father.”
Throughout most of the war against the US, Giap served as defense minister and armed forces commander, but he was slowly pushed aside after Ho Chi Minh’s death in 1969. The glory for victory in 1975 did not go to Giap.
He stepped down from his last state post, as deputy prime minister, in 1991. Despite losing favor with the government, he became even more beloved by Vietnamese.
At age 97, Giap opposed the proposed expansion of a bauxite mine, in part because it was to be operated by a Chinese company. This angered the party because it helped legitimize charges by its critics that it is too close to its fellow Communists in China, the subject of popular nationalist anger in Vietnam.
“Giap was a critical figure in contemporary Vietnam history, however one part of his life will always be associated with his question of authority,” said Jonathan London, a Vietnam expert at the City University of Hong Kong. “His legacy will be used as badge of legitimacy for the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, but this is occurring at a time when Vietnamese are questioning the direction of their country.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion