In honor of the 47th anniversary of the liberation of South Vietnam from American imperialists, which ended the American War in Vietnam and started the beginning of modern day Vietnam, we have compiled various anti-imperialist viewpoints on the war.
Hồ Chí Minh
Vietnamese revolutionary leader during the Việt Nam’s resistance against imperial powers
“For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Việt Nam, solemnly declare to the world that Việt Nam has the right to be a free and independent country and in fact it is so already. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.”
Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Việt Nam on September 2, 1945
Alger-Ce Soir
Post-colonial Algerian newspaper
In an article on April 23, 1965, Alger-Ce Soir affirmed the Algerians’, who gained independence from France in 1962, support for the National Front for the Liberation of South Việt Nam (NFLSV)
“No plot, no weapon, no tactics and no general of the Pentagon can save U.S. imperialism from its present straits in Việt Nam.”
Che Guerava
Argentine Marxist revolutionary and South American guerilla leader who played a major role in the Cuban Revolution
“It is the road of Việt Nam that should be followed by the people; it is the road that will be followed in Our America, with the advantage that the armed groups could create Coordinating Councils to embarrass the repressive forces of Yankee imperialism and accelerate the revolutionary triumph.”
Excerpts from Guevara’s “Message to the Tricontinental,” which he wrote in Cuba in 1966 before leaving for Bolivia
Kwame Ture
Revolutionary Pan-Africanist
“The war in Việt Nam is illegal and immoral. The question is, What can we do to stop that war? What can we do to stop the people who, in the name of America, are killing babies, women, and children?…It’s the law of each of us. We will not murder anybody who they say kill, and if we decide to kill, ‘were’ going to decide who it shall be. This country will only stop the war in Việt Nam when the young men who are made to fight it begin to say, “Hell, no, we aren’t going.”
Excerpt from his “Black Power” speech delivered at UC Berkeley on October 29, 1966
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Radical civil rights leader
“After 1954, they watched us [the US] conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Việt Nam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered.”
Excerpt from his seminal speech at Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 condemning the Việt Nam War
Fidel Castro
Cuban communist leader and president who led the Cuban Revolution
“The Cuban people are very much aware of the extraordinary role played by the people of Việt Nam within the world’s revolutionary movement and in people’s liberation struggles. Việt Nam has taught an unforgettable lesson to all the exploited and oppressed peoples.”
On September 12, 1973, in a speech delivered at the reception offered by the Vietnamese authorities on Castro’s visit to Việt Nam
Nguyễn Thị Bình
Vietnamese revolutionary leader and former Vice President of Việt Nam
“Like many other countries, my country, Việt Nam, has lived through long years of wars which have ravaged this already-poor land and left behind millions of orphans, widows, disabled and missing-in-action. Vietnamese women; as part of their nation have been tested by harsh trials and countless hardships. They have derived therefrom their exceptional endurance and tenacity, their ability to survive and to persist in their full identity through the storms of life, just like the Vietnamese bamboo tree, which is supple but unbreakable, which bends under the wind but does not break, and which afterwards, stand again as straight and proud as before.”
On September 4, 1995 at the United Nations 4th World Conference in Beijing, China
Võ Nguyên Giáp
Vietnamese general during Việt Nam’s resistance against Japanese, French, and American invasions
“The pictures of the helicopters were, in one way, a concrete symbol of the victory of the People’s war against American aggression. But, looked at another way, it’s proof that the Pentagon could not possibly predict what would happen. It revealed the sheer impossibility for the Americans to forecast the outcome.”
Excerpt from a 1999 PBS interview when Võ Nguyên Giáp was asked what the photos showing US helicopters flying away from US Embassy in Việt Nam in April 1975 meant to him
Like those before us who spoke against American imperialism, we must continue to combat narratives of the “Fall of Saigon.” This rhetoric serves as justification of American invasion and brutality in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The end of a 20-year-long war should be commemorated, not mourned.
Therefore today, Cầu Kiều Collective celebrates the reunification of Vietnam and honor those who fought for the peace and prosperity of its people!
Daily Report, Foreign Radio Broadcast, Issues 76-80 by CIA
Beyond Việt Nam: Time to Break Silence by MLK, Jr.
Black Power by Kwame Ture
People’s Century, Guerilla Wars by PBS
Speech at Central Committee of the Việt Nam Workers Party Banquet by Fidel Castro
Message to the Tricontinental by Che Guevara
Address at UNDP Fourth World Conference on Women by Nguyễn Thị Bình
