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Indochinese Victory Is A Victory For Us All!

By VVAW

The people of Indochina have been victorious on the battlefield. Liberation is the order of the day. With the regularity of a machinegun, blow after blow is falling on US imperialists who now must plot and scheme to find other ways to keep their power intact. With the great majority of the people of the world, we join to celebrate the victories and salute the fighters for freedom and independence in Cambodia and Vietnam.

The most joyous celebrations have been in Cambodia and in Vietnam, as in city after city the people have turned out to greet the liberation forces. As reported by a French correspondent in Phnom Penh immediately after liberation on April 17th, "The popular enthusiasm is evident. Groups form around the insurgents, who often carry American weapons....Processions form in the street and the refugees are starting to go home." In Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam, people offered tea and biscuits to the liberation fighters as an expression of affection. One old Vietnamese woman firmly grasped the hands of a liberation soldier and said: "My child! For years I have been looking forward to the liberation, day and night! My dream has finally come true!" In Da Nang, a rally organized by the Liberation Woman's Union drew 50,000 women who pledged to "strengthen their unity, regardless of political tendencies, religion and nationalities, and work together with other patriotic organizations for a peaceful, beautiful, sound and happy life."

There was much to celebrate. Military forces of ex-President Thieu in South Vietnam crumbled, exposing to the whole world the rottenness of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the strength of the liberation forces. City after city was freed as the ARVN troops stumbled over each other in blind panic, trying to flee. ARVN killing women and children so they could get a spot in escape boats only underlined what the world could see--that Thieu's power and authority was based on a pillar of creeping rot. In Cambodia, Lon Nol slunk away, with only his closest cronies even pretending to believe his statements that he would return. Thieu didn't even bother to say goodbye, but suddenly appeared in Taiwan. The plans of both dictators suffered a setback when a Swiss airline refused to fly out $73 million worth of gold bullion they had ripped off from their people.

Because of the deterioration of the Saigon troops there was little need for the fighters of the National Liberation Front (NLF) to battle toward Saigon, with the inevitable wounding or killing of innocent people which is part of war. As stated by the Foreign Minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG), Madame Binh, peaceful liberation is their goal; they are trying to obtain their objectives ?if possible, by other than military means." NLF troops did not go immediately into Saigon but left time for negotiation. For the same reason the Cambodian liberation forces, which could have attacked Phnom Penh earlier at great cost in lives, waited to liberate the capital city. In both countries, liberation soldiers are fighters for the people--not against the people.

The people of Indochina have more reason than most to hate war; their land has been a battleground for decades. But even though, like people all over the world, they hate war, they hate oppression and exploitation even more. The harsh realities of war, the bloodshed, the casualties, are less harsh than the reality of exploitation and imperialist rule.

More is involved in the struggles of the Indochinese than just ridding themselves of US imperialists; that is just one vital step along the road toward freedom, independence, and a better life for the people. In areas of Vietnam and Cambodia which have been liberated in the past, the people and their government have been working together to bring improvements--healthcare, hospital, schools. But in the past, these improvements have had to take a backseat to the needs of the war; in Cambodia, for instance, people in the liberated zones increased their rice harvest immensely, but they willingly sent the excess to the troops at the front. With the end of fighting, that will no longer be necessary. In South Vietnam, soon after liberation, vital services in major cities--which had fallen apart in the final days of ARVN occupation--were restored, and prices were declining.

Even in the midst of rebuilding their countries, however, the PRG in Vietnam and the Royal Government of National Union in Cambodia (GRUNC) are well aware that their struggle is not over, that threats still exist. When asked if he thought the danger of American interference in Cambodian affairs was past, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, head of GRUNCE, said "Certainly not." He went on the recount the history of American interference in his country (Sihanouk was the victim of a CIA-sponsored coup which put Lon Nol in power in 1970), and talked about the continuing struggle. "There are structures to dismantle," he said. "We must know who is who, tag those who must be watched, weed out the pro-American."

Khieu Samphan, Deputy Premier and Defense Minister in the new Cambodian government, spoke in similar terms: "This historic victory opens bright prospects," he said. But "there will certainly be many obstacles in carrying out our tasks of national defense and construction"; he called for "increasing revolutionary vigilance."

People in the US should learn from these statements, as we must learn from the entire history of the Indochina war. Even while we were celebrating the victory in Cambodia and looking forward to the final liberation of Vietnam, US Marines aboard a naval task force were steaming off the coast of Vietnam. Their supposed objective was the evacuation of Americans but any sense of "revolutionary vigilance" tells us that the imperialist can be trusted about as far as the average man can throw the USS Enterprise. The imperialists are wounded, but still vicious.

The whole history of US involvement in Vietnam, and Indochina as a whole, underlines the lesson that imperialism means war. It's not just the case that a few evil men sitting in the Pentagon or White House wanted to murder millions of Vietnamese__ it's a whole lot more than that. Imperialism is a system based on profit--that is, profit for the rich and powerful. To keep that profit growing, imperialist have to exploit both workers at home and workers and others around the world. They have to gain economic control over countries like Vietnam and Cambodia in order to have markets, cheap raw materials, cheap labor power.

Economic control necessarily means that the imperialists have to gain political power as well- that's the only way they can protect their economic power. It doesn't make a major difference to them if the political power is direct (that is, turning the country into a colony as France did in Indochina) or whether political control is a little more subtle. That's where Thieu and Lon Nol come in--to act as agents and as traitors to the interests of their own people to carry out the wishes of their imperialist masters.

To maintain that political power, however, inevitably leads one step further--to war. The people of the world, whether in Indochina, Africa, or the US, refuse to lie down in front of the imperialist machine. They fight back against the repression and exploitation that imperialism brings down on them--and we have seen the result in Indochina.

Revolutionary vigilance of the US people is needed, now more than ever, because imperialism despite its setbacks, still means war. When there is a contest with another superpower for political and economic control (as is now the case in the Middle East) the danger of war increases many times over.

We should learn more than just the need for vigilance from the victory. The US tried out almost every weapon in its arsenal against the people of Indochina. For years, they fought back with leftover or captured weapons, punji stakes, crossbows--but most of all with the political determination to be free. Yet, in the face of defoliants, B-52's electronic battlefields, and all the rest, the Indochinese won the war.

To counter this devastating power, the Indochinese had the people of their countries with them. It is masses of people, not weapons, which are finally decisive in war. An old Vietnamese proverb says that "The dike yields to the pressure of the water," and it was the constant pressure of the masses of people under the leadership of the PRG and the National United Front of Cambodia which consistently eroded the foundations of imperialist rule in Indochina.

Of course, the US media, serving as a tool of the rich, will not tell us of the power of millions of people fighting in unity. Instead, we are fed all kinds of excuses and all kinds of camouflages thrown up to cover the real story of Indochina. The latest smokescreen has been the sick maneuver of kidnapping orphans from their homeland under the guise of being ?humanitarian." Underlying this criminal tactic is the idea that the Vietnamese are not capable of taking care of their own children, when in fact, with the concept of the extended family which is part of Vietnamese culture, they are fare more capable of taking care of their so-called "orphans" than is "humanitarian," imperialist America. No clearer example is needed than the fact that Son Minh Nguyen, who, 10 years ago, was one of the first Vietnamese children adopted by Americans, now wants to return home. As he puts it, "I would prefer to go back to the simple and enjoyable life I had in Vietnam, whether it's Communist or not."

Equally revolting is the US government propaganda about the "bloodbaths" which every reporter in Southeast Asia is working like hell to try and find. When, like the PRG or GRUNG, the government truly serves the interests of the people, the only blood shed is what is necessary. In war, people die. An there are enemies of the people--scum like the traitors in Phnom Penh--who should be executed. But that is a tiny portion of the population. As stated in the 10-point policy of the PRG regarding newly liberated areas, even puppet soldiers, police, civil servants, etc who go to the liberated zones or stay in the zones after liberation and turn themselves in, "will receive assistance to earn their living, to go home, or, if they wish, to serve in the new regime according to their capabilities. Their meritorious actions will be rewarded, but those who work against the revolution will be severely punished."