Legitimacy of April 30th, 1975

To give a legitimate name to an event, one must base on its accuracy, truth, and rightfulness.  Undeniably, April 30^th 1975 is an historic event.  No one can refute, deny, nor forget it.  It was an unforgettable day to be remembered for future generations to learn from. 
If the naming is truthful and accurate, then actions and words will be well founded and legitimate.

1. Regarding the Vietnamese Communist Party and its affiliates

The Vietnamese Communist Party and its affiliates [puppets, temporary allies, double agents] called it “Liberation Day”, or “Victory Day”.  But, in reality, it was only a fake success obtained through deceit and illegal political maneuvers.

• The truth is, the Vietnam War (1955-1975) was part of the “plan to enslave the world “ by the Comintern. Its headquarter was not in Hanoi, but Moscow and Peking.
• Ho Chi Minh was only a puppet of the Comintern and received direct orders from Stalin or Mao Tse Tung.   Ho Chi Minh was an assassin cheating and killing his own people.
• Vo Nguyen Giap, the so-called “glorious general”, only followed plans drawn by Chinese advisors Vy Quoc Thanh and La Qui Ba in the Dien Bien Phu Battle.  The Chinese Communists continued to give war aid during the invasion of South Vietnam that ended with the Fall of the South Vietnamese Regime in l975.

Therefore, April 30^th 1975

• is not the Liberation of South Vietnam because the National Liberation Front was discarded like an obsolete tool when its “false mission” was over;
• is not Independence or Sovereignty Day because the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) has relied heavily on Communist China in the war against South Vietnam (1950-1975) and now has to pay its debt.  The result is, Vietnam and its own regime, its frontiers and coastlines, its territorial waters and islands, are slowly falling into the hands of Communist China.
• is not Peace or Reconciliation Day since millions of Vietnamese have been in captivity, millions and millions have chosen to flee the country and risk death rather than live under the communist hell.

In reality, it is the shameful day when the army, cadres, and the people  from North Vietnam have realized that they have been duped.  Former communist member and writer Duong Thu Huong cried and confessed — “April 30^th 75: the Civil World was lost to the barbaric regime!”.  Former Colonel Bui Tin after fleeing to France wrote “I have renounced all superfluous honors and glories, shameful medals and now feel ashamed and useless for being the first to enter the Independence Palace in the afternoon of April 30^th.  Ridiculous, ignorant and foolish me!  All that for what?  So that our country became as it is now?  Independent? No! Free? No! Sovereign? No!  We are in every aspect behind one hundred other countries.”

Therefore, for the Communist Regime, April 30^th should be called the “Protracted Deceit Day” since the Communists have deceived everyone, even its own party members.

2. With regard to The United States of America

The US has chosen Vietnam as an experiment for its “containment doctrine” in its Cold War to:

• secure the areas and avoid other regimes from falling under the communist oppressions by the “domino effect”.
• worn out the enemies with a protracted war.
• but, the cost of this “experiment” was way too high and got stuck under the pressures and abuses of the “military industrial complex”.

Because of the “containment doctrine” policy,

• The ARVN was only allowed to wage a defensive war both tiresome and disorganized.  No one, even American generals and advisors dare to have initiatives to fight to win — due to the “No-win policy” which Gen. MacArthur complained during the Korean War.
• The total cost of the Vietnam war at a time would be considered  “too costly“.  People opposed the war due to high taxes and anti war demonstrations marched down the streets.  It was said that the Communists “have won the Vietnam war on the streets of Washington.  Indeed, “Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America–not on the battlefields of Vietnam”.
• Therefore, capitalist America saw no reason to invest in such a costly war.  They withdrew their capitals, changed the “game” and the war ended at once! That was the reason the South Vietnamese government was coerced into signing the Paris Agreement in 1973 in which all promises of support and military aids were bluntly broken [excuse: The agreement was not ratified by the U.S. Senate].

On April 30^th, 1975 when US Ambassador Graham Martin rushed to his helicopter to flee from Saigon, that day could be called “Out of Business & Retreat-in-Honor Day”.  So that Corporate America could invest in China!

3. With consideration to the Vietnamese Refugees in the free world and the Vietnamese still left behind

Who are the Vietnamese refugees?

• They are NOT “Viet Kieu” or Vietnamese living abroad, nor economic immigrants, nor foreign students .
• They are three millions “Vietnamese political refugees” who  have escaped by any means,  risking their lives so they don’t have to live under the diabolic Communist Regime. They are “special immigrants” with the status of “Parolee I-94”, “ODP“, or “HO”–all synonyms of “political refugees”, “diaspora”, and “exilés”. They are and will always be Vietnamese Refugees from Communists.
• They are Vietnamese from all walks of life with a same country, under a same free government which was cheated in the Autumn of 1945,  defeated  in 1954, and then ripped off in 1975.  Therefore, the Vietnamese refugees are NOT “apatrides or stateless people”. They have a country and their country was robbed from them by international communists.

For the majority of the Vietnamese refugees in the free world and the Vietnamese victims still left behind in their country, April 30^th 1975 should be “Ngày Quốc Hận” [“National Hatred Day”, “National Shame Day”, or “Vietnam Mourning Day”] because of:

• The hatred, pain, and shame to have “lost” their country since 1954;
• The fear, resentment, and anger of “Black April” of 1975 when the peace loving people of South Vietnam realized that their US allies have broken their “solemn” promises to protect the areas of SEA and to build in Vietnam a stronghold of democracy to fight against Communism;
• their regrets and sorrow to live in poverty and servitude, right in their own country.

To translate “Ngày Quốc Hân” of April 30^th 1975 into different languages, one has to understand fully the etymological context and feel the complexity of the Event.  It has the various meanings of “Vietnam Mourning Day”; “Journée Vietnamienne de Deuil National“; “Fall of South Vietnam Memorial Day”; “Vietnam Calamity Remembrance Day” (Tưởng Niệm Ngày Quốc Nạn) or briefly and more accurately, “VC Hatred Day” to commemorate the horrific calamity the Vietnamese Communists have inflicted upon this country and its people.

• Words like “Remembrance Day” (Ngày Tưởng Niệm) or March for Freedom (“Ngày Diễn Hành cho Tự Do”) are too vague to express the magnitude of sufferings and pains the people of Vietnam felt on April 30^th 1975.
• Recently, the Senate and the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia have passed the State Joint Resolution # 455: “resolved by the Senate, the House of Delegates concurring, that the General Assembly designate April 30, in 2013 and in each succeeding year, as South Vietnamese Recognition Day in Virginia.” But under the influence and advice of the Virginia Asian Chamber of Commerce and the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans, Sen. Dick Black, the Senate, the House of Delegates concurring have made a “politically incorrect” interference: intentionally or unintentionally, they have used their legislative power to order a resolution to woe certain ethnic group (right on their April 30^th) which, if executed will diminish the historic commemoration of “Ngày Quốc Hận” that communities and civil societies of Vietnamese heritage are presently observing.

c. Moreover, when Resolution SJR 455 was translated into Vietnamese language, the appellation of “South Vietnamese Recognition Day” was changed into “South Vietnam Day”.  Then, it was “extended” on websites and emails to “Ngày VNCH”(sic) or “Republic of Vietnam Day”.  Clearly, these two  legal and constitutional entities have not been referred nor proclaimed in any of the resolutions in Virginia.  Such an inaccurate and untruthful translation is confusing and can hurt the legitimate and historical meaning of April 30^th 1975.

To understand the magnitude of hurt and pain the Vietnamese refugees and the whole nation felt under the domination of the Communist Regime and China threat, Americans as well as  Europeans and Jews should remember and relive their own horrible calamities:

– Occupation Day in Europe by Nazy Germany and Russia Soviet Union [USSR] before and after the Second World War;

–Holocaust for Jews in all over the world;

–And lately, September 11 right in New York, in the heart of America.

4.  Conclusion

Let’s repeat clearly: April 30^th 1975 has never brought back Independence nor Sovereignty to Vietnam. The Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) has relied heavily on Chinese aid during the war and now has to pay its debt.  The consequence is, the Chinese are slowly engulfing Vietnam, its frontiers and coastlines, its territorial waters and islands. Even the regime is under excessive Chinese domination.  Therefore, not only the citizens of South Vietnam–the “defeated”- but the whole nation of Vietnam has lost and is losing its country, freedom, honor and right to happiness.

After 38 years living all over the world, the Vietnamese refugees and their children still and should have the historic and legal right to claim that their properties have been stolen, their identities ripped off, and thus, shout out “Ngày Quốc Hận” and remind the world NOT to forget the horrendous tragedy inflicted upon their nation by the Vietnamese communists. 

Indeed, on April 30^th 1975, the Republic of Vietnam was coerced into a fatal end.  Innocent people were wrongfully killed, jailed or deprived of their rights to live with dignity and to own property.  These facts should be recorded as an unprecedented National Calamity in the history of Vietnam.

As of today– 38 years after–the majority of Vietnamese in and out the country have not forgotten the horrific crimes the Communists have inflicted upon their nation. They have not forgotten the inhuman treatments of innocent people in the reeducation camps.

The Communist party and its members, whether they changed their identities into red mafia capitalists, they still and will remain the enemies of our societies; they will still be the poisonous elements we need to get rid off.

Only when the Vietnamese Communist Party is disintegrated, when the Vietnamese people regain their fatherland from the Communists and from China; when freedom and the right to happiness are given back to the people, only then “Ngày Quốc Han” —Calamity Day or Shame Day— is no longer in the mind of the Vietnamese people. 

[Translated by P.T. Hanh, MA]