The spirit of solidarity, self-reliance, the great leadership, the will to fight, and the determination to win, from the Dien Bien Phu victory are remembered today, giving more strength to Vietnam to firmly go forward on the path that late President Ho Chi Minh and the Communist Party of Vietnam have chosen.
Memories of a painter who grew up with stories about Uncle Ho, General Giap
We came to see painter George Burchett when he was working to digitalise his father’s writings that highlight a very important period of Vietnam history when the country was in fierce fighting against the French.
Burchett’s house in Hanoi is filled with artworks, a lot of which are artefacts that bear the traces of his personal memories of the Vietnamese war stories told by his father, late Australian reporter Wilfred Buchett, who accompanied Vietnamese soldiers throughout the country’s two resistance wars against foreign invaders.
Painter George Burchett (Photo: VNA)
The painter said his siblings and himself grew up with stories of Uncle Ho, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the Dien Bien Phu victory and the Vietnamese people’s heroic struggle for national independence and unity, which have embedded in them profoundly.
His father’s documentaries and stories about war hot spots from the north to the south of Vietnam helped him understand about the history, war and peace in the Southeast Asian nation.
Recalling his father talks with Uncle Ho in Thai Nguyen province in March 1954 when his father asked Uncle Ho about Dien Bien Phu, George said that Vietnam’s late President Ho Chi Minh explained to his father complicated things in a very simple way.
Australian reporter Wilfred Buchett is a close friend of President Ho Chi Minh. (File Photo)
“Uncle Ho took off his sun helmet, turned it upside down and said this was Dien Bien Phu, a valley. At the bottom of the valley is the best of the French army. The valley is surrounded by mountains. And we are there and the French will never get out.”
Just by that simple way Uncle Ho was able to rally all the people, and that was how Vietnam won the battle, Burchett said.
The wide anti-war movements then also had an important role to play in completing annihilation of the French aggressive expeditionary force, he said, and that the global imperialist power with the strongest army and support from its ally could not overpower the Vietnamese people’s great will and desire for unification, independence and freedom.
Showing us a picture of his father in Vietnamese outfit visiting a revolutionary base in the north, he said international peace-lovers like his father contributed their voice, calling for the world to support Vietnam.
“Right after the meeting with President Ho Chi Minh, my father sent his first cable to the world, in which he expressed his firm belief that Vietnam would win the Dien Bien Phu battle” Burchett said.
“The action now taking place at Dien Bien Phu is the most tragic failure for French arms in the whole disastrous fiasco of the Navarre Plan to crush the people of Vietnam”, George read his father’s lines.
My father felt very proud to be part of the world’s movement to support Vietnam to win the heroic battle for independence, liberty and union.
Algerian veteran hails Dien Bien Phu Victory as example of military art
Cherfaoui Tayeb, Chairman of the Algeria-Viet Nam Friendship Association (AVFA) and a military veteran, has hailed Viet Nam as a revolutionary example, with the Dien Bien Phu Victory as a crucial military art and a source of inspirations for national liberation movements in Africa.
AVFA Chairman Cherfaoui Tayeb (Photo: VNA)
In an interview recently granted to the Viet Nam News Agency (VNA)'s resident reporter in Algiers on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Dien Bien Phu Victory, Tayeb highlighted Viet Nam's revolutionary spirit and strategic brilliance and the Dien Bien Phu campaign's profound impact on Africa's fight for independence, particularly Algeria's own struggle against colonial rule.
The Dien Bien Phu Victory marked the dawn of independence for most African nations, serving as a starting point for liberation movements across the continent to break free from the colonial rule of France, the UK and Germany, he said.
He recounted witnessing the influence of Viet Nam's struggle firsthand while living in France. "Algeria's national liberation front was established right there in France," Tayeb explained, "and I saw how the Vietnamese fighting inspired our own movement”.
Tayeb further revealed that Algerian soldiers deserted the French army to join forces with the Vietnamese people. Upon returning to Algeria, they brought invaluable combat experiences gained alongside the Vietnamese army and engaged in Algeria's liberation efforts.
President Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen Giap were revered heroes in Algeria, Tayeb stressed, adding that they were brilliant military strategists whose leadership serves as a shining example not only for Algeria but for the entire world. They proved that anything is achievable with a determination and strategy.
Looking beyond the historical significance of the Dien Bien Phu Victory, he commended Viet Nam's continued progress, saying that Viet Nam has not stopped moving forward since its victory. The country is experiencing remarkable development and has established strong economic ties with the US and many other nations across the world.
People’s war key to Dien Bien Phu victory: scholars
Carl Thayer, Emeritus Professor at the University of New South Wales (Photo: VNA)
Carl Thayer, Emeritus Professor at the University of New South Wales (Canberra), told Vietnam News Agency that the Dien Bien Phu campaign proved the efficacy of the people’s war through mobilisation of the whole population to oppose foreign aggression.
In his letter sent to soldiers on March 11, 1954, then President Ho Chi Minh said the fighting against French was very difficult but also very glorious. He expressed his firm belief that the soldiers would bring into play all the accumulated will and strength to overcome hardship and fulfill their glorious duty to the nation.
During the Dien Bien Phu Campaign, tens of thousands of people engaged in transporting food supplies to the front or building the road for moving the artillery to the battle. Thayer said a regular armed forces supported by military assistance from fraternal countries was also a very important factor in Vietnam’s Dien Bien Phu victory.
Tens of thousands of people engage in transporting food supplies to the front or building the road for moving the artillery to the battle. (File Photo)
* In an interview granted to the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) in the UK, Kyril Whittaker, a British researcher of Vietnamese politics and history said the Vietnamese revolution, including the Dien Bien Phu Victory, had a profound effect around the world, as it showed the strength of the people against colonialism and imperialism, and for peace and independence.
The researcher also analysed the factors behind the victory that are the sound leadership by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) which took the people as the root and correctly assessed the historical and material conditions of the time, the leadership by President Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen Giap, the role of the Vietnam People’s Army, and proletarian internationalism.
Whittaker elaborated that the Party, guided by Marxism-Leninism, “had a correct view of the revolutionary movement, made careful plans, and took the people as the root.”
* Meanwhile, Professor Piere Aselin from Hawaii Pacific University, USA held that the Dien Bien Phu Campaign from March 13 to May 7, 1954 demonstrated the importance of working together and acting together to gain independence.
Professor Piere Aselin from Hawaii Pacific University, USA (Photo: VNA)
“As a historian, I see one of the keys to victory was the leadership and the organisation. There was always a very high level of discipline within the Communist Party and the armed forces”.
It is not easy to get men, women, ethnic minority groups, Catholics and Buddhists to come together but the Vietnamese Party and President Ho Chi Minh were able to do so very well, he said.
Aselin said General Vo Nguyen Giap was a military genius and that his strategic ability and astute tactics helped Vietnam win the war against the invader whose resources were much bigger than those of his peasant army. Giap changed the theme of the Dien Bien Phu contest when the battle had already begun.
President Ho Chi Minh, General Vo Nguyen Giap and other Party leaders decide to open the Dien Bien Phu campaign in the end of 1953. (File Photo)
“At first, it had been his intention to get it over quickly and orders were issued accordingly. However, he thought it through, decided he could not afford to take chances, rapid attack would not guarantee complete success, and that’s why he shifted the guiding principle to “advance cautiously, strike surely”.
* The Dien Bien Phu Victory 70 years ago (May 7, 1954) was one of the prominent battles of the 20th century, said Anatoly Sokolov, a Russian Vietnamologist and Associate Prof., Doctor of Literature, while talking with a Vietnam News Agency’s resident reporter in Moscow.
Sokolov, who is also a senior research fellow at the Centre for Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oriental Studies, said the Dien Bien Phu Victory marked the successful end of the Vietnamese people's 8-year resistance against French colonialists. It was studied by military academies worldwide and often referred to as Vietnam's Stalingrad.
According to the scholar, the Dien Bien Phu Victory has become a shining and practical example for many oppressed peoples around the world. It shattered the domination of French colonialism, compelling not only France but also other colonial powers to respect the rights of oppressed peoples in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Meanwhile, the April 30, 1975 victory forever etched into the world history, marking the definitive end of the longest, fiercest, and most challenging war of the 20th century. The 30-year struggle of the Vietnamese people against foreign invaders - the French colonialists and the American imperialists - came to a close, he said.
He attributed the victory to the far-sighted policy and vision of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and the correctness of the strategy and tactic of the Vietnam People's Army./.
Source: VNA
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