Please do not attend the exhibition on Ho Chi Minh currently planned for September 2, 2020 by the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. It is full of propaganda. Here are the truths:
Ten most heinous crimes committed by Ho Chi Minh
and the Vietnamese Communist Party[i]
Background
The Embassy of the Vietnamese Communist Government in Ottawa plans to hold an exhibition on Ho Chi Minh on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of his Declaration of Independence, September 2, 1945. To be held at the Embassy’s Vietnam House, 85 Glebe Ave., this event is scheduled to feature the display of paintings, books, and pictures related to Ho Chi Minh’s life.
Since the Communist regime in Vietnam, represented by the Vietnamese Communist Party, has been notorious for spreading propaganda lies ever since it started its long struggle for power in 1945, it is necessary to expose its most heinous crimes for the whole world to see.
Crime 1: Killing thousands of members of Vietnamese non-Communist parties
Following the takeover of power from a non-Communist government in 1945, Ho Chi Minh signed a preliminary agreement with the French colonial forces to allow them to land in North Vietnam to replace the nationalist Chinese forces — which were supporting Vietnam Quoc Dan Dang (People’s Nationalist Party, PNP), a fiercely anti-Communist group. This maneuver allowed the Communists a free hand in destroying all opposition forces, most notably the PNP.
Crime 2: Killing or causing the death of 172,000 people by inhumane treatment in the Land Reform Campaign in North Vietnam (1953-1956)
Aiming at resolutely eradicating everyone who was considered or linked to landowners, rich merchants, local notables or intellectuals, Ho Chi Minh and his associates carried out the Land Reform Campaign following the Soviet and Chinese models in 1953-1956. This resulted in the death of 172,000 people, according to the official information released by the Vietnamese Communist government’s Statistics Office in Hanoi.
Crime 3: Killing and imprisoning thousands of people in the revolt at the Town of Quynh Luu in Nghe An Province in 1956
The massacre and imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the Land Reform Campaign made people disillusioned with, and angry at, the Vietnamese Communist regime. As a result, a revolt erupted in 1956 with a demonstration of 100,000 people in the Town of Quynh Luu, Nghe An, Ho Chi Minh’s province of birth. The revolt was brutally suppressed by the regime, leading to the deaths and imprisonment of around 10,000 people.
Crime 4: Using terror to threaten and subdue the population by killing tens of thousands of innocent people
From the time they took power in 1945 until the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, the Communists used terror to subdue all opposition to their power and to eliminate all real or perceived enemies. They often resorted to assassinations of government officials, bombings of popular and crowded places in the cities, and even indiscriminate shellings of innocent people. Examples of these incidents include the barbarous shelling of thousands of people fleeing the advancing Communist troops in Quang Tri Province, adjacent to the Communist North, in 1972, and the execution – out of revenge – of thousands of South Vietnamese government officials on 30 April 1975, the day South Vietnam fell to the Communists.
Crime 5: Killing over 5,000 innocent people in the Hue massacre in Hue, Central Vietnam, in 1968
In their failed general offensive of 1968, the Communists held the City of Hue in Central Vietnam for 26 days. During this time, they killed over 5,000, including government officials, members of the Armed Forces, religious leaders, intellectuals, artists, and 4 visiting German university professors.
Crime 6: Confiscating the assets of the people in South Vietnam following the takeover by the Communists in 1975
Following the takeover of South Vietnam in 1975, the Communists took away 16 tons of gold from its reserves to the North, partly to bribe the USSR for its support. They also used various policies such as currency changes, campaigns against “capitalists and merchants”, etc. to steal people’s money. More recently, they brazenly confiscated lands from farmers, churches, Buddhist temples…to sell to developers to enrich themselves, and their families and friends.
Crime 7: Illegally imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people and killing many of them after invading South Vietnam in 1975
Following the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, in an act of indiscriminate revenge, the Communists imprisoned about 150,000 people including members of South Vietnamese Armed Forces, government officials, intellectuals, and religious leaders and putting them in concentration camps disguised as “Re-education Camps”. Eventually nearly 50,000 of the detainees were brutally killed in these camps.
Crime 8: Depriving the means of living of people in South Vietnam after 1975, leading to the exodus of 1.5 million refugees
The Communists’ policies implemented after 1975, such as “New Economic Zones”, “Cooperatives”, and “Family Food Rations” deprived most people in the South of their means of earning a living. In addition, people did not see any future for their children in the new dictatorship regime. Therefore, an estimated 1.5 million people fled the country overland through Cambodia or in small, fragile boats in the East Sea to Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia (thus called “the Boat People”). Many were victims of pirate attacks or killed by the Khmer Rouge, or through starvation, drowning at sea, etc. It was estimated by the UN that around 250,000 Vietnamese refugees died before reaching the shores of freedom.
Crime 9: Fighting in the Vietnam War led by the Russian and Chinese Communists, causing the death of 3 million people on both sides
The Vietnam War was not a struggle to “liberate South Vietnam from the American imperialists” as the Communist propaganda machine made people believe. In fact, Le Duan — the General Secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party during the war — once admitted: “We fought the Americans on behalf of the Soviet Union, China, and humanity”. After the war, he again said: “We have succeeded in planting the Marxist-Leninist flag all over Vietnam”.
The Communists fought in the war to help the Soviet Union spread Communism throughout the world and to help China in its expansionist ambition to subjugate the whole of Southeast Asia. This is the real reason why 3 million Vietnamese people on both sides of the conflict lost their lives.
Crime 10: Selling the country to Communist China, whose exploitations caused major irreversible damages to Vietnam’s environment
In 1958 Communist Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Van Dong sent a letter to the Chinese government to express agreement with the Chinese policy on its maritime sovereignty and to recognize China’s 12-mile exclusive zone. His government remained silent when Chinese troops invaded the Hoang Sa archipelagos (the Paracels) in 1974 which were defended by soldiers of the then Republic of Vietnam, and when Chinese forces overran Gạc Ma (South Johnson Reefs, an island in the Spratleys archipelagos — called Truong Sa) from Communist Vietnam in 1988.
Subsequently, after Vietnam was “taught a lesson” by its own protector China in 1979 for its intrusion into Kampuchea’s internal affairs, in 1990 Vietnamese leaders agreed, at the Chengdu Conference in China, to cede 15,000 km2 of land along the China-Vietnam border to China. Following that, Vietnam again gave up 16,000 km2 of the Gulf of Tonkin (off the coast of North Vietnam) to China. Gradually, Chinese were allowed to set up “autonomous economic zones” to operate in Vietnam, untouchable by Vietnamese laws.
Most recently, the Vietnamese Communist government planned to create “Special Economic Zones” at 3 strategic areas in the country: Van Don in the North, Van Phong in Central Vietnam, and Phu Quoc in the South for Chinese interests. In view of fierce public opposition, this plan has been put on hold.
Another impact of Vietnam’s subservience to China is the slow destruction of Vietnam’s ecosystems by Chinese interests. For example, in April 2016, an environmental disaster took place along 250 kms of the Vietnam central coastline, caused by a Chinese-owned company, Ha Tinh Steel Corporation, killing millions of fish in four provinces of the North Central Region of Vietnam and seriously damaging the coastal seabed. In another example, the mining of bauxite in Central Highlands of Vietnam by Chinese companies transformed Vietnam highlands’ landscape into a devastated environmental area.
Conclusion
The above summary exposes the ten most heinous crimes committed under the Communist regime in Vietnam since 1945. The facts presented here lay bare the vain attempt by the Embassy of the Vietnamese Communist government in Ottawa to glorify Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese Communist Party with its exhibition planned for September 2, 2020.
Born of blind faith, exploited by unfathomable ambitions, and nurtured by lies and terror, Communism has been a tragedy for Vietnam and a disaster for mankind.
[i] Reference: based on “Ten most heinous crimes of Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese Communist Party”, title translated from the original article in Vietnamese “Muoi toi dai ac cua Ho Chi Minh va Dang Cong San Viet Nam” by Attorney Le Duy San
