Vietnam Reunification Through the Lenses of Latin American Friends

Right after that, Faría remembered the stories her father often told him about a distant, small but heroic country. Tortosa ran out and saw his father's radiant and happy face when he said that Vietnam had achieved complete independence. The young boy could feel the family's joyful atmosphere. Tortosa's father was then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Venezuela Jesús Faría, who always saw Vietnam as a close friend.

Decoration on the street to highlight historical significance, revolutionary traditions, patriotism, and national pride. (Photo: The Doan/News Newspaper)

In a talk with VNA reporters on the 49th anniversary of the liberation of the South and reunification of Vietnam on April 30, Jesús Germán Faría Tortosa, Vice Chairman of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela ( PSUV) recalls that unforgettable time, when Venezuela people considered Vietnam's April 30 victory as their own victory.

Vice President of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) Jesús Germán Faría Tortosa. (Photo: VNA)

Also on the morning of April 30, when going with his father to the Tribuna Popular newspaper office of the Communist Party of Venezuela in Caracas, Tortosa saw a bustling atmosphere. From the party leaders to reporters and editors, they rushed to broadcast information about Vietnam's victory that took place only a few hours earlier.

After nearly half a century, the image of the fall of the Saigon government, the last helicopter leaving the US Embassy, the liberation army entering the city, and the flag flying on the roof of the Independence Palace are still imprinted in the mind of the Vice Chairman of Venezuela's PSUV Jesús Germán Faría Tortosa.

According to Tortosa, the great victory of April 30 was a gift that Vietnam sent to progressive and peace-loving peoples worldwide. The Dien Bien Phu victory in 1954 is an example of inspiration and determination for colonial countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to rise to gain independence from colonialism. The victory in the spring of 1975 awakened national sovereignty, encouraging colonial and dependent countries to fight for independence, he said.

Vietnam's April 30 victory was also the inspiration for the success of the Socialist Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela 24 years later. The late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez always expressed special admiration for Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh, as well as the resilient will of the Vietnamese people.

Former Deputy Secretariat of Interior of Mexico Jorge Alcocer Villanueva gives an interview. (Photo: Phi Hung/ VNA reporter in Mexico)

Meanwhile, from Mexico, Jorge Alcocer Villanueva, former Deputy Secretariat of the Interior, told the Vietnam News Agency that the cruel images of the war, especially the photo of the "Napalm Girl" urged him and many other students to take to the streets to protest the war.

During the fiercest period of the Vietnamese people's resistance against the USA, he participated in protests against the war in front of the US Embassy in Mexico City, holding up banners and chanting the slogan "Support President Ho Chi Minh, support the just struggle of the Vietnamese people". For Villanueva, this is a proud period for himself and many students of the same generation in Mexico. At that time, anti-war activities strongly demonstrated the noble ideals of the intellectual youth class, the spirit of love for peace, awareness of national independence-sovereignty and international solidarity, he said

In the 1960s and 70s, although many Latin American countries achieved independence, the majority were still in the "grip" of imperialism. There was "not enough freedom to exercise the right of national self-determination," he said.

The victory of the Vietnamese people is a great encouragement to the Latin American region, including Mexico because it affirms the right of national self-determination, which each nation needs to establish its political regime and carry out its socioeconomic and cultural development on the basis of national sovereignty.

Besides, Vietnam's April 30 victory also opened a new era of world order, in which countries cannot arbitrarily use force to interfere in domestic affairs of another country.

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