Vietnam

Vietnam (Indochina) has been a French protectorate since 1883. During the Second World War the Japanese forces occupy the Southeast Asian country. After Japan's defeat Ho Chi Minh, the leader of Vietnamese liberation forces (the Viet Minh), proclaims the Vietnamese Peoples Republic in Hanoi. France attempts to restore its rule in Vietnam through a colonial war.

In 1954 French troops suffer a devastating defeat at Dien Bien Phu. France is forced finally to give up its colonial plans for Indochina. At the Geneva peace conference it is decided to divide Vietnam along the 17th parallel. Communist North Vietnam is lead by President Ho Chi Minh. A pro-Western anti-Communist military junta under Premier Diem rules South Vietnam. After 1958 the Communist National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (FLN or Vietcong) conducts a guerrilla war with support from North Vietnam designed to destabilize South Vietnam, to topple its government, and to reunite the country with the Communist North. North Vietnam and the Viet Cong are supported with weapons by the People's Republic of China and by the UdSSR. The US, which has been trying since the Second World War to contain the expansion of Communist power, comes to the assistance of South Vietnam with deliveries of weapons and the dispatch of advisors.

The conflict escalates in July 1964 when, according to the US account, American destroyers are attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. The Washington government takes the "Tonkin incident" as the pretext for military counter measures and begins massive US Air Force attacks on targets in North Vietnam and those districts in the South that are under Viet Cong control. The bombing attacks lead to great losses among the population. In the following period the Americans are drawn deeply into the Vietnam War. By 1965 250.000 US soldiers are stationed in South Vietnam and fight on the side of their South Vietnamese ally.

The involvement of the US in the Vietnam war and American military actions - including carpet bombing of North Vietnam and the use of pesticides to defoliate the jungle, thereby revealing the Viet Cong hiding places - lead to world-wide protests against the Vietnam war. Domestic political pressure against the government of President Lyndon B. Johnson intensifies. The American public is more and more convinced of the senselessness of the war and demands that it be ended.

In January 1969 the Defense Minister of the new Government under Richard Nixon proclaims the gradual withdrawal of US troops. In 1973 the last American soldier leaves Vietnamese soil.

The South Vietnamese army is alone in its defense of the country and of the capital, Saigon. In January 1973 the warring parties, after five years of negotiations, agree on a cease-fire. Nevertheless, the Viet Cong continues its battle to "liberate" the South. The Vietnam War ends with the total collapse of the South Vietnamese army. In April 1975 troops of the Viet Cong and of North Vietnam march into Saigon.

In July 1976 North and South Vietnam are united as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The most important ally and trading partner of Vietnam is the USSR.

The Vietnam War, according to American estimates, from 1961 to 1972 cost 1.1 million soldiers their lives. The sacrifice among civilians is estimated at 2 million. The deaths include 60,000 American soldiers. The bodily and spiritual wounds of the survivors are not healed even today.