The World’s Greatest Military and Economic Power Refuses to Admit That It Was Defeated in Vietnam by A People of Peasants Wearing Rubber Sandals
Résumé
In these conversations, Ho Hai Quang retraces the history of Vietnam, from the country’s colonization to its people’s struggle for freedom. He recalls the famous Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which marked the end of French colonialism in Indochina. He also examines the war subsequently waged by the United States against the independence of Ho Chi Minh’s nation, with its countless crimes – notably the use of Agent Orange, the effects of which continue to cause devastation to this day.
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1Born in 1944 in Tan An, Vietnam, HO Hai Quang left his country for France in 1952 with part of his family to escape the Indochina War, launched by General de Gaulle against the Vietnamese people. Steeped in deep anti-colonialist convictions, his heart was resolutely on the side of independence, and from a young age he campaigned for the freedom of peoples – beginning with his own.
2In the 1960s, he enjoyed a successful career as a singer, performing with his brother Thanh as the opening act for Stevie Wonder at the Olympia in 1963. After an outstanding academic journey, he earned a doctorat d’État in 1982 and became a senior lecturer in economics at the University of Reims, then at the University of La Réunion. His prolific research on slavery, underdevelopment, and the economic history of the French overseas territories established him as a leading scholar and earned him national recognition. He is a Knight of the Order of Academic Palms and a Knight of the National Order of Merit.
3Deeply attached to his native country and to the fate of the Vietnamese people, HO Hai Quang founded the Orange-DiHoxyn Association to raise public awareness about the devastating consequences of the U.S. military’s massive use of Agent Orange and to provide material aid to the millions of victims of this toxic defoliant. Between 1961 and 1975, the United States dropped seven million tons of bombs – more than were used in both world wars combined – and sprayed eighty-five million liters of defoliants over Vietnam, causing the deaths of 5.5 million people. Even today, nearly half a century after the end of the war, Agent Orange continues to claim millions of victims in the country.
4In these conversations, HO Hai Quang recounts the history of Vietnam, the colonization of the country, and his people’s struggle for freedom. He evokes the legendary Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which marked the end of French colonialism in Indochina. He also describes the subsequent war waged by the United States against the independence of Ho Chi Minh’s nation – with its countless war crimes.
SL: In the 19th century, France decided to colonize Southeast Asia with the creation of Indochina in 1887. What were the main reasons for this conquest?
HO Hai Quang: It is important to situate the colonization of Southeast Asia within the broader context of global economic history. At that time, Europe – particularly England and France – was undergoing a major industrial revolution. These countries were capable of producing enormous quantities of goods. However, the working class was very poorly paid, lived in misery, and could not afford to buy the products that were flooding the market. There was therefore a problem of overproduction and market saturation in France, and more generally across Europe. This is why France and England sought to expand their markets by creating empires.
France arrived in Cochinchina in 1859, in what is now southern Vietnam. It aimed to seize control of the Mekong, the great river flowing through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The French believed they could navigate the Mekong upstream to reach Yunnan, a province of China regarded as a kind of commercial Eldorado, where France could sell its goods and obtain the raw materials needed for its industry – coal, tin, silver, copper, and tungsten. At the same time, Britain, which then ruled Burma, tried to reach Yunnan via the Irrawaddy River for the same reasons.
SL: How did the colonization process unfold?
HHQ: The conquest was not easy, as France faced strong resistance for many years. It took nearly five years to win the war and “pacify” the country. To crush the resistance, French forces imprisoned the leaders on Poulo Condor, an extremely harsh penal colony. In addition, 1,300 patriots and political resisters were deported to the island of Réunion to work on sugarcane plantations.
At the end of the war, the French tried to ascend the Mekong River but soon realized that it was not navigable along its entire length, making it impossible to reach China. They then turned their attention to northern Vietnam – Annam and Tonkin – believing that the Red River, which flows down from China, might be a viable alternative. The French authorities of the time took control of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, which together became French Indochina. They then decided to build a railway line – the Trans-Indochina Railway – which ran from the port of Haiphong in Vietnam up toward China, later extended southward to Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City.
For thousands of years, Vietnam had formed a single, unified country, with one dominant ethnic group representing nearly 90% of the population and 53 ethnic minorities making up the rest. The French divided Vietnam into three separate regions, each with distinct political and administrative regimes. Cochinchina, in the south, was a colony – directly governed by the French state. Annam was a protectorate, while Tonkin was a residency. This division of Vietnam into three parts was designed to dissolve the country as a unified entity and break its national cohesion. Thus, French Indochina was composed of Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam divided into three regions, and a small Chinese territory called Kouang-Tchéou-Wan – a port that allowed the French to trade directly with China.
SL: France decided to cultivate rubber there.
HHQ: France soon realized that the southern regions were well suited to growing export crops such as coffee and tea. More importantly, it discovered that it could establish plantations of Hevea brasiliensis – the rubber tree, native to Brazil – which produces latex for rubber. This discovery coincided with the expansion of the automobile industry and the growing demand for tires. These, in a few words, were the essential reasons why France entrenched its presence in Cochinchina.
The first workers’ organizations were born on these rubber plantations and would later give rise to the Vietnamese independence movement. The earliest plantations were established around Saigon, where labor was readily available in the densely populated areas. The soil there was fertile and required no deforestation. Later, with the rubber boom and Michelin’s soaring needs, plantations were pushed deeper into the forest – into the jungle inhabited by ethnic minorities. France then dispossessed these communities of their land and handed it over, at derisory prices, to major rubber companies such as Michelin.
SL: It was on these plantations that the Vietnamese proletariat was born.
HHQ: These ethnic minorities lived by foraging, organized in small tribal groups. It was impossible to turn them into rubber workers overnight. The French therefore recruited labor from Annam and especially from Tonkin, both densely populated regions.
The organization of labor on the plantations was modeled on that established in Réunion in the 19th century. On that island, after the abolition of slavery in 1848, planters needed to replace enslaved labor with indentured workers brought mainly from French and British India, as well as from Madagascar. These were contract laborers, hired for five years, who worked under abominable conditions closely resembling slavery – with the same uniforms, hours, and housing. They were not slaves, but were subject to a special wage system – a precursor to the “free” wage labor system we know today. This system of substitution was first implemented in Réunion and the Caribbean, then transferred to Vietnam from 1915 onward.
Thus, large numbers of Tonkinese and Annamite workers – that is, Vietnamese – were recruited by the French to toil deep in the jungle under the command of former military officers. The plantations were run like military camps. Trade union rights were forbidden. Working and living conditions were appalling, leading to an extremely high mortality rate. It was in these plantations, and also in the coal mines, that the first revolutionary stirrings arose to resist oppression. The first trade unions emerged there, as did the first political parties – including the Communist Party. These movements later grew to lead the struggle for independence.
That is how the industrial working class came into being in the plantations and coal mines of Vietnam. It did not exist before the French, as the population had consisted mainly of small farmers. The first fighting organizations of the working class were born there.
SL: In 1940, during the Second World War, Japan occupied Vietnam.
HHQ: In 1937, Japan went to war against China in order to establish its domination over all of Asia, just as Germany sought to dominate all of Europe. That is why there was a Tokyo – Berlin axis. Chiang Kai-shek organized the Chinese resistance and held firm despite Japan’s capture of all the ports. In fact, the British supplied Chiang’s troops with weapons and provisions through Burma, while the French did the same via the Trans-Indochina railway. It was to defeat the Chinese resistance that the Japanese decided to occupy Vietnam in 1940.
At that time, France was under the Vichy regime, which shared the same political outlook as Tokyo. An agreement was reached between the two powers: Japan would assume military control, while France would continue to handle administration. Vietnam thus found itself under the domination of two powers – Japan and France.
The living conditions of the Vietnamese people were appalling, as the country’s production was divided between the two occupiers, with compulsory levies imposed on the local population. Numerous famines decimated the country during this double occupation, and popular protest movements multiplied from that point onward.
SL: In 1945, Ho Chi Minh unilaterally declared Vietnam’s independence.
HHQ: In 1945, France emerged victorious from the Second World War, thanks to the decisive contribution of the Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, that of the United States and Britain. In Asia and the Pacific, Japan was in disarray. In Vietnam, the Japanese decided in March 1945 to annihilate the French army and dismantle the entire colonial administration. Colonial political power was completely overthrown. A few months later, in August 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan – at Hiroshima and Nagasaki – forcing Tokyo to surrender.
In light of this international situation, Ho Chi Minh understood that a political and military opportunity had opened up for Vietnam, since France was not yet in a position to return to reconquer the country, still being preoccupied with the final phase of the war against the Nazis. He therefore decided to proclaim Vietnam’s independence. It was thus favorable international circumstances that enabled the Vietnamese people to break the chains of colonialism.
SL: What did General de Gaulle do to reassert France’s authority in the country?
HHQ: General de Gaulle, who had opposed German oppression and Berlin’s domination, sought to restore French authority over Vietnam and sent in the army to reconquer the country. He wanted to do to Vietnam exactly what the Germans had done to France. People often say that de Gaulle was a great man. Allow me to pose the following question: can a great man wish to enslave a people who have as much right to freedom as the French themselves? General de Gaulle, who had helped liberate France from Nazi occupation, did not desire freedom for everyone. From that perspective, I do not regard de Gaulle as a great statesman.
Why was de Gaulle so intent on restoring the French Empire? The French Resistance had been financed by the British, and at the end of the war France lacked foreign currency. Yet, in order for its industries to function, it needed access to raw materials. It could not purchase them because its coffers were empty. Who had supplied them until then? The colonies. Vietnam possessed two resources of prime importance: rubber and coal. This was the main reason behind the desire to recolonize Vietnam – to seize the country’s wealth. Evangelization and the spread of French culture were merely pretexts.
SL: From 1946 to 1954, the Vietnamese people waged a war of resistance against colonial oppression. How did this struggle unfold up to the famous victory at Dien Bien Phu?
HHQ: It should be remembered that Vietnam was a Chinese colony twice – each time for a thousand years – for a total of two millennia. Despite this long occupation, Vietnam preserved its language and culture and defeated China on both occasions. This demonstrates how deeply the Vietnamese people are attached to their independence. They are a peaceful people, but they know how to resist and fight when their fundamental rights are threatened. The Vietnamese have a long tradition of struggle.
When the French seized Vietnam in the mid-19th century, they discovered an educated and literate country, with schools in every village. Vietnam had a mandarinate system that enabled the state to promote the most capable members of society. This meritocratic system opened the doors of the upper echelons of government to those who had demonstrated superior intellectual and moral abilities. That is why there were schools in every village. Under such conditions, it was easy to provide political education – an essential element in forging a united and enlightened people. Vietnam always possessed a strong core of cultural and national resistance.
In 1953, Ho Chi Minh launched the first agrarian reform, redistributing land to the peasants while reducing interest rates and cancelling debts. Naturally, such a policy earned him broad popular support. Ho Chi Minh won the people’s backing for cultural, political, moral, and economic reasons.
Vietnam faced a formidable enemy in France – but also in the United States, which, from as early as 1945, financed the French war against the country’s independence. More than 60% of the costs of the First War of Liberation (1945–1959) were covered by Washington. By 1954, the Americans were financing as much as 80% of France’s war effort – proof that the United States had long been involved in the war against Vietnam.
SL: So the United States was already waging a proxy war against Vietnam in 1945.
HHQ: Absolutely. The Americans, alongside General Navarre, were prosecuting the war against the Viet Minh – Vietnamese nationalists – who must be distinguished from the Viet Cong, the Vietnamese communists. Both labels were pejorative terms coined by the Americans.
To eliminate the Viet Minh, the French and the Americans jointly devised a plan to make Điện Biên Phủ the site of a decisive showdown that would defeat the independence movement within 18 months. Instead, it became one of colonialism’s most crushing defeats. Điện Biên Phủ is a broad basin ringed by mountains with ridgelines reaching 1,000 meters. An airstrip lay in the middle under French control. General Navarre concentrated most colonial forces there, including elite units, hoping to smash Vietnamese resistance and quiet mounting protests in France. For French military strategists, it was unthinkable that the Viet Minh could haul men, artillery, and supplies up to those heights. In their eyes, Điện Biên Phủ was impregnable.
They had not imagined that, for months, General Giáp had moved everything needed – on human backs – to deliver a decisive blow. When the final battle began, Vietnamese fighters pounded the airstrip to cut off any aerial resupply. France and the United States found themselves trapped in the basin, enabling the Vietnamese people to win a victory with worldwide resonance, especially across colonized countries. Điện Biên Phủ marked the end of French rule in Vietnam.
As an aside, years later the Saint-Cyr Military Academy invited General Giáp to lecture its officers. One asked: “General, you defeated the French, the Americans, and the Chinese. You are a great strategist. How did you win the war against the French?” His reply entered legend: “It’s not that I’m a good strategist; it’s that the American and French strategists were really bad.”
SL: In 1954, the Geneva Accords were signed, providing for elections within two years. Yet the United States opposed holding the vote. Why?
HHQ: The Geneva Accords are fairly complex. Several parties were present: the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Laos, Cambodia, China, and of course Vietnam and France.
Despite defeat, France wanted to preserve privileged economic relations in its favor – continued access to the country’s natural resources – in short, a form of neocolonialism. Vietnam, as the victor, wanted independence while maintaining some economic ties, since the country was still profoundly underdeveloped. The United States firmly opposed independence because the victors were the communists. China, led by Mao Zedong since 1949 and the founding of the People’s Republic, had aided Vietnam against the French and wished to retain some influence while supporting independence.
The Accords set out two key points. First, Vietnam was divided – like Germany and Korea – along the 17th parallel. The North was administered by Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader; the South by the Vietnamese monarchy, very close to the Americans. A demilitarized zone separated the two. Second, this division was explicitly provisional: nationwide elections were to be held within two years, by 1956 at the latest, with the aim of reunifying the country under a single regime.
SL: The independence camp’s electoral victory was a foregone conclusion.
HHQ: All polls agreed: Ho Chi Minh, who had just freed the country from French colonial rule, would win. But the Americans did not want a communist victory, so they blocked the elections and reunification. With the help of Emperor Bảo Đại, they installed Ngô Đình Diệm – a staunch anti-communist, practicing Catholic, and US-educated figure – as prime minister. Elections were prevented, and a fierce crackdown swept South Vietnam against supporters of the electoral process and national reunification. The Vietnamese liberation forces realized they would have to fight in earnest to restore the nation’s unity.
The United States was obsessed with the domino theory. Since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the 1949 Chinese Revolution, the world had split in two: the socialist camp (the USSR and China) and the capitalist camp dominated by the United States. These blocs – represented by Khrushchev and Kennedy – would clash in Vietnam. Washington was convinced that if Vietnam went communist, following China and North Korea, all of Southeast Asia would follow. To prevent this “contagion,” in 1954 it created SEATO – the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization – modeled on NATO, bringing in Thailand and the Philippines alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Australia, and Pakistan. Vietnam was a crucial domino. That is why the United States refused to allow elections it knew Ho Chi Minh would inevitably win.
SL: In 1959, the Vietnam War began, lasting until 1975. What were the forces involved, and how did the conflict unfold?
HHQ: The conflict began with what the Americans called the “special war,” meaning that they did not immediately intervene with their own troops but relied instead on thousands of military advisers – 25,000 in total – to train the 600,000 soldiers of the South Vietnamese army. Washington also supplied the Saigon regime with a massive arsenal. This “special war,” which lasted from 1959 to 1963, was essentially a conflict fought between Vietnamese.
Washington also implemented the “strategic hamlet” doctrine. In 1959, in South Vietnam, guerrilla fighters – mostly peasants – took up arms and formed the People’s Army. You cannot defeat a people, as General Giáp explained in his writings on military theory. It is extremely difficult to win a war against an army of peasants fighting on their own land, because it is impossible to distinguish who is a fighter and who is not. This is why the United States decided to empty the countryside of its inhabitants and regroup them in “strategic hamlets” – fortified villages. The population no longer worked or produced anything and was instead supplied with goods imported from the United States. Anyone outside the strategic hamlets was considered and treated as an enemy. The idea was, in their words, to “separate the fish from the water” – to isolate the resistance fighters from the people. Only the most hardened guerrillas remained in the jungle.
In response, the various resistance movements in South Vietnam united in 1960 to form the National Liberation Front under a single leadership. This unification of forces marked a decisive stage in the struggle for independence. Division leads only to defeat, and the Vietnamese people had the wisdom to form one front. The Americans, in addition to their own troops, also enlisted Australian and New Zealand mercenaries. By the end of the “special war,” there were already half a million American soldiers in Vietnam, supported by one million South Vietnamese troops. Altogether, counting those involved in logistics and support from the United States, nearly ten million Americans took part in the Vietnam War.
SL: The United States soon realized that it could not win through the “special war.”
HHQ: Washington realized that the resistance was extremely strong and growing by the day. The regular army of the North supplied the National Liberation Front in the South with weapons and provisions, while China and the Soviet Union also provided material support to Vietnam’s cause. It was therefore a global proxy war between the two superpowers, played out on Vietnamese soil.
The United States then launched the second phase: massive bombing campaigns against North Vietnam to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which ran through the entire country and provided vital aid to the southern fighters. The goal, in the words of General Curtis LeMay, was to “bomb Vietnam back to the Stone Age.” Using their B-52 bombers, the United States dropped an astonishing seven million tons of bombs on the Vietnamese people – most of them civilians: women, children, and the elderly. This gives an idea of the savagery and monstrosity of U.S. policy.
SL: Could you tell us a bit about the famous “Ho Chi Minh Trail”?
HHQ: The term “Ho Chi Minh Trail” was actually coined by the Americans. In reality, there was not one trail but a network of routes running south from the 17th parallel, crossing forests, mountains, Laos, and Cambodia – which is one of the reasons the war eventually spread to those countries. Here’s another figure: the United States dropped two million tons of bombs on Laos – one ton for every inhabitant.
Vietnamese resistance fighters carried cannons, artillery, and all kinds of equipment on bicycles, which is quite extraordinary when one considers that the Ho Chi Minh Trail stretched some 2,000 kilometers. This vast network of paths was extremely hard to detect. The fighters were masters of camouflage and managed to conceal the entire route. They even learned to cook over fires without producing visible smoke from the air. Constantly on the move, they left no trace of their passage. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was truly the lifeline that sustained the South Vietnamese resistance.
SL: To destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the United States decided to bomb Vietnam heavily and to devastate fields and forests using a powerful defoliant known as Agent Orange. In total, the United States released 360 kilograms of pure dioxin, diluted in 85 million liters of fuel. What can you tell us about the toxicity of this product?
HHQ: To cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the United States sprayed Vietnam with no fewer than seven defoliants, the main one being Agent Orange. First they blanketed the forests with chemical sprays, and once the vegetation had withered, they dropped torrents of napalm bombs to burn the jungle to ash. The objective was threefold: to destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail, to deprive the guerrillas of their refuge – since no forests remained – and to eliminate food sources by poisoning the rice fields.
It is important to note that defoliants had already been tested by the U.S. military as early as the 1940s in the forests of the United States and Canada, to determine which products could destroy Japanese rice crops during World War II. These experiments allowed them to calibrate the necessary dosages. The British army had also tested such products in some of its Southeast Asian colonies before the Vietnam War.
A defoliant is a chemical sprayed on plants that induces uncontrolled cell proliferation – like cancer – rapidly killing vegetation. The toxicity of these substances was therefore perfectly well known to the authorities. Yet Washington had the audacity to claim it was unaware of their real effects, which is completely false. The United States knew exactly how destructive these defoliants were – and that is precisely why they used them so extensively in Vietnam.
SL: So the United States used dioxin in full knowledge of the impact it would have on the population and the environment.
HHQ: Dioxin is extremely toxic. Let me give you an example: if you were to put ten grams of dioxin into the water supply of a city with one million inhabitants, you would wipe out the entire population – no survivors. The United States used 360 kilograms of it against Vietnam! That is a war crime and a crime against humanity.
The danger of dioxin lies in its persistence: it is extraordinarily difficult to destroy and takes about half a century to begin losing even a fraction of its toxicity. It would likely take nearly two centuries for it to disappear completely. Studies conducted at Seveso provide ample proof of this.
There are about a hundred different kinds of dioxin. When a fire burns, dioxin is released; the same happens when a volcano erupts. But not all dioxins are toxic – of the hundred or so known varieties, only about ten are truly dangerous. Among these is the “Seveso dioxin,” named after the Italian town where a chemical plant exploded in 1976, releasing highly toxic substances. This form of dioxin is created by combining two acids at extremely high temperatures. Analyses of contaminated soil and affected people confirmed that it was an exceptionally hazardous compound. This is precisely why the use of such dioxins is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law. Employing this substance in warfare constitutes, by legal definition, a war crime.
SL: The objective was to destroy all of Vietnam’s forests.
HHQ: Vietnam stretches for 1,800 kilometers along its mountain chain. To devastate such a vast area required an unimaginable quantity of dioxin – nearly 100 million liters. The U.S. military therefore called on chemical companies, Monsanto foremost among them, to mass-produce this defoliant – much to the delight of those corporations, whose order books filled for years, guaranteeing immense profits.
To manufacture Agent Orange, two acids – 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T – were mixed in equal parts and heated, producing the final compound. The mixture was stored in metal drums marked with an orange stripe, which gave the product its name. Other defoliants were similarly color-coded, with blue, green, or yellow bands.
SL: What were the consequences for Vietnam and its population?
HHQ: Agent Orange was sprayed primarily between 1965 and 1970. After American soldiers involved in spraying these toxic chemicals began suffering contamination, U.S. Army missions mapped the affected zones, revealing that nearly 20 percent of South Vietnam’s territory had been impacted by dioxin. Even today, nearly half a century after the war’s end, much of this land remains unusable. The ecological toll on wildlife and vegetation has been devastating.
As for the population, some 4.5 million people were exposed to Agent Orange during the war – not counting their descendants. Dioxin accumulates in fatty tissue and can be transmitted to children, who are then born with severe physical and mental deformities. Other children, though born apparently healthy, are later contaminated through breast milk. In other words, dioxin is extremely toxic, virtually indestructible, and transmissible from generation to generation. That is the tragedy.
Today, fifty years after the war, an estimated three million people in Vietnam are still affected by dioxin contamination, according to the Red Cross.
SL: How did the Vietnam War come to an end?
HHQ: The turning point came in May 1968. Before the Tet Offensive that year, the Americans believed the Vietnamese resistance was on the verge of collapse. According to Washington’s strategists, the war would be over in a matter of months. That was a grave miscalculation. The Tet Offensive allowed the North Vietnamese army and resistance forces to capture more than a hundred towns and reach the American headquarters in Saigon. Although the offensive ultimately ended in military defeat for the independence fighters, it proved to the Americans that they could not win the war.
Washington then decided to begin a discreet withdrawal and open negotiations. In 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were signed, ending U.S. bombing of North Vietnam and providing for the withdrawal of American troops. However, these forces merely redeployed to Cambodia, which became a U.S. rear base for continuing to supply the southern regime with weapons. This is one of the reasons the conflict later spread to Cambodia. Within two years, in 1975, the South Vietnamese army was destroyed, and the Americans were finally expelled from Vietnam.
In total, the Vietnam War claimed more than five million lives – twenty-five times more deaths than those caused by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
SL: The reconstruction of the country took place under very difficult conditions.
HHQ: In 1975, Vietnam was reunified under the authority of Hanoi, which adopted a socialist economy. The challenge was immense: the entire nation had to be rebuilt from the ruins. The peasants, confined to strategic hamlets during the war, had lost their agricultural know-how and no longer produced anything, having become entirely dependent on the Americans. It was therefore necessary to revive the whole economy of South Vietnam, which was in shambles.
Added to this was the issue of those who had collaborated with the Americans. There were fears of bloodshed, but that never happened. Re-education camps were opened, and although conditions were extremely harsh, this was considered preferable to a violent purge.
Meanwhile, along the border, the Khmer Rouge – supported by China – rose up in Cambodia and attacked Vietnam. This was a grave mistake. Vietnam possessed a powerful army, hardened by years of war against the United States. Within a few months, the Khmer Rouge were defeated. Following this defeat, China invaded northern Vietnam, forcing the people to take up arms once again. The campaign lasted several months, but eventually, the Chinese army was pushed back beyond the border.
SL: On top of that came economic sanctions.
HHQ: After the war in Cambodia, the United States – supported by Western powers – imposed a total embargo on Vietnam. No goods entered the country, and it could export nothing, except to friendly nations within the socialist bloc. Vietnam was completely isolated, and shortages were widespread, especially food shortages.
We must not forget that the war had torn Vietnamese families apart. Some members had sided with the North, others with the South. My own family was divided between the two camps. Family ties were broken by the war.
It was in this context of extreme adversity that Vietnam’s reconstruction and national reunification took place. This partly explains the great difficulties encountered in building socialism during the early years. Let us remember that for thirty years – from 1945 to 1975 – Vietnam fought tirelessly for its freedom.
SL: That is why Vietnam turned to what has been called “market socialism.”
HHQ: Vietnam decided to follow the path already taken by China and sought to reintegrate into the international community. It applied to join the World Trade Organization, dominated by the United States. Washington gave Vietnam a ten-year period to revive its economy, while imposing structural reforms.
But that was not all. The United States also demanded that Vietnam never again raise the issue of Agent Orange. This is why, between 1975 and the early 2000s, many Vietnamese suffered from severe illnesses without knowing their cause. To rejoin the international stage, the Vietnamese authorities were forced to maintain a total blackout on this matter. Many families believed they were victims of a divine curse, when in truth the real culprit was the United States of America.
It was only after the lifting of the embargo in 1994, and with access to international information, that the Vietnamese learned that American soldiers who had served during the war had also been contaminated by Agent Orange – and that they had taken legal action against their own government.
SL: It should be noted that it was American soldiers who sprayed this substance from helicopters, using hoses, without any protection.
HHQ: The tragedy is that the American servicemen assigned to this terrible task had no idea the substance was dangerous. There are numerous videos from that period showing young soldiers, bare-chested, spraying the defoliant around U.S. camps to clear the view – unaware that they were spreading a poison that would bring them lasting suffering. Pentagon officials, however, were fully aware of the risks to which they were exposing their own troops. This speaks volumes about the immorality of leaders willing to sacrifice their own citizens.
There were 40,000 American victims who discovered their fate upon returning home, after medical testing. They first sued the U.S. government, which refused to compensate them, reminding them that they were soldiers who had merely fulfilled their duty to their country. The victims then turned against the chemical companies, seeking justice. Just before the trial was to begin in New York, these companies negotiated a settlement: a total of $180 million. It was a very poor deal for the contaminated veterans, as the sum was to be divided among 40,000 people – less than $5,000 each.
There were numerous protests in front of the White House, where veterans burned their medals. In 1991, the U.S. government commissioned a study that identified fourteen diseases – including Parkinson’s disease and various cancers – linked to Agent Orange. In 1995, the authorities decided to compensate all victims who had served in Vietnam during the spraying period, granting them a monthly pension of up to $2,000. The battle, however, is not over: veterans are now demanding compensation for their children, who have inherited various illnesses.
The Vietnamese thus discovered that these soldiers and their families suffered from the same afflictions. They realized that their own tragedy was caused by Agent Orange. It was at that moment, in 2004, that the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA) was founded. One of my sisters, Dang Hong Nhut – a resistance fighter during the war – served as its treasurer.
Faced with this catastrophe, the association decided to bring a case before U.S. courts, with the support of American veterans who stood in solidarity with the cause – a gesture that deserves recognition. For ten weeks, my sister, herself an Agent Orange victim, gave lectures in ten different states. Unfortunately, the plaintiffs were dismissed by the New York court, and then by the U.S. Supreme Court, which did not even deign to hear the case. From a legal standpoint, it is no longer possible to obtain compensation in the United States.
SL: The Agent Orange case has been brought before the French courts.
HHQ: In 2013, under the presidency of François Hollande, a law was passed stipulating that any French citizen who suffers harm abroad, at the hands of a foreign entity, may bring the case before the French courts. One of the victims of Agent Orange is Ms. Tran To Nga, who was a young woman during the war. She was the first woman to travel the Ho Chi Minh Trail as a war correspondent for the Vietnamese liberation press. After undergoing medical tests, she discovered that she suffered from illnesses linked to Agent Orange. She therefore filed a lawsuit in the Évry court against the chemical companies, but unfortunately her claim was dismissed – both at first instance and on appeal.
SL: You mentioned that nearly 20% of Vietnam’s territory was affected by Agent Orange. What is the current status of the decontamination process?
HHQ: When the Americans left Vietnam in haste, they abandoned stocks of Agent Orange stored in metal drums. Over time, these barrels corroded and leaked their contents into the soil. There were two main centers where the United States had stored its reserves of defoliants: the Da Nang military base and the Bien Hoa military base in the south.
From a technical standpoint, decontamination requires excavating the soil to depths of several dozen meters, followed by treatment at extremely high temperatures to destroy the dioxin. It is a colossal project whose consequences will extend over several generations of Vietnamese.
Decontamination began in Da Nang, financed by industrial foundations such as Ford, with support from the U.S. government. However, the United States has consistently rejected any notion of compensation. The reason is simple: only the defeated pay reparations. The United States refuses to acknowledge that it lost the war. It has always avoided the word “defeat,” preferring instead to speak of a “withdrawal.” Washington claims that its withdrawal in 1973 was merely a redeployment to Cambodia, and that it was the South Vietnamese – not the U.S. military – who lost the war.
The world’s greatest military and economic power still refuses to admit that it was defeated in Vietnam by a nation of peasants wearing rubber sandals – Ho Chi Minh sandals – crafted from the recycled soles of truck tires.
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Salim Lamrani, « The World’s Greatest Military and Economic Power Refuses to Admit That It Was Defeated in Vietnam by A People of Peasants Wearing Rubber Sandals », Études caribéennes [En ligne], 15 | Novembre 2025, mis en ligne le , consulté le 09 novembre 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudescaribeennes/37889 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15374
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