The Good Word from Giap: Filipinos can overcome all obstacles to become a ‘power’ in Asia, says the man who defeated the Americans and French

HANOI, Vietnam – Standing erect despite his 92 years, Vietnam’s retired Defense Minister, the legendary General Vo Nguyen Giap, said yesterday that he believes the Filipino people can build a "rich and powerful" nation if they unite and fight with perseverance and innovativeness to overcome all obstacles.

He asserted that he values the warm friendship between the Vietnamese and Filipino people, and was sending his New Year’s (Tet) greetings to us, "particularly to the youth".

Like Vietnam, the general noted, the Philippines is a "small country", although geographically different since the RP is an island country. Yet, he reminded me, "small" countries have defeated big and powerful ones. Nobody, of course, knows this better than General Giap himself (although he did not brag about it at our meeting in his home on Hoang Dieu street in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital). Next to the late revolutionary hero, "Uncle" Ho Chi Minh, and in tandem with another leader in the freedom struggle, Pham Van Dong (who, after "liberation" became Prime Minister for 30 years), it was General Giap who was the architect of military victory. In a sense, the 80 million Vietnamese venerate Giap – the still living symbol of their fight for independence – as the national Icon and Big Brother, calling him "Brother Van".

Giap is remembered all over the world as the Viet Minh military leader who crushed the French in the battle of Dien Bien Phu and put an end to almost a century of French Empire in Vietnam and Indo-China in May, 1954.

Giap later masterminded the terrible Tet Offensive of January 1968, in which his North Vietnamese Army regulars (with tanks, missiles, and heavy weapons) and Viet Cong guerrillas attacked the American forces and the forces of South Vietnam in 100 places simultaneously from Saigon to Khe Sanh, My Tho, Hue and Danang. Thirty-five thousand soldiers died on both sides – not to mention perhaps 100,000 civilians caught in the middle. In fact, a Viet Cong commando team, dispatched by Giap, captured and held the US Embassy for a few hours, before being dislodged. It proved the beginning of the end for the US involvement in Vietnam. Giap’s military efforts are seen to have forced the US, specifically President Richard Nixon, to "sign" the Paris Agreement of January, 1973, which signaled the withdrawal of America’s 500,000 troops from Vietnam.

On April 30, symbolized by a North Vietnamese T-54 tank smashing through the gates of the South Vietnamese "Independence" presidential palace in Saigon, Giap’s victorious liberation army concluded what had been a 30-year battle to "unite" Vietnam.

Giap exulted: "The Vietnamese people have achieved a feat that would have seemed impossible in the middle of the 20th century. For the first time in history, the people of a colonial, semi-feudal, underdeveloped country defeated imperialist powers (the US and France), mainly with their own forces, setting an example for the whole world of heroism, undauntedness, intelligence and ability."

On the eve of the anniversary of his historic Tet (New Year) Offensive of 1968 — which this writer had covered as a foreign correspondent from Saigon to My Tho, as well as Danang, and Central Vietnam (near Hue) – I asked General Giap what message he could impart to us Filipinos. First, he made the polite gesture of greeting President Macapagal-Arroyo, "a true friend who visited our country", then laid down the following injunction: "To succeed, you must take to heart, as Uncle Ho put it himself, that ‘nothing is more valuable than freedom’. To win in every undertaking, including battle, it is not only important that someone fights, but that one fights bravely and intelligently.

"It is not just ‘"confidence" that one will win which counts, but to know how to win," he asserted.

Having long followed Giap’s career with admiration, and imagined him ten feet tall, I was surprised to see that he was a diminutive man – perhaps just five feet two or three – but his dynamic personality still sparkled despite his age. (Guess he must have been at least an inch or two taller than Napoleon Bonaparte, a man whom, as a former history teacher, he is capable of quoting with intimacy).

Giap was attired in a simple green military uniform, with five stars gleaming on his gold shoulder-boards and the familiar red tabs on his lapels, but no medals or military decorations whatsoever. While we talked, two large delegations of veterans, people’s committee members, and cadres, men and women from different provinces with their banners and streamers of homage and greeting, waited in the driveway and in the large garden of the general’s villa, which, although in the former French quarter, is located on a street renamed in honor of Hoang Dieu, a former mayor of Hanoi, who had committed suicide in a patriotic gesture of frustration and protest when the Vietnamese Emperor hesitated to resist and repel the French invasion of the country. (The address is 30 Hoang Dieu, Ha Noi – as you see, the capital’s name is really two words, just as down south it used to be Sai Gon.)

I was happy that Giap’s very forceful and articulate wife, was able to be with us when we paid a "courtesy call" on the general. When she handed me her card, it was without embellishment. It simply said: Dang Bich Ha. When the general, during our conversation, however, seemed to grope for a word, Madam Ha, without hesitation (and apparently from long habit) completed the sentence. They seemed to think as one, and unbidden the words so glib to Filipino husbands’ tongues came to mind, "My commander-in-chief."

When I asked Madam Ha how many children they had, she replied that there are five. I learned from others, though, the names of three of them. Proof of General Giap’s consistent patriotism, he and Madam Ha had named the eldest, Vo Viet Nam (after the country itself). The second was called Vo Hoa Binch ("Peace"). The third, a girl, was Vo Hanh Phuc ("Happiness"). Vo, of course, is the general’s family name. It is the custom in Vietnam, with the exception of the President, or ruler, to call a person by his or her given name, not the family name – hence, Giap, not Vo.

I was surprised, I’ll have to say, at being allowed to see General Giap – he had been declining interviews for years – but took every advantage of the opportunity. Aside from autographing his photograph, he autographed and handed me a copy of his new book, which was just published in Hanoi by Gioi Publishers, a volune of memoirs strangely titled, General Vo Nguyen Giap: The General Headquarters in the Spring of Brilliant Victory.

On page 330 is a fascinating paragraph recalling how he had arrived in Saigon – now renamed Ho Chi Minh City or HCM City (as the newspapers abbreviate it) – to signify their April 30, 1975, "Victory Day."

In his recollections, Giap asserted: "I also visited the South Vietnamese Army’s General Chief of Staff’s Office, where my attention was drawn to what was left of the calendar leaf for April 28. In the weapons showroom, their exhibits included many types of modern weapons and equipment. An Indochinese map full of blue and red marks showed where their electronic equipment had detected our bases, especially on the on the Truong Son strategic route. My deepest impression came from seeing the US weapons and technical facilities. However, modern they were, they could not save the enemy from defeat. The decisive factor in our remarkable victory was the Vietnamese spirit."

Giap’s philosophy, both in our dialogue and in his books (I read two others earlier, Dien Bien Phu, sixth edition published in 1999; and Vo Nguyen Giap: Selected Writings, 1994) seems to revolve around national spirit.

"Many people", he averred, "have asked the question: Why have the Vietnamese people, without possessing so much as an inch of steel, been able to stand tall, smash the shackles of slavery, vanquish two imperialist giants in unequal wars, gain back their lost lands, and march forward to social and human liberation?"

Viet tribes, he pointed out, "developed a national culture whose core was patriotism – a spirit of dauntless struggle to master nature and society, rally together as one, and show both courage and intelligence in the most unfavorable of national circumstances. Due to the immeasurable strength of our culture, which was never assimilated by the Chinese after more than one thousand years of their domination, Vietnam had ultimately risen up and regained its independence.

With the US girding to unleash its terrifying technology, its modern aircraft and high-tech weaponry, on Iraq, it’s timely to note Giap’s observations on how, for all its gadgetry and might, the US failed to prevail in Vietnam. As for those who fear that our region might be gobbled up by China, I submit that his words are a timely reminder to us that Vietnam resisted China for more than a millennium. In fact, when you review the street names all over Vietnam, from Hanoi to HCM City, to Hue, and every community, they honor resistance leaders, generals, emperors and women (like the famous Hai Ba Trung, the Trung sisters) who fought Chinese domination.

Regarding US aerial might, Giap recalled that on December 28, 1972, he had approved the issuance of a Victory Communiqué in which it said that "in only 12 days and nights, our army and people have shot down 77 modern planes belonging to the US Strategic and Tactical Air Force, most of which crashed on the spot."

His list included: 33 B-52 bombers, mostly B52D and B52G planes, "strategically endowed with modern electronic equipment". Five F-111 jets. 24 modern US Navy jet warplanes. Three reconnaissance planes and one helicopter. Giap stated they had "killed or captured hundreds of US pilots, among whom were officers of various ranks, from lieutenant-colonel downwards". They had, in addition, he averred, "set afire eight US warships."

He quoted an editorial of the People’s Army newspaper as praising this "great military victory" as an "Air Dien Bien Phu."

"The prestige of the US Air Force," he declared, "had collapsed."

Giap, it must be noted, belongs to the older generation who fought "the good fight" – among today’s young there is remarkably no anti-Americanism. On the contrary, the present generation of Vietnamese, proud of their heritage but conscious of present-day reality, are apparently full of friendly feelings towards the US – influenced possibly, for some part, by the Viet Khieu, the prosperous and energetic overseas Vietnamese, who come home annually in numbers reaching 350,000, to visit and even to invest heavily in their mother country. Their forebearance is not merely due to materialism, but the generally generous and friendly nature of the Vietnamese (although there are the usual percentage of filosofos and matigas ng ulo among them).

Giap is one of the giants of this century, it cannot be denied. He fought alongside Ho Chi Minh since 1940 against impossible odds.

He is realistic, too. "...However successful our revolution was," he says, "we must not mistakenly indulge in ‘Communist conceit’. We must admit that Vietnam is still one of the poorest countries in the world". He noted that it is through "education and training, and science and technology" that the future lies. He still believes in the need "to reorganize and strengthen the Party". Oh, well. The Communist Party, indeed, still rules through the People’s Committees and the national government, but it represents just two or three million – a tiny ruling faction in a nation of 80 million. When Giap’s generations, inevitably, goes to Socialist Paradise, who knows what comes next? He is, for all his amazing resiliency and strength, after all, ninety-two years old.

He was born in 1910 in Quan Binh province. In 1924, he entered he National Academy in Hue (the former imperial capital) but soon got embroiled in radical activities. Expelled from school in 1927, he joined the Tan Viet party, and later was jailed for playing a role in student demonstrations during the Nighe Tinh revolt. Released from prison in 1933, he went back to school and received a law degree from the University of Hanoi.

He subsequently became a history instructor at a private institution there. It was then he met and married his first wife, Nguyen Thi Minh Giang, younger sister of Ho Chi Minh’s wife (in those days, Uncle Ho was known as Nguyen Ai Quoc). In the meantime, Giap – who assumed his famous nom de plume of Van (hence, "Brother Van," as mentioned above) – became a journalist for the Party newspaper, Notre Voix (Our Voice), coming under police surveillance. Giap, becoming fascinated with military history, as one of his biographers put it, "voraciously read books on the subject (of military tactics) at the municipal library in Hanoi".

He later went to China where he was arrested by the Kuomintang, but subsequently linked up with the Communist Movement there – and the leaders of their "Long March". (He uses that "long march" term often).

The rest is history.