Vietnam Celebrates Fifty Years of the End of Its Colonial Period

Photograph Source: Steffen Schmitz – CC BY-SA 4.0

Fifty years ago, on 30 April 1975, the revolutionary forces of the People’s Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front entered Saigon, then the capital of South Vietnam. Two days earlier, in a desperate attempt to avert further war, the US brought in a ‘peace candidate’ – former General Duong Văn Minh – to be the president. It was ‘Big Minh’, as he was known, who ordered his forces to surrender to the Communist troops, which then...