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<font face="arial" size=5><b>'We were waiting for
them'</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="arial" size=3>Vo Nguyen Giap is the Vietnamese general
who planned the Ho Chi Minh trail and defeated the French at Dien Bien
Phu. In a rare interview with the author of a book about the trail, he
recalls his part in defying the might of the US military</font> <br><br>
<font size=2><b>Virginia Morris<br>
Friday August 25, 2006<br>
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/">Guardian Unlimited</a></b> <br><br>
</font>
<img src="cid:6.2.5.6.2.20060828054044.02c97e90@freedomarchives.org.0" width=372 height=192 alt="Vo Nguyen Giap is one of the most influential generals of moder">
<font size=3><br>
</font><font size=1>Vo Nguyen Giap is one of the most influential
generals of modern times. Photograph: Clive Hills<br>
<br><br>
</font><font size=3>The teacher turned military genius Vo Nguyen Giap,
who celebrated his 95th birthday today, is one of the last connections
with the days of Ho Chi Minh and the start of the fight against colonial
rule. <br><br>
Remarkably, his army originally consisted of 34 people. By the time of
the ultimate battle against the French at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, it
was a conventional force of thousands with weapons supplied by China and
the USSR. His army would eventually rise to be over a million-strong
against the Americans. <br><br>
<a name="article_continue"></a>General Giap still lives in the former
French colonial villa in the capital, Hanoi, that has been his home for
the past 60 years and where key decisions were made throughout the war.
In the light and airy living room hangs just one photograph of Ho Chi
Minh and Gen Giap in the early days of their guerrilla campaign against
the French. <br>
<br>
I was granted an audience with Gen Giap recently to show him our book, A
History of the Ho Chi Minh Trail: The Road to Freedom, with an
introduction that included his thoughts from a previous meeting.
<br><br>
He was in good health, sitting upright in military uniform, his voice and
mind still sharp. His wife, Professor Dang Bich Ha, who is much younger,
joined us for tea. They have been married since 1946. She is his second
wife: his first died after being tortured by the French. <br><br>
Gen Giap planned the Ho Chi Minh trail to run through Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia with a total road length of 12,500 miles. It became a lifeline
that provided his army with everything needed to live and fight
effectively against the US. In a vain attempt to destroy the trail, the
US dropped more than 1.6m tonnes of munitions on lower Laos alone during
its 16-year period of operations, starting in 1959. <br><br>
Anticipating a fight against the Americans as early as 1959, Gen Giap had
realised the importance of a secure supply line. <br><br>
"My army had gained a lot of experience in fighting, particularly
from the battle of Dien Bien Phu. It was also from this battle that I
knew the army was important, but our logistics were also a key factor
among many," he told us. <br><br>
"At the beginning, we thought that the Americans, with their
strategy of 'active flexible response', would escalate the war and that
the American soldiers would come here. We therefore had to look
long-term. <br><br>
"I knew if we were to win in the south of Vietnam, where there was
already a guerrilla war, we would have to expand our front lines and
fight larger battles. Therefore, in May 1959, I directed the opening of
the Ho Chi Minh trail." <br><br>
Dien Bien Phu remains the victory for which Gen Giap is best known.
During this epic battle, he ordered engineers to build roads for trucks
to carry heavy artillery pieces into the mountains surrounding the valley
of Dien Bien Phu. <br><br>
The French never thought it possible for the Vietminh to position heavy
artillery on the mountainside. The trapped forces eventually surrendered,
a victory put down to the Vietminh's siege tactics, extraordinary
logistical build-up and well protected artillery. The defeat led France
to give up its colonies in Indochina. <br><br>
When the French left, the country was temporarily divided at the 17th
parallel with elections promised in 1956 to unite North and South
Vietnam. The southern government cancelled the elections as it was
generally believed that Ho Chi Minh would win, meaning Vietnam would come
under communist rule. <br><br>
I asked if making Vietnam a communist state had been a higher priority
than nationalism for Ho Chi Minh. <br><br>
Gen Giap said: "In August 1945, while Ho Chi Minh was seriously ill,
he personally told me: 'We have to win independence at any cost, even if
the Truong Son mountains burn.' Our army and our people are determined to
unite Vietnam." <br><br>
After Vietnam was reunified in 1975, rumours spread that Gen Giap had
fallen from grace. Political differences and jealousy might explain this:
with the death of Ho Chi Minh in 1969, others in power cited communism as
the only reason for the war, whereas Gen Giap maintained his nationalist
beliefs. <br><br>
But the Vietnamese public has always held Gen Giap in high esteem and
remembered the Ho Chi Minh trail as crucial in ending foreign rule.
<br><br>
Gen Giap lived through more than 50 years of war against the Japanese,
French, Americans, Cambodians and Chinese. Despite this, he and his wife
still had time to raise five children, all of whom are highly educated,
and they have seven grandchildren. <br><br>
Before leaving the room and declining my offer of help, Gen Giap stood up
and kissed me on both cheeks. Then, looking me in the eye, he said that
his last wish was to live long enough so that he could enjoy the Vietnam
he fought so long to build. <br><br>
Virginia Morris is the author with Clive Hills of A History of the Ho Chi
Minh Trail The Road to Freedom to be published in September 2006 by
Orchid Press.<br><br>
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