Today marks 30 years since the communists took control of South Vietnam. 2 million refugees risked their lives across the oceans, with countless dieing in the process. 30 years on and Vietnam now ranks as one of the poorest and most corrupt 3rd world countries, lacking in any human rights, and all forms of freedom.

I am one of those refugee who fled Vietnam in the years after the war ended, seeing Vietnam like it is today under a communist regime makes my heart sink. Vietnam has not progresses as a nation when compared to Japan or Singapore, and considering that Vietnam before the war was on par with these developing countries.

I don’t believe the Vietnam war was a civil war as communist propaganda would have you believe. I know the Americans (Ford, Nixon, Johnson and Kissenger) betrayed South Vietnam. From reading this book, The Palace Files

I believe in freedom and democracy for Vietnam.

Sorry for the mini rant, I’ve got a lot on my mind about this whole Vietnam War thing.

There were about 15,000 people at the rally today in Hyde Park.

All Points of the Compass ABC Sunday May 1 - 7.30pm

Thirty years after the fall of Saigon, All Points Of The Compass reveals the fascinating story of how the war looked from the inside for one South Vietnamese family - South Vietnam’s last foreign minister, Charles Tran Van Lam.

Charles Tran Van Lam’s love for democracy and the west would turn into a poisonous cocktail that would shatter his life. Thirty years later, this program is the story of his children, crossed by fate and flung to all points of the compass.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 30th, 2005 at 2:03 am and is filed under Happenings.