The celebration yesterday by the Vietnamese, of their victory over the French army seventy years ago, illustrates the truism that “size isn’t everything”. It holds in many areas of life – apart for bedrooms – and especially to warfare!! The French had been ruling “Indo-China” since the 1800s, and were very affronted that the Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh would dare challenge a European POWER!! Apart from showing ingratitude for France’s “Mission civilsatrice” – Civilizing Mission – to bring them into the pale of humanity, it showed a lack of respect for the superior FORCE that was always there, in case learning to eat with knife and fork didn’t awe then into submission!!
So, getting impatient with the hit-and-run guerrilla tactics of the Viet Congs, France dropped 7,000 paratroopers into the stronghold of Dien Bien Phu, and dared Ho Chi Minh to dislodge them in a pitched battle!! Ho took on the challenge and sent in General Vo Nguyen Giap as commander in chief of the Dien Bien Phu campaign, that lasted a brutal 56 days, from March 13 to May 7, 1954. The Viet Cong victory resounded throughout the world as a signal that the Age of (European) Empire was over!! Ironically, here, in Guyana, arch-Imperialist Churchill had just ousted the PPP Government after its 133 days in office!
Twenty-one years later, the South Vietnam regime — which had become the Western surrogate after concluding the peace talks – fell ignominiously two years after the US, the new power on the block, filling the French shoes, had departed in defeat!! They talk about “Jack the giant killer”, but, in world affairs, it should be “Vietnam the giant killer”!!
But interestingly, Vietnam wasn’t the first defeat France had suffered by a colonized people; the first was in 1803, when Napoleon Bonaparte’s army was defeated, having lost more soldiers (his brother-in-law among them) on Saint-Domingue than he would lose twelve years later at Waterloo. The next year, the revolutionaries established a new, independent, and free nation: Haiti, the world’s first Black republic.
Vietnam’s victories against vastly superior military powers should be an object lesson to the Jeremiahs preaching we must roll over and play dead in the face of Venezuela’s “superior” armed forces. Size ain’t everything – it’s how you use what you got!! The US army had superior conventional weapons, but they were ineffective against a country which employed guerrilla tactics and used the dense jungle as cover. Nowadays they talk about “asymmetric warfare” – but heck, it’s up to the weaker power to make war asymmetric!!
We gotta practise Vietnam’s ‘bamboo diplomacy’ — be firm and unyielding on basic principles, but flexible in the ways and means to achieve its strategic objectives!! Let us retool our Disciplined Forces to strategically outflank Mad Maduro’s forces!!
…Fifth Columnists
We gotta always be on guard against Mad Maduro’s all-out war against us to steal our Essequibo. He’s been very aggressive on the diplomatic front in courting – in the big leagues of China, Russia and Iran on the theory that “the enemy of your enemy is your friend”. In the little leagues, he’s been just as avidly courting the Lilliputian Caribbean states that are members of his ALBA with oily bribes.
Just two weeks ago, St Vincent (with Ralph Gonsalves) Dominica, Antigua, St Lucia, Grenada and St Kitts were all there at Miraflores Palace in Venezuela approving a Declaration that included Venezuela’s Essequibo claim.
“We reaffirm our firm support for permanent dialogue between Venezuela and Guyana to reach a satisfactory solution between the parties, as established by the Argyle Joint Declaration of 2023, that any controversy between both States can be resolved within the framework of International Law, including the Geneva Agreement of 1966, and the maintenance of the region as a Peace Zone”!
No ICJ?
…family’s businesses
The contradictions in PNC surrogates’ call – backed by Leader Norton – to shut down Guyanese-owned businesses in Brooklyn for simply showing courtesy to Pressie, are tearing the party apart!!
Freedom of association’s protected in the US as in Guyana!!
