There may not be many people these days who can remember that day, April 30. April 30, 1975 is the day when the Government of Free Vietnam perished. The 35th anniversary is next year.
Those who were students in high schools or universities during the 1960s and 70s can remember the scenes released by foreign media; North Vietnamese tanks breaking down the gates of the Saigon Presidential Residence, and the Vietcong flag rising. You can still see many “boat people” floating on the ocean and begging foreign countries for asylum in documentaries and movies.
Upon the unification of Vietnam, a system of collective farms and the development of heavy industry were pursued according to the orthodox, Marxist-Leninist socialist economic theory of the time. As a result, around 50,000 people died of starvation and complications arising from malnutrition. It is a similar pattern to that of the Chinese Great Leap Forward, in which somewhere in the region of 30 million people died of starvation.
Although Vietnam is a country where three harvests per year are possible, so many people died of starvation. This was because they believed blindly socialist and Communist economic development theories. Fortunately, Vietnam did not experience the bleeding class struggle of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
In 1986, Hanoi adopted an economic reform strategy called “doi moi,” and embarked on a period of high-speed growth, just like China.
The world has changed from the time when South Vietnam crashed.
In 1971, the U.S. withdrew the 7th Division of the U.S. Army from South Korean soil, and announced further plans to withdraw the entire army in 1976. President Park Jung Hee said in his 1971 New Year’s statement, “The year 1971 will be a decisive year in concluding our national fate,” and then, heroically, “All the countries of the world take part in the inhumane struggle for existence in their own interests.”
Oh Won Cheol, the head of the second economy office of the Blue House at the time, reminisced about the atmosphere of those days, “The New Year’s statement is supposed to be a sort of blessing for the year, but that year’s one was tense.”
The next year, Lee Hu Rak, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in South Korea, and the North Korean Secretary of the Guidance Department of the Workers’ Party Kim Young Ju announced the July 4th Joint Statement in Seoul and Pyongyang simultaneously. Avoiding military conflict was very important at the time. President Park emphasized, “We have to realize unification not through the use of armed force… but in a peaceful way.”
Oh Won Cheol said, “In those days, President Park Jung Hee decided that he had to place one hand on the enemy’s heart in order to catch what that enemy was trying to do. Kim Il Sung probably thought in the same way.” That is to say that President Park was not able to trust the U.S., and Kim Il Sung thought that he could influence South Korea if he could forge a friendly relationship, like Vietnam and China tried to do.
Accordingly, President Park announced the Constitution for Revitalizing Reform in October and Kim Il Sung introduced the strong leadership system, the national head system. They had judged that they had to seek their own ways to survive because the U.S. or China could not or would not guarantee their security.
On April 30, 1975 when the Government of Free Vietnam perished, Park Jung Hee was taking part in a grand meeting for export promotion, based on his correct judgment, “first construction, and later unification.”
The most important lesson to take from this history is that the party most concerned about the North Korean issue is first and foremost ourselves, so we have to prepare ourselves completely before receiving help from Japan, China and Russia, based on our alliance with the U.S.
Any guess that the U.S. knows the best way to solve the North issue is simply misguided. The U.S. has never known well about the essence of North Korean problems because it does not understand the roots of 60 years of lasting problems well enough. Only seeing the symptoms and phenomena of the North Korean problems cannot solve them. It is impossible to solve them without seeing through to the foundation and essence of the Kim Jong Il regime.
The theory of President Park is still applicable, although the current situation and problems are more complicated and deeper than before. Anyhow, the party which knows the North completely is still the South. The South Korean authorities have to strengthen governmental and civic powers together, watch carefully for possible North Korean provocations and concentrate its efforts on collecting the people’s diverse opinions on North Korean issues.
