Dear comrades and friends,

First of all, I would like to thank the Vietnamese Union of Friendship Organizations, the Vietnamese Foundation for Peace and Development and the Vietnamese Solidarity Committee to the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America for the invitation that allowed us to take part in such a prominent event of friendship with the Vietnamese people when the 60th anniversary of the Independence Proclamation and the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam are celebrated.

In the name of Cebrapaz – the Brazilian Center of Solidarity to the Peoples and Struggle for Peace, we manifest our joy in visiting this country of rich revolutionary traditions, a country that paid an immense charge for the cause of liberty, independence and social progress, offering a priceless contribution to the defense of humankind. We pay homage to its heroes and martyrs, to its historic leaders, to those who had the audacity and lucidity to organize the freeing struggles and led the people to victories, especially the figure of Ho Chi Minh. We offer the solidarity of the Brazilian people and wish for new and greater victories in the path taken by the Vietnamese people to build a sovereign and prosperous country.

We belong to a generation of social and political militants forged in Brazil and Latin America inside movements of solidarity to the Vietnamese people during the United States’ aggression. Many of us had our “fire baptism” in demonstrations of protest against the atrocities perpetrated by US troops and air force. Our presence in this event is, therefore, the renewal of an old commitment and the continuity of an action based on the conviction that the strength to face a common enemy and further the struggle for the ideals of national and social liberation of all progressive humankind lies in the unity, friendship and solidarity among peoples.

In our country, we are perfectly aware of the deep meaning given by the Vietnamese to the historic gesture of president Ho Chi Minh when, in the name of the provisory government, he read the Proclamation of Independence and declared the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. That was the outcome of a historic fight, the triumph of sovereignty and national independence over colonialism. The 20th century was marked by two world wars, many popular revolutions, national liberation struggles and the building of socialism. One of the most relevant historic outcomes of the heroic achievements of the peoples was precisely the defeat of colonialism, the enforcement of national power and the identity of peoples previously viewed as inferior before the colonial force of great powers.

The demolishing blow against colonialism would be inflicted upon colonialist forces years later in the historic victory of Dien Bien Phu, in May 1954, leaving indelible marks in the liberation process of Indochina and implying important changes in Asian geopolitics.

However, the old French colonialism was substituted by the US imperialism’s neocolonialism. That new power violated the Geneva agreements of July 21, 1954, by means of a strike that interrupted the Vietnamese process of reunification.

This Meeting of Solidarity, Friendship and Cooperation with Vietnam takes an even greater meaning since it also coincides with the celebrations in the current year of the 30th anniversary of expelling the US attacking army, of the liberation of South Vietnam, what opened the way to a complete and definite reunification of the Homeland and to entering a new stage of Popular Power consolidation and the building of a socialist society.

With the aggression against Vietnam, the United States of America – which always posed as a defender of democracy and human rights in different historical moments, making up political and moral pretexts to justify military interventions and occupations – wrote the most dishonorable page of its history, for it committed unnamable crimes against humankind in Vietnam, thus revealing its nature as an imperialist country. To that peaceful and heroic Asian country, the United States mobilized 540 thousand troops and 72 thousand troops of puppet countries allied to South Vietnam. Its aircrafts shelled megatons of bombs on Vietnam, sowing mass destruction. More than 3 million Vietnamese paid with their lives for the US aggression. A genocide.

Orange agent caused a catastrophe that affects more than two million people even today. It is a matter of one of the most abominable consequences of a war of aggression, for which the United States must be accounted.

The US imperialism used different strategies to dominate the Vietnamese people. It supported puppet regimes in the South that were distinguished as executioners of their own people, it begun the so-called “special war”, consisting on providing military specialists and equipments to reinforce the regular army of the puppet regime in the South and unleashing the “local war” with the massive US troops and air force mobilization. It was defeated in all fronts, all stages, and all strategies. Forced to seat at the negotiation table, the imperialists suffered successive diplomatic defeats. Throughout the world, the movement against the war and of solidarity towards the Vietnamese people spread and deepened. In the United States, the pacifist movement isolated the belligerent governments. In the Vietnamese internal front, the historic Ho Chi Minh operation was successful with the liberation of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

The Vietnamese liberation, with the expelling of US attacking troops, was one of the greatest events in modern history. Humankind will be eternally grateful to the Vietnamese people for its priceless contribution to the cause of democracy, national independence, peace and social progress, when it defeated a super-power apparently endowed with an infinite superiority and invincibility. Its superiority was based on weapons, destruction artifacts, regular troops and technical means. But bearing the ragged banner of imperialist domination, of the imposition of its values and its expansionist strategic interests, the United States was intrinsically feebler. That is the reason why it was defeated.

Humankind will always be grateful to the Vietnamese people, for its heroism in the battlefield, its lucidity and awareness in its political direction showed that imperialism is not invincible.

The Vietnamese wrote a glorious page of their own history and the history of the peoples by demonstrating that a people in disadvantageous material conditions, with less weapons and regular troops, can defeat a more powerful aggressor, as long as it is endowed with deep convictions and moral superiority, as long as it defends a fair cause. By writing that glorious page, the Vietnamese people teach a valuable lesson and stimulate confidence and hope to all peoples.

Such teachings become even more relevant nowadays, when humankind faces more severe threats to its safety and world peace. The US imperialism carries out a strategy of world domination that consists in imposing its power by means of occupying countries, the so-called “preventive” and “pro-active” wars, militarization, violation of international law, intimidation of countries and peoples, and the use of unilateralism and state terrorism as methods to exert its hegemony.

As members of Cebrapaz, which takes part in a broad democratic and progressive movement in Brazil and Latin America and fights the struggle for peace and international solidarity on a daily basis, we are convinced that the US imperialism represents the greatest and most serious threat to international peace and the safety of peoples and that the survival of humankind depends on the struggle against that voracious and aggressive super-power. We are convinced of the importance of solidarity and international cooperation among sovereign peoples and nations; and also that the struggle for peace stands out as the great task of political and social movements. Not the peace of immobility, not the peace of the surrendered, not the peace of those who adapt to an unfair social and political order, but the peace of rebels and those who fight for a world order that is the apanage of democracy, national independence and social progress.

The great victory of the Vietnamese people in September 1945 and April 1975 will be an inextinguishable source of inspiration to us. It is refreshing to the peoples to notice the progresses in building socialism in the current stage of development in the country, the successes in economic growth, in fighting poverty and promoting social progress. We sincerely wish that the Vietnamese people continue achieving victories and fulfill all its objectives.

Thank you very much.
 

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