Mastodawn

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

#Revolutionaries behind the 1908 Hanoi Poison Plot detained at the Hoa Lo Prison by the French colonists in 1941.

13 of them had their heads chopped off instantly and displayed in public. The French later used the photo for an #Indochina #propaganda postcard.

Whilst the second world war was raging across the world, in Vietnam the #VietMinh #Liberation Movement, led by famed revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, was taking birth. #HoChiMinh had one dream. An independent Vietnam free of foreign rule.

The first year after the war had Japan, and then Britain keen to get their hands on Vietnam. But they were soon replaced by Vietnam’s old colonial rulers: the French.

For nine long years, thereafter, from 1946 to 1954 the First Indochina War ripped across the country. Spilling blood, lives, and peace. On one side were the French. More adamant to stay. More aggressive in their rule. They were helped by the US who provided advisers, funding, and weapons from behind the scenes.
Anti-communist Vietnamese loyalists aided the French rulers’ legitimacy. On the other side was Ho Chi Minh and his revolutionaries.

Things eventually came to a head in 1954 with the Geneva Conference and creation of the 17th Parallel, a Demilitarized Zone [DMZ] on 17 degrees latitude north.

#AsianMastodon #Vietnam #VietnameseSovereignty #VietnamRevolutionaries #LongLiveVietnam #WarSurvivorsForPeace #VietnamHistory #ForeignInvaders #VietnamRevolution #geopolitics #WWII #GlobalSouth #SouthEastAsia #ASEAN #WorldHistory #LearnHistory #Courage #ResistanceFighters #historicalPhotos

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

The #UN failed our peoples in Vietnam - just like they've failed everywhere else because the UN protects capitalist imperial interests over #sovereignty of nations & it's never really had much enforcement teeth.

One of the outcomes of the DMZ was Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime in South Vietnam. Prime Minister of South Vietnam when the DMZ was drawn, in 1955 he proclaimed the country Republic of Vietnam and made himself its President. All with the help of the USA.

The latter’s intelligence had revealed 80 percent of Vietnamese were in favour of Ho Chi Minh. Which translated to a communist regime should General Elections take place. Pro-US, autocratic, Catholic, and anti-Buddhist, Diem ensured the UN-mandated elections never happened.

He also liked the good life. His Independence Palace in #Saigon came with a night-club and private helipad on the top floor, and bunkers deep in the bowels of the earth under the building.

Meanwhile, a stratum of Vietnamese society who were unhappy with Diem’s rule, and were pro-Ho Chi Minh, decided to go underground in 1961. Literally. Known as the #NationalLiberationFront, the guerilla force functioned from subterranean tunnels and jungle cover. They were determined to overthrow South Vietnam’s Diem government and unify Vietnam under #communism. The US called them #VietCong.

#AsianMastodon #Vietnam #GenevaAccords #VietnameseSovereignty #VietnamRevolutionaries #LongLiveVietnam #WarSurvivorsForPeace #VietnamHistory #ForeignInvaders #VietnamRevolution #geopolitics #WWII #GlobalSouth #SouthEastAsia #ASEAN #WorldHistory #LearnHistory #Courage #ResistanceFighters #Guerillas #VietnamLiberation #USpol

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

Xa Loi Pagoda in #Saigon was a hub of opposition to the Diem #USPuppet government. In 1963, Diem had his domestic terrorists attack the monastery. They arrested 1,400 monks, nuns & patriarch.

In 1963, faced with a coup, Diem tried to escape from the tunnels under one of his houses [now the Ho Chi Minh City Museum] to the perceived safety of Cha Tam Church in Cholon. Here he was captured and assassinated.

The #coup was staged by the #USA, the same USA who had brought him to power.

#AsianMastodon #Vietnam #GenevaAccords #VietnameseSovereignty #VietnamRevolutionaries #LongLiveVietnam #WarSurvivorsForPeace #VietnamHistory #ForeignInvaders #VietnamRevolution #geopolitics #WWII #GlobalSouth #SouthEastAsia #ASEAN #WorldHistory #LearnHistory #Courage #ResistanceFighters #Guerillas #VietnamLiberation #BuddhistCrackdown #Buddhists

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

#USInvaders were guided by the #DominoTheory - if Vietnam fell to communism, so would Laos, Cambodia & all of southeast Asia. The Gulf of #Tonkin changed things a lot.

According to the USA, Vietnamese patrol boats attacked the USS Maddox moored in the Gulf. Immediately, a resolution was passed to officially engage in war. President LB Johnson, the ‘heart of the war,’ sent 500,000 US troops to South Vietnam in 1965 to fight against North Vietnam in the north and the Viet Cong in the south. He called it Operation Rolling Thunder. The campaign would rain 864,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnam over the next three-and-a-half years, killing 52,000 North Vietnamese.

In the 2003 #documentary - #TheFogOfWar - the #USgovernment admitted that they had fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

#AsianMastodon #Vietnam #VietnameseSovereignty #VietnamRevolutionaries #LongLiveVietnam #WarSurvivorsForPeace #VietnamHistory #ForeignInvaders #VietnamRevolution #geopolitics #WWII #GlobalSouth #SouthEastAsia #ASEAN #WorldHistory #LearnHistory #Courage #ResistanceFighters #USpol #USTerrorism #USALies #NeverTrustUSA #Communism

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

My big Auntie lived/worked in the tunnels for years, after quitting her nursing job & leaving our family for a decade. She worked mainly in the resistance army comms & also on their medical team. She was part of the organizational team that planned the #TetOffensive

North Vietnam & Viet Cong’s Tet Offensive in 1968 took South Vietnamese & #USATerrorists by surprise. Launched on Vietnam’s lunar new year holiday, it was one of the biggest military campaigns in the war.

Cu Chi Tunnels near Saigon was integral. The 121-kilometre-long network of subterranean tunnels, a larger network that cut across most of Vietnam, were Viet Cong’s lifeline.

Hidden under camouflaged booby traps, the tunnels provided our resistance fighters with supply/comms routes, living quarters & storage for food/weapons. Air and water were scarce, insects, scorpions, and rodents aplenty, it didn't deter them.

#AsianMastodon #Vietnam #VietnameseSovereignty #VietnamRevolutionaries #LongLiveVietnam #WarSurvivorsForPeace #VietnamHistory #ForeignInvaders #VietnamRevolution #geopolitics #WWII #GlobalSouth #SouthEastAsia #ASEAN #WorldHistory #LearnHistory #Courage #ResistanceFighters #USpol #USTerrorism

mintiefresh 🇨🇦🇻🇳Mar 8

@PhoenixSerenity wow. Thank you for sharing about your auntie. My father was only a high school student and was in Sài Gòn at the time. He was out celebrating when the Tet offensive began. He said he heard some gunfire and then quickly went home and didn't really witness anything else other than that.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

@mintiefresh My Dad, Mom & big Auntie shared a lot about their experiences with me. Dad was a university grad student activist organizer. He was beaten & arrested multiple times by USpuppet domestic terrorists for protesting & organizing direct actions. He was freed from jail by Viet Cong resistance in 1971.

I am definitely my Father's daughter. The revolutionary genes are strong in my family.

mintiefresh 🇨🇦🇻🇳Mar 8

@PhoenixSerenity Those must be some amazing stories. I have great respect for them. They are heroes.

I guess my dad was on the "other side." He was conscripted into the war for the South Vietnamese side. Later he was put through re-education camp after the war and fled shortly after and ended up in Canada. Which is where I was born.

While me and him have had our differences, we can both agree that the US should have never entered Vietnam.

And they should stop doing this kind of thing.

@mintiefresh I've forgiven most Viet folks who were on "the other side". Some of them have long repented.

mintiefresh 🇨🇦🇻🇳Mar 8

@PhoenixSerenity That is good to hear. I think it's important.

My father only served 1 year since it was near the end of the war. So he actually is pretty open minded compared to his peers.

He grew up in central Vietnam where the fighting began. And he there was a river that divided his village essentially. And on the south side it said "Fight for freedom & democracy".

And the north side said "Nam Bắc Một Nhà." North South One House. And he always felt that was a much more powerful message.

mintiefresh 🇨🇦🇻🇳Mar 8

@PhoenixSerenity My dad's father was a general for the South. But his brothers... So my grand uncles all served in the north.

So I guess my family roots have a foot in both sides.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

@mintiefresh My grand-Uncle was born in Hanoi. He was in the North fighting for 9 years. He was one of the last to emerge from hiding out in the wilds because he didn't know when the war actually ended.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

@mintiefresh Mom just reminded me that my Uncle Kieng had refused conscription & was put in prison for awhile (she doesn't remember for how long). She remembers supporting his wife/my Aunt & their kids/my cousins while he was imprisoned.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

@mintiefresh
I don't really hold much ire towards folks who have seen through fog of war. Even the brightest person can be fooled at times.

I know that several Viets who were conscripted actually left their ranks in midst of war & joined Viet Cong.

mintiefresh 🇨🇦🇻🇳Mar 8

@PhoenixSerenity Yeah. In the end, we are all victims of the same colonial power and there is so much pain on both sides.

So it's very frustrating to see what the US is doing today. It will take 50-100 years to undo any of it. Those scars are deep.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

@mintiefresh I'm grateful that in 2026 - most US citizens have woken up & aren't easily buying into their government’s lies. It's something.

mintiefresh 🇨🇦🇻🇳Mar 8

@PhoenixSerenity

In case anyone forgot what the US did to us in our old neighbourhood. Sigh.

Ms. Que Banh Mar 8

@mintiefresh Please add this AltText (below) & I'll boost your post after you edit ✌️

Map of Southeast Asia showing the distribution of ordnance and bomb types in Vietnam, Laos, & Cambodia, with dots representing bomb strikes. Coloured according to the type: 500 LB Gen Purp Bomb MK-82 Low Drag, 750 LB General Purpose Bomb, 1000 LB GPB M-65 A-1 & M129 Bomb. The map is overlaid on a political map of the region & includes legend, scale, compass rose and data sources.

mintiefresh 🇨🇦🇻🇳Mar 8

@PhoenixSerenity Thank you. I've added it. 👍

🔶Mark Nicoll 3.5%🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇳Mar 9

@mintiefresh @[email protected]
Why do I get the feeling those triangles over the sea are patches of more acurate data, not more intensive bombing!