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| U.S. soldiers searching for Viet Cong (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Mong Palatino
1975 means more to the region than just the end of the Vietnam War.
This year, we commemorate the 40th anniversary of the end of Vietnam War, a two-decade conflict that pitted a poor and divided Asian nation against the rich and powerful United States. Understandably, it was a politically significant moment in world history.
But there were other equally memorable events that took place in Southeast Asia in 1975. Aside from the end of war in Vietnam, elsewhere in the region, the year also marked the start of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the escalation of Muslim rebellion in the southern parts of Thailand and the Philippines.
When the army from the communist North Vietnam arrived in Saigon on April 30, 1975, the war had already been raging on for two decades. The war killed at least three million Vietnamese and more than 50,000 Americans. While Vietnam may have ‘won’ the war, it was a devastated country in 1975. Its rural and urban centers were in ruins and its economy was devastated.
If Vietnam succeeded in expelling American troops, it failed to remove the bombs left behind by the invading army. Over the past 40 years, more than 100,000 Vietnamese have been killed or injured by these bombs and land mines. Another grim legacy of the war is the poisonous impact of Agent Orange, which the Americans used against the Vietnamese Army. The chemical warfare not only destroyed Vietnam’s agriculture but also affected residents who were exposed to it. About three million people, including 150,000 children, suffered from defects caused by Agent Orange.
Though the Americans may have left in 1975, for millions of Vietnamese their suffering did not end that year.
Read the full story at The Diplomat