Vietnam: ‘Let bygones be bygones’

On 27 January 1973, the conflict in Vietnam was brought to an end with the formal signing in Paris of the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring the Peace in Vietnam by four parties: the United States of America, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV, North Vietnam or Communist Vietnam), the Republic of Vietnam (RVN, South Vietnam or the Saigon regime) and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG or Viet Cong). 

Under the Paris Peace Agreement, there was a cessation of hostilities throughout Vietnam and the withdrawal of all American military forces over a 60-day period.

Five decades later, there are two articles in the Paris Peace Agreement that seem worthy of note with respect to reconciliation. 

Article 8(a) required the parties to the agreement to release simultaneously all military and civilian prisoners of war over a 60-day period and Article 8 (b) required the parties to share information about military personnel and foreign civilians missing in action, to determine their location and take care of graves so as to “facilitate the exhumation and repatriation of the remains.”

Moreover, Article 21 expressed an American view that the agreement would usher in an “era of reconciliation” with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and “all the peoples of Indochina.” The US futher committed to “healing the wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction.”

Five days after the Paris Peace Agreement was signed, President Richard Nixon sent a letter to DRV Prime Minister Pham Van Dong pledging that under Article 21the US would, first, contribute to postwar reconstruction in North Vietnam without any political conditions and, second, spend in the range of 3.25 billion US dollars in grant aid for reconstruction over five years. Additional aid for food and other commodity needs of Vietnam were expected to reach 1 to 1.5 billion US dollars. 

The Vietnamese parties to the Paris Peace Agreement agreed to a process of “national reconciliation and concord” leading to self-determination and reunification.

The hopes for restoring peace were short-lived. Armed clashes resumed among the Vietnamese parties as they contested control on the ground in South Vietnam. As a result of the breakdown of the Paris Peace Agreements, the US declared that it was no longer bound by its obligations. 

Eventually, communist leaders in North Vietnam decided to launch the Ho Chi Minh Campaign to reunify the country. It began with an assault on the city of Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands in March 1975. In the space of just 55 days, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) disintegrated, having retreated from the Central Highlands.

On 30 April, Vietnam People’s Army tanks smashed their way into the grounds of the Independence Palace in Saigon and accepted the unconditional surrender of the RVN.

The Best of Times

The liberation of Saigon represented the best of times for the DRV, PRG and their supporters. The American War was now at an end, peace was restored, and Vietnam was reunified for the first time since 1858 when France captured the city of Da Nang and imposed colonial rule on Vietnam. The Vietnam People’s Army was given responsibility for repairing war-time devastation and developing the country.

The Worst of Times

The fall of Saigon represented the worst of times for the RVN and the ARVN and their supporters as well as South Vietnamese who were allied with neither side. The collapse of the RVN led to hurried evacuation flights and a steady flow of so-called boat people, who sought asylum abroad. Vietnamese who were temporarily living abroad, such as students, were stranded. For those members of the RVN and ARVN who were left behind, it meant imprisonment in harsh re-education camps for many years.

The end of the Vietnam War was also the worst of times for US war veterans. They lost over 58,200 brothers-in-arms and returned to a bitterly polarized America where their service and sacrifice was not always appreciated. The American military was torn by recriminations about the justice of the war and the strategy by which it was fought. 

Peace Was Not Restored Until 1991

Immediately after the reunification of Vietnam another conflict broke out when Khmer Rouge forces in neighbouring Cambodia began attacking Vietnamese islands and villages adjacent to the border. Vietnamese military forces intervened in late 1978. China, an ally of the Khmer Rouge, invaded northern Vietnam in February-March 1979. Vietnam eventually withdrew its military from Cambodia in September 1989. Peace in Cambodia was restored in 1991, thus opening opportunities for Australia and the US to reconcile with the now titled Socialist Republic of Vietnam. 

Reconciliation

The United States and Australia represent contrasting cases of post-war reconciliation with Vietnam.

The US took 20 years after the fall of Saigon to normalise relations. Two main factors account for this delay. First, the issue of Vietnam’s accounting for US servicemen Missing-in-Action was a tendentious one domestically with lobby groups in America accusing the Hanoi government of dishonesty. Second, the US continued to maintain its wartime embargo against reunified Vietnam considering any aid as war reparations.

Eventually the US and Vietnam agreed to treat the MIA issue as a humanitarian one. In April this year, Vietnam handed over the remains of four American MIAs marking the 158th joint search and 169th repatriation ceremony. Vietnam returned the remains of over 1,000 MIAs over the past five decades. The US also took responsibility for addressing war legacy issues by assisting with the disposal of unexploded ordnance and remediating dioxin poisoning hot spots used in the Agent Orange defoliant at Da Nang Air Base. In September 2023, Vietnam and the US raised bilateral relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership, the highest level.

Unfortunately, the Trump Administration’s hasty evisceration of the US Agency for International Development led to an abrupt cut in funding for demining, unexploded ordnance disposal, and dioxin remediation at Bien Hoa Air Base, the last hot spot in Vietnam. Recent reports suggest that funding has been restored for this financial year. Yet there are doubts about the Trump administration's commitment.  The New York Times reported that the Trump Administration, at least initially, directed American diplomats not to attend 30 April reunification ceremonies in Vietnam without explanation.

An Australian Legacy

When the US adopted the policy of Vietnamization by turning the conduct of the war over to ARVN and gradually withdrew its military forces, Australia followed suit. In December 1972, the newly elected Labor Government of Gough Whitlam withdrew the last Australian military advisers from Vietnam. And in February 1973, after the Paris Peace Agreement, Australia formally recognized the DRV.

The Australian Army never went through the soul searching and recriminations of its American counterpart. Australian battalions, including conscripts, went over and returned as a unit. Australian officers felt they had acquitted themselves professionally. They celebrate the Battle of Long Tan as a major victory against North Vietnamese regulars. The only blemish was the laying of a minefield across Phuoc Tuy province in the mistaken belief that the enemy could be separated from the population.

Australia-Vietnam relations blossomed after the Cambodian peace settlement was reached in 1991. Defence relations were first established in 1998. Bilateral relations were raised to a comprehensive partnership in 2009, strategic partnership in 2019, and a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2024.

Remarkably, over 4,000 Vietnamese military officers have graduated from Australian training courses in Australia and Vietnam. Australia and Vietnam recently formed a Peacekeeping Partnership, involving Royal Australian Air Force support for the deployment of Vietnam People’s Army personnel to UN peacekeeping missions in South Sudan.

What is truly remarkable about the past 50 years is Vietnam’s forbearance from letting the wartime animosities cloud reconciliation with Australia and the United States. A common expression used by the ordinary Vietnamese, echoing government policy, was “let bygones be bygones.”

Carlyle Thayer is an American by birth, the son of a West Point graduate and career Army officer, and Australian by naturalisation. He is a Vietnam specialist who served in South Vietnam with the International Voluntary Services from 1967-68. He joined the University of New South Wales in 1979 and has spent his entire career in professional military education at The Royal Military College-Duntroon (1979-85), Australian Defence Force Academy (1985-2010), with secondments to the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, US Pacific Command (1999-2001); Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies, Australian Defence College (2002-04); and Australian Command and Staff College (2006-07 and 2010). He is Emeritus Professor, UNSW Canberra.