The 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war stirred complex emotions among some of those at the official commemoration at Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Min City, the former Saigon, yesterday. Ngo Si Nguyen, one of four North Vietnamese soldiers on tank No 843 which smashed down the wrought-iron gates of the palace on April 30th, 1975, and had returned to Saigon for the first time, was naturally proud of his role.
"Exactly 25 years ago history gave us the honour of being here on behalf of the millions of soldiers who died in the war to liberate the South and reunite the country," he said, as soldiers carrying rifles goose-stepped past a huge picture of former communist leader Ho Chi Min. They were followed by a women's rifle contingent in the black pyjamas of the Viet Cong guerrillas, and dozens of groups representing Vietnamese society, from Catholic nuns to barmen shaking cocktail mixers. Among the onlookers, author Le Ly Hayslip told me, with tears in her eyes: "I'm here to celebrate 25 years of peace." She has good reason to despise war. Born into a peasant family near Danang, Le Ly was arrested and tortured by the South Vietnamese army when only 15, then raped and sentenced to death by the Viet Cong. She survived to marry an American and emigrate to the United States where she wrote a harrowing account of her suffering called When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, which Oliver Stone made into the film Heaven and Earth in 1993.
Ms Hayslip feels there is something still missing 25 years after the end of the war in which three million Vietnamese died - any expression of regret from the US. "Such a move would mean much to Vietnamese people," said Ms Hayslip, founder of the East Meets West Foundation to care for Vietnamese children. "The US media are always concentrating on how the Americans feel, but we have many scars here," she added, pointing to her heart. Many like her would love to see a visit by President Clinton, who normalised relations in 1995 and has said he would like to accept a standing invitation from Vietnam Prime Minister Phan Van Khai. "He wouldn't have to apologise if he came," said Chuck Searcy, a US veteran working in Vietnam with disabled children, who is part of a loose lobby agitating for a Clinton visit. "He could simply acknowledge America's role in the suffering caused by the war." Another US national watching the parade in hot sunshine, spice trader Mark Barnett, feels such an acknowledgement is long overdue. "More than the effect on Vietnam, the Americans have been focused for years on what the Vietnamese did to them," he said.
Senator John McCain, a former prisoner in North Vietnam, who helped support the normalisation of US-Vietnam ties, has reopened old scars with his stunning remark here that the wrong side won the war, and his harsh words about the treatment of captured US pilots, most of whom survived and were released in 1975. "He's forgetting that thousands of Vietnamese prisoners were summarily executed by US forces," said an American aid worker, pointing out that such acts were well documented by writers like helicopter pilot Robert Mason in his 1983 book Chickenhawk. Many other celebrated chroniclers of the war are back briefly in Saigon. Stanley Karnow, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Vietnam - A History, has been visiting old haunts like the Givral Cafe, where he reminisced over Vietnamese coffee about how Time correspondent Pham Xuan An used to pass on gossip at its tables. When the communist tanks arrived, Mr Pham revealed himself to be an undercover colonel in the North Vietnamese army.
"Times have changed, our two daughters now hang out together," said Mr Karnow, as American rock music blared incongruously from loudspeakers erected in the square outside to mark the anniversary. Some things have not changed from the days when GIs wandered the streets in search of R&R. Prostitutes on motor scooters solicit business and tourists are offered marijuana. The "scourge of drug addiction" was acknowledged by Saigon's mayor Vo Viet Thanh in his commemoration speech celebrating "the triumph of justice over brutality and of humanity over tyranny". He lashed out at "arbitrary and imperious behaviour, wasteful spending, embezzlement, bribes and other social evils", an extraordinarily frank acknowledgement that all is not well in peaceful Vietnam.
Some Saigon residents still resent the communist victory of 1975 and the presence of a few soldiers in metal helmets in the centre yesterday betrayed a nervousness about opposition. One of those terrified at first by the fall of Saigon was Ms Nguyen Thi Tinh, who lived opposite the palace and saw Ngo Si Nguyen and his fellow soldiers ride the tanks through the gates. Now 73, she recalled: "It was the first time I'd seen communists. I thought `it's over, there is no more freedom.' "
Women had been warned the communists would rip out any painted fingernails. Instead of checking her nails, however, the North Vietnamese soldiers knocked at her door and politely asked if she could mend their tattered uniforms.