What the Vietnamese taught the Africans, By Owei Lakemfa

The world reset in 1945, or so it thought. The Second World War which had taken about ninety million lives, had come to an end. Humanity erupted in joy. To many of the colonised, it was a war for human freedom. But they were mistaken. The European powers that had ignited the war were the same powers that colonised most of humanity. As the world celebrated the end of a bestial war, these same European countries decided to reimpose or extend their colonial rule.

But there was resistance. The most significant in 1945 was by the Vietnamese. The French which had been beaten by both Britain and Germany, and had newly been liberated, decided to reimpose its evil rule on other countries including the Vietnamese which had declared independence. The latter rejected recolonisation, telling the world that the only way out was armed struggle. They were led by two of the most remarkable leaders in the 20th Century; Ho Chi Minh, famously known as Uncle Ho and, General Vo Nguyen Giap.

Uncle Ho had lived in Harlem and come under the influence of the Black Liberation leader, Marcus Garvey. He had decided to liberate colonised Vietnam just as Garvey was trying to liberate the African Americans. He wrote a pamphlet “The Black Race” reflecting Garvey’s influence and tracing the roots of racism in the US to the European enslavement of Africans. He was also aware that most of Africa faced the same challenges as Vietnam. He decided that only the principled struggle of the oppressed will bring freedom.

In announcing the liberation struggle, Uncle Ho declared: “Our resistance will be long and painful, but whatever the sacrifices, however long the struggle, we shall fight to the end, until Vietnam is fully independent and reunified.” In those few words he told the oppressed and the oppressors that the liberation struggle will be long but victory would go to the oppressed.

The Vietnamese were conscious that militarily, the colonised were no match for the super powers like France, Britain and US. They concluded that the only way they can be victorious was through guerrilla warfare. It was a hit-and-run tactics that would make the superiority of the coloniser in terms of weapons like missiles and aerial bombardment, less effective. For instance, they knew that the colonialists had defeated pre-colonial societies including those in Africa by employing weapons like the maxim gun and that those kind of heavy weaponry could only be effective against stationary or concentrated targets, not mobile ones.

The colonialists had also become aware of these tactics, but they did not calculate that the strategies and tactics of the Vietnamese were ever changing. So they saw nothing wrong in amassing their troops in military bases. They did not envisage that the Vietnamese could change tactics and confront then in open battle field. That was what happened in 1954 when the Vietnamese surrounded the French military base in Dien Bien Phu which had 20,000 French soldiers. Only 3,431 of those French soldiers survived. France was so roundly beaten by the Vietnamese, that they not only left Vietnam, but also began granting independence to colonised countries like Morocco and Tunisia in March 1956.

But the US did not learn the lessons of the French defeat. They approached their recolonization war the same way. Again, the Vietnamese adopted the same mobile guerrilla war strategy and tactics. The US thought it was winning the war, only for the Vietnamese in January, 1968 to turn around in over one hundred cities and towns and fight the stunned Americans in what became known as the Tet Offensive. Over the years, the US was roundly beaten and in 1975, Vietnam regained its independence.

In those thirty years war against France and the US, a number of African countries also followed the Vietnamese path and strategies. For the African liberation leaders, studying Uncle Ho, Giap and China’s Mao Tse Tung was compulsory. Giap taught the liberation fighters: “Confuse the enemy. Keep him in the dark on your intentions. Sometimes what seems a victory isn’t really a victory and sometimes a defeat isn’t really a defeat. Whether in attacking, counterattacking, or defensive tactics, the idea of attacking should remain central, to always keep the initiative.”

The Algerians followed the Vietnamese path; rejecting the efforts of France to recolonise and steal their country in a colonial-settler strategy. Although the French massacred about two million Algerians, but they lost the war.

Africans also rose in Kenya, this time against British colonialism and its attempts to steal the country for White resettlement. It was a guerrilla movement which like the Vietnamese, depended a lot on the peasantry. In that resistance called the Mau Mau War which was on for eight years from 1952, the British massacred some 40,000 Africans, but could not sustain its so called victories. On 12 December, 1963 the British had to leave Kenya abandoning their dreams of a White settler-colony.

Many liberation movements learnt from the Vietnamese example as well as those of other countries like Cuba. This over the years, led to the independence of countries like Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa.

Immediately Vietnam defeated the US in 1975, it reached out to several countries for friendship and solidarity. One of such countries was Nigeria with which it officially established diplomatic relations on 25 May, 1976. It means that next Monday, it will be exactly fifty years since those relations were established. Both have been partners in the United Nations, supporting African and Asian causes and being partners in BRICS.

Their two-way trade in 2024 and last year exceeded $1 billion per year.

Nigeria exports to Vietnam have mainly been crude oil, liquefied gas, raw cashew nuts, and various agricultural products while Vietnam, according to Ambassador Bui Quoc Hung, exports to Nigeria, “Textiles, footwear, plastic raw materials (polypropylene), handbags, suitcases, umbrellas, hair, telephones and electric components, agricultural machinery, transport vehicles, and pharmaceuticals.”

Vietnam he says wants to partner with Nigeria in production of rice and other agricultural products which the fertile Nigerian soil can sustain. He also suggested joint ventures: “We can work together to process cashew nuts here in Nigeria in order to export to a nearby market like Europe.”

Analysing the past fifty years of diplomatic relations, Ambassador Sani Bako, chair of the Nigeria-Vietnam Economic Trade and Cultural Association who was also, Nigeria pioneer ambassador to Vietnam said: “What began as political solidarity between two post-colonial states has matured into a partnership delivering results in trade, investment, culture, and people-to-people exchanges.”

Doubtlessly, the world can be reshaped in favour of the underdeveloped countries if countries like Nigeria and Vietnam trade and work together for mutual benefit and solidarity.

Owei Lakemfa, a former secretary general of African workers, is a human rights activist, journalist and author.