Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc attends the get-together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive in Spring 1968. (Photo: VNA)
HCM City (VNA) – A get-together was held in Ho Chi Minh City onJanuary 30 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive inSpring 1968.
The event was attended by Prime Minister Nguyen XuanPhuc, Chairwoman of theNational Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, President of the Vietnam FatherlandFront Central Committee Tran Thanh Man and many former leaders.
Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Nguyen ThienNhan said themeeting aimed to show gratitude for heroes, martyrs, soldiers and families who servedthe country’s revolutionary cause.
They shed their blood for national independence and reminded Vietnamese peopleof their heroic history, he said.
The Tet Offensive began in the early morning of January 31 in 1968 whenliberation forces simultaneously launched attacks on American and SouthernVietnamese bases in cities such as Hue, Da Nang, QuyNhon and SaiGon, andhundreds of towns from Quang Tri to Ca Mau.
The offensive helped destroy huge amounts of facilities and logistics used bythe US and the Southern regime’s armies.The seven-month long campaign endedwith tens of thousands of enemy troops dead, 600 strategic hamlets destroyedand 100 communes liberated with a population of 1.6 million people.
People in ruralareas also took this opportunity to rise up against the US-backed government’sadministration.
Sai Gon-Gia Dinh (now HCM City), the headquarters of the US-backed Southernregime, was a focus of the offensive.
The Tet Offensive 1968 marked a strategic turning point for the resistance waragainst the US and its allies. It caused the US a ‘sudden shock’, disruptingtheir strategic plan, shaking the White House, the Pentagon and all of the USand forced President Johnson to deescalate the war and agree to sign thehistoric Paris Peace Accord. The victory also helped lead to the liberation ofsouthern Vietnam and the unity of the country in 1975.
The 1968 TetOffensive affirmed the outstanding, visionary leadership of the Party andPresident Ho Chi Minh.
It promotedpatriotism, national pride and the will to overcome all difficulties to fulfillthe task of building and protecting the country.-VNA
VNA
