A symposium on Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh’s life, revolutionary cause and thoughts was held in Buenos Aires on June 18 with the participation of hundreds of Argentinean scholars, politicians, artists and friends of Vietnam.

Parliamentarian Julia Argentina Perie, President of the Argentina-Vietnam Friendship Parliamentarians Group, expressed her admiration for President Ho Chi Minh, his revolutionary optimism and invaluable thoughts he passed down to younger Vietnamese generations. She read a poem from the late President’s Diary in Prison that was translated into Spanish by Cuban poet Felix Pita Rodriguez.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Argentina Nguyen Van Dao said Vietnamese people always bear in their heart and mind the image of President Ho Chi Minh not only as a national liberation hero but also a close and beloved leader. He confirmed that though the President passed away for more than 40 years ago, Vietnamese people are determined to follow his moral example.

Poldi Sosa Schmidt, President of the Argentina-Vietnam Cultural Exchange Institute, highlighted President Ho Chi Minh’s role as one of the greatest world leaders in the 20th century. She described the President’s moral example as the lodestar for Vietnam ’s revolution for nearly a century.

Fanny Edelman, Honorary President of the Communist Party of Argentina, recalled her two visits to Vietnam in 1973 and 1976, during which she saw with her own eyes the Vietnamese people’s brave struggle for national liberation and their efforts to reconstruct the country after the war. The 99-year-old revolutionary said she still remembered a reception given by late Prime Minister Pham Van Dong who told her stories about President Ho Chi Minh.

Political analyst Atilio Boron praised President Ho for his creative use of Marxist-Leninism in the conditions of Vietnam , helping the country – an oppressed nation – to rise up and wrest back independence and freedom from the most powerful forces.

Historian Alejandro Pandra valued President Ho Chi Minh’s strategic visions, saying the late President had been able to foresee the road Vietnam had to take to achieve freedom and development.

The Vietnamese Embassy screened a documentary on President Ho Chi Minh and exhibited a collection of pictures illustrating the Vietnamese land and people.

Ambassador Dao presented the speakers at the symposium the book “A selection of Ho Chi Minh Works” published in Spanish for the first time./.