Vietnam: Finding peace in Ho Chi Minh City

A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Ho Chi Minh City, Cambodia

"If you want peace, be ready for war" is a popular adage in international relations and war studies.

If you visit Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, and see the remnants of the Vietnam War in the legendary Cu Chi tunnel and the war museum, you will really know what it is to love peace and hate war.

The importance of humanity and humane values was probably felt by the group of Indonesian journalists and travel industry employees invited by state-owned airline Garuda Indonesia to visit the city recently, as they were given the chance to "observe" the war in the city's two main tourist destinations.

It was a war that killed millions of people, among them many women and children, in a terrible tussle between Vietnamese and Americans and their allies, lasting from the 1960s to 1975, with the fall of Saigon. They were years of humiliation for the ideals of peace and civilization.

Like some countries in the world affected by the Cold War, Vietnam was divided into the communist north and nationalist south. The increasing power of North Vietnam struck fear into South Vietnam which was backed by its former colonial ruler France.

When the war erupted, the French invited the United States and its allies, such as Australia, Thailand and the Philippines, to help defend the south.

One of the famous settings of the war was Cu Chi district, some 40 kilometers north of central Ho Chi Minh City. The border district belonged to North Vietnam and became a defense site of North Vietnamese guerrillas, known as Viet Cong (VC).

The district is famous for its amazing 250-kilometer-long network of tunnels, which served as hiding places and to launch surprise attacks by the VCs. The tunnels were used for communication and coordination among the guerrillas before attacking Americans and allied troops.

The Americans tried using dogs to trace guerrillas hiding in the tunnels, but the VC littered the area with pepper to put them off their scent.

A rain of bombs, gas and chemicals were used in the attempt to destroy the VC's resistance, but all failed to curb the attacks. The district was once dubbed the worst-hit area in the history of war.

Nowadays, however, you have to look hard to find remnants of the war since forest now covers the area.

To enter the former war zone, a tourist must pay 60,000 Vietnam dong (US$2).

Tourist guide Nguyen Do Anh, who accompanied the Indonesian delegation, fluently explained the history of the war and the construction of the three-story tunnels while a black-and-white film about the war played on a television in the hall.

Accompanied by an officer, the guide showed the visitors the tunnels and traps hidden under dried bushes and leaves.

The tiny holes in the tunnels are only sufficient for the slimmest of people to enter, and while most Vietnamese are of slight build, the bulkier American troops could not follow their trail.

Underground, we could see many wider rooms used as health check and surgery rooms, a meeting room, kitchens and sleeping quarters.

The visit ended after about an hour and our group was then taken to visit the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh.

Adorning the museum's four rooms are photos, mostly in black and white, spanning the duration of the war, taken by photojournalists from various news wire services.

Sadness is the feeling people get when they view the famous Pulitzer prize-winning picture of children fleeing a napalm attack on their village, the one girl in the group naked and burned -- and crying out for help.

In the center of the museum, U.S. bomb cases, armored vehicles, tanks and a war plane were displayed. They showed the widespread use of bombs during the war on a poor, mainly agricultural land.

According to the museum's booklet, about 7.8 millions tons of all kinds of bombs were dropped during the war and 75 million liters of defoliants were sprayed in farmland in the villages of South Vietnam. Compare this to World War Two, when the U.S. dropped about two millions tons of bombs on various battlefields.

The museum, currently under renovation, was formerly the War Crimes Museum, but its name was changed to avoid offending American tourists.

Today, the museum is a popular tourist destination among Americans and European tourists, especially the French.

Peace and love could be sensed in the museum and in the city, with visitors coming from all over the world.

The message of peace and love is also the one as visitors enter the last room in the museum which displays colorful drawings of Vietnamese children. The pictures of pigeons, children shaking hands and antiwar and love/peace slogans are the parting images for the visitors.

Like tour guide Nguyen said: "We are here not teaching people to hate other people, or certain nations. We just show how bad war is, and how worthy it is to have, keep and maintain peace."