r/southVietnam

So far really enjoying it. The main character is actually an ARVN officer. The fighting and plot starts in 1974 so very focused on the state of things when America was not involved. It is very interesting and tragic to read about how the Republics military and institutions could have evolved if the communists 75 offensive was defeated in the same way their 72 one was.

CONTEXT:

For those who don't know, on March 30th 2025, Nguyen Sy Cuong, a Vietnamese goverment official hit an 18 years old student and her father at this exact location. He then ran away on a motorcycles. Her leg were cut off and her father was serverly injured. She cried all the way to the hospital and died soon afterward. However, Nguyen Sy Cuong hasn't been convicted or even arrested yet.

However, people on Threads managed to dig this back up recently and they places flowers here as a sign of respect. But the police clean it all up.

(Sorry for bad English)

Còn bao nhiêu vụ khác xưa giờ chúng giết dân mà gia đình quá sợ hãi không dám tố cáo, lên tiếng⁉️

[On 2 September 1945, Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of Vietnam, the second such declaration that year, counting the one issued by Bao Dai back in March.]

The references to the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen were a strategic maneuver intended to win over or otherwise placate the Allies, including OSS representatives present for the occasion. Ho insisted on them to keep his ties to global communism under wraps, as well as to suggest that Vietnam intended to maintain close connections to the United States, France, and other Western countries after independence. In fact, he had no intention of doing so. The Soviet Union and its allies would be his and the DRVN’s friends moving forward, not the capitalist Westerners who had made life miserable for the Vietnamese for so long. In formulating Vietnam’s second Declaration of Independence as he did, Ho was merely pandering to policymakers and public opinion in France and the United States with a view to preempting the resumption of French colonial rule. Archimedes Patti of the OSS, in Hanoi for the occasion, was completely duped by Ho’s ruse. He was pleasantly stunned when he read the draft text of the Declaration handed to him by Ho himself. In its tone and substance, it exulted freedom and self-determination and made no allusion to class struggle or social revolution, tell-tale signs of allegiance to communism. The effort to conceal the ideological leanings of the country’s new masters also included appointing the former Emperor, Bao Dai, Supreme Adviser to the DRVN government.

Patti and other OSS staff on-site applauded Ho’s Declaration of Independence and his new regime. Largely unaware of the existence of some two dozen other Vietnamese parties and movements embracing competing political ideologies, partly because the OSS never actively engaged them, they thought that marked the triumph of the nationalist cause in Vietnam. They mistakenly concluded from all this that Ho was first and foremost a patriot and a nationalist whose known attachment to communism was only skin-deep and self-serving at best. Scholars since have perpetuated that misconception, attesting to the importance of academic due diligence.

As documentary evidence from Vietnam makes clear, Ho and the Indochinese Communist Party understood that Paris would not give up that easily and that the Americans were their best chance to stymie French efforts to recolonize Indochina. They also knew President Roosevelt had vociferously opposed French colonialism and assumed his successor, Harry Truman (in office 1945–53), would do the same. Essentially, Ho felt he could exploit the good relations forged with the United States during World War II to satisfy his postwar objectives. He was playing the Americans in the fall of 1945; he had neither the inclination nor the desire to work with them on a long-term basis, much less formally aligning with Washington. After World War II, the ICP devotedly adhered to the Soviet “two-camp theory” - formalized and announced in 1947 by CPSU theoretician Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov (1896–1948) - that the postwar world was divided into two competing sides, a progressive and peace-loving one guided by the Soviet Union and an imperialist and warmongering other commanded by the United States. Besides, Ho had not spent years studying Marxism-Leninism and then working as a Comintern agent just to disavow his comrades in the ICP and around the world at this, their moment of apparent triumph. Patti and his OSS colleagues saw none of this because Ho outsmarted them. And so, they remained persuaded that Ho was a nationalist, not a communist, at heart.

The more discerning French authorities at the time paid no heed to and in fact outrightly rejected Ho’s Declaration of Independence, much as they had ignored Bao Dai’s earlier proclamation to the same effect. The Provisional Government of the French Republic under de Gaulle had no desire whatsoever to simply hand Indochina over to the Indochinese, much less to Ho and the communists. Colonies attested to France’s big power status; in light of the national humiliation suffered in World War II, France could not afford to lose its empire. American policymakers, upon whom Ho counted to keep the French from returning, privately objected to de Gaulle’s decision but made no effort to dissuade him from acting on it. Before his death in April 1945, Roosevelt had made an about-face on Indochina and dropped the international trusteeship idea largely because the British vehemently opposed it and he did not want to offend London. Truman, for his part, preferred appeasing de Gaulle in hopes of securing his cooperation in restructuring postwar Europe and, perhaps more importantly, checking postwar Soviet ambitions there and elsewhere. The nascent Cold War and, specifically, concerns about the Soviet occupation of East Europe, the future of Germany, and the spread of communism in the West soon consumed the Truman administration and conditioned its policy vis-à-vis France and Indochina.

The indifference of the Americans plus de Gaulle’s intractable stance unnerved and disappointed Ho but did not surprise him. Theirs were capitalist countries, after all. More unsettling, no government recognized the sovereignty and legitimacy of the DRVN, not even the Soviet Union. Stalin had his reasons for withholding recognition, but Ho did not comprehend them. But all that was nothing compared to the challenges confronting the DRVN at home. The national economy was in ruins. Besides starvation and flooding in Tonkin, commodities were in short supply and stores were empty. Most problematic, prominent noncommunist nationalists and their followers, including elements of the VNQDD and the Dai Viet parties, mobilized and organized active resistance against Ho’s new government. Unlike the Americans, they were not fooled by Ho: they knew the so-called August Revolution was in fact an opportunistic communist power grab. In acting as they did, some of these men and women transitioned from being or identifying as noncommunist nationalist activists – committed to political pluralism, including reconciliation with the communists, and republicanism – to becoming resolute anticommunists – hellbent on undoing the communist power grab of August 1945 and eradicating the Marxist-Leninist footprint in Vietnam. Ho and his comrades had always had their detractors, especially since Ho’s alleged betrayal of Phan Boi Chau. However, it was not until the August Revolution that that opposition crystalized, and Vietnam witnessed the emergence of groups and organizations whose primary raison d’être became fighting communists and communism, and which saw no hope for reconciliation between their two sides. Historian Stein Tønnesson is absolutely right to contend that Ho and the ICP claimed the mantle of national power in the late summer of 1945 without ever securing support from or having defeated actual and potential rivals, foreign and domestic. Ho and his comrades had not, after all, won the support of the nationalist aspirations of all Vietnamese, and his 2 September 1945 Declaration of Independence did not satisfy everyone, far from it.

Unsurprisingly, in light of all this, the communist August Revolution unraveled faster than it could consolidate itself. The DRVN existed in name only within days after Ho proclaimed it. The feebleness of the new regime was especially evident in the lower half of Vietnam, in Cochinchina and Southern Annam. Far from producing national unity under a single authority, the August Revolution left Vietnam and the Vietnamese even more divided. Communists were now at odds with not just noncommunist nationalists, but a growing faction of hardcore anticommunists willing to use violence to meet their purposes and convinced that a political compromise with Ho and his loyalists was impossible. A new internal struggle for the soul of the nation – another decades-long civil war – was about to begin.

Pierre Asselin (2024). Vietnam's American War: A New History. Cambridge University Press.

Disclaimer: This extract is shared for discussion and educational purposes only; all rights remain with the copyright holder.

The post title and photos are not from the book.

TIẾNG KÊU CỨU CHO LÊ HỮU MINH TUẤN VÀ NHÂN QUYỀN TRONG NHÀ TÙ VIỆT NAM

Tôi viết những dòng này trong cơn phẫn nộ và tuyệt vọng. Một con người đang dần bị đẩy tới lằn ranh của sự sống – một tù nhân lương tâm, một nhà báo độc lập – đang bị bỏ mặc trong bóng tối của nhà tù, nơi những tuyên ngôn về “quyền con người” của chính quyền chỉ là lớp son giả tạo che phủ sự tàn bạo. Đó là trường hợp của Lê Hữu Minh Tuấn, thành viên Hội Nhà báo Độc lập Việt Nam (IJAVN), người đang gánh chịu hậu quả của một hệ thống vừa kết tội anh bằng điều luật mơ hồ, vừa triệt tiêu anh bằng những đòn tra tấn chậm rãi mang tên “từ chối y tế”.

Tuấn đang mắc hàng loạt bệnh nghiêm trọng: viêm loét đại tràng, viêm gan, trĩ mãn tính, đại tiện ra máu kéo dài, sức khỏe suy kiệt. Thế nhưng, thay vì được chữa trị, anh bị tước đoạt quyền tiếp cận chăm sóc y tế tối thiểu. Thuốc gia đình gửi vào bị gỡ nhãn, xóa hướng dẫn, biến thành vô dụng. Điều này không còn là sự cẩu thả, mà là chủ ý – một hình thức tra tấn tinh vi nhằm triệt hạ thể xác một cách từ từ nhưng chắc chắn.

1. Sự phản bội Công ước quốc tế và dối trá của hệ thống pháp luật

Một trong sáu clip chính quyền Việt Nam dùng để đưa vào “kiến nghị khởi tố” với tôi là clip tôi lên tiếng bảo vệ quyền con người của tù nhân, đặc biệt là tù nhân lương tâm, chống lại sự đối xử tàn nhẫn và tra tấn. Việt Nam đã phê chuẩn Công ước Chống Tra tấn của Liên Hợp Quốc từ năm 2014, nội luật hóa trong Hiến pháp và các bộ luật hình sự, tố tụng. Nhưng những văn bản ấy chỉ nằm chết trên giấy. Thực tế, trong suốt sáu năm qua, hàng loạt tù nhân lương tâm đã chết trong trại giam: Đỗ Công Đương, Đào Quang Thực, Huỳnh Hữu Đạt… Những cái chết âm thầm, không lời giải thích, không một dòng điều tra độc lập.

Lê Hữu Minh Tuấn không phải là cá biệt, mà là phần nổi của tảng băng. Một chính quyền tự nhận là “pháp quyền xã hội chủ nghĩa”, nhưng lại biến nhà tù thành nơi giết mòn tù nhân, từ chối điều trị y tế, cô lập tinh thần, bỏ mặc bệnh tật – đó là gì nếu không phải tra tấn có hệ thống?

Tôi bị truy tố vì nói lên sự thật, vì bảo vệ mạng sống con người. Họ gọi đó là “tuyên truyền chống phá”. Nhưng nếu việc lên tiếng chống lại cái ác là tội, thì tội ác thật sự là sự im lặng của những kẻ thờ ơ trước đau khổ của đồng loại.

2. Trả thù và hủy diệt: tâm thức của quyền lực yếu hèn

Lê Hữu Minh Tuấn bị kết án 11 năm tù giam chỉ vì dám viết ra những gì anh tin là đúng. Nhưng bản án chưa đủ – người ta còn tiếp tục trừng phạt anh bằng cách để anh chết dần trong đau đớn, bị hủy hoại từng ngày. Có thời điểm, Tuấn chỉ còn dưới 40kg, thân thể suy nhược, tinh thần suy sụp.

Việc từ chối điều trị không đơn thuần là thiếu sót, mà là một hình thức trả thù chính trị. Nó nhắm đến những người dám lên tiếng, và cũng là thông điệp gửi đến xã hội: “Đừng mơ tưởng chống đối, đây là số phận của các người.”

Chúng ta đang chứng kiến một quyền lực không chỉ yếu đuối mà còn tàn nhẫn đến hèn hạ. Một nhà nước mạnh không cần phải hành hạ những người bất đồng. Chỉ những kẻ sợ hãi sự thật, không thể đối thoại, mới tìm đến hành vi phi nhân để duy trì sự cai trị.

3. Hãy lên tiếng, trước khi quá muộn

Tôi kêu gọi mọi người – trong và ngoài nước – hãy hành động ngay lúc này. Sự im lặng của chúng ta sẽ là sự đồng lõa. Chỉ có tiếng nói tập thể của xã hội dân sự, của truyền thông độc lập, của lương tri quốc tế, mới có thể tạo nên áp lực đủ mạnh để cứu sống một con người.

Đừng trông chờ báo chí nhà nước. Họ đã từ bỏ sứ mệnh phản ánh sự thật, trở thành chiếc loa phục tùng. Chính quyền chỉ hiểu được một thứ ngôn ngữ: áp lực dư luận. Hãy viết, hãy chia sẻ, hãy ký thỉnh nguyện thư, hãy yêu cầu các tổ chức quốc tế tăng cường giám sát và can thiệp.

Ủy ban Bảo vệ Ký giả (CPJ), Tổ chức Theo dõi Nhân quyền (HRW), Nhóm Công tác của LHQ về Giam giữ Tùy tiện đều đã lên án việc giam giữ Tuấn là phi pháp. Nhưng chỉ lên án thôi là chưa đủ. Chúng ta cần biến sự phẫn nộ thành hành động.

Lê Hữu Minh Tuấn không phải là tội phạm. Anh là người yêu nước bị trừng phạt vì dám yêu nước theo một cách trung thực. Trả tự do cho Tuấn không chỉ là nghĩa vụ nhân đạo, mà còn là một bài kiểm tra đạo đức đối với nhà nước Việt Nam – họ có thực sự tôn trọng các giá trị mà họ ký cam kết? Và cũng là một bài kiểm tra đối với chúng ta – những người còn tin vào công lý và nhân phẩm.

Tôi mong bài viết này sẽ lay động những ai còn băn khoăn, còn im lặng, còn tin rằng “chuyện đó không liên quan đến mình.” Nó liên quan. Bởi một khi cái ác thắng thế trong im lặng, ngày mai nạn nhân có thể là chính bạn.

Hãy hành động – vì Tuấn, vì công lý, và vì phẩm giá của chính chúng ta.

Đoàn Bảo Châu

Ngày 26 tháng 6, 2025

(mỗi cái share của các bạn là một tiếng nói của lương tri con người, xin cảm ơn)

Đây là 2 trong 6 clip chính quyền Việt Nam đưa vào kiến nghị khởi tố với tôi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulugn959BZk&t=38s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eqQMib9HXA&t=5604s

A CRY FOR LÊ HỮU MINH TUẤN AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN VIETNAM'S PRISONS

Đoàn Bảo Châu

I write these words in a state of rage and desperation. A human being is being slowly pushed to the brink of survival—a prisoner of conscience, an independent journalist—abandoned in the darkness of a prison where the regime’s claims of “human rights” are nothing but a veneer masking brutality. This is the case of Lê Hữu Minh Tuấn, a member of the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam (IJAVN), who is suffering the consequences of a system that not only convicts him under vague laws but also destroys him through slow, deliberate torture disguised as “denial of medical care.”

Tuấn is afflicted with a litany of serious illnesses: ulcerative colitis, hepatitis, chronic hemorrhoids, prolonged rectal bleeding, and severe physical deterioration. Yet, instead of receiving treatment, he is denied even the most basic access to medical care. Medicine sent by his family has its labels removed and instructions erased, rendering it useless. This is not mere negligence—it is deliberate, a sophisticated form of torture designed to break a person’s body gradually but surely.

1. Betrayal of International Conventions and the Deceit of the Legal System

One of the six videos the Vietnamese authorities used as part of their “proposal to prosecute” me was a clip in which I spoke out to defend the human rights of prisoners, particularly prisoners of conscience, against cruel treatment and torture. Vietnam ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 2014, incorporating it into its Constitution and various criminal and procedural laws. But these documents are nothing more than dead letters. In reality, over the past six years, numerous prisoners of conscience have died in detention: Đỗ Công Đương, Đào Quang Thực, Huỳnh Hữu Đạt… Silent deaths, without explanation, without a single line of independent investigation.

Lê Hữu Minh Tuấn is not an isolated case but the tip of a much larger iceberg. A regime that claims to uphold “socialist rule of law” has turned its prisons into places where prisoners are slowly killed, denied medical treatment, isolated mentally, and left to waste away in illness. If this is not systematic torture, what is it?

I was prosecuted for speaking the truth, for defending human lives. They called it “propaganda against the state.” But if speaking out against evil is a crime, then the true crime is the silence of those who turn a blind eye to the suffering of their fellow human beings.

2. Vengeance and Destruction: The Mindset of a Cowardly Regime

Lê Hữu Minh Tuấn was sentenced to 11 years in prison simply for daring to write what he believed to be true. But the sentence was not enough—they continue to punish him by letting him waste away in agony, destroyed day by day. At one point, Tuấn’s weight dropped below 40 kilograms, his body weakened, his spirit broken.

Denying him treatment is not a mere oversight—it is political retribution. It targets those who dare to speak out and serves as a message to society: “Don’t even think about dissent; this is your fate.”

We are witnessing a regime not only weak but cruelly cowardly. A strong state does not need to torment those who disagree with it. Only those who fear the truth, who cannot engage in dialogue, resort to inhumane acts to maintain their rule.

3. Speak Out, Before It’s Too Late

I call on everyone—within Vietnam and beyond—to act now. Our silence is complicity. Only the collective voice of civil society, independent media, and the international conscience can create enough pressure to save a life.

Do not look to state-controlled media. They have abandoned their duty to reflect the truth, becoming mere mouthpieces of the regime. The authorities understand only one language: the pressure of public opinion. Write, share, sign petitions, demand that international organizations intensify their monitoring and intervention.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Human Rights Watch (HRW), and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention have all condemned Tuấn’s detention as unlawful. But condemnation alone is not enough. We must turn our outrage into action.

Lê Hữu Minh Tuấn is not a criminal. He is a patriot punished for loving his country in an honest way. Releasing Tuấn is not only a humanitarian obligation but also a moral test for the Vietnamese state—do they truly respect the values they claim to uphold through international commitments? It is also a test for us—those who still believe in justice and human dignity.

I hope this article will stir those who are still hesitant, still silent, still believing “this doesn’t concern me.” It does concern you. Because when evil triumphs in silence, tomorrow’s victim could be you.

Act now—for Tuấn, for justice, and for our own dignity.

Đoàn Bảo Châu

June 26, 2025

Here are 2 of the 6 video clips that the Vietnamese government included in their request to prosecute me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulugn959BZk&t=38s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eqQMib9HXA&t=5604s

also. Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16RMNkNZGb/

HÃY CHIA SẺ TRƯỚC KHI QUÁ MUỘN. SHARE THIS BEFORE TOO LATE

The incident involving Nguyễn Sỹ Cương (former National Assembly deputy of the 13th–14th terms, who previously served as Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee), who drove a BMW that struck and killed a female student born in 2007 (around 18 years old) in Hanoi in 2025.
Main sequence of events
Time and place: Around 1:00 p.m. on 30 May 2025, on Nguyễn Huy Tự Street, Hai Bà Trưng District, Hanoi.

Nguyễn Sỹ Cương (born 1961, approximately 64 years old at the time) was driving a BMW X3 with license plate 30H-369.09. The vehicle suddenly veered into the oncoming lane at high speed and collided with a motorcycle carrying a man (commonly referred to by the initials ĐVH or H) and his daughter.

Consequences: The father suffered a broken leg; the female student (full name often given as Đỗ Ngọc Phương Thùy or ĐNPT/Đỗ Ngọc Phương Thùy, born around 2007, 18 years old) had her right leg severed and sustained multiple severe injuries at the scene. The BMW then crashed into a roadside tree, severely damaging the front of the vehicle. The motorcycle was badly deformed, with debris scattered across the road.

The student was rushed to hospital for emergency treatment but did not survive. She died in the early morning of 8 June 2025 (about one week after the accident), just before the 2025 high-school graduation exam.

Initial handling and official information
Police tested Cương’s blood alcohol level and reported no violation.

State media initially referred to the driver only by the initials “NSC, born 1961, residing in Đống Đa District” and did not publish clear photographs. The case file was transferred to the Criminal Investigation Police Agency of Hanoi City Police for further handling.

According to multiple sources (including the Vietnamese Wikipedia and overseas media), more than a year later there has still been no clear public information regarding formal charges, detention, or the specific outcome of the investigation against Cương. Public opinion and some independent outlets have expressed suspicion that the case was being “buried.”

Background and reactions
Cương previously served as a National Assembly deputy for Ninh Thuận province (13th–14th terms), Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the 14th term, and earlier as Chief Inspector of the Ministry of Home Affairs. His wife is Lâm Thị Phương Thanh (former Secretary of the Lạng Sơn Provincial Party Committee, who later held a senior position at the Party Central Office; several months after the accident she was elected Secretary of the Party Committee of the Party Central Office).
The incident sparked strong public outrage on social media, with many posts demanding accountability and people placing flowers at the crash site (the tree the BMW hit) in memorial. Some overseas sources and social-media discussions have suggested that the slow or opaque handling of the case was linked to Cương’s status and family connections. Mainstream domestic media provided only limited coverage of his identity and subsequent developments after the initial reports.

Hey everyone, a while back I posted in here because two people I know were writing an alternate history book where South Vietnam didn’t fall in 1975.

It’s finally been published. I know the authors did almost 2 years of research for it and that the main character is a South Vietnamese Army officer.

It’s called Linebacker III: an Alternate History of the Vietnam War. I figured I would post in here because it’s such a niche topic and maybe some in here would enjoy it. Here’s the link: https://a.co/d/0bGX15SK