Vietnam war seen by former Albanian diplomat

In 1983, when Albania's Mighty Ambassador is appointed to France, he remained in office for six years. After the 1990s, Maxhun Peka received several other important positions in Albanian diplomacy. In 2005 it is appointed Secretary General of the Council of Ministers headed by Sali Berisha, and in 2006, President Moisiu decrees it as Albania's Ambassador to the People's Republic of China, which he held until 2011.

MAXHUN PEKA

I too witnessed that tragedy. I experienced those war years in Vietnam, those terrible years, those years, which I ask today, was it real or bad dream? I experienced the bombings, the disasters, I saw the B-52 planes, the air towers when they dropped the bombs, when they planted death, when they devastated everything, I saw them in the air so proud, but I saw them lying on their knees, turned into worthless irons. Even today, I have rings or other art designed by Vietnamese artisans from the debris of these planes.

Airplanes turned into relics. I saw the path “Kham Theen” in Hanoi turned into rubble within a minute, on the evening of December 18, 1972. I saw the walkers pulling out of that dead bodies of the streets, and I saw them put in the sacks the cello were thrown into trucks to bury them out of town in collective graves. I ran into him by accident, the next day, a 12-13-year-old girl on the sidewalks near the embassies, who could neither laugh nor cry. I learned that her parents had died the night before on “Kham Theen” Street.

Kids? She didn't know what childhood is. Adult? Too young to survive. I learned that the neighborhood council housed it and fed it somewhere in the centers for the unfortunates. I saw Kim Leann Hospital, one of the biggest hospitals in the city that was destroyed, ruins, and I saw the huge pit where the bomb from the other night had fallen on a bomb hole. I also saw invitations to a hospital nurse's wedding scattered around here, and I learned that the wedding would never take place.

A beautiful dream, a dream forever, a dream in times of war. I met a little girl waiting for her death in a war hospital. He was looking for a comb to comb his hair so he could die beautiful. I saw a coal mine worker, since he got home, he found her destroyed, wife and six dead children. He stretched his fists to the rubble, before items, pictures of children, hopeless, helpless, filled with hatred, only hatred. I also saw American prisoners, air castle pilots, in humble press conferences. If anyone dared to lift his head, the Vietnamese who accompanied him, who couldn't get even in half of the pilot's body, told his head, you're a prisoner of war! I heard the pilots say their name, their last name, their number. I saw ruined streets, cities that no longer existed, disabled people, I saw, I didn't see, and I didn't see in those war years.

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Today I ask why? Who did he serve? Who won? In today's logic, nobody and nobody. Why millions of people killed, missing, disabled, disabled, why flat cities, plants, factories, bridges, destroyed hospitals. Why suffering, hunger, uncertainty? Why are you young without hope, without future, without happiness? Why, why, why?

Why don't you ever, when you see life going on in a completely different way, when you see both Vietnam and America, doing everything they can to strengthen relationships, to strengthen friendship, to forget the past, to forget about all those who fell heroicly to protect, to the logic of Vietnamese, to the country, to the country, to the sovereignty, to unite the country unjustly divided in 1954, and, in the logic of America, who fell for the sake of American engagement, to the greatest democracy in the world, to the victory of democracy, to any place of the globe, to be committed to civil norms, the hero of America, to keep them alive, to the nation's honour of America....

They fall into that giant game in the name of morality, of two opposing moral categories, are remembered only once a year, on the day of the Vietnam martyrs, and on the day of the fallen in Vietnam, resting for eternity at Arlington's cemetery in Washington.

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Today it says Vietnam was a mistake, that the war in Vietnam was stupid, it was a war where America broke, was defeated, by which it came out lost. But is it possible today to judge objectively for the wars of a half century ago? I read the book “The Heart of Patriot” of Max Cleland, of which “Vietname would mean loss: foot loss, loss of arm, loss of youth, loss of innocence, lost war...” I read something from General Moor's book, “When we were soldiers... and young”, I read about the battle in Ia Drang Valley.

450 men (U.S.) surrounded by 2,000 Vietnamese soldiers. Three days of fighting, 79 American soldiers missing and more than 1000 Vietnamese-veried. In 1990, General Moor meets with General Nguyen Huu An, commander of Vietnamese-veried troops. They dined in Pleic, a fighting area in South Vietnam. The Vietnamese General grabbed General Moore's shoulder, then embraced him and kissed him on two pages.

In response, Moore gave his wristwatch as a sign of their friendship. When General Ann died, Moore returned to Vietnam and visited General Ann's home. In a sacred corner of his office, Moore found the watch he had given him...” Beautiful thing: in the fight enemy to death, in peace friends to death. Two gladiators or two great chessmen. After the battle, they shake hands.

Two ages: war and peace. Who was right, the generation that fought, or today's generation devoted to living together? Who can give a rational answer? Various times, different mentalitys, different morals, in the years of the '60s, socialism and socialist order were still appealing to oppressed peoples. Social equality, promises of work for all, medical services for all, free schooling for all, plenty and happy lives, had found a bed in suffering people of all continents.

Opto, but pleasant, dream, but the common people enjoyed living it. The leftist idealology had managed to create <x0moral” readiness for self - sacrifice for the achievement of goals. The Vietnamese were also cooked with this morality, which, in those war years, were willing to give their lives to gain over imperialism... The morale of capitalist society was quite different, it was democracy in every country around the globe, human rights, and the flag for protecting freedom, democracy, human rights had taken over in the United States.

The extent of Communism had to be banned. If the Communist order was to win in South Vietnam, the danger of its expansion in Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of Asia was permanent. The domino effect engaged America in Vietnam. The effort was not only United States Vietnam, but war between two systems, capitalist and socialist systems.

The warhouse was Vietnam, the meat for the ball were the Vietnamese, who in some generations were born and raised in war, who did not know anything better than war. The United States faced not only Vietnam and other Socialist bloc countries but also the major anti-war movement in the United States itself and other Western countries. Many politicians and analysts say the United States lost the war in Vietnam, they rebuke the American politics of those years for such a commitment.

America withdrew “lost”, but with “nder”, thanks to the Paris Agreement. Is it true America lost? That depends on angles. But if we ask the question: why the American presidents got so engaged in this war, it becomes clear that their objective was not simply South Vietnam, but to prevent the domino effect “”, the reach of communism in other Southeast Asian countries. America lost Vietnam, but won Southeast Asia, lost the war on the ground, but managed to realise the goals it engaged in.

There were many missing, many coffins, lots of sad memories, lots of broken families, many Americans killed. This is America's fate. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy confidently stated (confidently) that America was strong enough to pay any price, to carry any burden” to ensure the success of freedom. This is the fate of Americans. Being American is an honor, it's a privilege, but it's a sacrifice. Heading the world is also natural for you to have obligations to various parts of the world.

This justifys engagement in Vietnam in the years of the '60s, justifys engagement in Iraq, Kosovo, would justify American engagement in other countries of the globe, for the sake of freedom and democracy. Now let America and Vietnam live together today, let those who gave their lives in that war in the name of ideals, of the Soviet socialist ideals for Vietnamese, in the name of freedom and democracy for Americans. Let us respect the ideals of each side, the victors, and the missing.

If such ideals are to be faced by generals like Moor and Nguyen Huu An, let them be at war against their enemies to death and at peace, friends to the death. Persuased in the victory of right, in the victory of freedom, democracy. In the end there will be victories for the parties in the conflict, there will be no losers, because America and American troops are not invaders, they bring freedom, democracy, they bring the future...

*Fore-diploms in Vietnam in the years of war/Panorama