Highlights
- Hundreds gathered at different events around Australia to commemorate the fall of Saigon
- The capture of Vietnam's capital, later renamed Ho Chi Minh City, resulted in mass migration
- The fall of Saigon marked the end of the decade-long Vietnam War in 1975
The annual protest on April 30 in front of the Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Canberra resumed this year after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.
The protesters then went on to lay wreaths and pay tribute to the Vietnamese and Australian soldiers who fell in the Vietnam War, as well as the victims of the Vietnamese communist government at the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra.
Hung Nguyen, from Melbourne, said even though nearly half a century had passed since the war's end, psychological wounds had yet to heal.
South Vietnam veterans gathered in front of the Vietnam War Comradeship Memorial in Cabravale Park, NSW. Source: SBS Vietnamese/Le Tam
Travelling to Canberra to protest in front of the Vietnamese Embassy on April 30 can be considered a “tradition” for the Vietnamese community in Australia, and has been held every year except in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions.
On Saturday morning, about 800 of people from Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and other places gathered in front of the Vietnamese Embassy in Canberra.
Mr Nguyen said while 47 years might be a long time for other people, for him it felt like yesterday that the People’s Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Viet Cong) entered Saigon (later renamed Ho Chi Minh City) on April 30, 1975.
Protesters gathered at the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial in Anzac Parade, Canberra. Source: Bao khanh
“It imprinted on my mind the images of people rushing to the Navy Command to find a ship to escape on, and the days we waited at Tan Son Nhat airport, but in the end, because the Viet Cong bombarded the runway, we had to find another solution," he said.
"Everything is like a movie replaying in my mind."
Oanh Nguyen, from Adelaide, told SBS Vietnamese that her family had fled from the communist regime twice, once from North Vietnam to South Vietnam in 1954, and once crossing the sea in 1975 after the fall of Saigon.
A father and son attempt to leave Saigon after the city's fall on April 30, 1975. Source: AAP
As she laid a wreath at the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial, Ms Nguyen said she was touched and admired the spirit of those who attended the event.
“My parents also migrated from North Vietnam to South Vietnam, so they know a lot about communism, and I am also one of the Vietnamese refugees who came here by boat, and I also understand a little bit about the communist regime in Vietnam,” she said.
A smaller event to commemorate the fall of Saigon also took place in Cabravale Memorial Park, Sydney, with about 200 attendees.
Photographs of five South Vietnam Generals who killed themselves rather than be captured. The photos are inside the Vietnamese Cultural and Heritage Centre in Sunshine North, Victoria. Source: VCA Victoria/Bui Quang Phuoc
One of the attendees told SBS Vietnamese she had only emigrated to Australia two years ago and that this was the first time she had attended such event – something she was not able to do in 47 years.
“I can’t forget the day the Viet Cong came and made our lives miserable,” she said.
Members of the Dual Identity Leadership Program (DILP), a program run by the Vietnamese Community in Australia, Victoria chapter, also held a ceremony on April 30 at the Vietnamese Cultural and Heritage Centre.
Elvis Tran, one of the organisers, said that this event was to remind young people of their roots and the sacrifices that their parents had made.
This event helps them (young people) learn more the sacrifices made by their parents and everyone who went before them, so that they can have all the opportunities today in Australia.
Vietnamese-Australians commemorating the fall of Saigon also expressed their desire for freedom and democracy, not only for Vietnam, but also for other places around the world.
And in that vein, this year’s protest in Canberra was also attended by representatives of the Ukrainian, Cambodian and Burmese communities.
Members of the Vietnamese, Laotian and Ukranian communities at the event in Cabravale Park, NSW. Source: SBS Vietnamese/Le Tam
Vietnamese refugees and migration to Australia since 1975
The fall of Saigon resulted in thousands of people frantically trying to leave the capital and marked the end of the decade-long Vietnam War and the start of a transition period in which Vietnam was reunified and renamed as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Before the fall of Saigon, fewer than 2000 people born in Vietnam lived in Australia but when the North Vietnamese captured the capital, renaming it Ho Chi Minh City, almost one million people fled including 90,000 processed in Australia between 1975 and 1995.
By the 1990s, numbers of Vietnam-born migrants emigrating to Australia began to outnumber refugees from that country.
According to the 2016 Census, almost 300,000 Australians have Vietnamese ancestry with around 220,000 born in Vietnam.
In fact, Vietnamese make up the sixth largest, overseas-born population in Australia with the surname of “Nguyen” expected to overtake the surname “Smith” as the country’s most common surname by 2023.
