Gal Giap, aged 102, is dead

[Brenus]

The General Giap died aged 102. This man, whose name will tell nothing to the youngest, was not only the symbol but the incarnation of the Vietnamese struggle first for Independence against the French then the fight for the reunification against the US, Teacher of History, his wife died in Paolo Condor, where the French were putting all criminals and political opponents… Learning from mistakes of lost Battle of Na San, he is the winner of Dien Bien Phu. Rigid, he tried to replicate the battle against the French against a more powerful adversary and was the looser of the Tet Offensive.

However he was as well the one setting-up the Camps where 71% of the French War Prisoners died of mal-nutrition, starvation, brain-wash and mistreatments. On the 10.300 French Fighters captured at Dien Bien Phu, only 3,200 came back to France, walking skeletons. He decimated the South Vietnamese Communists with an ill-though offensive (some would say that was a plus) but ultimately, his strategy won the war.