SIXTY-eight years have transpired since that September 2, 1945, when revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam – also called North Vietnam – in Hanoi’s Da Dinh Plaza. The Indochinese country was no longer a French colony and became a state with socialist aspirations.

"…Our country is one, our nation is one… the North must advance toward socialism," he said, faced with threats from the West due to the ‘bothersome’ application of Marxist-Leninist principles to the concrete conditions of the Asian nation. The United States was not pleased with the idea of a unified, communist Vietnam, as the father of Vietnamese independence proposed, and intervened in support of South Vietnam, leading to the outbreak of war in 1955.

North Vietnam emerged victorious, a David facing a powerful and well equipped Goliath, forced to succumb to the determination and strength of the Vietnamese people struggling for their independence. The U.S. suffered its first major defeat ever In Vietnam.

In 1975, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam that we know was founded. The country grew from a war-ravaged nation in ruins to become one of the most solid economies in Southeast Asia. The process called Doi, which has guided decision-making, has allowed for the building of a modern, industrialized, inclusive nation. It has been a self-styled renovation, copying no one, proudly calling itself socialist.

"In Vietnam, people smile readily and always appear to be occupied in something productive," a colleague recently wrote while visiting the sister country, which, although far-removed geographically, shares with Cuba the commitment to struggle, or die, for national independence and social justice.

Today Vietnam is one of the few countries in the world close to meeting the UN Millennium Goals, having made a sustained effort to improve its human development index and achieve equality among different regions of the country, which has some 90 million inhabitants of different creeds and ethnicities.