Vietnam fought America most bitterly lasting years with the help of Russia and yet Vietnam has established the closest of close relationship with America realizing the need of its own development and progress.Vietnam has not become a subservient state of Russia for its help in their ideological war of liberation. Vietnam does not feel the obligation that to prove its friendship with Russia it has to remain slavishly loyal to Russia and Russia alone or do everything to please Russia. Both Russia and Vietnam appreciate subservience is not friendship. Russia’s ideological enmity with America is not unknown to the government of Vietnam but it is no consideration for the government of Vietnam as to why it should not have good and productive relationship with America.This week Nguyen Phu Trong, the head of Vietnam’s Communist Party was welcome by President Obama at the White House showing the goodwill on the part of both the countries to help each other.As we referred earlier to an article published in the front page of The New York Times last Tuesday under a big headline to say how in Vietnam the war veterans both Vietnamese and Americans are leading the reconciliation efforts between the two countries. The daily quoted Mr. Tien, a war veteran sitting surrounded by American veterans as saying, “we have closed the door on the past.” The war veterans are active to see that hard won victory for freedom becomes meaningful. They are anxious to oversee that the country lives in peace from within and outside so that it prospers.These veterans of Vietnam liberation war are not searching for enemies for vengeance for personal gains or political advantage. They have not been demanding special benefits for themselves. It is because of their insistence to forget the past for the good of present that the Americans feel secure to make huge investments in Vietnam once fought to destroy it.Nobody denies India’s deciding role in defeating Pakistan army for our liberation war to win. Surely, we have to believe that India entered the war on our behalf for the cause of our liberation war and not for conquering us expecting Bangladesh to be too meek and obedient to its every wish. But these overenthusiastic section of freedom fighters have been conducting themselves in a way as if they are the only loyal friends of India in Bangladesh and our relationship with other countries, especially, with the democratic West is undesirable.Our gratitude to and special relationship with India cannot mean that we shall only have India as our friend and as a free country we shall be unable to have new friends for our own good. The government of India is not to be blamed. There are those powerless and helpless ones here in Bangladesh who want to establish their domination in our politics by exploiting our relationship with India. They are not real friends of India, it is possible that they are a version of naxalites who once created terror in India by their brand of violent politics.These self-styled freedom fighters seeking special considerations from India want us to ignore the huge financial help the Western World provided during the liberation war. What they do not understand is, if America really wanted to be against our liberation war, then India would not have taken the risk. The victory would not have been the easiest walkover. We are not all so unknowledgeable that we have to agree with whatever way history is distorted by the special interest groups. Those who think that for a free Bangladesh to remain a free country, its friendship with India has to be proved by remaining isolated from the rest of the world are of no help either to India or Bangladesh for peace and amity. They are living in the past and pursuing politics of dead past. They are nobody to our people and let them remain so to all our friends everywhere. They want to use our friendship with India to impose their kind of anti-election and anti-democratic politics. They will not succeed but the whole nation is in the terrible uncertainty of a fearful chaotic situation.
