Chi Minh’s life highlighted at Argentina symposium

MP Julia Argentina Perie, president of the Argentina-Vietnam friendship parliamentarians group, expressed her admiration for President Ho, his revolutionary optimism and invaluable thoughts he passed down to younger Vietnamese generations. She read a poem from President Ho’s Prison’s Diary collection translated into Spanish by Cuban poet Felix Pita Rodriguez.

Vietnamese ambassador to Argentina Nguyen Van Dao said Vietnamese people always bear in their hearts and minds the image of President Ho Chi Minh not o­nly as a national liberation hero but also a close and beloved leader. He confirmed that though the president passed away for more than 40 years ago, Vietnamese people are determined to follow his moral example.

Poldi Sosa Schmidt, president of the Argentina-Vietnam Cultural Exchange Institute, highlighted president Ho’s role as o­ne of the greatest world leaders in the 20^th century. She described the president’s moral example as the lodestar for Vietnam’s revolution for nearly a century.

Fanny Edelman, Honorary President of the Communist Party of Argentina, recalled her two visits to Vietnam in 1973 and 1976, during which she saw with her own eyes the Vietnamese people’s brave struggle for national liberation and their efforts to reconstruct the country after the war. The 99-year-old woman said she still remembered a reception given by late Prime Minister Pham Van Dong who told her stories about President Ho.

Political analyst Atilio Boron praised President Ho for creatively translating Marxist-Leninism into reality, helping Vietnam – an oppressed nation – to rise up and wrest back independence and freedom from the most powerful forces.

Historian Alejandro Pandra valued President Ho’s strategic visions, saying the late president anticipated the road Vietnam had to undergo to enjoy freedom and development.

The Vietnamese Embassy screened a documentary o­n President Ho Chi Minh and exhibited a collection of pictures illustrating the Vietnamese land and people.

Ambassador Dao presented speakers the collection of Ho Chi Minh Works published in Spanish for the first time.