After decades of fierce resistance and working in the most difficult conditions, our people have finally won a glorious victory
After decades of fierce resistance and working in the most difficult conditions, our people have finally won a glorious victory and, having totally wrested back their independence and freedom, march steadily towards socialism.
In the struggle for national liberation, for the de-fence of the homeland and for socialist construction, tens of thousands of our combatants and compatriots and compatriots have fallen in heroes; millions of our citizens still bear on their bodies the marks of their mutilations. The wars of aggression of the French colonialists. American imperialists and Chinese expansionists, have left in our country, chiefly in the southern provinces, a huge number of invalids for life.
As ever, our government and people have provided constant care and attention to our invalid combatants and compatriots. But on the whole, the latter still live a difficult life of privations, and have not yet been in a position to fully exercise their right to collective mastery.
On the occasion of the International Year of the Disabled, I call upon the various departments, the various mass and social organizations, and the entire people to continue applying the directives of the Communist Party of Vietnam and our beloved President. Ho Chi Minhs teachings and to do their utmost to tend and give assistance to our disabled compatriots, chiefly our wounded and infirm combatants and handicapped children.
In each branch of activity, at each echelon, all of us should heighten our sense of responsibility overcome difficulties and do all we can to help our wounded and infirm servicemen and our disabled compatriots to return to a normal life, recover their strength and adopt themselves to their new circumstances. We must use every means available to minimize the consequences and sequels of their infirmity. We must create favourable conditions to enable them, each according to their abilities, to take part in production, to study and to work for the welfare of society, to identify with social life, to exercise their rights and fulfill their obligations as citizens on the same footing as their fellow-country-men. Besides, we must apply decisive measures and means to reduce to the utmost the causes of infirmities of our workers, servicemen and adolescents.
I avail myself of this occasion to sincerely thank, on behalf of the Vietnamese government and people, the governments, social organizations and people of all the countries which have actively helped us to overcome the consequences of the war, and take care of our disabled fellow - countrymen. We greatly appreciate their efforts to continue to help our country through their humanitarian work. Confident of the care and attention of the Party, the government and the mass organization at all levels, and confident in the indomitable spirit of our compatriots and the generous assistance afforded by our friends in the world, we are convinced that our nationwide programme for the International Year of the Disabled will be crowned with success.
The effective assistance and care given to our disabled compatriots are an encouragement for them to make more strenuous efforts to surmount their difficulties, to fulfill their duty of collective masters and to contribute worthily to our countrys revolutionary cause, and all of them, we are sure, will enjoy a plentiful, healthy, and happy life.
Nguyen Huu Tho
Acting President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam President of the Vietnam Committee for the International Year the Disabled.
According to Medical Doctor Nguyen Khac Vien
Vietnams foreign language publishing house in 1981