Ho Chi Minh Trail Reborn for Tourism

H A N O I, Vietnam, Aug. 16 -- Tourism authorities in Communist-ruled Vietnam are considering package tours to exploit the bloody wartime past of the Ho Chi Minh Trail after parts are turned into a controversial new national highway.

Today’s official Viet Nam News said a drive down the Ho Chi Minh Highway, which is due to be completed in three years time, would be a like a historical journey thanks to landmarks like “Blood Spring” and “Meatgrinder Hill.”

The paper said Vietnam’s General Department of Tourism was pinpointing the dozens of battlefields along the north-south route and considering package tours based on different themes.

Possible themes included “Visits to Past Battlefields,” “Following the Footsteps of the Liberation Army” and “Singing is Louder than Bombing,” the paper said.

It said sites like the former Marine base at Khe Sanh were already popular with U.S. veterans, but such tours would also be a draw for the younger generation in Vietnam and overseas.

The Vietnam War ended in 1975 with a communist victory over U.S.-backed South Vietnam.

Victory was made possible by the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a maze of jungle tracks named after the country’s independence hero, used to move communist soldiers and supplies from the north to the south.

The trail, parts of which went through neighboring Laos and Cambodia, was subject to massive U.S. bombing attacks.

Highway Opposed By Some

But the new highway has proven controversial, with some critics saying the ruling Communist Party is using the project to burnish its image by recalling past glories.

On Tuesday, a human rights group told the U.N. Subcommission on the Protection of Human Rights in Geneva the project would rely on forced labor.

The Vietnam Committee for the Protection of Human Rights said a requirement for Vietnamese aged 18–35 to do unpaid work 10 days a year on public construction projects violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.