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Le Tuan Binh, the son of a Moroccan man who served in the French army, is nicknamed ‘the foreigner’ in the Vietnamese village where he lives – Copyright AFP Nhac NGUYEN<\/small><\/em><\/p>\nAlexis HONTANG<\/em><\/p>\nLe Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father\u2019s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten.<\/p>\n
Mzid Ben Ali, or \u201cMohammed\u201d as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina.<\/p>\n
He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military \u2014 as either a defector or a captive \u2014 and making a life for himself in Vietnam.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very emotional for me,\u201d says Binh, 64, holding the tombstone.<\/p>\n
There was no funeral when his father died in 1968, as the war with the United States was in full swing, and his body has since disappeared, but Binh has kept the stone slab, engraved with his father\u2019s nationality: \u201cMoroccan\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Between 1947 and 1954, more than 120,000 North Africans served in the French army in Indochina.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Half were from Morocco \u2014 which was then a protectorate of France \u2014 and of those, around 150 remained in Vietnam after the armistice in 1954, either as defectors or prisoners, including Binh\u2019s father.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His story offers a little-known perspective on the First Indochina War as Vietnam and France prepare to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu on May 7.<\/p>\n
The bloody eight-week struggle in the country\u2019s northwestern hills \u2014 won decisively by the Viet Minh \u2014 was the climactic confrontation that ultimately brought an end to the French empire in Indochina.<\/p>\n
In France, \u201cthe history of heroism at Dien Bien Phu was for a long time the preserve of white people, who represented the majority of commanders\u201d, said Pierre Journoud, professor of contemporary history at Paul Valery-Montpellier University.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut after 1947, the war effort relied on colonial riflemen, and they represented the majority of troops,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve lost part of their story.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u2018The foreigner\u2019 \u00a0\u2013<\/p>\n
At his home in the northern province of Phu Tho, 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Hanoi, Binh makes a pot of black tea spiked with mint leaves from his garden \u2014 \u201cMoroccan style, but without the sugar,\u201d he jokes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the village, he is nicknamed \u201cthe foreigner\u201d, but those close to him call him Ali, the name given to him by his father.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The war with the United States and economic development have dispersed the Moroccan-Vietnamese families who lived in the country several decades ago.<\/p>\n
Some returned to Morocco in the 1970s, but Binh wanted to stay with his Vietnamese mother and two brothers, Boujamaa and Abdallah.<\/p>\n
Binh says his father rarely spoke about his experiences in the war \u2014 leaving his story shrouded in mystery \u2014 but he likely defected towards the end of the conflict, in 1953 or 1954.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a man of few words,\u201d Binh said.<\/p>\n
Vietnamese propaganda presented foreign deserters as pioneers in the struggle of oppressed peoples against imperialism, but according to French researchers, their motives were usually linked to better pay or fear of punishment for misconduct.<\/p>\n
After 1954, Hanoi says some 300 \u201cAfrican and European surrendered soldiers\u201d settled in a farming village in the Ba Vi district, around 50 kilometres from Hanoi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2013 Recognition \u2013<\/p>\n
It was in Ba Vi that Binh\u2019s father met his Vietnamese wife and Binh was born in 1959.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The farm was dismantled in the 1970s, during the tumult of the war against the Americans, but today, a Moorish-inspired gateway remains, built by Moroccan workers as a tribute to their country of origin.<\/p>\n
The monument stands in the garden of a family that welcomes a handful of visitors every month, and who have ensured its survival over the years.<\/p>\n
During the extreme poverty of the 1990s, \u201cscrap metal dealers asked if they could take parts of the gate\u201d, said one family member, who declined to give their name.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the gate was preserved, and later restored with renovation work by Hanoi authorities and the Moroccan embassy in 2009, and then again in 2018 \u2014 at a time when research was beginning to shed light on the role of soldiers from French colonies in Indochina.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Binh has struggled for recognition of his past for many years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2016, he finally obtained a Moroccan passport, as did his two children, born to a Vietnamese mother, under a surname chosen by the embassy: El Mekki.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His daughter Leila, aged 36, now lives in Casablanca, but Binh has never set foot in Morocco.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I\u2019m too old. I gave the opportunity to my daughter,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m happy now that some of my dreams have come true.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
The Moroccans who fought for France and settled in Vietnam
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