An elaborate, two-day state funeral is under way
in Vietnam for General Vo Nguyen Giap, the
commander credited with overseeing the defeat of
French and US forces in his country.
He died a week ago at the age of 102.
Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered outside
General Giap's home in Hanoi and in military barracks
all over the country to pay their respects.
On Sunday, a grand procession will escort the general's
body to his home town south of Hanoi for burial.
A photograph of Gen Giap and a gilt frame containing
his military medals were placed above the coffin which
was draped in the national flag at the National Funeral
Hall in Hanoi.
Soldiers in white uniforms stood to attention as
officials, including Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung
and President Truong Tan Sang, paid their last respects.
Gen Giap's family, wearing black, stood nearby while
thick clouds of incense filled the room where his body
lay in state.
On Friday, the Vietnamese flag outside Hanoi's Ho Chi
Minh Mausoleum was lowered to half-mast to mark the
start of the official mourning period.
BBC South East Asia Correspondent Jonathan Head says
the general's death has prompted an extraordinary
outpouring of emotion, in a population whose freedom
of expression is tightly restricted.
The son of a rice grower, Vo Nguyen Giap became
active in politics in the late 1920s and worked as a
journalist before joining Ho Chi Minh's Indochinese
Communist Party.
In 1930 he was briefly jailed for leading anti-French
protests but later earned a law degree from Hanoi
University.
He helped Ho Chi Minh found the Viet Minh and his
defeat of French forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954
effectively ended French colonial rule in the region.
Gen Giap was North Vietnam's defence minister at the
time of the Tet Offensive against US forces in 1968,
often cited as a key campaign that led to the
Americans' withdrawal.
It has been more than 30 years since Gen Giap held
any position of power within the Vietnamese
Communist Party.
However, our correspondent says he has always been
held up as a revolutionary hero by the party leadership,
and they are giving him a hero's send off.
The Communist Party would like Gen Giap's death to
remind the Vietnamese of its role in fighting for
national liberation, he adds, but it will also bring home
to many just how far a party tainted by corruption and
nepotism has fallen from the ideals it once espoused.
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