Identify Vietnamese MIAs from both sides of war, demand senators
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Decades after the end of the Vietnam War, two senators are seeking to suspend a U.S.-funded program to identify and recover missing Vietnamese war dead until the Hanoi government assures it is working to recover Vietnamese MIAs from both sides of the conflict.
‘The proposed program of cooperation between the United States and Vietnam for the recovery of Vietnamese soldiers’ remains could serve as a valuable opportunity to further the goal of reconciliation -- but only if it is carried out with proper respect for all who fought, and not simply for one side or the other,’’ Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) said in a statement.
Congress has allocated $1 million for the program. An estimated 650,000 North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong have yet to be identified, and an unknown number of Army of the Republic of Vietnam war dead remain unidentified, according to Webb.
The program is separate from a Pentagon effort that has recovered the remains of 964 American service members from Southeast Asia since the 1970s -- and in which the Vietnamese government has been cooperative, according to a Defense Department spokeswoman.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on foreign aid who sought the funds to identify Vietnamese MIAs, said in the statement that the program is intended to ‘demonstrate to the Vietnamese people that the United States is not only concerned with locating and identifying the remains of our fallen soldiers, but we also want to help Vietnam locate and identify its own.’
He agreed with Webb that the program should ‘respect the dead equally, be they former North or South Vietnamese.’
Webb, a decorated Vietnam veteran and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations’ East Asian and Pacific Affairs subcommittee, said that if U.S. aid were to go forward now, ‘it would only go toward identifying fallen soldiers on the Communist side of this long and tragic war. That should not be the case for reasons of fairness, justice and national reconciliation.’
A spokesman for U.S. Agency for International Development, which is administering the program, said in a statement, “We are committed to begin the process of recovering and identifying remains on both sides of the conflict to help bring closure to millions of Vietnamese families who don’t know the fate of missing loved ones.”
There was no immediate response from the Vietnamese government.
‘It is vital to the spirit of reconciliation, and also to American concepts of loyalty and respect, that we never forget those who were with us, even as we move into the future by working alongside those who fought against us,’ Webb said in a statement.
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-- Richard Simon in Washington, D.C.
