First steps
The war in Vietnam waged by the US has left a “huge legacy”: great numbers of wounded and fallen troops of both sides.
According to the Agency for the Search for Missing Foreigners under the Ministry of National Defense of Vietnam, during the past war, millions of Vietnamese people were killed or injured; 300,000 soldiers have been reported as missing in action while the remains of about 200,000 fallen soldiers have not been found yet.
On the US side, more than 58,000 US soldiers died, nearly 2,000 were reported missing in Vietnam (US official figures were 1,973 people), and hundreds of thousands of people were injured and disabled. In addition, the number of people suffering from mental disorders, known as "Vietnam Syndrome," amounted to millions; hundreds of thousands of Vietnam veterans have cancers or have their children with birth defects due to their exposure to Agent Orange during the past war in Vietnam.
After the war, in the spirit of humanitarianism, Vietnam voluntarily sought information and collected remains of US troops. During 1973 to 1988, Vietnam unilaterally found and handed over 302 sets of remains of US troops to the US side.
In August 1987, during a working visit to Vietnam by General John Vessy, the special envoy of the US President and Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach signed an agreement on cooperation in settling humanitarian issues of mutual concern. This signing marked the start of the Vietnam-US joint MIA operation from 1988.
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At a repatriation ceremony of US servicemen’s remains held in Da Nang city. Photo: nhandan.com.vn. |
A drive for Vietnam-US relations
Since 1973, Vietnam has run the humanitarian program in searching and repatriating remains of US servicemen in the country. Over the past 31 years, the Vietnamese and US sides have conducted 4,000 joint MIA surveys in Vietnamese localities, including nearly 60 underwater ones, and carried out joint MIA excavations in more than 700 locations, including more than 10 underwater cases. The two sides have also organized 128 joint Vietnam-US forensic examinations and nearly 1,000 sets of remains of US troops were returned to the US in 146 repatriation drives. Of the repatriated remains, more than 800 cases have been identified by the US.
Along with the joint operations, the Vietnamese side has also conducted 100 unilateral investigation drives at more than 1,000 locations. What is more, Vietnam has searched for MIA at its archives, museums and memorial houses at all levels. Vietnamese agencies and people have been encouraged to collect documents and information about MIA, and indeed handed over various documents and information related to MIA cases.
The two sides also coordinated with Laos and Cambodia to conduct more than 70 trilateral search drives and interviewed more than 200 Vietnamese war veterans who supported the Vietnam-US joint missions in searching for MIA in Laos and Cambodia.
With these facts and figures, it can be said that the Vietnam-US cooperation in searching for MIA is a highlight and serves as an impetus for bilateral relations between the two countries.
Racing against the clock
In the first period, the search for MIA was mainly conducted unilaterally. Vietnam with its humanitarian view made great effort to find and return remains of US servicemen to their families.
In the next period, the two countries started joining efforts in MIA operations. Furthermore, the US side also started to collect information about fallen or missing Vietnamese soldiers during the war and hand it to the Vietnamese side. Many belongings and keepsakes of Vietnamese soldiers that had been kept by US troops were returned to families of the Vietnamese soldiers. This has made a number of touching stories featuring the closest-ever cooperation between two former belligerent parties.
Vietnam also asked the US side to set up an agency to collect and analyze information and documents about fallen and missing Vietnamese soldiers during the war, as well as to call on US Vietnam veterans to report information and return documents, belongings and keepsakes relating to Vietnamese soldiers to the Vietnamese side.
In the coming time, Vietnam and the US are planning to boost coordination to search for some 200,000 fallen Vietnamese soldiers and missing US servicemen. The work will be very hard as much time since the end of the war has passed by. Moreover, many cases are thought to have died or gone missing in jungles, high mountains or underwater, not to mention changes in terrains and a reduced number of alive witnesses.
In this circumstance, the two sides have well comprehended that both should mobilize more resources and race against time so as to fulfill the humanitarian mission.
For its part, Vietnam is always ready to provide maximum support for the US side in searching, collecting and repatriating US servicemen missing in action. Apart from joining effort with the US side, Vietnam will keep collecting information about and conducting unilateral search for servicemen missing in action.
As the Vietnamese people have undergone a number of wars and suffered the huge losses, they well understand and share the pain of US families whose kin people are still missing. For the Vietnamese people, their effort and willingness to search for and return all those still missing in action to the US side first comes from their humanity. With such strong commitment to the MIA issue, the Vietnamese people want to heal up the wound of the war and head for a better future of the bilateral relations.
The two international seminars held by the Vietnam National Steering Committee on the Settlement of War-Left Unexploded Ordnance and Toxic Chemical Consequences (Steering Committee 701) in the US with the participation of international organizations and experts, particularly those from the US, convey a peace message from Vietnam on one hand, and display its effort to accelerate the settlement of all war legacies, paving the way for cooperation for benefits of both nations and for peace, stability and development in the region and world.
Written by Yen Ba from Washington D.C, USA
Translated by Thu Nguyen