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PUB NOTE!
by PETE McCOMMONS
PRESIDENTIAL OPPORTUNITY
Publisher's note: Chuck Searcy. Athenian at
heart, citizen of the world, recently resigned his
post as director of the Vietnam Veterans of
America Foundation's program manufacturing
and fitting orthotics for crippled Vietnamese.
After five years in Hanoi, Chuck is looking around
for his next opportunity there, where he is
intensely interested in Vietnam and the future of
that country's relations with the United States.
What follows is an excerpt from Chuck's longer
Letter from Hanoi.
President Clinton's visit to Vietnam is an
unprecedented opportunity for America
to deal with some troubling and
tragic legacies of the war which
ended in 1975. Although the
Vietnamese have generously and
graciously put the war behind
them, at least in regard to any
expression of anger or bitterness
toward Americans, they must still
face the daunting challenges of
many problems that were caused by
the war and its aftermath. Americans,
too, arp painfully aware of those problems, and
I'm convinced that many of us share a burden of
unmet responsibilities, because for the most
part we have failed to assist the Vietnamese in
their difficult recovery from those problems. Not
only that, but for some 20 years the U.S.
imposed a virtual economic blockade that fur
ther hampered their recovery.
Now, finally, there is some movement toward
long delayed cooperation from the U.S. govern
ment on troublesome legacies of the war such as
landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) and,
perhaps, the chemical
Agent Orange, a toxin
sprayed over much of
South Vietnam which
poisoned and defoli
ated the forests.
Circumstantial evi
dence and some scien
tific research indicate
Agent Orange may
have caused severe
birth defects and dis
abilities in children of
veterans.
In March of this
year, U.S. Secretary of
Defense William Cohen
came to Hanoi and for
the first time suggested publicly that the U.S.
should cooperate with Vietnam on the issues of
landmines and UXO clearance as well as Agent
Orange. Since that time, the U.S. has reached an
agreement with the Vietnamese government to
provide SI.7 million in demining equipment to
Vietnam's Ministry of National Defense. That's
an important start.
When President Clinton comes to Vietnam,
he could follow up with ar. even greater com
mitment from the U.S. to help Vietnam clean up
the massive amount of undetonated bombs,
artillery shells, and other ordnance that still kill
and maim children and poor rural families every
week throughout Vietnam.
And he could do more. The sixth U.S.
President since American withdrawal from the
war, and the first to visit Vietnam since the war,
Clinton can also be the hrst U.S. President to
address the legacy of Agent Orange. President
Clinton could announce a sensible <*,nd gracious
initiative that would do more to heal the
wounds of the war, for Vietnamese and
Americans, than any superficial or symbolic
statement could ever achieve.
President Clinton could say something like
this: "The U.S. government acknowledges the
use of Agent Orange and other toxins during the
war. We do not know with scientific certainty
the full consequences of the use of those chemi
cals. However, we do know that Vietnamese and
Americans alike shared the pain and suffering of
that tragic and divisive war, and in some ways
the impact is still being felt today. Now, in a
humanitarian gesture of friendship, healing and
reconciliation, the U.S. government pledges to
cooperate with the government of Vietnam to
address the problems we identify, in whatever
ways both governments agree are reasonable,
appropriate, and useful, just as we have tried
to address the problems of American veterans
and their children."
The President does not need to be
more specific. He doesn't have to
pledge billions of dollars in repa
rations, because it’s not neces
sary and has never been
demanded by the Vietnamese.
The Vietnamese government is
now paying compensation to pre
sumed Agent Orange victims of
between $4 and $7 per month, and
that small amount makes a huge differ
ence in the lives of poor people dealing with
severely disabled family members.
Recently Diane Fox, an American friend and
Ph.D. candidate in anthropology who is trans
lating a book about Agent Orange from
Vietnamese into English, traveled to a province
south of Hanoi to meet with Vietnamese fami
lies who believe the birth defects and disabili
ties suffered by their children and other family
members are the result of Agent Orange. The
Vietnamese mistakenly thought Diane was a
representative of the U.S. government. When
she told them she was
only an independent
researcher and writer,
they seemed not to
get the message. At
the end of a long
period of talking and
listening to their sto
ries, Diane prepared to
leave and the
Vietnamese gathered
around her and
thanked her profusely
for coming to meet
with them. As she
described the scene,
the Vietnamese said to
her, "We thank you so
much for coming. This is the first time, in 25
years since the war, that anyone from the U.S.
government has shown that they understand
our suffering, and that they sympathize with
our plight. Please tell the U.S. government that
we thank you so much for listening to us." They
never asked for money. They didn't ask for med
ical care. They asked for nothing. They simply
were saying - they thought to a representative
of the U.S. government - "Thank you for under
standing."
The important thing today is for President
Clinton to "close the past and open the future,"
as the Vietnamese say, and he cannot do that
by saying nothing about the past and ignoring
the legacy of the war. That silence would
resound around the world. As one American
friend in Hanoi put it, "Everyone would see the
ghost at the table." But a simple statement of
recognition that the war caused much pain and
suffering, for people on all sides, coupled with a
pledge to provide humanitarian cooperation to
Vietnam, would truly permit Americans and
Vietnamese to enter this new millennium in a
partnership based on peace, mutual respect and
shared understanding.
Chuck Searcy
President Clinton's
visit to Vietnam is
an unprecedented
opportunity...
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