Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Mon, 21 Dec 1992 10:45:10 -0500
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      NEWS/VN: US senator says VN visit make significant progress

12/19

U.S. SENATOR SAYS VIETNAM VISIT MADE SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS

    By Adrian Croft
    SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 19, Reuter - A U.S. senator on Saturday said his latest
trip to Vietnam had brought significant progress in obtaining information on
American servicemen missing from the Vietnam War.
    Senator John Kerry, who heads a Senate committee looking into prisoners of
war (POWs) and missing in action (MIA) from the conflict, said the Vietnamese
authorities had handed over all documents the panel had requested on an earlier
trip, and more.
    "We're getting more than we've ever gotten before...more documents, with
more photographs, shoot-down documents, documents that previously they denied
they had," Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, told reporters at San Francisco airport
during a stopover on his flight back from Vietnam.
    The senator said the Vietnamese had also for the first time acknowledged
they had information about what happened in Laos where many American pilots
were shot down during a secret war to cut off North Vietnamese supply lines.
    The Vietnamese had previously said all questions about American servicemen
missing there should be directed to Laos, while Laos had said they should go to
Vietnam, Kerry said.
    "For the first time on this trip, Vietnam said: 'Yes, we've got some
documents about what happened in the Laos area and we're going to try to find
them and get them to you'," he said.
    Kerry said the committee had received some documents about downings of
American aircraft over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, some of them containing
pilots' names and pictures.
    Kerry said he and the committee's vice-chairman, Senator Bob Smith who
accompanied him on the two-day visit, had also won a Vietnamese pledge of
access to POW files.
    "We sat down and talked to people who were in the prisons interrogating our
own people," Kerry said. "No one can say to me this is not a very significant
step."
    He said he had left 38 cases of missing American servicemen with the
Vietnamese and asked them to investigate.
    In a memorandum signed during the visit, Vietnamese authorities agreed to
make available to American experts all information on POWs and MIAs.
    They also agreed to search their files for information on Americans lost or
captured along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and to follow up on reports Americans had
been sighted alive in Vietnam.
    Kerry said Vietnamese officials were adamant that all American servicemen
captured alive were returned in 1973.
    "They can't speak to Laos. Laos remains a bigger question," he said.
    However, the senator said neither his Senate committee nor the U.S.
government had evidence any American serviceman was alive in the region today.
    The Senate committee will present a report on January 5 on its year-long
investigation into the cases of 2,264 Americans unaccounted for after the war.
    Responding to scepticism about the results of the investigation expressed
by the families of some MIAs, Kerry said he thought they "ought to really not
shoot from the hip but look hard at what we're getting because what we're
getting is real and it's different."
    Kerry, who has visited Vietnam five times in the last 18 months, said no
new visit to Vietnam was scheduled but said he planned to personally take some
family members and veterans' groups to Vietnam.
    Discussing the gradual normalisation of U.S.-Vietnamese relations Kerry
said that "as the U.S. finds that the Vietnamese are acting in good faith we
need to also act in good faith...and move down the road step by step towards
the ultimate goal of a better relationship."
    He said President George Bush eased the U.S. trade embargo on Vietnam last
Monday in response to Vietnamese actions. "Now the ball is back in Vietnam's
court," Kerry said.
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