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1991-10-29
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[bkerrey.txt 07/15/91]
[This article is provided as background on Sen. Bob Kerrey, who will be
on the new Senate Committee on POWs and MIAs]
Conversation with Joseph Galloway
U.S. News and World Report 07/15/91
Looking Back At Vietnam
`The freedom of the Vietnamese people is still worth fighting for'
says Sen. Bob Kerrey-and we don't have to go to war to win.
Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, who received the Medal of Honor
for his service as a Navy SEAL in the Vietnam War, recently returned
from his second visit to Vietnam in two years. He speaks out about how
the United States should deal with that region and discusses the never-
ending issue of American POWs and MIAs, whose families will be meeting
in Washington this week for their 22nd convention. Among his
observations:
On life in Vietnam.
One impression I came away with is that the Vietnamese government has
cracked down in the last year, and they're putting people in jail for
political crimes. The second is that if they would make a step towards
laws that protect private property and allow political freedom, they
would take off. This is a hard-working group of 70 million people fully
capable of becoming a major economic power in the world. Third is a
powerful sense of betrayal-that for the past 16 years we've been
concerned about the impact of the Vietnam War upon America, and we
forgot about the impact of the Vietnam War on our Vietnamese allies, who
are now being mistreated. There's a need to reconcile not only the
differences between Vietnam and The United states but the differences
between the Vietnamese themselves. they treat our allies as traitors.
we ought to stand up for them. Our policy ought not necessarily to be
contingent upon political reforms, but we ought to be arguing for them.
On what should be done.
We should not be timid in arguing our ideas. In the last couple of
years, we've had three witnesses to our power-Vaclav Havel, Lech Welesa
and Nelson Mandela-come and say, "Thanks for standing up for our
freedom." I'm uncomfortable thinking that perhaps Vietnam's Vaclav Havel
is in jail right now. We have to describe political freedoms that we
think are worthwhile, and we ought to do the same thing on economic
issues. We are willing to interfere in the internal affairs of other
countries, to criticize them, when they're our friends. But for some
reason, when it's your enemy, you say, "I can't meddle." Just the
opposite of what we ought to be doing.
The evidence is very clear that American policies can liberate human
beings. we can create an environment where liberation is possible, even
without the application of force. And, indeed, what I learned from the
events in the Persian Gulf, from Desert storm, is that unless you meddle
in international affairs, you create the seeds of your own destruction;
you create the possibility that you may have to resort to military force
at some point.
On prospects for peace in Cambodia.
My feeling is that we're very close to getting a comprehensive agreement
in Cambodia. I'd like to see the United states advance that peace
process. It represents our policy trigger to begin to normalize with
Vietnam. We need to push that process by dropping the sanctions in
Cambodia and by putting a presence in there. At that point, I would put
our allies in Vietnam on equal standing with our concern for POWs-MIAs-
not one higher than the other but both of them right there at the top.
The question for Vietnam's government is: What's your attitude toward
the people who fought for freedom on the other side? Are they on the
household list? Are they entitled to health care, education and jobs?
They aren't. Again, for emphasis, I'm not sure that I would make that a
condition to dropping the economic sanctions on Vietnam. But at the
very least, our policy makers ought to say,"Let's talk MIAs and POWs and
lets talk South Vietnamese allies." I would put more energy into
political freedoms and economic freedoms. The freedom of the Vietnamese
people is still worth fighting for and you don't have to go to war to
fight for it.
On the Vietnamese and the Soviet people.
Though I'm quite certain that the cutoff in aid has hurt them, these 70
million people are much different from 70 million living in the Soviet
Union. They are full of energy and they're busy and they're working,
and they're not in imminent danger.
But as a result, I think they're quite impressionable to our argument:
You've got one country now. We lost that war. You've got a communist
economic and political system. We may get beyond the POW-MIA issue. We
may get beyond the concern that we've got for our allies. We may have
normal relations with you again. but if you change the laws of this
country to provide political freedom, in 10 years Vietnam could be a
major economic power and the standard of living could be $5,000 a year,
not $250. You have the potential to be a great economic power, but not
under a communist economic system. you simply aren't going to get there
from here.
[distributed through the POW Network]