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The Vietnam News

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[Year 2001]

Vietnamese accuse Kerrey squad of brutality

BEN TRE - A U.S. Navy Seal squadron led by former Senator Bob Kerrey acted with brutality when it attacked a Vietnamese hamlet 32 years ago, a local official quoted survivors as saying. Pham Di Cu, head of the foreign relations department of the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre, where the massacre occurred, told Reuters Friday that 13 children, five women and an elderly man had been killed in the attack on February 25, 1969. Kerrey has acknowledged that the killing of civilians took place, but he said the squad was returning fire and did not know that civilians had been killed until after the fighting. Cu quoted surviving witness Pham Thi Lanh, 67, as saying the attack on the hamlet of Thanh Phong began in darkness at about 8 p.m. and lasted just 20 minutes. "I think in terms of brutality, this was the worst incident in this province during the war," he told Reuters. "Personally, I think it was inhuman."

Cu said Lanh had told how the seven-man squad -- six masked Americans and a Vietnamese interpreter -- moved from bunker to bunker in the hamlet killing people. He said the villagers could not tell if all the squad had taken part in the killing. One person survived from one of the bunkers, a girl named Luom, now about 40, whose leg was severed by bullets, Cu added. Cu, a history graduate, said the hamlet was a military target in that it was controlled by the communist Viet Cong guerrillas in an area used to unload arms brought by boat from North Vietnam, but he said all those killed were civilians. He said he first heard of the massacre when he took a CBS News "60 Minutes II" film crew to the village and interviewed the survivors. "I was very shocked and emotional when I heard. I was appalled by the survivors' accounts," he said. Other foreign journalists are to be allowed by the communist authorities to visit Thanh Phong and interview the survivors Saturday. The hamlet could not be reached by telephone.

War Crime

Vietnam's official media Friday called the incident a crime. "Another painful tragedy has been exposed before the April 30th liberation day, although no one is still vague about the crimes of the Americans during the war," the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said under the headline "Nightmare in Thanh Phong." The Thanh Nien (Young People) printed with its account a black and white wartime picture of unidentified U.S. soldiers standing in a ricefield, surrounded by Vietnamese corpses. "In terms of the way it was done, it was a war crime," said Cu, although he noted Kerrey had shown public remorse. News of the incident emerged just ahead of the April 30 anniversary of the defeat of the U.S.-backed government of the then South Vietnam by communist forces in 1975. Kerrey, in his first public remarks since the massacre, said he felt guilty about what happened and unable to justify it militarily or morally, but he did not consider it a war crime. "When we fired, we fired because we were fired upon," he told a news conference. "In short, we did not go out on a mission with the intent of killing innocent people," he said. Kerrey, who has been seen as a potential Democratic candidate for president in 2004, and who ran unsuccessfully for the office in 1992, told CBS: "To describe it as an atrocity, I would say, is pretty close to being right, because that's how it felt, and that's why I feel guilt and shame for it."

However, he said he and the others in his counter-insurgency squad did not know they were killing unarmed civilians. This was contradicted by another squad member, Gerhard Klann, who told CBS: "We herded them all together in a group" and "lined them up and opened fire" from very close range. Kerrey, 57, told NBC News Wednesday Klann's recollection that the unit fired on civilians at close range was "not true." He said it had been returning fire. However Cu said: "The villagers said there were no other shots." Kerrey said of Lanh's account of the shootings to CBS: "The eyewitness is, at the very least, sympathetic to the Viet Cong. At the absolute very least." Cu said Lanh was an extremely poor woman who survived by scavenging for firewood in the forest. Kerrey said his squad was in a high-risk, free-fire zone, where according to intelligence, a military meeting was taking place and where there were no civilians. Cu said the survivors said there had been a civilian, not a military meeting. A Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Thursday Kerrey, who has supported post-war reconciliation with Vietnam, had been remorseful about the incident and called on him to help heal the wounds left over from the conflict.

Kerrey won the highest U.S. military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for actions the month after the controversial encounter. News of the incident has stirred memories of the March 1968 My Lai massacre, in which, according to Vietnamese figures, U.S. troops slaughtered more than 500 civilians. U.S. army figures estimate more than 300 civilians died.

Reuters - April 27, 2001.


Vietnam massacre haunts war hero

HANOI - VIETNAM'S state-run media yesterday described as a crime the killing of more than 20 unarmed civilians 32 years ago by a US Navy Seal squadron led by former Senator Bob Kerrey. Newspapers carried the story of the killing prominently, citing a New York Times and CBS News 60 Minutes II joint investigation which brought to light the February 1969 incident.

"Another painful tragedy has been exposed before the April 30 liberation date, although no one is still vague about the crimes of the Americans during the war," the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said in a story headlined Nightmare in Thanh Phong. April 30 is the anniversary of the defeat of the US-backed government of the then South Vietnam in 1975. Senator Kerrey, in his first public remarks since the 1969 encounter in Thanh Phong village in the Mekong Delta between his troops and Vietnamese civilians, said he felt guilty about what happened and unable to justify it militarily or morally. Most of the more than 20 civilians killed in the incident were women and children. A report in the Nguoi Lao Dong (Labourer) newspaper was headlined The bloody confession of American Senator Kerrey. "Although it was late, Bob Kerrey finally did what he had to do in accordance with his conscience," the Tuoi Tre newspaper said.

Senator Kerrey said the facts of the incident, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star, were that his Navy Seal squadron was in a high-risk, free-fire zone, where according to intelligence, a military meeting was taking place and where there were no civilians. A Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Senator Kerrey had been remorseful about the incident and she called on him to help heal the wounds left over from the conflict. In Vietnam, and other wars, distinguishing between civilians and enemy army was not always easy. Virginia Military Institute historian Spencer Tucker, a former Army intelligence officer who monitored North Vietnam and Laos from the Pentagon in the mid-1960s, said the "enemy was everywhere, there were not clear lines of demarcation". The accounts of Senator Kerrey and his team members, now more than 30 years old, conveyed some of that ambiguity. Yesterday Senator Kerrey said that his Seal team began shooting only after they were fired upon in an area supposedly cleared of civilians known as a "free-fire zone". A member of his team, Gerhard Klann, has claimed the victims were herded together and shot in interviews with The New York Times Magazine and 60 Minutes II.

Senator Kerrey expressed regret over the incident but said he did not plan to return the Bronze Star he received for the mission. The Korean War also has its ghosts. According to some accounts, North Korean soldiers used civilians as cover when they tried to infiltrate US lines during the Korean War. US troops under attack sometimes responded with artillery fire or air strikes that killed civilians.

Reuters & KRT - April 27, 2001.