Father & Son coaxed from Jungle 40 yrs after Vietnam War

Father And Son Coaxed From Jungle 40 Years After Vietnam War

by SCOTT NEUMAN

August 09, 201310:22 AM

Ho Van Lang, found in the jungle of central Vietnam 40 years after he and his father fled the war.

VTV2

Four decades ago, Ho Van Thanh fled the fighting in his native Vietnam, disappearing into the jungle with his infant son, Ho Van Lang. This week, father and son emerged for the first time — an enfeebled Thanh carried in a stretcher, and Lang wearing only a loincloth made of tree bark.

According to the Vietnamese newspaper Dan Tri, Ho Van Thanh, now 82, was last seen in 1973 running into the jungle, after his wife and two other children were killed by a bomb or land mine near his home.

When Thanh and Lang, 42, were finally coaxed out of the jungle in Vietnam's central Quang Ngai province on Wednesday, they had been living 20 feet up in a treehouse, stocked with arrows and other makeshift hunting implements.

The Telegraph quotes a local Vietnamese newspaper as saying the elder Ho had fallen out of the habit of speech and that his son only knows a few words of the local dialect of the Cor ethnic minority. They used a homemade ax to chop down trees and survived partly on corn they cultivated as well as fruits and cassava roots from the jungle:

"But there were poignant mementos of their previous life.

"The father kept his soldier's trousers neatly folded in a corner [of the tree house]. Beside them was the little red coat his son was thought to have been wearing when they fled."

The father and son were discovered earlier when two people from a nearby village ventured some 25 miles into the forest looking for firewood.

When he fled 40 years ago, Thanh was reportedly fighting for North Vietnam (Since he lived in Quang Ngai, which was part of South Vietnam during the war, it seems likely that Tranh fought with the communist irregulars, known as the Viet Cong). He left behind another son, 6-month-old Ho Van Tri.

Tri, now in midlife, told local media that he'd tracked down his father and brother two decades ago, apparently briefly met with them, but was unable to persuade them to return to modern society.

Tri says that his brother's health is "fine, even though he looks thin," but that his father is "very weak".

Lang "doesn't understand much of what is said to him, and he doesn't want to eat or even drink water," says Ho Ven Bien, a relative who is looking after him.

"We know he wants to escape my house to go back to the forest, so we have to keep an eye on him now," Bien says.

Vietnam economy

War-nostalgia no cure for ailing Vietnam economy

Motorcyclists pass a poster marking the 40th anniversary of the US Christmas bombing campaign, Hanoi, Vietnam, December 21, 2012. For years the country's leaders have leant on war-era nostalgia to shore up authority but now face a modern-day threat -- anger over the economy.

An employee prepares a funeral wreath for a customer in Hanoi on December 21, 2012. For years the country's leaders have leant on war-era nostalgia to shore up authority but now face a modern-day threat -- anger over the economy.

Posters of US bombers crashing in flames festoon Hanoi to mark another anniversary in a long-finished war, December 21, 2012. But behind the usual propaganda Vietnam's rulers face a modern-day threat -- anger over the economy.

AFP - Posters of US bombers crashing in flames festoon Hanoi to mark another anniversary in a long-finished war. But behind the usual propaganda Vietnam's rulers face a modern-day threat -- anger over the economy.
For years the leaders of the one-party state have leant on war-era nostalgia to shore up authority anchored in battlefield victories.
With the state-dominated economy floundering, experts say touting decades-old military successes is no longer enough to shield the regime from growing public frustration.
"The communist party is skating on thin ice," said David Koh, a Vietnam analyst from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
"They must expect newer generations to look beyond these great moments of the past in deciding whether their political system is worth supporting."
A key way to strengthen the party's legitimacy would be through serious economic reforms, Koh told AFP.
Despite tight controls over the media and demonstrations there are signs of rising public dissatisfaction -- from a growing chorus of online criticism to daily, if small-scale, protests over corruption and land disputes in Hanoi.
"The government should spend less time and money on celebrating historic events and pay more attention to improving people's lives," retired state official and ex-soldier Tran Van Duong, 65, told AFP.
"Everyone seemed to earn less this year, everyone is complaining. People are not happy with the government's performance," he said, as the city marks the 40th anniversary of the 1972 "Christmas Bombings".
The aerial bombardment saw American B-52s and other aircraft drop 20,000 tons of bombs on or near Hanoi after peace talks with North Vietnam broke down.
Once touted as the next "Asian Tiger", Vietnam's economy has run aground -- its banking system drowning in toxic debts, foreign direct investment down sharply and dozens of major state-owned companies hovering near bankruptcy.
From exorbitant healthcare costs and substandard education to traffic congestion, experts say the deep flaws in Hanoi's version of state-mandated capitalism are surfacing in all areas of daily life.
"The formal political system doesn't work.... You can't run a country like this. It is sclerotic," said Adam Fforde, a professorial fellow at the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies at Victoria University in Melbourne.
"People have lost confidence in the idea that there is somebody there who can pull levers and make things happen," he said.
Over the past 20 years, Vietnam has used a Chinese-style mix of free markets and authoritarian governance to achieve rapid growth, but experts say deeper economic as well as political reforms are needed.
The current economic sluggishness is intensifying pressure on the leadership. Around a million young people enter the workforce each year and economists warn job creation and skills training are not keeping pace.
"The state apparatus is in a bit of a stupor," said Jonathan London, an assistant professor in the Department of Asian and International Studies at City University of Hong Kong.
Despite being a one-party state, Vietnam has an "extremely fragmented power structure" within its vast communist apparatus, which means tough decisions are often not taken when needed, he said.
From the World Bank to party economists, there is widespread recognition of what needs to be done to lift competitiveness and boost GDP growth that was this year the weakest since 1999.
Reform the state sector, recapitalise banks and tackle corruption or "the dream of the economic miracle in Vietnam, which seemed like such a sure and palpable thing 10 years ago, will continue to dissipate," London said.
The communist party itself seems aware of the problems -- at a plenum in October mistakes were admitted in the stewardship of the economy but no officials were sanctioned.
Vietnam needs leaders who can stop powerful interest groups -- from the military to the major state-owned enterprises down to provincial officials -- running amok, in order to get the economy back on track, London said.
"It is not clear who is capable of doing such a thing," he added.
Instead, Vietnam is stuck with "a sort of corrupt, patrimonial style of rule that leads to Bentleys and Rolls-Royces on the one hand, and tens of millions of people who aren't doing so well on the other", London said.

118 year old woman lost 7 sons in freedom struggle | Look At Vietnam - Vietnam news daily update

118 year old woman lost 7 sons in freedom struggle | Look At Vietnam - Vietnam news daily update: "Tran Thi Viet, 118, persevered after losing seven of eight sons to the war against foreign occupations.

She turns 119 in 2011, but Tran Thi Viet’s memores of events and people she has met over three centuries (19th, 20th and 21st) is still clear.

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It is not just her age that makes Viet, named the oldest Vietnamese by the Vietnam Records Book Center this month, stand out.

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The centurion with nearly 500 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, is one of the country’s greatest Heroic Mothers, with seven of her children dying battling French and American occupations.

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Viet, a native of the southern province of Long An, said she got married when she was 21 and gave birth to ten children, including eight sons.

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As the mother herself was illiterate and their family was too poor to afford tuition fees, all of children received very little formal education.

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But they were aware of what they wanted to do when seeing their fellow country men killed and their villages destroyed by foreign powers.

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All of her sons joined the Vietnamese forces to fight against occupations, and seven of them sacrificed their lives for the country.

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In 1953, her eldest son, 37-year-old Nguyen Van Lien, was killed, leaving three children behind.

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Seven years later another son, Nguyen Van Tao, died on duty, and a year later, her husband died of injuries sustained after joining an attack against the French colonial forces.

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And in 1962 and 1963, Viet lost two more sons – Nguyen Van Kien and Nguyen Van Tri - to the foreign occupation.

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In 1968, her youngest brother Nguyen Van Dau died in a campaign against the US forces.

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On the same day in 1973, two more sons died in battle.

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Losing seven sons to the war, including two whose bodies have never been found, didn’t stop the heartbroken mother from going on living, supporting her grandchildren and daughters-in-law who’d lost their husbands.

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She went fishing and did all kinds of work to earn a living.

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Now Viet lives with one of her grandsons and his wife in Long An’s Ca Gua hamlet.

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Sometimes culture researchers come to listen to her singing southern lullaby songs which, according to them, can’t be found anywhere in books.

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While it is a great happiness to have so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Viet’s grief has never faded away, even after so many years.

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Nguyen Thi Nguyen, her granddaughter, said: “Many times I’ve seen grandmother lie in the hammock in tears. When I ask if she is okay, she would be silent for a moment, then say: ‘I miss your father and your uncles’.”

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Source: Tuoi Tre

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21% Say Vietnam Still An Enemy of U.S., 21% Say Ally

Eds Note:-->> Seldom do I comment on my articles here. But, forgive me as this survey just gets under my skin. Of course I don't agree with the 25% Republicans and 19% Democrats who still see Vietnam as an enemy. Enemy of what? We made up this war through lies and even the late Robert McNamara (like Rumsfeld/Iraq) admitted we were Wrong to invade Vietnam. He went to his grave this year along with 58,000 Americans and 100,000 or more Vietnamese who died because of American war against North Vietnam. When will we learn that War solves nothing? I made my point and I'm planning a Trip (my 3rd) for this year 2009 and early 2010 to Vietnam. Come meet the wonderful people of Vietnam, explore their culture with me. If you fall into the 25% that think Vietnam is an enemy, I challenge you to move away from your daily routine and JOIN ME. You can contact me here or ckuhn55@msn.com

For most Baby Boomers, the Vietnam War was a watershed moment, with the names of the dead memorialized on a black marble wall in Washington, D.C., and on similar monuments around the country. Thirty-four years after that war finally ended, Americans are evenly divided over whether Vietnam is an ally or still an enemy of the United States.

Twenty-five percent (25%) of Republicans see Vietnam as an enemy, a view shared by just 19% of both Democrats and voters not affiliated with either political party.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 21% say Vietnam is a U.S. ally, while the identical number (21%) say the Southeast Asian nation is an enemy. For nearly half of Americans (47%), however, Vietnam falls somewhere in between an ally and an enemy, and 12% are not sure.

Interestingly, Americans over the age of 50, those most likely to have been directly impacted by the war, are far less inclined to characterize Vietnam as an enemy and are more prone to view them as somewhere in between.

Those ages 18 to 29 are most likely (25%) to say Vietnam is an ally, while adults ages 30 to 39 are most likely (29%) to see the country as an enemy.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

Rasmussen Reports periodically surveys Americans for their thoughts on U.S. relations with other key nations, including neighbors Canada and Mexico and others overseas. We will be releasing additional findings from those surveys this coming week.

Given the Communist nation’s efforts to embrace capitalism in recent years, it’s perhaps no surprise that 24% of investors describe the former enemy nation as an ally of the United States, compared to 17% of non-investors.

Twenty-nine percent (29%) of government employees say Vietnam is now an ally, but only 17% of those who work in the private sector agree.

It’s been years, however, since U.S. relations with Vietnam were front-page news which helps explain why in many demographic categories the number who are not sure is in double digits and also why so many think America’s one-time foe is neither ally nor enemy.

In a survey two years ago, 47% of U.S. voters said America’s biggest mistake in Vietnam was getting involved in the first place. Forty-two percent (42%) said the mistake was using the wrong strategy to accomplish the nation’s goals.

To show how times have changed, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month signed a major treaty of cooperation with the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and one of those members is Vietnam. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of voters approve of the way Clinton is performing as secretary of State.

Vietnam: Land mines on 16 million acres

HANOI, Vietnam - More than one-third of the land in six central Vietnamese provinces remains contaminated with land mines and unexploded bombs from the Vietnam War, according to a study released Friday.

Nearly 35 years after the war's end, Vietnamese civilians are still routinely killed and maimed by leftover mines and other explosives. Vietnam estimates that more than 42,000 people have been killed in such accidents since 1975.

The study by the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and Vietnam's ministry of defense provides the most detailed information to date about the amount and location of unexploded ordinance littering a region that saw some of the heaviest fighting and bombardment during the war.
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The survey was the result of close collaboration between the United States and Vietnam on one of the most sensitive legacies of the conflict.

In addition to mapping unexploded mines and ordinance, the project, which the U.S. government provided $2 million to finance, involved clearing 3,345 acres of land in 1,361 communities across the six provinces.

More mine-clearing remains
But the study also underlines the scope of the mine-clearing work that remains to be done.

Vietnam's Ministry of Defense estimates 16.3 million acres are still contaminated across the country, said Thao Nguyen, the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation's country director.

"The clearing of unexploded ordinance and land mines is far from finished," Nguyen said.

U.S. Ambassador Michael Michalak said the survey will help set priorities for future clearance work.

"Eliminating residual explosives from past conflicts is an important issue for the people of Vietnam, as it is for the United States," he said.

The U.S. has provided $46 million to help with mine-clearing efforts in Vietnam since 1989, he said.

Scavengers, farmers get hurt
The study looked in detail at victims in the provinces of Quang Tri, Quang Binh, Thua Thien Hue, Quang Ngai, Nghe An and Ha Tinh.

Thirty-four percent were hurt while scavenging for unexploded bombs to sell as scrap metal; 27 percent were farming or herding livestock; and 21 percent were playing or tampering with the bombs.

The study found the most heavily contaminated provinces were Quang Binh and neighboring Quang Tri, the site of the former demilitarized zone during the war.

Since the war ended, nearly 7,000 people have been killed or injured by leftover ordinance in Quang Tri and 6,000 in Quang Binh, the study found.

Beyond the Hype: Cronkite and the Vietnam War

ED NOTE: Seldom do I post articles about the Vietnam War. Since Walter Cronkite died last week, I wanted to share his words and coverage about War.

Media eulogies for Walter Cronkite -- including from progressive commentators -- rarely talk about his coverage of the Vietnam War before 1968. This obit omit is essential to the myth of Cronkite as a courageous truth-teller.

But facts are facts, and history is history -- including what Cronkite actually did as TV's most influential journalist during the first years of the Vietnam War. Despite all the posthumous praise for Cronkite's February 1968 telecast that dubbed the war "a stalemate," the facts of history show that the broadcast came only after Cronkite's protracted support for the war.

In 1965, reporting from Vietnam, Cronkite dramatized the murderous war effort with enthusiasm. "B-57s -- the British call them Canberra jets -- we're using them very effectively here in this war in Vietnam to dive-bomb the Vietcong in these jungles beyond Da Nang here," he reported, standing in front of a plane. Cronkite then turned to a U.S. Air Force officer next to him and said: "Colonel, what's our mission we're about to embark on?"

"Well, our mission today, sir, is to report down to the site of the ambush 70 miles south of here and attempt to kill the VC," the colonel replied.

Cronkite's report continued from the air. "The colonel has just advised me that that is our target area right over there," he said. "One, two, three, four, we dropped our bombs, and now a tremendous G-load as we pull out of that dive. Oh, I know something of what those astronauts must go through."

Next, viewers saw Cronkite get off the plane and say: "Well, colonel, it's a great way to go to war."

The upbeat report didn't mention civilians beneath the bombs.

That footage from CBS Evening News appears in "War Made Easy," the documentary film based on my book of the same name. Routinely, audiences gasp as the media myth of Cronkite deconstructs itself in front of their eyes.

Also in 1965 -- the pivotal year of escalation -- Cronkite expressed explicit support for the Vietnam War. He lauded "the courageous decision that Communism's advance must be stopped in Asia and that guerilla warfare as a means to a political end must be finally discouraged."

Why does this matter now? Because citing Cronkite as an example of courageous reporting on a war is a dangerously low bar -- as if reporting that a war can't be won, after cheerleading it for years, is somehow the ultimate in journalistic quality and courage.

The biggest and most important lie about an aggressive war based on deception is not that the war can't be won. The biggest and most important lie is deference to the conventional wisdom that insists the war must be fought in the first place and portrays it as a moral enterprise.

From the "War Made Easy" film transcript:

NORMAN SOLOMON: "A big problem with the media focus is that it sees the war through the eyes of the Americans, through the eyes of the occupiers, rather than those who are bearing the brunt of the war in human terms."

WALTER CRONKITE: "We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders both in Vietnam and Washington to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds."

SOLOMON: "In early 1968, Walter Cronkite told CBS viewers that the war couldn't be won."

CRONKITE: "It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate."

SOLOMON: "And that was instantly, and through time even more so, heralded as the tide has turned. As Lyndon Johnson is reputed to have said when he saw Cronkite give that report, 'I've lost middle America.' And it was presented as not only a turning point, quite often, but also as sort of a moral statement by the journalistic establishment. Well, I would say yes and no. It was an acknowledgement that the United States, contrary to official Washington claims, was not winning the war in Vietnam, and could not win. But it was not a statement that the war was wrong. A problem there is that if the critique says this war is bad because it's not winnable, then the response is, 'Oh yeah, we'll show you it can be winnable, or the next war will be winnable.' So,that critique doesn't challenge the prerogatives of military expansion, or aggression if you will, or empire."

UN: One Billion People Are Hungry Every Day

Cheikh Mukhtar carries the body of 20-month-old Anfac Anwar Mohammed across the family compound minutes after she died from starvation at Dagahaley camp in Dadaab in Kenya's northeastern province. (Photo: Reuter Pictures)

Rome - The global financial meltdown has pushed the ranks of the world's hungry to a record 1 billion, a grim milestone that poses a threat to peace and security, UN food officials said yesterday.

Because of war, drought, political instability, high food prices, and poverty, hunger now affects 1 in 6 people, by the UN estimate.

The financial meltdown has compounded the crisis in what the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization called a "devastating combination for the world's most vulnerable."

Compared with last year, there are 100 million more people who are hungry, meaning they consume fewer than 1,800 calories a day, the agency said.

"No part of the world is immune," said Jacques Diouf, the UN agency's director general. "All world regions have been affected by the rise of food insecurity."

The crisis is a humanitarian one, but also a political issue.

Officials sought to stress the link between hunger and instability, noting that soaring prices for staples, such as rice, triggered riots in the developing world last year.

Josette Sheeran of the World Food Program, another UN food agency based in Rome, said hungry people rioted in at least 30 countries last year. Most notably, soaring food prices led to deadly riots in Haiti and the overthrow of the prime minister.

"A hungry world is a dangerous world," Sheeran said. "Without food, people have only three options: They riot, they emigrate, or they die. None of these are acceptable options."

Even though prices have retreated from their mid-2008 highs, they are still "stubbornly high" in some domestic markets, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. On average, food prices were 24 percent higher in real terms at the end of 2008 compared with 2006, it said.

"Malnutrition kills through the fact that it weakens the immune system of a child," said Andrei Engstrand-Neacsu, a Nairobi-based spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in East Africa. Some 22 million of the 1 billion hungry people counted by the UN are in the drought-stricken Horn of Africa, he said.

Engstrand-Neacsu said he had just returned from a corner of southern Ethiopia on the Kenyan border where the food situation is dire, and had been speaking to a family who lost a child to malaria in February. The parents said they were told their son couldn't be saved because he was malnourished.

Engstrand-Neacsu called on donors to act before "skeletal African children are shown on the television screen at dinnertime" in the West.

The number of hungry people is estimated to have reached 1.02 billion - up 11 percent from last year's 915 million, the Food and Agriculture Organization said. The agency said it based its estimate on analysis by the US Department of Agriculture.

The UN agency said that the hunger rate is rising, too - that is, the number of hungry people is growing more quickly than the world population. Officials did not provide a rate but said the trend began two years ago.

Almost all the world's undernourished live in developing countries. But all regions of the world have registered two-digit increases in hunger from last year.

The world's most populous region, Asia and the Pacific, has the largest number of hungry people - 642 million, up 10.5 percent from last year. Sub-Saharan Africa registers 265 million undernourished, an 11.8 percent increase. Even in the developed world, undernourishment is a growing concern, with 15 million in all and a 15.4 percent increase, the sharpest rise around the world, the UN agency said.

South Asians Left Jobless, Homeless In Iraq

Tens of thousands of poor South Asians have made their way to Iraq since the U.S. invasion, in the hopes of making money to send home to support their families.
Dishwashers, cleaners, drivers and cooks from countries like Bangladesh, India and Nepal form part of an army of contractors that service America's expensive war.
But the system that gets them to Baghdad is riddled with corruption and exploitation, leaving some South Asians living in hovels, jobless and afraid.
Four months ago, Sushil Khadka, 26, left his wife, his two children and his home country of Nepal for Iraq.
"I'd dreamt of a good job, sending home my salary every month to feed my family, to send my children to school. That's why I came here. But that never happened. The opposite happened. It's terrible," he says.
Now Khadka sits in a hut made out of salvaged cardboard, huddled next to a chain-link fence in a dusty corner near Baghdad's international airport. Flies swarm around splattered bits of old food and dirty blankets.
"They made fools of us," he says. "Had we gotten work, it would've been alright but they took our money and ran away."
He sold the family jewelry — all they had in the world — to pay a recruiter in Nepal $5,000. He says the recruiter promised him a job working for American contractor KBR that would earn him $800 a month — a fortune in Nepal. The average income there is $340 a year.
But when he arrived in Iraq he was told there was no work, he says. The agent who was supposed to help him was arrested and the visa in Khadka's passport was ripped out. He was left to his own devices, scrounging around the airport to find shelter and food.
Khadka is not alone. The 40-or-so men who live with him in this makeshift camp tell similar tales.
Upendra Das, 17, sits on the floor chopping vegetables on a dirty plank of painted wood.
"We eat once a day. Sometimes we can't even do that," he says. "I've been here three months so far. To get here I borrowed from the village moneylender. They charge a lot of interest. I can't leave so I'm still waiting, hoping that I will get some work."
Another group of 1,000 South Asians have been held in a nearby warehouse for several months by KBR subcontractor Najlaa Catering Services, a company based in Kuwait. The men say they had their passports taken away and were confined in substandard conditions.
The U.S. military and KBR say they are investigating.
The U.S. State and Defense departments have issued contracting guidelines that are supposed to protect workers in Iraq.
"As in all things, in Iraq there is a policy in place but there is no one really there to enforce it," says investigative journalist T. Christian Miller, who works for Pro Publica and has written a book called Blood Money about the mismanagement of Iraq's reconstruction.
He says that the abuse of South Asian workers in Iraq is common.
"It's definitely a situation of exploitation. You are talking about the most vulnerable people in the world," Miller says. "The U.S. has contracted some of the most dangerous and dirties jobs to some of the poorest people in the world. At this point, five years into the war, there are no excuses for U.S. companies not to be aware of the issue of human trafficking or labor trafficking."
Back at the Baghdad airport, a representative from the International Organization of Migration (IOM) has just showed up offering the homeless South Asians free repatriation. The IOM heard about the men only 10 days ago.
The men crowd around as Thair Issan hands out forms for them to fill out if they want to go home. Issan says the men's plight is desperate.
"Those are victims," he says. "You see the conditions they're living in. It's a very big humanitarian crisis."
Bangladeshi Mohammad Nazrul Islam says he wants to stay here but he's been told he'll be jailed if he does.
"The Iraqi authorities say ... they will jail us if we stay. If we leave right now, it's OK. But we don't want to leave because we've all paid a lot of money to get here," he says.
Where will we find the money to pay off that debt? he asks desperately, adding that he wants to stay but no one will give him a job.
ed note: The scares of a War President.