Sec. Kerry returns to Vietnam on final official trip, makes peace with man who tried to kill him
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - Secretary of State John Kerry, making his last trip as the top U.S. diplomat, defended the Obama administration’s Asia legacy and visited the site of a battle from his Vietnam War days.
While traveling on the Mekong Delta on Saturday, Kerry met a former Viet Cong soldier who took part in an attack on Kerry’s Swift Boat on February 28, 1969, an event which led to a Silver Star for the secretary of state.
During nearly five months as the commander of a U.S. Navy Swift Boat in the Mekong Delta, Kerry was also awarded the Bronze Star for heroic achievement and three Purple Hearts for injuries that included shrapnel wounds to his arms, legs and buttocks.
Former soldier Vo Ban Tam, now 70 years old and three years younger than Kerry, told the secretary of state he and his fellow fighters from Ca Mau were hoping to lure the Americans into range with a rocket launcher, reports the BBC.
Kerry, in a bold move, then leapt ashore and killed the solider holding the rocket launcher, an indicent which became central to the infamous “Swift Boat” attacks during the 2004 presidential campaign, in which former soldiers accused the Democratic presidential candidate of over-inflating his heroism during the war.
The Washington Post reports Tam’s revelation that he knew the man that Kerry killed repudiates the political attacks on Kerry’s war record, writing: “That the Viet Cong was a man of 24, two years younger than Kerry at the time but old enough to be a credible threat, effectively negated the naysayers’ narrative.”
“He was a good soldier,” Tam, now a shrimp farmer, told Kerry about the man the secretary of state killed, according to the Post.
The Guardian reports that Tam told Kerry he was largely responsible for thwarting a worse attack that day, but that he felt like he and his fellow Viet Cong soldiers normally had the upper hand.
“We were guerrillas. We were never there where you were shooting,” Tam told Kerry, according to the Guardian, adding that they had heard his boat coming a mile off.
“Well, I’m glad we’re both alive,” Kerry said.
Also while in Vietnam, Kerry in his official role as secrtetary of state defended the 12-nation trade pact that the incoming Trump administration said it would scrap and urged countries to refrain from provocative acts in the South China Sea.
“I can’t predict what the new administration is absolutely going to do with the trade, but I can absolutely tell you that the fundamental reasons for the TPP haven’t changed,” Kerry told students of University of Technology and Education in southern Ho Chi Minh City on Friday, referring to the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement.
He said the U.S cannot grow unless it’s able to sell goods to the rest of the world.
Kerry admitted that the future of the TPP, the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia, is in doubt when Donald Trump is sworn in as president next week. He, however, believed that U.S commitments to the region will not change.
Kerry said that the U.S. and Vietnam have shared support for security and freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea, which Vietnam along with China and four other government claims in whole or in part.
Kerry also praised relations with his former foes, saying two-way trade had jumped from just $451 million 20 years ago, when U.S.-Vietnamese ties were normalized, to more than $45 billion.
The number of Vietnamese students studying in the U.S. also has increased from 800 to 21,000, while American visitors to the communist country rose from 60,000 to half a million.
Kerry, however, urged greater respect for human rights in Vietnam.
The U.S and some European governments often criticize Vietnam for arresting or jailing people who peacefully express their views. Hanoi has said it only jails law breakers.
Kerry and Sen. John McCain, who was held prisoner of war when his Navy jet was shot down over Hanoi during the war, were key participants in the efforts to normalize relations in 1995.
Earlier Friday, Kerry held separate meetings with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and acting Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son.
Kerry then travels to Paris to attend a conference on Middle East peace and to London, where he will meet Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to discuss Syria.
The most traveled top diplomat in U.S history ends his trip by attending the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos on Jan. 18, just two days before Trump is sworn in with former oilman Rex Tillerson nominated as Kerry’s replacement.