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Vietnam is charging the Pentagon exorbitant charges for paperwork and artifacts associated to lacking U.S. service members from the Vietnam Battle, in line with a report by the Nationwide League of Households of American Prisoners and Lacking in Southeast Asia.
The nation calls for as much as $10,000 per doc and $15,000 per artifact, successfully promoting again proof about lacking American troops to the US.
Regardless of spending over $86 million since 2016, solely 25 circumstances of lacking troopers have been resolved. The advocacy group’s report argues that Vietnam has remodeled the POW/MIA accounting mission right into a profit-generating enterprise moderately than treating it as a humanitarian obligation. Vietnamese officers proceed accessing U.S. navy archives at taxpayer expense whereas offering no reciprocal transparency.
The report comes because the Trump administration introduced a serious commerce take care of Vietnam, the place the nation pays 20% tariffs on items despatched to the U.S. and 40% on transshipped items, whereas gaining zero-tariff entry to Vietnamese markets. The upper tariffs goal China, which has used Vietnam to bypass U.S. commerce restrictions.
The Pentagon’s Protection POW/MIA Accounting Company faces criticism for allegedly overstating Vietnam’s cooperation to keep away from jeopardizing the connection. The report means that a lot of the 25 resolved circumstances had been unilateral turnovers by Vietnam moderately than outcomes of investigative work by the Pentagon company.
Navy historian Jay Veith, who authored the report, famous that whereas operational cooperation exists, it comes at exorbitant prices with restricted returns. The knowledgeability cooperation is even worse, with identification media from U.S. MIAs displayed in Vietnamese museums whereas Hanoi withholds data from Pentagon investigators.
Advocates suspect Vietnam of “warehousing” stays of lots of of American POWs and MIAs, then promoting them again to the US. There’s substantial intelligence suggesting Vietnam held again Individuals captured after Operation Homecoming in 1973, when all prisoners had been presupposed to be launched. The Vietnamese authorities can also be suspected of operating disinformation campaigns and “salting” suspected MIA websites with stays earlier than U.S. investigation groups arrive.
The report estimates greater than 1,500 U.S. troops stay lacking from the Vietnam Battle, with many categorized as “non-recoverable.” The Nationwide League expresses frustration that the Pentagon company hasn’t pressured Vietnam for higher cooperation and decrease prices, whereas the communist authorities maintains its unchanged ideology regardless of versatile ways.
Read more: Vietnam charging millions for info on missing American soldiers, providing few answers
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