by frog
A few days ago I asked Catherine Delahunty and some of the other Green candidates to send in an occasional post to Frogblog. I haven’t managed to set up a login for her yet, but she has promptly sent in this post on the Government’s Vietnam veteran apology this afternoon, which I’ll post for her:
Saying sorry can be powerful. It would be most powerful if the Government also said sorry to the Vietnamese people. As far as I know the New Zealand Government is yet to say sorry to them, although I think Sue Kedgley did her best to make up for when on a visit to Vietnam.
I have had the unique experience of being intimately part of the protest movement against the Vietnam War in this country and also having toured the country with poisoned veterans in 2004. The veterans I met were volunteers who chose to go to a country they knew little of and become part of one of the most appalling invasions in the twentieth century. In the process these men were exposed to a terrible defoliant which has hideous intergenerational effects. Agent Orange contained high levels of dioxin and the effects on the Vietnamese population continue to this day. Everything was poisoned, their bodies, their land and their waters. The foreign soldiers were also put at risk and their children and grandchildren are still suffering from this terrible chemical abuse. I met some of these children when we toured the country on the “People Poisoned Daily Tour? in 2004. There is no doubt they deserve an apology and then some for being exposed to Agent Orange. As do the DOW workers, the sawmill workers and everyone else sprayed with this human carcinogen (to name but one of the effects).
Interesting a recent Massey University report on sawmill workers in Whakatane also exposed to dioxin, shows levels even higher than some of the veterans, but no one is saying sorry to them. They weren’t volunteers they were workers and they are dying just as fast as the others are.
I am sorry that its taken the Government so long to take responsibility for the effects of dioxin exposure on the veterans, and I look forward to other exposed workers being assisted and compensated. The pain of this chemical exposure is beyond words. And I have met some veterans who know what was done to Vietnam and how utterly wrong it was. But should we march proudly now, justifying our previous involvement in the United States agenda? For some of us that’s a revision of history that we’re not prepared to make and our biggest sorry goes to the citizens of Vietnam.As Iraq drags on the same cycle is being enacted with US soldiers. They are being poisoned and they are poisoning Iraq. They should not be there and they will be hurt that there are not seen as heroes. They will be ill and traumatised, having left illness, death and trauma in their wake. What’s it for? Who benefits? Maybe its time for answers as well as apologies.
Hopefully we’ll get more posts from Catherine in the next few months. She is a published author, has been a tutor in resource management and Te Tiriti o Waitangi issues, a mediator under the Resource Management Act and is currently an education co-ordinator for Kotare Trust and chairperson of the Tairawhiti Beneficiary Advocacy Trust. But she is probably best known as a campaigner and activist for ecological wisdom and social justice in Aotearoa.
Incidentally No Right Turn also covers the Vietnam apology from a similar angle.
Published in Society & Culture by frog on Wed, May 28th, 2008
Tags: apology, Catherine Delahunty, sorry, veteran, vietnam, war
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
so..catherine..
..in a piece about apologising to the grunt soldiers who just followed orders..
..and did what they thought/knew was their ‘duty’..
you don’t talk about apologising to them for how they were universally dissed..
..but launch into a relitigation of the rights(none!) and wrongs (many) of the vietnam war..
..digress into mill workers/dioxin..
..and end up having a little preach on the iraq war..
um..!..sorta ‘all over the place’..eh..?
and definitely not on the topic under discussion..
more an opportunity for you to mount a soapbox..than anything else really..
eh..?
sorta ‘missed the point’ somewhere there..
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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“..But should we march proudly now, justifying our previous involvement in the United States agenda? For some of us that’s a revision of history that we’re not prepared to make..”
and wtf is that all about..?..who is suggesting that..?
answer:..nobody..!
how is that not an example of pure grandstanding from you..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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(edited for clarity)
So, Catherine; in a piece about apologising to the grunt soldiers who just followed orders and did what they thought/knew was their ‘duty’, you don’t talk about apologising to them for how they were universally dissed but launch into a relitigation of the rights(none!) and wrongs (many) of the
Vietnam war.
You then digress into mill workers/dioxin and end up having a little preach on the Iraq war. Don’t you think that’s a little over the place. Definitely not on the topic under discussion. More an opportunity for you to mount a soapbox than anything else really. You sorta ‘missed the point’ somewhere there.
“..But should we march proudly now, justifying our previous involvement in the United States agenda? For some of us that’s a revision of history that we’re not prepared to make..?
What is that all about? Who is suggesting that? Answer:nobody!
How is that not an example of pure grandstanding from you?
Phil (self promotion)
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I thought it was good response. We can’t ignore the human tragedy of war, whether it is the soldiers sent out to die, or the people they’ve never met they and are told to kill.
It’s easy for us to forget that the veterans of previous wars came back with psychological and physical wounds and were neglected by the governments that sent them there. The Second World War is perhaps a slight exception, but even then, after the cheap housing was allotted and the victory celebrations ended there was a huge weight of suffering that wasn’t talked about or dealt with. For the most part it was just put in a corner.
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For once, I agree with Phil.
Stop hedging. Those ex-soldiers have been treated terribly by the anti-war movement and governments. Give them some peace.
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George, Omg, you mean you can actually read ‘phil’? Just by joining the sentences without breaks or pauses he actually has linear thought… Who knew? Those are actual paragraphs and full sentences. Somebody give that man some paste.
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back then people thought that agitators worked amongst poor illiterate peasants and used fear tactics against resistors to gain support. history is/ was full of communists modus operandi which was totally evil (ie secret police, show trials etc). So the domino theory seemed quite reasonable.. One of the reasons the Americans lost was that the North Vietnamese didn’t allow protest or accurately report losses.
Since you’ve got so many Ti Tiriti experts up there (including David Cleland?), , can you explain how Tino Rangitiratanga works as guaranteed by Ti Tiriti so that conditions are fully satisfied? Also the meaning of Tangata Whenua (are not NZ farmers “people of the land”?).
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jh – why don’t you visit a marae and learn more about your subject of interest or read up more on the treaty and tino ranga tiratanga?
and jh – are you supporting what was the invasion of Vietnam? and the use of agent orange, on vietnamese people and the nz (and other soilders)?
Catherine said what I thought: why say sorry only to the soilders of one side (the side NZ was on), why not also say sorry to the vietnamese people?
Iraq is relevent in that it is very similar, another US military mistake – with high causalties – and this time depleted uranium instead of agent orange.
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“jh – why don’t you visit a marae and learn more about your subject of interest or read up more on the treaty and tino ranga tiratanga?”
Why on earth would you want to do that?
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As I said at the time communism was seen as a rot. there was the example of Stalin and the Berlin Wall etc. Kenedy was right when he said “we don’t have to have walls to keep our people in”
Back during the cold war there were people who were die hard defenders of North Korea and those who thought Albania was a workers paradise. Funny how those sorts float to the top; perhaps it is that certainty factor combined with the vision (albeit shonky) that provides the motivation that produces some interesting historical outcomes.
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Funny how absolutely nobody gave a damn about human rights or what happened to Vietnam after Saigon fell. You can’t hold a protest in Vietnam, you can’t publish a leaflet criticising the government, the Vietnamese government imprisons and executes political prisoners.
Let’s not rewrite history to be warm and fuzzy to Marxist-Leninists here. The Republic of Vietnam was attacked by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, it was a cross border invasion. The Republic of Vietnam called on support of its allies to repel the invasion, and so the slow creeping involvement of the Western allies grew. The DRV was, after all, getting substantial support from the USSR, China and North Korea – will they apologise for their involvement? Hardly.
The Vietnam War was a badly fought disaster. At the time it made sense to defend the ROV against invasion and insurgency, but tactics and strategy were wrong.
However there need be no apology to the Vietnamese people for seeking to defend them against Marxism-Leninism. China wont apologise for funding, arming and protecting the Khmer Rouge after all. What I’d like to see is someone on the left somewhere fighting for human rights in Vietnam like they will for China.
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Apology to Viet Nam veterans must not glorify war – Maori Party
Hon Tariana Turia, Veterans Affairs spokesperson 27 May 2008
A government apology to Viet Nam veterans must accept full responsibility for sending our soldiers into a war that our people did not support, says the Maori Party.
“There needs to be a distinction between acknowledging the sacrifices made by the vets and their families, which everyone accepts have taken a terrible toll, and the government insisting there was honour and glory involved in the Viet Nam war ,” says Veterans Affairs spokesperson Tariana Turia.
“We got involved in that war through the government’s belief that New Zealand was helpless without American protection. That attitude underpinned our foreign policy, and our soldiers paid the price. The tragedy is that New Zealanders’ lives, health and sanity were sacrificed to our government’s subservience to US interests.
“The anti-war protest movement held us all accountable, and eventually managed to end our involvement in Viet Nam. But the issues were never resolved ,” she said.
“The government tried to conceal its mistake by sweeping the issue under the carpet. The result is that the veterans have carried the burden of shame ever since.
“We share the grief of the whanau of Viet Nam veterans – nga morehu who have lived with the effects of dioxin poisoning, Kawasaki disease, multiple organs, cancers, brain tumours; and their ongoing distress at what they consider to be the Crown’s “consistent and despicable rejection of Viet Nam Veterans’ health and welfare concerns.?*
“We acknowledge too, that 65% of Vietnam Veterans are of Maori descent. We are thinking of the legacy of the late Bishop Whakahuihui Vercoe, who laid a claim with the Waitangi Tribunal as he believed the current system of compensation for veterans did not do justice to their pain. On his deathbed, Whakahuihui gave a deposition which ended, “this has to go on for the wives and the children?.
“So there are good grounds for a heartfelt apology to Viet Nam veterans. The Maori Party supports an official apology. It should express regret for the mistakes of the past, and make a commitment not to repeat them in future,? said Mrs Turia.
“We should also remember the people of Viet Nam, the ordinary citizens, the women and children, who were also casualties of the war. Agent Orange has poisoned their whenua, and their whakapapa, for generations to come. We owe the people of Vietnam an apology as well. Do we have the moral fibre to apologise to them too?”
“And if we are serious about not repeating our mistakes, we should demand some clarity from the government around the role of our elite force the SAS in Afghanistan. Are we at war there too, and whose interests are we really fighting for and protecting?” asked Mrs Turia.
———————————————————————-
so china wont apologise for funding and supporting the khymer rouge – so people shouldnt apologise to the wrongs done to vietnamese people by the american US military and its allies?
china supports the junta in burma, and zimbabwe… and america supported apartheid south africa and osama bin laden.
scott – are you not talking about vietnamese choosing their own way, you are talking about america choosing it for them, like they are choosing for iraq, choosing to privitise their country and so on…
regardless of marxism, america made some filthy mistakes in vietnam. vets and vietnamese deserve apologees for what was done to them.
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libertyscott says:
“However there need be no apology to the Vietnamese people for seeking to defend them” (against Marxism-Leninism.)
I suppose you could argue that there need be no (more recent) apology to the Palestinian people, and the Lebanese people, and the Iraqi people, and (potentially) the Iranian people … ?
You don’t happen to be an American by any chance, libertyscott?
What if someone went “seeking to defend the American people” in that same manner?
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Libertyscott worte:
“Let’s not rewrite history to be warm and fuzzy to Marxist-Leninists here. The Republic of Vietnam was attacked by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, it was a cross border invasion.”
The ‘republic of Vietnam’ was a bit of Vietnam that was under the control of a brutal and corrupt government that had hardly any popular support and only existed because of support from Western powers. Very few people living in the southern part of Vietnam saw that government as legitimate, and none of them saw the ‘republic of Vietnam’ as a ‘country’ that could be ‘invaded’.
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treesoftomorrow – By what contortion of reality do you think imposing a Marxist-Leninist one-party state is the “Vietnamese choosing their way”? There were many mistakes in Vietnam, many committed by the communist side too (yep no journalists allowed on that side).
Eredwen – I’m not an American, playing the nationalist bigot card doesn’t help your argument there. Palestinians could be apologised to by the UN first and foremost, and the UK, USSR, in fact the PLO for being a corrupt kleptocratic institution, and the neighbouring states for playing them like a song. However, you’ve evaded the point – the Vietnamese government is a brutal one-party state, but that doesn’t matter, somehow NZ owes it an apology. You’re wilfully blind to what went on in South Vietnam after 1975 (and I am not pretending the RoV regime was good either).
Kahikatea- “Very few people living in the southern part of Vietnam saw that government as legitimate, and none of them saw the ‘republic of Vietnam’ as a ‘country’ that could be ‘invaded” what referendum are you quoting, or is CPV propaganda good enough for you? Don’t you give a damn about human rights in Vietnam? Don’t you remember Vietnamese boat people and why thousands upon thousands fled communist Vietnam? You could have argued the same about South Korea in 1953, but look today, who in their right minds would say the better outcome in Korea would have been Kim Il Sung running the whole peninsula as the prison state the North is today?
I’m intrigued as to why Burma and China matter on human rights, but Vietnam was a “liberation”. There are legitimate reasons for opposing the war in Vietnam, hey Ayn Rand did, but apologising to a dictatorship that doesn’t allow dissent is granting it moral equivalency it does not deserve.
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libertyscott,
You’re failing to distinguish between an apology to the people of Vietnam and its government. A libertarian like yourself should be one to do so.
The people of Vietnam (not to mention Cambodia and Laos) quite rightly deserve an apology for their suffering during the Vietnam War.
Like Iraq and Korea, Vietnam was a legacy of Western colonial exploitation and post-colonial intervention into the affairs of other countries. If the Western (and Soviet) powers had of engaged with and supported with democratic movements in those countries, such as the Democratic Party of Vietnam, rather than their puppet Ngo Dinh Diem who was universally hated by people in both North and South Vietnam, or even have supervised fair democratic elections, maybe the war wouldn’t have happened.
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“A government apology to Viet Nam veterans must accept full responsibility for sending our soldiers into a war that our people did not support, says the Maori Party.”
hear hear.
Now how about an apology from the government and the national party (the government at the time) for getting New Zealand into a war that our population did not accept.
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More from Catherine:
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i think you missed my point catherine..
this was an apology to the soldiers who were mistreated..
..not the wide-ranging grab-bag of topics/subjects you shoe-horned into that narrowly-designated format..
..i think time-topic ‘appropriatness’/relevance is the nub of the critique..
and.i didn’t/don’t really see the need for you to parade your ‘anti-war credentials’..
..it all seemed to be more about you..than any apology to those soldiers..
and i take note of my ‘alliance’ error..catherine..
but..c’mon..!..
you can’t deny you are firmly in the alliance-refugee group that successfully ‘took over’ the green party..
which..once again..was the nub of what i was saying by including you in that group..
(in future i will refer to you as ‘later addition’..)
ok..?
but i’ll let you go now..
..you have a green party conference to organise/’control’..
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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that’s a pretty naive view jh
vietnam was mishandled (wilfully & malignantly it seems) over 5 US administrations before they went to war there.
it wasn’t something they fell into because they felt constrained against their will or forced by circumstances or whatever
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Sleepytreehugger – Let’s say for a moment that NZ owes Vietnam anything, having fought to stop the south becoming part of a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship (which there is no reason to apologise for in my view), how would this apology to the Vietnamese people be transmitted? How would they receive it? If it was over the BBC, VOA and Radio Australia shortwave Vietnamese language services, while also supporting their right to free speech and their right to civil liberties and political freedom, all very well. However, the Vietnamese authoritarian state would couch it in terms that made it look good, like it was some hero – it is not. Your last paragraph is right, I fully agree. However you are wrong about Korea, it is nothing to do with “Western colonial exploitation”, it was a Japanese colony – and the USSR fragrantly breached the UN agreement on granting Korea independence by installing its vile puppet Kim Il Sung in the north. Iraq is a whole another story.
Few can defend how the war was fought, and the wisdom of hindsight is enormous. However, after the war the so called “peace movement” ignored Vietnam and what happened to the Vietnamese people once Marxism-Leninism was rolled out to the south. None campaign for human rights there, and it is very telling that the Greens express not the slightest concern for it. Those who went to fight in Vietnam did so honourably believing they were fighting to stop a communist dictatorship, sadly they were also defending a non-communist dictatorship which MIGHT have turned out better, but we’ll never know (in South Korea it did and the differences between North and South Korea are stark). I doubt the current Vietnamese regime has apologised for how it treated civilians in the Vietnam war either.
For all the arguments about what the National Party did, it was re-elected twice while combat troops were in Vietnam (1966 and 1969), and was only defeated in 1972 when Labour withdrew, around the same time the US was pulling out. The NZ public arguably supported the involvement in the war until that change in government. Whether you agree with it or not, blaming the National Party when it had a democratic mandate twice. In 1966 Labour fought on bringing back troops and lost, again in 1969 – in both cases National won more seats and votes than Labour. Again, wisdom of hindsight is a good thing
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libertyscott,
In my view its rather farfetched to assume that the New Zealand government actually cared about the freedom or liberty of the Vietnamese people. Their motivation for assistance was merely to maintain their quid pro quo politico-military relationship with the United States so that “we” didn’t face a potential aggressor alone, which is ludicous as the only real threat that we would have faced down here is Indonesia, but the U.S. had their client, Suharto, firmly ensconced their. Yep another murderous kleptocratic puppet of the United States.
“However you are wrong about Korea, it is nothing to do with “Western colonial exploitation?, it was a Japanese colony -”
Yes, only to become, like the Philippines an American colony at least until they could find someone suitably amendable to their desires for Korea. And furthermore in the “transition” who did they install as an administration against the strenuous opposition of the Korea people? Yep their former Japanese overlords and collaboraters amongst the Korean landowning class.
As for whatever happened during the Vietnam War and post conflict actions by the Movement, well I wasn’t even born yet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t contribute to the debate. I’m a left-libertarian not a communist so the beliefs espoused by others in the Green Party don’t reflect mine. Probably the direct opposite in some cases as many here would know.
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SleepyTreehugger – not far fetched at all, you’re simply assuming malign intent by the government of the day, which I think is unlikely. Given the Cold War, it was legitimate to participate in collective regional defence. Indonesia had been a threat until Suharto took over, but yes he was murderous and kleptocratic, but was no puppet – he was his own man, the West simply turned a blind eye as he decommunised Indonesia. I’ve damned him before.
Well you can argue about who was in South Korea, but the alternative was what, letting Kim Il Sung run it? For however bad the South Koreans were, they were angels compared to George Orwell’s student. South Koreans today are largely pretty damned glad as to how it all turned out.
No way can we say what would’ve happened to Vietnam had the north south divide remained, but we can say the war was tragic and human rights in Vietnam today are very poor,as yet nobody on the mainstream political left in NZ gives a damn about Vietnam anymore.
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No liberty, I’m merely recognising the pragmaticism of the government at the time.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB242/index.htm
The Koreans weren’t given much of a choice in who ruled them. Its like been given a choice whether you’d prefer to be eaten by a bear or a lion, although I’d agree that South Korean’s of today must feel grateful that they’ve been born into the relatively free South rather than in the realm of George Orwell’s worse nightmares.
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what’s this now? did the free-market anarchism not work out after all?
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They’re interchangable terms andrew. Mutualism, freemarket anarchism, agorism are all part of the left-libertarian movemnt.
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All this appologising that is going on is so touching isn’t it?
I am certain that the Maori party will soon say sorry to the Moriori for the almost successful genocide of their people in the Chathams back in the 1830′s.
Wouldn’t that be touching eh?
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