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About The Asian reporter. (Portland, Or.) 1991-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 3, 2018)
ASIA / PACIFIC September 3, 2018 THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 5 Former Vietnamese jailer says he respected Sen. McCain ADVERSARY’S ADMIRATION. A woman pays respect at the monument of the late U.S. senator John McCain in Hanoi, Vietnam. The monument was erected by Vietnamese authorities to mark the day when the plane of McCain, a major in the U.S. Navy, was shot down in 1967. (AP Photo/Tran Van Minh) By Tran Van Minh The Associated Press H ANOI, Vietnam — U.S. senator John McCain’s former Vietnam- ese jailer said he respected his former inmate and felt sad about his death, as others in Vietnam paid their respects to the former U.S. Navy pilot who was a prisoner of war and later was instru- mental in bringing the wartime foes together. McCain’s Skyhawk dive bomber was shot down over Hanoi in 1967 and he was taken prisoner and held in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison for more than five years. Former Col. Tran Trong Duyet, who ran the prison at the time, said he met with McCain many times while he was confined there. “At that time I liked him personally for his toughness and strong stance,” he told the newspaper, Vietnam News, published by the official Vietnam News Agency. “Later on, when he became a U.S. senator, he and senator John Kerry greatly contributed to promote Vietnam- U.S. relations so I was very fond of him,” Vietnam News quoted Duyet as saying. “When I learnt about his death early this morning, I feel very sad. I would like to send condolences to his family. I think it’s the same feeling for all Vietnamese people as he has greatly contributed to the devel- opment of Vietnam-U.S. relations,” Duyet was quoted as saying. Duyet could not be reached for comment days after McCain’s passing. McCain died of brain cancer at age 81 in his home state of Arizona. Meanwhile, scores of people in Hanoi paid their respects to McCain at the U.S. Embassy and at a monument by Truc Bach lake, where McCain landed after parachuting from his damaged plane. Speaking to reporters after writing in a book of condolences, U.S ambassador Daniel Kritenbrink said McCain was “a great leader and real hero” who helped normalize relations between the former Elderly Koreans shut out of family reunions use backchannels Continued from page 4 He said she shuffled from side to side to make herself stand out among the other people on the riverbank. “My heart ached,” Shim said of seeing her. Some refugees don’t know about these unofficial ways to see their relatives in the North, while others are afraid of being swindled by brokers or think they’ll be breaking South Korea’s anti-Pyong- yang security law. Cho Il Woong, 86, has repeatedly been rejected for government-organized reunions, and while he’s desperate to see his siblings in the North before dying, he worries that using a broker would get him in trouble with the South Korean government. The son of a late South Korean woman who never remarried while waiting for her husband in the North said brokers helped him exchange letters more than 20 years ago with a North Korean man who they said was his father. But the son, Park Yong Ho, said he suspected that the brokers tried to bilk him out of money with a false promise of a face-to-face reunion, which never happened. Even if separated famil- ies are reconnected, their relations don’t usually last long, often because South Koreans don’t want to continuously financially support their relatives in the North, according to Kim and Shim. One of Kim’s brothers once asked him why he was helping their sister, who was completely alone when their parents died because her other siblings fled to South Korea during the war. “I wanted to help her be- cause it was heartbreaking to imagine how much she cried when our parents died,” Kim said. “I told my brother that I would have done the same thing for him if he’d stayed behind in the North.” enemies. “He was a warrior, he was also a peacemaker and of course he fought and suffered during the Vietnam War, but then later as a senator, he was one of the leaders who helped bring our countries back together and helped the United States and Vietnam normalize our relationship and now become partners and friends,” Kritenbrink said. McCain and former senator Kerry played important roles in the normali- zation of bilateral relations in 1995. Pham Gia Minh, a 62-year-old business- man, said he witnessed Vietnamese civilians being killed by the U.S bombings of North Vietnam, including the Christ- mas bombing of Hanoi in 1972, but he admired McCain for overcoming the difficult past to build better ties between the two countries. “War is losses and suffering,” he told The AP after signing the book of condolences. “But the will of a brave nation is to go beyond that to look to the future. The Vietnamese people have that will and Mr. John McCain has that will. ... We both have that will to overcome the painful past, overcome the misunderstanding to together build a brighter future.” Hoang Thi Hang, a Hanoi resident who also signed the condolence book, said he had great respect for McCain’s compas- sion. “He had compassion for everyone, whether they were rich or poor, whatever their background. And that is important in life.” The U.S. embassy announced it will launch a McCain/Kerry Fellowship in which a young Vietnamese leader com- mitted to public service will be chosen each year to travel to the U.S. on a study tour to deepen ties between the two peoples. Doctor accused of killing family with gas-filled yoga ball HONG KONG (AP) — An anesthesiologist is on trial in Hong Kong charged with killing his wife and daughter by placing a leaking yoga ball filled with carbon monoxide in their car. Malaysian citizen Khaw Kim-sun, 53, was allegedly having an affair and had become estranged from his wife and four children, although they continued to live togeth- er, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported. Khaw is accused of putting the gas-filled yoga ball in the trunk of a Mini Cooper driven by his wife, Wong Siew-fung, on May 22, 2015, the paper said. It said Wong and their 16-year-old daughter were found unconscious in the car about an hour after leaving home and were later declared dead from severe carbon monox- ide poisoning, although the vehicle showed no defects. Khaw was arrested in September and his trial started last month. He has pleaded not guilty. Khaw reportedly obtained the carbon monoxide from the teaching hospital where he worked, and was assisted by a student with whom he was having an affair. He told colleagues he wanted to “test its purity” and its effects on rabbits, the paper said. It said that later he told police he’d wanted to use it to exterminate rats at home, although a domestic helper employed by the family testified that they had no rodent problem. Khaw was unaware his daughter was home from school on the day of her death and likely had not intended to kill her, the paper quoted prosecutor Andrew Bruce as saying. “The last thing the accused wanted was for his 16-year-old to die,” Bruce was quoted as saying. “(But) if that person knew what was in the car was carbon monoxide and knew it was a dangerous gas likely to kill you, you can confirm this person had homicide on his mind,” Bruce was quoted as telling the jury of five men and four women. Need health insurance? CareOregon’s goMobile Team can help you sign up for Oregon Health Plan (OHP) and get doctor appointments. 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