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.
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