HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — The Hanoi government today accused Americans of "horrendous crimes" during the Vietnam War after Sen. John McCain launched a broadside against the communist regime today and said the wrong side won.
"It runs counter to the norms of morality that those people who brought bombs and shells to sow death among our people and wreak havoc with a country now pass themselves off as having the right to criticize their victims-cum-saviors," Foreign Ministry spokesman Phan Thuy Thanh said in a statement made available today.
The ex-Navy pilot and prisoner of war, who played a key role in normalizing relations between the United States and its one-time enemy, earlier said he has still not forgiven his captors for killing and torturing fellow prisoners of war.
"I think that the wrong guys won. I think that they lost millions of their best people who left by boat, thousands by execution and hundreds of thousands who went to re-education camps," McCain told reporters as he toured Ho Chi Minh City, known as Saigon when it was the capital of U.S.-backed South Vietnam.
He also criticized what he said was increasing corruption in the country and an unwillingness on the part of some officials to improve U.S.-Vietnamese ties.
"The object of my relationship with Vietnam has been to heal the wounds that exist, particularly among our veterans, and to move forward with a positive relationship," he said. "Apparently some in the Vietnamese government don't want to do that, and that's their decision.
"There's a difference in the attitude here of the government towards foreign investment, towards a trade agreement. I see the hammer and sickle out here on the banners," he said. "I'm a bit concerned about both the policies and attitudes and the increase in corruption in this country."
Asked later if he stood by his allegations of torture, he said: "The facts are facts. Truth is truth. History is history. I always tell the truth. I've fought against communism all my life."
McCain revisited the notorious "Hanoi Hilton" prison in Hanoi on Wednesday. The former pilot was held captive there after his A-4 plane was shot down while on a bombing run on the North Vietnamese capital.
Asked how he felt about the prison's guards, McCain said: "I still bear them ill will, not because of what they did to me but because of what they did to some of my friends — including killing some of them."
A statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hanoi said Americans who committed "horrendous crimes" in Vietnam had no right to be critical and described McCain's claims as untrue.
Thanh, the ministry spokesman, said McCain contradicted statements he made during his first visit to the Hanoi Hilton in 1994 when the senator expressed thanks to Vietnam for the treatment he received as a captive.
However, McCain claimed his statements were no different than those he has made on seven previous trips to Vietnam.
As Vietnam prepares to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the communist victory Sunday, Vietnamese officials also say the bitter past should be laid to rest.
But the Foreign Ministry statement said that the United States initiated a war in which almost 3 million people died and more than 4 million were wounded.
"Our people were the victims of its (American) brutal war of aggression. The Vietnamese nation's losses and suffering are wordless," Thanh said.
Accompanied by wife Cindy and 13-year-old son Jack, McCain went shopping today for a traditional Vietnamese tonic — rice liquor with a snake in the bottle — and visited the Harvard Institute for International Development in Ho Chi Minh City.
McCain was captured Oct. 26, 1967. He served 51/2 years as a prisoner, including three at the Hanoi Hilton, before being released in March 1973.