News-Info-Alerts

Re: Interview With Ian Sharman

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: November 20, 2003

"Transcript
This is a transcript from PM. The program is broadcast around Australia at 5:10pm on Radio National and 6:10pm on ABC Local Radio.

Vietnam War mystery solved
PM - Wednesday, 19 November , 2003  18:32:18

Reporter: Rafael Epstein

MARK COLVIN: One of the longest running mysteries of the wars in Vietnam and Laos has been solved. The remains of a young Australian and a young American, shot dead 30 years ago by Communist guerrillas, have been found in a rice field in central Laos.

It's made front pages in the US because the American was the brother of Howard Dean, now seen as the Democratic front-runner for next year's Presidential election. The young Australian was a journalist named Neil Sharman. He and Charles Dean are now believed to have been executed after being held for three months.

A special US Army unit set up to search for Americans missing in Indochina has finally confirmed precisely why the two men never returned from their South East Asian holiday in 1974.
Rafael Epstein reports.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The two young friends, who'd met in Australia, were travelling though Mekong river in central Laos, when they disappeared. The Vietnam War still raged, and communist guerrillas were fighting US backed governments in Vietnam and Laos.
As a State Governor, presidential hopeful Howard Dean had long campaigned on the issue of soldiers missing in action in Vietnam and Laos. Though his brother Charles was a tourist, the Pentagon listed him as MIA.

HOWARD DEAN: This is not just going to be painful for us, this is be painful for the families of every POW MIA in America. This whole operation is an extraordinary credit to the United States Government, to the United States military and I'm deeply appreciative and our family is deeply appreciative.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Neil Sharman's brother, Ian is far removed from the world of US politics. Ian Sharman is a retired businessman in Queensland, who says he let out a huge sigh of relief when he heard his brother's body has almost certainly been found.

IAN SHARMAN: Yeah, I did. Maybe it's possible that we've come to an end, maybe we have found an end, maybe it is all coming over for us. My mum said 'oh no', that's what mum said.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Why'd she say that?

IAN SHARMAN: Well, you know, we've had a little ceremony for him, you know, and mum's re-lived it several times, because it's been in and out of the media for years.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: So in some ways it re-opens the wounds?

IAN SHARMAN: It does, oh sure, absolutely, yeah, yeah, and she'll be glad to actually be able to say farewell, I'm sure.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Which must be great for an 84-year old woman.
IAN SHARMAN: Yeah, sure. We do have a little plaque for him next to his deceased father in the crematorium, we just need to finish it off.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: A joint US Laotian team found bones, a sock, a pair of shoes and a bracelet buried in a Laotian rice field. The shoes reportedly resemble a pair worn by Charles Dean and the bracelet was marked POW. Charles Dean wore the bracelet in support of finding missing prisoners of war.
As Howard Dean has distinguished himself as the anti Iraq war democratic, his brother Charles worked for the failed 1972 anti-war campaign of Democratic candidate George McGovern. He'd gone travelling after Richard Nixon won the election.
Howard Dean mentioned his brother when he officially launched his campaign in June this year.

HOWARD DEAN: I thank my family for their unconditional love and support, my father and my brother Charlie for their inspiration and eternal presence in my life.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Dean and Sharman were arrested by the communist Pathet Lao forces in September of 1974. They were accused of being spies, but the US and Australian Governments insisted they were tourists. The two men were held in a small, remote prison camp for three months before they were executed in December while driving toward Vietnam with their captors.
Ian Sharman again.

IAN SHARMAN: They were still alive in December and that's when they were hand cuffed, put in the back of the truck and taken off into the San Binh area and that's when I believe that they were executed then, and their bodies were left in, I believe, a bomb crater on top of each other.
Over this our family has had no connection with the Howard family in 30 years all this has been going on. It's not rather interesting, but I guess it's rather ironic isn't it?

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: You've got something in common now with someone who could be President of the United States.

IAN SHARMAN: That's right, and I've often wondered whether I should make contact with him or not… But anyway I guess he's got his life to get on with and we've got ours and I think that's just the way it's been.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Do you have any plans to perhaps send him a letter or contact him?

IAN SHARMAN: Sure, I'm making inroads into that right now as we speak.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The bodies were found by a Pentagon unit created 11 years ago to find the remains of Americans missing in Indochina. The remains of the two men will be taken to Hawaii next week where DNA from family members will be used to confirm the identities of the human remains.

MARK COLVIN: Rafael Epstein.


©2003 ABC "