June 2000

Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork

00 JUN 00: 2,017 Americans remain unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: ARMY: 638 (VN-10, VS-487; LA-106; CB-35; CH-0); NAVY: 411 (VN-280, VS-92; LA-28; CB-3; CH/OW-8); USMC: 255 (VN-24, VS-202; LA-21; CB-8; CH-0); USAF: 673 (VN-231; VS-165; LA-260; CB-17; CH-0); and CG: 1 (VN-0; VS-1; LA-0; CB-0; CH-0). 39 civilians remain unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: VS-22, LA-12, and CB-5. 566 Americans have been accounted-for post 1973: VN-409, LA-142, CB-13, and CH-2. 197 Americans have been accounted-for during the present administrations. PURSUIT STATUS: Further Pursuit: 1,173 (VN-245; VS-500; LA-373; CB-51; CH-4). Deferred: 202 (VN-60; VS-111; LA-28; CB-2; CH-1). No Further Pursuit: 642 (VN-240; VS-358; LA-26; CB-15; CH-3) Persian Gulf War - unsatisfactory accounting. Korean War - 8,139 remain unaccounted-for, 42 possible remains returned, 4 identifications. World War II - Over 78,000 remain unaccounted-for.

01 JUN 00: Human Rights Watch once again singles out Communist Vietnam for human rights abuses.

ANSWERS - MORE REMAINS OF VIETNAMESE VOLUNTEERS COMBATANTS RETURNED BY LAOS - Ha Noi, May 27 (VNA) -- The Central Highlands province of Kon Tum has held a burial service for nine sets of remains, identified as Vietnamese volunteer combatants and experts, who had died in Laos while discharging their international mission during the American war. These remains have been discovered by people of Attopu and Sekong provinces of Laos, and then collected by the Kon Tum Military Command's Remains Collection Team. The Lao local administration had held a memorial service for the fallen combatants at a border point between the two countries before handing them over to the Vietnamese side. It was the fifth batch of remains of Vietnamese servicemen returned by Laos so far. --Vietnam News Agency

The US announces that talks with Communist North Korea will resume. The proposed talks will outline excavations and will take place place in Kuala Lumpur. Over 8,000 US servicemen are Missing or Prisoner from the Forgotten War in Korea.

Fifty-five years ago a letter sent to a brother, fighting far away during World War II, was returned, unopened. The brother, 23 year-old 2LT Harvey Bos had gone missing along with two others and their C-46 aircraft on 9 JAN 46... somewhere between India and China. His crewmates, 2LT Ray C. Taylor and PVT Robert L. Crowde. The family waited... and waited. No memorial, no monument, they waited for Harvey to come home as so many had and did during World War II. Yet, so many others didin't, and Harvey joined the legion of the lost from WW II that numbers over 78,000. All these years ater, the family still waits and hopes. They believe they have foundHarvey's grave at the American Cemetery in Manila.. buried as an unknown, in unmarked graves may lie Harvey and his two crewmates, in eyesight of their names engraved upon the Tablets of the Missing.

The family found military documents that said - " the remains of the three crewmen were believed to have been recovered ``unidentified'' from Lien San Po Mountain in western China and buried in China's Kunming Cemetery as unknowns in November 1945. The bodies later were evacuated during the communist takeover to the Remains Depot in Shanghai, and then moved and reburied by 1947 in the Manila cemetery." The report recommended ``further research be made on unknowns X-818 through X-820 (grave markers) to determine whether these remains are those of the crew members."

The USG is apparently finding new ways to stonewall family members as the Director for Mortuary and Casulaty Affairs in Hawaii is not returning phone calls. Enter two Senators who intervened on the family's behalf requesting exhumation of the grave and mtDNA testing. And the family of Bos continues to push for resolution and the recovery of his remains so they may bring him home.

In the interim, the Bos family paid for flowers to be placed on the unmarked graves in the American Cemetery in Manila, so that the unknown and unmarked, would, indeed be remembered this Memorial Day. Said Bos' sister, ``One of my dad's last requests was for a headstone to be placed on one of these grave sites to be ready for when Harvey came home,'' ``If he comes home, I'll bury him there and tell him to rest in peace. He deserves that much.''

DPMO has issued a policy papaer regarding 'Recovery and Identification of Remains of Missing Personnel' - please view at - http://www.aiipowmia.com/inter1/in060100dod.html

02 JUN 00: Correspondence - "The White House: June 2, 2000. Dear Mr. Speaker: (Mr. President:) I hereby transmit the document referred to in subsection 402(d)(1) of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended (the "Act"), with respect to a further 12-month extension of the authority to waive sub-sections (a) and (b) of section 402 of the Act. This document constitutes my recommendation to continue in effect this waiver authority for a further 12-month period, and includes my reasons for determining that continuation of the waiver authority and the waiver currently in effect for Vietnam will substantially promote the objectives of section 402 of the Act. Sincerely, WILLIAM J. CLINTON As the Department of Army plans for the 50th anniversary of the Korean War commemoration, Defense Department officials have disclosed the number of US casualties suffered in the Korean War was about 17,000 fewer than the 54,000 casualties usually cited. However, during the 1990s, DoD officials began reviewing the Surgeon General's original records of the dead and wounded from the Korean War. They reexamined the numbers of service members killed in action, those who died of wounds, service members missing in action, and prisoners of war who died while in captivity. The officials concluded the inaccurate war-related death figure was due to confusion with the category "other deaths." Officials confirmed that the figure for "other deaths" included both non-battle deaths in Korea and other deaths in the armed forces that occurred outside Korea during the years of war. As a result, officials have adjusted the casualty figures, excluding the 17,730 who died elsewhere. The total number of deaths in theater now stands at 36,616 - of whom 33,686 were battle deaths and 2,830 were non-battle deaths."

Mass Grave in Cambodia Found - American Remains Suspected - It was called Tuol Sleng or Security Office 21(S21) of the Central Committee Security Office, but it may just as well have been called the Auschwitz of the East. A filthy, rundown colonial style building in Phnom Penh that was the main torture and execution center for the 'important prisoners' of th bloodthirsty Khmers Rouge and the maniacal Pol Pot.

More than 20,000 people were slaughtered there in ways that are reminiscent of Unit 731 and the Angel of Death's twisted concept of how to destroy a human being. The world was largely unaware of the existence of Tuol Sleng until Vietnamese troops stormed the recently abandoned building in 1979 and found a treasure trove of meticulously kept records of the atrocities committed there. The cadre at Tuol Sleng had maintained a horrific record of their atrocities... names, numbers of victims, identification numbers, photographs before, during and after execution, and summaries of the day's activities. If one looks at the photos of those who suffered through Tuol Sleng, one will find pages of photos of young girls... so much for 'important or high-ranking prisoners.' Only seven survivors are known to have survived the horrors of Tuol Sleng, all of them sculptors who were forced to produce busts of Pol Pot. Lower classed prisoners were taken to The Killing Fields and simply butchered where they stood or worked and starved to death.

Twenty-five years after the carnage ended, a 72-year old Cambodian man,Ai Siphal, has stumbled upon what appears to be a small common grave for some of the victims of Tuol Sleng. In an attempt to repair his house, he dug up a tree and when the roots came up found a cache of skulls and bones. Members of the Documentation Center of Cambodia state roughly a dozen or so victims may be buried in the grave... along with the larger bones of a Westerner, belived to be American Michael Scott Deeds, who was sailing off the coast of Cambodia in 1978, captured, taken to Tuol Sleng 26 NOV 78, tortured and murdered. The believed to be Western remains will be flown to CIL-HI for testing and possible identification. One of a handful of Tuol Sleng survivors recounted how Deeds, from Long Beach, California, was buried on the grounds of the prison just days before the Vietnamese invaded the region and found the despicable place. That makes captured in 1978 and murdered in 1979, and interminable period of time to be held by the Khmers Rouge. Deeds' brother traveled to Tuol Sleng in 1989 and also found remains on the grounds of the killing center, but was unable to make an identification. It is not the first time that Ai Siphal has found remains either. After being driven from his home to the countryside in 1975, he returned in 1980 and found remains, which were blessed by Buddhist Monks. Although there are no plans to excavate the immediate area of land, Siphal has stated he would welcome any excavations.

03 JUN 00: Technical talks, led by BG Harry Axson, JTF-FA Commander, began in Vietnam. For the first time in years, the DIA Stony Beach Chief, COL Rick Villalobos, participated in these operational discussions, indicating another step to fully reintegrate Stony Beach team into the accounting process. and ensure that Stony Beach would to resume its role as primary collector of POW/MIA information from sources in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

The on-again-off-again talks between the US and North Korea are tentatively 'on-again'. The US embassy in Malaysia stated that the two adversaries will resume discussions on recovery of the Korean War's 8,100 plus POWs and MIAs will resume on 06 June 00 thru 10 June 00. The talks are slated for Kuala Lampur, only 3 weeks before the official beginning of the 50th anniversary of the beginning of America's Forgotten War. No mention of POWs has been made, simply the statement, "The meeting is part of an ongoing series of talks to discuss the repatriation of the remains of US servicemen who died during the Korean War." Morre than six months have passed since the last sit-down between the US and NK and the entire affair has gone on for six years. The families have waited endlessly for answers.

Eight Maryland lawmakers have joined forces to co-sponsor legislation that will name a Maryland Post Office for Ex-POW Everett Alvarez, Jr.Alvarez was the first POW captured in Vietnam who endured eight and a half years of captivity from 1964 until his release during Operation Homecoming in 1973. Alvarez was the first shootdown during the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and was sent to the notorious Hanoi Hilton. The first year and a half he spent in solitary confinement, eating notinhg other than rice with cockroaches or dead birds. The movement to name the Montgomery County PO is a welcome sign. Not very long ago just getting the USPO to fly a POW-MIA flag, and the battle to get a POW-MIA stamp honoring POWs from ALL wars was a protracted battle many years long. To Everett Alvarez and all the former POWs from ALL wars, welcome home!

04 JUN 00: U.S. and German officials raised concerns that compensation payments to surviving Nazi-era slave workers could face delays after talks failed to resolve a legal dispute holding up an industry-backed fund. There had been hopes the presence in Germany of U.S. President Bill Clinton for a three-day visit might prompt a breakthrough over the form of protection to be offered to German companies from U.S. legal claims over their wartime past in return for paying into the 10 billion mark ($4.8 billion) fund. But U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat, the chief U.S. negotiator, said no deal had been reached and warned a previous goal to release the first payments to survivors by the year-end was in doubt. "We must agree on conclusive final arrangements then," he told a news briefing. "If we don't get the whole thing going, then the million or so survivors will have to wait even longer for the payments." German industry and the government have each pledged to contribute five billion marks ($2.4 billion) to the fund. With available tax breaks, the state will end up footing about three-quarters of the compensation, however. Any final agreement must be approved by the German parliament and a plenary session at which representatives from surviving victims around the world would give their assent. The dispute centers on the precise wording of a planned "statement of inter est" that the U.S. government will issue instructing courts not to take up future legal action against German firms on claims covered by the fund.

05 JUN 00: A mass grave discovered last week near an infamous torture chamber of the Khmer Rouge does not contain any Americans who perished at the prison, a U.S. official said Monday. Forensics experts flown in over the weekend from the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii determined that none of the nearly dozen bodies found in the grave are Westerners, U.S. Ambassador Kent Weidemann said. "The anthropologists did a study yesterday that determined the bones were not Caucasian in nature," the ambassador said. The grave, just 100 yards from the Khmer Rouge's Tuol Sleng prison, was uncovered Thursday by a Phnom Penh resident preparing a house extension in his front yard. At least 14,000 persons were imprisoned in Tuol Sleng during the late 1970s rule of the Khmer Rouge, including four American Caucasian civilians seized at sea by the radical revolutionaries. Only a handful of inmates left the prison alive.

06 JUN 00: The former platoon commander of Khmer Rouge forces that repulsed the May 15, 1975, US Marine assault on the offshore island Koh Tang has told the Post that at least one US Marine was discovered at large on the island 10 days after the American withdrawal and subsequently killed. The revelation is the most concrete evidence to date that US Marines were abandoned on Koh Tang during the confusion of the American withdrawal from a battle in which 18 US servicemen remain officially "unaccountable" 25 years later. "Ten days after the American soldiers left Koh Tang, a tree-cutting detail sighted a figure taking water from a well," explained Mao Ran, KR platoon commander on Koh Tang in 1975. "When we investigated the area, we found boot marks which we knew had to belong to an American soldier because our men only wore sandals." Ran immediately organized a search of the area, and shortly after, the abandoned Marine was discovered by KR troops. "The American jumped out from behind some vegetation and attempted to attack one of our men," Ran recalled. "He was killed with a burst from an AK-47 and we buried him nearby." Ran's admission adds credence to the belief held by many Marines who took part in the operation of a "lost machinegun team" abandoned alive on the island during the withdrawal. "We were told on the USS Coral Sea that a machinegun team was killed by the KR as we withdrew from the island, but years later, I suspect they were left behind," Koh Tang Marine veteran Dale L Clark told the Post. "I believe the US government knew the team was alive on the island because I heard and saw preparations made on the USS Coral Sea to return to the island to recover the team [but] no attempts were made ... I suspect the US government canceled the plans not wanting to have any more Marines killed during the recovery."

09 JUN 00: The Department of Defense announced today that U.S. and North Korean negotiators have reached an agreement in which teams of specialists will jointly recover the remains of Americans missing in action from the Korean War. This will be the fifth consecutive year that the United States has conducted remains recovery operations in North Korea. During the past four years, the joint teams have conducted 12 remains recovery operations and recovered remains believed to be those of 42 U.S. servicemen. Three have been positively identified, with approximately 10 more in the forensic identification process. The agreement, following three days of negotiations in Kuala Lumpur, expands similar operations that have been conducted since 1996. The U.S. component of the joint recovery teams will include 20 members. Five operations are scheduled in Unsan and Kujang counties, a distance of approximately 60 miles north of the capital of Pyongyang. Each operation is scheduled to last approximately 25 days, with the first beginning June 25. The final operation of 2000 will end Nov. 11. U.S. military aircraft from Pyongyang under escort of a U.S. uniformed honor guard to Yokota Air Base, Japan, will fly remains recovered through these operations.

10 JUN 00: The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has ordered defense and intelligence officials to investigate the fate of a Navy pilot shot down in the opening hours of the 1991 Gulf War. Lt. Cmdr. Michael Speicher of Jacksonville, Fla., went missing when his Navy F-18 Hornet was shot down on Jan. 16, 1991, in a dogfight with an Iraqi fighter jet. He was the first American lost in the war and the last still unaccounted for. The military never searched for Speicher, but declared him killed in action in May 1991. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., announced Wednesday that the committee has formally ordered the Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Defense to conduct an assessment of Speicher's fate. While the intelligence community has received several reports on the matter, it has not produced its own assessment, he said. "There is enough information both public and classified to question the Navy's killed in action status for this American serviceman," said Roberts, a member of the committee. "We have an obligation to this pilot and his family. What we do here is symbolic of our obligation to every service man and women." The panel also requested that the CIA and Defense Department inspectors general - the agency watchdogs - recommend how the government can keep from repeating mistakes made in Speicher's case. CIA representative Anya Guilsher said that the intelligence community would cooperate fully with the committee's request. Larry Greer, representative for the Pentagon's POW/MIA office, said the Speicher case has been under Defense Department investigation since the night he was shot down.

11 JUN 00: The warring parties in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have agreed to the release of all prisoners of war, a committee which oversees a shaky peace plan said on Sunday. "All parties agreed to free prisoners of war unconditionally," the Political Committee, created to consolidate the 1999 Lusaka peace accords aimed at ending the conflict in Africa's third largest country, said in a statement. The committee comprises ministers from the countries involved in the war and senior rebels.

12 JUN 00: The gradual thawing of relations between the United States and North Korea is bringing glimmers of hope to relatives of US servicemen who were last seen alive as prisoners-of-war almost 50 years ago, Newsweek magazine reports. In an article released Sunday, Newsweek quotes a Pentagon researcher, Insung Lee, as saying that as many as 10 to 15 US former POWs may still be living inside North Korea. Lee told the magazine that he stood by a report he presented to the US Congress in 1996, in which he concluded that "there are too many live-sighting reports" of former US prisoners in North Korea to rule out the possibility that some prisoners are indeed still alive. When Lee first presented his report, the Pentagon said he spoke only for himself, rather than expressing an official US position. However a US official who declined to be named told Newsweek that with increasing numbers of North Koreans fleeing to China and South Korea, there have been increasing reports of US POWs surviving in North Korea. In the late 1980s and in 1990, there were unconfirmed reports that US former prisoners were teaching English in North Korean military training institutions. "Since 1996, there have been firsthand reports of American POWs from the Korean War still living in the North," the US official said.

13 JUN 00: After the end of the Korean War, which claimed 37,000 US lives, North Korea cut itself off from much of the world. Channels to Pyongyang through Moscow or Beijing were largely blocked by the Cold War. As years stretched into decades, the prospect of discovering the fate of missing US airmen grew only more remote. The hundreds of files stored in the military archives are another sort of peace dividend following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. They present the most detailed evidence yet in a search for Korean War MIAs that has spanned the past eight years and much of Russia. And they shed light not only on the fate of many US airmen, but also on the role played by the Soviet Union in the three-year Korean conflict-a role much larger than previously assumed. The archives show that Soviet pilots ran the air war over North Korea against the US and inflicted 70% of the casualties in that part of the 1950-53 conflict. US researchers say the Russian archives also might clarify the fate of American airmen still listed as MIAs from the Vietnam War era. Since 1992, the US has been pressing the Russian government for help in learning the fate of 1,086 airmen missing in Vietnam, and 8,200 missing in Korea, most of them infantrymen. Some speculate that servicemen from both wars were brought back to Soviet soil to be interrogated and eventually shot. The Russian government denies it. Snags in Russian-American relations have slowed the flow of information from the archives. Last year, for instance, US researchers were kicked out of the archives for three months after allied forces under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began bombing the former Yugoslavia. "It's been a long, herky-jerky process, but we have gotten our foot in the door, and gotten people in the archives on a routine basis," says Roland Lajoie, a retired US Army major general who is now cochairman of the U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on POW-MIA Affairs. And now, he adds, "we're getting pieces of paper that form a better mosaic showing what happened." During the war, the Soviet Union gave pilots a big cash bonus when they shot down American planes. To confirm a kill, search crews were sent to comb the North Korean countryside for wreckage. Snapshots were placed in the files as proof, as well as photos taken by the gun cameras of the Soviet jets.

US Seeks Answers From China on Korean War US POWs
Two of the most contentious elements in the history of American POWs and MIAs are the former USSR and China. Today, the US tried once again to convince China that her secret archives may hold valuable information on the fate of some of the roughly 8,100 unaccounted-for men from the Forgotten War. The military archives are believed to hold information on the Chinese run POW camps as the Communist Chinese became engaged in the war in October 1950. Their strategy was to insure, among other things, that UN-led forces be oushed back from the Yalu River, the separation between North Korea and China. In addition to their involvement, China not only ran POW camps, but, according to the Pentagon, itself took Americans as POWs during the war. As expected, China has historically denied involvement and knowledge of US POWs. Not only has the issue of Korean War personnel been a serious problem through the years, but Cold War shootdowns figure prominently in the equation. China, a former US ally during World War II, plans to commemorate their entrance into the Korean War on 25 October 2000. Officials on the US side are hoping for a good-faith announcement from China that she will open her military archives during this commemoration. Additional meetings are planned at the end of the month with DPMO officials traveling to China to broach the subject.

15 JUN 00: Iraq has reiterated its call for Kuwait to account for the fate of 1,150 Iraqis it says have been missing since the 1991 Gulf War. "Despite the elapse of many years since the 1991 war led by the United States and coalition forces against Iraq, Kuwait has not accounted yet for the fate of 1,150 Iraqis who went missing," a new popular committee for the missing said in a statement published by Iraqi newspapers on Wednesday. The committee urged Kuwait to investigate the fate of the missing Iraqis. "(We) appeal to world bodies to pressure Kuwait to probe the fate of missing Iraqis, and hope that this issue will be dealt with as a strictly humanitarian one by all sides concerned." For its part, Kuwait says about 605 people, including 550 Kuwaitis and the rest of various nationalities, have been missing since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of the emirate. Baghdad denies it is still holding Kuwaitis or any other prisoners of war and at the same time accuses Kuwait of withholding information on the fate of missing Iraqis. Iraqi authorities say the alleged missing Kuwaitis amount to a bogus issue aimed at prolonging UN sanctions maintained on Iraq as punishment for the 1990 invasion. Revealing the fate of missing Kuwaitis is a key condition for lifting the decade-long UN embargo. Iraq has always maintained its forces took no prisoners from Kuwait when U.S.-led multinational forces in the Gulf War in early 1991 forced them out. 16 JUN 00:

Today, the Defense Department provided the names of three Americans now accounted for, and the name of a fourth was not publicly released at the request of his family. Those announced include Captain Roger M. Netherland, USN, of PA, LTC Robert Lopez, USA, of WA, and Major William H. Seward, USMC, of GA. The Government of Vietnam unilaterally repatriated the remains of Captain Netherland, missing since May 10, 1967, on September 11, 1989. The remains of LTC Lopez and Major Seward were jointly recovered in August of 1993 and October of 1994. Also announced was Specialist 4th Class John E. Crowley, from Williamson, NY, missing in Laos since August 10, 1970, and is now accounted for. In 1998, some remains were turned in to members of a joint field team in Vietnam. Later, a US-Lao team jointly recovered remains, concluding the US effort. Earlier, DOD announced that the remains of six USMC personnel, previously unaccounted for from the attempted rescue of the Mayaguez crew on May 15, 1975, had been identified. Those identified were LCpl Gregory S. Copenhaver from MD, LCpl Andres Garcia from NM, PFC Walter Boyd of VA, and PFC Kelton Turner from CA. The names of two Marines were withheld at the request of their families.

18 JUN 00: Six big Japanese companies and hundreds of their subsidiaries doing business in California are named in a lawsuit by a Filipino man seeking compensation for enslavement, forced labor, torture and starvation during World War II. A California law specifically allows people who claim to have been forced into slave to seek reparations from companies that profited from their work and now do business in California. Japanese soldiers turned Filipino civilians and prisoners of war over to the companies to serve as unpaid labor for mining, shipbuilding, steel making and other purposes, the suit says. Many workers died while being transported by sea or rail in hot, crowded conditions, and others were held in concentration camps between 1941 and 1945 without adequate food or medical aid under threat of death if they did not work, the suit says.

20 JUN 00: Everett Alvarez Jr. became the first American prisoner of war in Vietnam in 1964 and endured 8 and 1/2 years of beatings and torture before returning home. Now, Maryland legislators want to honor the Navy pilot by naming a Montgomery County post office after him. Introduced by Rep. Constance A. Morella, a Republican, on May 17, the legislation is co-sponsored by the other seven Maryland lawmakers and is expected to be enacted, said Lisa Boepple, Mrs. Morella's chief of staff. Mr. Alvarez said that despite the time that is gone by, his experience will always be with him. "Vietnam is in the past, but it's attached to me whether I like it or not. It's like my shadow," Mr. Alvarez said in an interview recently.

22 JUN 00: Jane Fonda says she feels awful about posing for the famous photo with North Vietnamese soldiers in 1972 that sealed her reputation as "Hanoi Jane." "I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft carrier, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes," Fonda told O, The Oprah Magazine. "It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless." Fonda, 62, said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in the magazine's July-August issue.

23 JUN 00: S. 484 NEEDS OUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION
"In a conversation with Larry Vigil, Legislative Staff Advisor for Sen. Campbell, we are being put on notice that we may lose S. 484. Currently, S. 484 is in the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, and House International Relations.

We ask that you visit the THOMAS website at: http://thomas.loc.gov/ Check the committees to see if your representative is on one of them and then call him/her and ask that the bill be moved. THIS NEEDS TO BE WORKED ON NOW. -- AII POW-MIA"

Background:
S.484 Sponsor: Sen Campbell, Ben Nighthorse (introduced 2/25/1999)
Related Bills: H.R.1926
Latest Major Action: 6/1/2000 Referred to House subcommittee

Title: A bill to provide for the granting of refugee status in the United States to nationals of certain foreign countries in which American Vietnam War POW/MIAs or American Korean War POW/MIAs may be present, if those nationals assist in the return to the United States of those POW/MIAs alive.

STATUS: (italics indicate Senate actions) (Floor Actions/Congressional Record Page References)
2/25/1999: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Judiciary.
3/24/1999: Referred to Subcommittee on Immigration.
5/18/2000: Committee on the Judiciary. Ordered to be reported without amendment favorably.
5/18/2000: Committee on the Judiciary. Reported to Senate by Senator Hatch without amendment. Without written report.
5/18/2000: Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 560.
5/24/2000: Measure laid before Senate by unanimous consent. (consideration: CR S4395-4396)
5/24/2000: Passed Senate with an amendment by Unanimous Consent. (text: CR S4395-4396)
5/25/2000: Message on Senate action sent to the House.
5/25/2000 10:07am: Received in the House.
5/25/2000: Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on International Relations, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
5/25/2000: Referred to House Judiciary
6/1/2000: Referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims.
5/25/2000: Referred to House International Relations

24 JUN 00: News Release DOD No. 322-00
US, NORTH KOREAN NEGOTIATORS AGREE TO REMAINS RECOVERY OPERATIONS
The Department of Defense announced today that US and North Korean negotiators have reached an agreement in which teams of specialists will jointly recover the remains of Americans missing in action from the Korean War.This will be the fifth consecutive year that the United States has conducted remains recovery operations in North Korea. During the past four years, the joint teams have conducted 12 remains recovery operations and recovered remains believed to be those of 42 US servicemen. Three have been positively identified, with approximately 10 more in the forensic identification process. The agreement, following three days of negotiations in Kuala Lumpur, expands similar operations that have been conducted since 1996. Similar talks with North Korea broke down in December 1999 without agreement. The North Koreans returned to negotiations June 7. The US component of the joint recovery teams will include 20 members. Five operations are scheduled in Unsan and Kujang counties, a distance of approximately 60 miles north of the capital of Pyongyang. Each operation is scheduled to last approximately 25 days, with the first beginning June 25. The final operation of 2000 will end Nov. 11. Remains recovered through these operations will be flown by US military aircraft from Pyongyang under escort of a US uniformed honor guard to Yokota Air Base, Japan.

25 JUN 00: On June 25 - the 50th anniversary of the start of the Korean War - a US military team will resume searching for remains of US servicemen at the scene of a stunning Chinese onslaught that killed hundreds of American and South Korean troops. The arrangement for the search at the Chongchon River area in North Korea is part of a deal struck by US and North Korean negotiators for a series of five joint excavations this year. The US government agreed to pay North Korea a total of $2 million -- that could yield the largest number of remains since joint recovery missions began in 1996. Remains searches were halted last fall in a dispute over North Korea's demand for new humanitarian aid. Alan Liotta, the lead US negotiator at this week's talks in Malaysia, said in a telephone interview Friday that the United States would pay about $400,000 for each of five excavation operations. That is twice the $200,000 paid per mission in 1999. Liotta said the price went up because the search and recovery teams will be larger this year. Liotta, deputy director of the Pentagon's POW-MIA office, said wartime records indicate there are upward of 1,500 unrecovered remains of US servicemen in the Unsan and Kujang areas. He said it was impossible to estimate beforehand how many might be recovered. The agreement permits the United States to broaden its search for remains all the way to the Yalu River, on the Chinese border, Liotta said. Many hundreds of US POWs died in camps on the Korean side of the Yalu.

27 JUN 00: Korean War Remains Identified
N E W S R E L E A S E
OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
WASHINGTON, DC 20301

No. 363-00
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 26, 200

KOREAN WAR REMAINS IDENTIFIED
The remains of two American soldiers who were missing in action from the Korean War have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial in the United States.
They are identified as Army Sgt. Hallie A. Clark Jr., Hannibal, Mo., and Army Sgt. James T. Higgins, Benham, Ky. On Nov. 27, 1950, near the town of Kujang in North Korea, Clark's 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion was overrun by Chinese troops, forcing the unit to withdraw to the south. When the unit regrouped the following day, more than 70 men, including Clark, were reported missing.

Following agreements negotiated with North Korea, joint recovery teams led by the US Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii (CILHI) excavated a burial site in May 1999, believed to contain the remains of US soldiers who died during the Korean War.

The team found human remains from two individuals along with artifacts and debris suggesting the men may have been associated with an engineering unit. They were apparently killed when a bazooka they were firing exploded.
On Nov. 1, 1950, Higgins' 8th Cavalry Regiment came under a massive enemy frontal assault by Chinese forces near the town of Unsan in North Korea, approximately 60 miles north of Pyongyang. When his unit regrouped the following day, he was found to be missing in action.

Following the cessation of hostilities, a returned American POW reported that Higgins died from a grenade explosion on the day of the attack. His remains were recovered by the CILHI during excavations in North Korea in August 1997.
The accounting of these two soldiers marks the fifth identification of servicemen as a result of joint US - North Korean remains recovery operations. Since 1996, teams from the CILHI have conducted 12 such operations and recovered remains believed to be 42 soldiers. Approximately 10 more are undergoing forensic review at CILHI's laboratory. This year marks the fifth consecutive year that US teams have operated in North Korea. Since 1996, negotiators led by the Defense Department's POW/Missing Personnel Office have reached agreement with North Korea on accounting for missing Americans.

American team members departed Hawaii on June 25 to begin the first of this year's five recovery operations in Kujang and Unsan counties in North Korea. Each operation will last approximately 30 days, and will include 20 American team members. These operations were part of the agreement with North Korea, negotiated in Kuala Lumpur earlier this month.

30 JUN 00: REMINDER -
DOD/DPMO Family Updates - 28/29 Jul Milwaukee, WI

POW-MIA Issue Update July 2000