Put Kissinger on trial, open this can of worms, expose the warmongers.

Kissinger Must Take War Responsibility, Hanoi Says


HANOI (Reuters) - Hanoi said Friday that former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, hounded this week by anti-war protesters, must take responsibility for suffering caused during the Vietnam War.


Asked to comment on the protests against Kissinger in London and moves in some countries to bring him to trial for war crimes, Vietnam's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said in a statement:

"We hold that as a key official who played an important role in the U.S. power apparatus at the time the United States was carrying out its invasive war in Vietnam, Mr. Kissinger has to take responsibility for the sufferings and losses brought by this war upon the Vietnamese people."

The statement did not elaborate.

About 200 anti-capitalist protesters harassed Kissinger in London this week, calling him a "war criminal" for the carpet-bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

The long war eventually ended in 1975 -- more than two years after a peace treaty between Hanoi and Washington for which Kissinger shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

German-born Kissinger, who fled Nazi rule to the United States, served as President Richard Nixon's National Security Adviser from 1969 to 1973 and as Secretary of State between 1973 and 1977 under Nixon and his successor Gerald Ford.

In a speech in London, Kissinger said mistakes were possibly made but questioned if courts were the best place to investigate the U.S. government's past behavior.