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Vietnamese from All Walks of Life Pay Tribute to McCain

by Khanh An

   More than 200 organization representatives and individuals have visited
   the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi this week to pay respects to the late U.S.
   Senator John McCain, according to reports from the official Vietnam
   News Agency (VNA) and Tin Tuc News.

   Among them were top Vietnamese leaders, representatives from the
   Communist Party Central Committee's Commission for External Relations,
   several ministries, agencies, organizations and the Vietnam-U.S.
   Society, the local media reported.

   McCain, who was tortured and held captive for five and a half years as
   a prisoner of war in Hanoi during the Vietnam War, died of brain cancer
   on Saturday at age 81 in Arizona. Memorial events began there on
   Wednesday, when McCain's body was taken to the Capitol and will
   continue Saturday in Washington at the National Cathedral before his
   burial Sunday at the United States Naval Academy Cemetery, in
   Annapolis, Maryland.

   "Senator John McCain has always been a symbol of the lawmaker-- veteran
   generation of the Vietnam War. "He took a leading role in '¦ healing
   the wounds of war, and normalizing and promoting a comprehensive
   Vietnam-U.S. partnership," Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister
   Pham Binh Minh wrote on the condolence book at the U.S. Embassy in
   Hanoi, according to Vietnamnet.vn.

   There were also representatives from many embassies and international
   organizations in Hanoi, Vietnamese alumni of U.S. colleges and
   universities, Vietnamese veterans, independent journalists and
   bloggers, mourners who praised McCain as a "great friend" of Vietnam, a
   man who had fostered a friendship between two former foes while
   defending prisoners of conscience and human rights activists in
   Vietnam.

   "Therefore, you have great love from Vietnamese people, from Vietnamese
   intellectuals," wrote Professor Tuong Lai, one of Vietnam's best known
   government critics, wrote in the condolence book, according to local
   media. He is the former dean of the Institute of Sociology at the
   Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences Institute, and served as an advisor
   to the Vo Van Kiet, the late prime minister.

   Other Vietnamese intellectuals praised McCain as an "honest, courageous
   and noble person" in the embassy's condolence book, local media
   reported.