PRIME MINISTER
STATMENT BY THE PRIME MIINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING, MP
VISIT TO LAOS, THAILAND AND VIETNAM
On this visit to Laos, Thailand and Vietnam new
understandings and agreements have been reached. our
relationship with the dynamic economies of Thailand and
Vietnam has been put on a new plane. The foundations of
regional security have been strengthened.
These were the objectives of my visit. They were the
objectives because it is on these things which the
interests of our country depend the interests of this
and future generations of Australians.
On them also depend, to no small extent, the well being
of the countries of the region and their peoples.
This visit has gone some considerable way towards
advancing the interests of Australia.
On this, as on other visits, I recognise that the office
requires that I be Prime Minister, not just for
Australians of this generation and future ones but for
past generations of Australians.
Wherever possible, I have made it my practice to visit
those places abroad which are sacred to the memory of
Australians. That is why in Thailand I went to Kanchanaburi and Hell
Fire Pass. While there I made mention of those who
served and died in Vietnam because they occupy the same
esteemed place in our national memory as those who are
buried in Thailand, but it was not possible in Vietnam to
visit a place where Australians who served are buried.
We did not seek a memorial service in Vietnam principally
because we decided there was no suitable place in Vietnam
to conduct one, and also because I did not think it
appropriate, while in Vietnam, to revive bitter memories.
2
I am dismayed by the misrepresentation of my views on
this matter. The war was a trauma at the centre of our
national life for more than a decade, no one who lived
through that period can fail to have been affected by it
but, equally, as I have said before, no one who did not
live through the war itself can know what it was like.
What we do know is what I said at the inauguration of the
Vietnam Memorial in Canberra and repeated at Kanchanaburi
that those who died in Vietnam died with the same faith
in Australia, with the same courage, the same willingness
to lay down their lives for their country as those who
died in other wars.
It was for this reason that the Government completed the
Memorial. The Memorial and what was said there on the
day of its inauguiation finally brought Vietnam veterans
in from the cold. It ensured that they received for the
first time their proper recognition.
In Vietnam the war still weighs heavily on the lives of
the people. Economic sanctions and the isolation of the
country have kept it impoverished and underdeveloped.
The wounds of war are far from healed.
I came here to lay the foundation of a mutually rewarding
friendship between our two countries. I came to South-
East Asia to hand over to Laos and Thailand the
Friendship Bridge. I came in pursuit of a new creative
partnership with the region.
I am the first Australian Prime Minister to visit Hanoi.
As I said there on Monday night, I will certainly not be
the last.
In the future Australian Prime Ministers will come to
Vietnam regularly. And when they do, like me, they will
remember those who suffered and died in that terrible
conflict of the sixties and seventies -and I confidently
expect that in due course they will be able to remember
them at a suitable memorial.
HO CHI MINH CITY
12 APRIL 1994