[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [SRRTAC-L:10079] Image Of Vietnam War Chooses New Image Of Peace

[Alfred Kagan]

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>Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 09:52:06 -0800 (PST)
>From: Stephen Denney <sdenney at OCF.Berkeley.EDU>
>To: SRRT Action Council <srrtac-l at ala.org>
>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:10079] Image Of Vietnam War Chooses New Image Of Peace
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>This might be of interest for those who remember this famous photograph.
>
>  - Steve Denney
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
>                            Sydney Morning Herald
>
>                          February 11, 2003 Tuesday
>
>    Image Of Vietnam War Chooses New Image Of Peace
>    By Tony Stephens
>
>    Kim Phuc will go to Iraq, if there is war, if and when she is
>    permitted. She would go to help the suffering children. "I am not
>    afraid of death," she said yesterday. She famously looked death in the
>    face 30 years ago. Nothing frightens her now.
>
>    The photograph of her, aged nine, running naked from a napalm attack
>    on her village helped end the Vietnam War and was one of the most
>    memorable photographs of the 20th century.
>
>    Now the mother of two young children, Kim Phuc has no illusions about
>    stopping a war in Iraq. But she will do what she can to deliver a
>    message of peace and, later, do what she can to ease the pain.
>
>    "That photograph is a powerful image of the horror of war," she said.
>    "But we need a new image of peace and hope."
>
>    Ms Phuc's new image was taken by Canadian photographer Anne Bayin and
>    shows her holding her then baby son, Thomas. It shows the napalm burns
>    on her body, against the beautiful, perfect skin of the boy.
>
>    "We cannot change history or what happened to me," she said. "But we
>    have to be optimistic. We can't give up, for the sake of the children.
>    If we give up, there will be more violence and more war."
>
>    Ms Phuc is visiting Australia as a peace ambassador for UNESCO, to
>    work for her Kim Foundation, which helps child victims of war, and to
>    promote the MILK exhibition of photographs, which opens at the Opera
>    House tonight.
>
>    The 1972 photograph won a Pulitzer Prize for Nick Ut, of Associated
>    Press. John Plummer, an American commander who became a Methodist
>    minister, ordered the attack by South Vietnamese aircraft. He said
>    later that he thought the village of Trang Bang was empty. In any
>    case, the napalm was meant to hit trenches outside.
>
>    Ms Phuc, a Christian, said her first miracle was that her feet escaped
>    the napalm. She could run from it. The second was the photographer,
>    who took the picture and took her to hospital.
>
>    She had burns to 65 per cent of her body and local doctors were
>    uncertain how to treat napalm burns. Ms Phuc said she was placed in a
>    "death room".
>
>    Her third miracle was being found three days later by her mother. Her
>    father found another doctor. Kim Phuc left hospital 14 months later,
>    after 17 operations.
>
>    She now lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband, Bui Huy Toan, and
>    their boys Thomas, now 8, and Stephen, 5. She has met and long
>    forgiven John Plummer. "I saw love in his eyes."


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu