Tribune-Review
15 December 2013
From an American gunboat decades ago, John Kerry patrolled for communist insurgents on the winding, muddy waters of the Mekong Delta. From those familiar waterways, the top U.S. diplomat confronted a modern enemy on Sunday — climate change.
In this remote part of southern Vietnam, rising sea waters, erosion and upstream dam development on the Mekong River are proving a more serious threat than the Viet Cong guerrillas whom Kerry battled in 1968 and 1969.
“Decades ago, on these very waters, I was one of many who witnessed the difficult period in our shared history,” Kerry told a group of young professionals gathered near a dock at the riverfront village of Kien Vang. “Today, on these waters, I am bearing witness to how far our two nations have come together, and we are talking about the future, and that’s the way it ought to be.”
That future, especially for the water-dependent economy of the millions who live in the Mekong Delta, is in jeopardy, he said.
Kerry pledged $17 million to a program that will help the region’s rice producers, shrimp and crab farmers and fishermen adapt to potential changes caused by higher sea levels that bring saltwater into the ecosystem. Kerry said he would make it a personal priority to ensure that none of the six countries that share the Mekong — China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam — and depend on it for the livelihoods of an estimated 60 million people exploits the river at the expense of the others.