KIEN VANG, Vietnam — December 15, 2013 — From an American gunboat decades ago, John F. Kerry patrolled for communist insurgents along the winding muddy waters of the Mekong Delta. From those familiar waterways that eventually turned the young lieutenant against the war, the top U.S. diplomat confronted a modern enemy Sunday — climate change.
In this remote part of southern Vietnam, rising sea waters, erosion and the impact of upstream dam development on the Mekong River are proving a more serious threat than the Viet Cong guerrillas whom Mr. 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,” Mr. Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, 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,” he said.
That future, especially for the water-dependent economy of the millions who live in the Mekong Delta, is in jeopardy, he said.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Times