Are the Vietnamese, Laotians, or Cambodians Still Holding the Remains of Dead Americans?
Few question the proposition that for many years the Vietnamese had a stockpile from which they released remains as they saw fit. The DPMO believes that this stockpile may have been exhausted by August 1990. Whether the Vietnamese hold other remains is not known. Some suggest the Vietnamese have not released remains that would indicate mistreatment of POWs and/or that some were alive when the war ended but died in Vietnamese custody thereafter (although such mistreatment is well known). The large number of Americans lost in or over Laos, the number of known discrepancy cases, and the few Americans returned who had been captured in Laos suggest that the Laotians know more about the fate of unaccounted-for Americans than they have yet stated. On the other hand, most Lao governments, communist or not, have exercised little control over large parts of their country, due to Vietnamese occupation and their own lack of resources. This suggests the Laotians may not have the ability to provide
