Opinion by Maria Zakharova

#Opinion by Maria Zakharova

💬 Against the macabre backdrop of all these Western intrigues related to the International Criminal Court and the false accusations, in particular against Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, I wanted to dig into how Washington manipulated children.

In 1975, during the aggression launched by the US against Vietnam, and with the People’s Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam about to liberate Saigon, Washington made an unprecedented move as part of Operation Frequent Wind. Speaking at noon on April 3, 1975, at a Conference Centre in San Diego, President Gerald Ford said that he ordered Operation Babylift to be carried out under the command of Major General Edward J. Nash.

This kick-started a large-scale effort by the Americans to take children out of Vietnam, including newborn babies. They were airlifted from the country. There is archival footage showing President Ford in person fussing over children who were kidnapped from Vietnam, just like a murderous dictator hungry for some positive media coverage.

This criminal decision by Washington qualifies as a crime under Article II of the 1951 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. At the time, the Americans wanted to completely wipe out the cultural identity of these infants by putting them up for adoption by families in the United States and its allied countries.

Just watch these images: this is how the US military kidnapped children from Vietnam.

The terrible thing here is not just that Washington did this in 1975, de facto depriving thousands of children of their homeland and culture, and erasing their national, ethnic and social identity, but also how this so-called evacuation was carried out.

Operation Babylift was notorious for its poor management. This is an established fact. Unfortunately, there were even casualties. On April 4, 1975, Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, a US Air Force transport aircraft, crashed over Vietnam due to criminal negligence by the US military, killing 78 babies.

Nevertheless, the Americans awarded the crew and kept the operation going, smuggling 3,000 more babies out of Vietnam.

It has been impossible to establish the exact statistics so far. Now that these babies have grown up, many of them are out there trying to find their real parents.

I cannot wait to see the International Criminal Court issue an arrest warrant for senior officials of the United States, the Pentagon and all these would-be humanitarian foundations who were involved in this operation.

Let me remind you what Sergey Lavrov said about the war itself: “I will not even mention the bloody war in Vietnam that lasted for many years. The US got into this war after staging the Gulf of Tonkin incident. <…> The Americans ignored UN General Assembly resolutions condemning these and other aggressive steps by the United States, turning a blind eye to them.” (October 4, 2022).

Now, let’s compare the horrors of Vietnam, which were quite real, with the care and attention children evacuated from the combat zone receive.

As a sidenote, it was stated right away that these children would be returned to their parents and relatives. Maria Lvova-Belova:

“As soon as we get information about family members or parents who are ready to take these children back, we will be happy to transfer these children back to them and will definitely make all the necessary arrangements for that to happen, as long as we are sure that all the norms and procedures are respected.” (November 29, 2022).

“There are still 89 children in the south of Russia. They have everything they need, and most of them are in touch with their family members. There is an action plan for eventually returning every child to his or her parents. Russia has never created any obstacles and will not create any obstacles preventing children from reuniting with their family members. If their parents or lawful guardians are able and willing to take them back, we will do everything we can to help them.” (March 10, 2022).

“As of today, there are 380 children placed in foster families in 19 regions of Russia. These children stayed in social care institutions for a long time. This means that none of them was separated from their parents. This is the first point. Second, if we learn that there are lawful guardians of these children, we will immediately do everything to reunite them with their families. We have currently 15 children from eight families who have been reunited with their relatives in Ukraine.” (March 20, 2022).