The tombs of wind (Những ngôi mộ giό)

This article details the remarkable involvement of the Vietnamese population infinding and naming half a million Vietnamese missing-in-action (MIAs). Thesecrecy that characterised Vietnam’s military operations during wartime, and theoverlapping claims and therefore control of the MIAs by the army and civil admin-istrations in the aftermath of the wars, are the reasons behind unsolvable quagmiresin Vietnam’s current war-accounting effort. The myriad of state actors involvedwho often work at cross purposes raises the public’s awareness of the incompetenceof the state and calls for the participation of non-state actors. The latest potentialavenue to solve the MIA problem, DNA forensics, is facing all kinds of challenges,such as the quality of the bone samples and the scale of the effort. War accountinghas therefore become an open arena of public engagement and popular dissent,while significantly transforming the cult of the dead in Vietnam.