Death Tolls, First Indochina War and Vietnamese Occupation of Cambodia
From mchale@gwu.edu Wed Jun 30 09:15:08 2004
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 19:46:05 -0100
From: Shawn McHale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Death tolls, First Indochina war and Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia
Dear list,
Sorry to return to the topic of death tolls, but
do any of you know of reliable sources for death tolls on the First Indochina War and the VIetnamese occupation of Cambodia, 1979-89?
I ask because I find that most of the estimates I come across on such topics are really guesstimates. for example, different authors estimate that anywhere from 175,000 to 500,000 Viet Minh died in the First Indochina War, and estimates of civilian casualities show a similar wild divergence.
Demographers' estimates tend, it seems, to be lower than those of historians and journalists.
Given that millions died of violence or famine in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam from 1945 to 1989, I don't really see why we need to inflate already horrible statistics. So any pointers to rigorous estimates would be appreciated. I've been looking, of course, but haven't found anything yet. . .
Shawn McHale
Associate Professor of History and International Affairs
Associate Director
Sigur Center for Asian Studies
George Washington University
Washington, DC USA
From daniel.m.goodkind@census.gov Wed Jun 30 09:15:15 2004
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 09:18:49 -0400
From: daniel.m.goodkind@census.gov
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Death tolls,
First Indochina war and Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia
Shawn -
I have not worked on excess death issues in Vietnam and don't have
references regarding what you asked about.
But I like your observation that demographers tend to come up with lower
estimates than historians and journalists. An example from our work at
Census - our estimated range of North Korean famine-related deaths run well
below other figures circulating around in the media from several
non-demographers.
Demographers (when asked to pin the tail on the donkey) are inclined to
stick to available data ( particularly that expressable in tabular form),
hopefully noting defects that may exist. Historians and journalists, whose
interests extent beyond demographic issues, may extrapolate more freely
from available data or give more credence to other evidence - and higher
estimates can serve other purposes as well.
I am not sure about the difference between an estimate and a guesstimate.
Probably best to triangulate evidence whenever possible, and consider
ranges (maximums and minimums) whenever they exist. If there are wild
diverges in guess/estimates, that itself tells us something about the
problem at hand.
Daniel
From dgm405@coombs.anu.edu.au Wed Jun 30 09:15:29 2004
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2004 13:59:51 +1000
From: David Marr <dgm405@coombs.anu.edu.au>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Death tolls,
First Indochina war and Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia
Hi all,
I think the DRV army would have kept statistics on casualties 1946-54. Has anyone outside the Vietnamese military been given access in recent years to the Defense/Army archives (says this writer plaintively)? My guess is that military regions would have sent numbers to the center. Probably they would be more accurate for regular units than regional, and local losses might fall through the cracks (bad metaphor).
As for civilian casualties, I don't recall those being compiled in lien-khu periodic reports to the center (now held atTrung Tam III), but that's just from memory. Those were the days when numbers had magic, part of bureaucratic and modernity passions, so I'll bet there were attempts to record, whether they have survived to be read anywhere or not. Then we have the State of Vietnam Army, where one would imagine the French sought regular casualty reports. Maybe at SHAT in Vincennes? One needs to ask, however, if in the larger historical scheme of things it is worth putting in large amounts of time and effort to come up with an estimate of how many people were killed. The same goes for the 2nd Indochina war.
David Marr