Worried about using psychic to find graves

On July 19, at the workshop on the Project "Identifying the remains of martyrs with missing information" organized by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs in Hoa Binh province, many opinions were concerned about the inclusion of psychics in the project as a measure to find remains, because it could easily be exploited, causing bad consequences...

According to Deputy Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Bui Hong Linh, determining the names and hometowns of nearly 500,000 unknown martyrs is a big and very difficult problem. However, we should not do it haphazardly and carelessly as is happening in Nghe An and Ha Tinh (currently, many people claiming to be psychics are emerging).

There are cases where martyrs who died in the South were brought to Quang Tri to be searched for, or martyrs who died in Quang Binh were brought to the Central Highlands to find their remains. “That is a phenomenon of exploiting martyrs’ relatives to do illegal business. If we identify the martyrs’ graves but cannot find any relics associated with the remains that are searched for and recovered, but still consider them martyrs, then the number of real martyrs will be filled by virtual martyrs according to psychic perception. From there, we will not be able to collect and recover the actual number of martyrs who died,” said Mr. Linh. Therefore, identifying martyrs’ remains by DNA will be considered the main measure.

For now, Deputy Minister Linh said that it should not be done simultaneously, the graves of martyrs with disputes, the families of martyrs with urgent needs... will be given priority for DNA testing first. After that, the DNA testing will be piloted and expanded to provinces and cities with a large number of martyrs. In addition to the DNA testing centers under the Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Science and Technology... that have been conducting DNA testing of martyrs' remains for a long time, which center is allowed to test DNA must be directed and operated by the State.

Mr. Nguyen Le Cat - Head of the Testing Department of the Military Forensic Institute said that taking samples for DNA testing is very important and needs to be done by a specialized agency. After the project is approved by the Government, it will be applied in a number of cemeteries. "We should consider including psychics in the project because this is a very sensitive issue, not agreed by many scientists because the results are very low. Meanwhile, DNA testing to identify martyrs' remains has a very high accuracy rate," said Mr. Cat.

Sharing the same view, Mr. Le Cong Huan - Institute of Biotechnology also said that the method of psychic perception does not have enough scientific basis to believe it is right or wrong. If included in the Project, it will easily cause people to misunderstand and will cause many bad consequences in society.

Support for DNA testing costs

Regarding the issue of how many martyrs' relatives who have spent money on the identification of martyrs' remains will be supported by the Project? Deputy Minister Bui Hong Linh said that many families asked psychics to find remains but still did not believe it, so they took them for DNA identification. After that, most of the results were answered as incorrect, so the relatives' families really spent money. In the future, the DNA identification will be introduced by localities to the identification centers of ministries or identification centers that have contracts with the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, and the cost will be supported by the State. For families who have spent their own money for identification, the Project will later classify and have appropriate forms of support.

Regarding the project's implementation budget, Ms. Do Thi Thuy Hang, representative of the Ministry of Finance, said that the project's determination of the 2011-2012 process of collecting new remains samples and from 2012-2018 of collecting remains samples in cemeteries is a highly feasible process. "The issue is what support will be given to the martyrs' families when conducting DNA testing. As for the State, it is still possible to spend 300-400 billion VND/year to collect samples of martyrs' remains," Ms. Hang said.

Deputy Minister Bui Hong Linh said that the biggest advantage of the project is that it is supported by the Party and State and has the consensus of the people, so relevant ministries and branches need to quickly complete the project to submit it to the Government by the end of this year.

According to Tien Phong