HANOI (AP) - April 4. Cinq millions de morts: 20 ans apregraves la fin de la guerre du Vietnam,le gouvernement de Hanoi a reacute veacute leacute, lundi, le bilan d'un conflit dent lenombre de victimes avait eacute teacute minore a l'eacutepoque pour ne pas affecter lemoral de la population.

Selon Hanoi, il y a eu pres de deux millions de morts dans la population civile du Nord et deuxautres millions dans celle du Sud. Quant aux combats proprement dits, les chiffres sent d'unmillion cent mille militaires tueacutes et de 600.000 blesseacutes en 21 ans de guerre.

Ce dernier bilan comprend a la fois les victimes de la guerilla vietcong et les soldatsnord-vietamiens qui les eacute paulaient. Les preacute ceacute dentes estimations desource occidentale faisaient eacute tat d'un bilan de 666.000 morts parmi Ies combattantsVietnamiens.

Translation

The Hanoi government revealed on April 4 that the true civiliancasualties of the Vietnam War were 2,000,000 in the north, and 2,000,000 in the south. Militarycasualties were 1.1 million killed and 600,000 wounded in 21 years of war. These figures weredeliberately falsified during the war by the North Vietnamese Communists to avoid demoralizingthe population.

End Translation

Note:Given a Vietnamese population of approximately 38 million during the period 1954-1975,Vietnamese casualties represent a good 12-13% of the entire population. To put this inperspective, consider that the population of the US was 220 million during the Vietnam War.Had The US sustained casualties of 13% of its population, there would have been 28 millionUS dead.