by Dr. Stanley Kalpage

Visit to a former enemy

Bill Clinton spent two days in Hanoi in the north and one day in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in the south. After two days in Hanoi, Clinton arrived in Saigon near midnight on Saturday 18 November. Despite the late hour, thousands lined the route for his 15-minute drive from the airport — many waving, some cheering — as his motorcade swept by.

Bill Clinton was the first serving US president since the Vietnam War to visit the city that fell to the communists after American troops pulled out in the 1970s. The last US president to visit Saigon was Richard Nixon in July 1969, at the height of a war in which more than 58,000 Americans and three million Vietnamese died.

Earlier in Hanoi, Clinton was warmly received as "a champion of reconciliation" who not only opposed and avoided the war, but ended a punishing trade embargo in 1994, normalized diplomatic ties a year later and pushed through a bilateral market-opening agreement this year.

Legacy of war

After losing 58,000 Americans in Vietnam, the United States withdrew its combat forces in 1973. Two years later, on April 30, 1975, a rear guard of 11 Marines scrambled aboard a helicopter at the US Embassy in a blaze of tear gas and smoke grenades. They fled Saigon as communist forces surged into the city and the US-backed South Vietnamese government announced an unconditional surrender.

Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in honour of the revolutionary leader who declared Vietnam’s independence from French rule in 1945 and led the struggle against the United States.

The Vietnamese count about 300,000 of their people still missing. The United States lists 1,498 Americans missing in Vietnam, 421 in Laos and 65 in Cambodia.

Search for US forces missing in action (MIAs) in Vietnam

Accounting for Americans missing in action has been a top priority of US veterans’ groups and is politically essential to Clinton’s efforts to normalize US relations with Vietnam. Many of the three million US veterans of the Vietnam War, have been resentful toward Clinton because of his opposition to the war and his efforts to avoid the draft as a young man.

Washington spends $100m a year on finding out what happened to the 1,498 American servicemen who went missing during the war.

During his visit President Clinton came face-to-face with the war’s painful legacy for both sides. The president visited a rice paddy outside Hanoi where recovery workers were digging through mud for any remains of Air Force fighter pilot Lawrence G. Evert, whose jet crashed on a bombing run in 1967. Evert’s sons, David and Daniel from Chandler, Arizona, accompanied the president.

The President was moved to tears. "Once we met here as adversaries, today we work as partners", Clinton said. He pledged to help Vietnam search for its own missing, including through the release of US documents.

The visit highlighted US attempts to account for the 1,498 Americans missing in action from a conflict that ended 25 years ago. Clinton said the Untied States was committed to seeking the fullest possible accounting for the US servicemen who fell in the war and to help in Vietnam search for the estimated 300,000 Vietnamese still missing.

Land mines

The president also attended a ceremony intended to raise consciousness about unexploded land mines and bombs that still wound or kill 2,000 Vietnamese a year. Clinton called land mines "the curse of innocent children all over the world".

He said there are about 300,000 tons of unexploded ordnance and about 3.5 million land mines buried in Vietnam. Clinton said the United States began to help Vietnam last summer by providing $3 million to pay for de-mining equipment and it would also provide computer records of US bombing missions over Vietnam.

"The problem of land mines is a global tragedy", Clinton said. "In all probability, land mines, kill more children than soldiers and they keep killing long after wars are over".

However, neither country has signed a 1977 treaty outlawing land mines, which the United States stockpiles and Vietnam produces. The United States says mines are needed in the Korean Peninsula until an effective alternative is found. The United States has however led or taken part in de-mining efforts in many conflict areas.

Vietnam has one of the world’s worst problems with land mines and unexploded bombs from decades of war with the United States and, before that, France. Vietnam says 38,000 people have been killed by the deadly devices since 1975. Clinton assured the Vietnamese people: "You will have America’s support until you have found every landmine and every piece of unexploded ordnance".

In a scene so typical throughout Vietnam Clinton met four children maimed by unexploded land mines and other bombs. Hoan Quang Sy. 11, extended both arms to Clinton in a traditional Asian greeting, but his left hand was gone, the result of an old bomb. "This is the tragedy of war for which peace provides no answer", Clinton said.

Live broadcast

In an unprecedented live broadcast on Vietnamese television, Clinton paid tribute to the dead on both sides of the Vietnam War. He said the two countries could open a "new chapter" in their relationship and suggested the communist leadership should allow its people greater freedom.

He told students at Hanoi University that the war, in which 58,000 Americans and an estimated three million Vietnamese were killed, had imposed a "staggering sacrifice" on Vietnam. "We cannot do anything about the past but what we can do is change the future", he said.

Clinton was at his diplomatic best. With extraordinary delicate, neutral language, Clinton sought to firm relations with a former enemy while avoiding even the hint of an apology for US actions.

The Vietnamese were delighted. "The speech covered everything. He should win the Nobel Prize for bringing our two countries together," said Nguyen Anh Qian, 52, the owner of a tiny corner tea stand.

Visits to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City

In Hanoi Clinton met with President Tran Due Luong. Luong referred to Clinton’s visit as "a new page" in relations between the two countries. "It’s a shame this is so short," Luong said. "I hope the next US president will continue what we have started", US Ambassador Pete Peterson said the visit had improved understanding and trust between the two nations.

The human-rights issues that Clinton would later underscore at the university address were also brought up during his session with Luong, Clinton saw greater freedom and economic opportunity as interviewed, though the Vietnamese, like the Chinese, seem intent on economic progress while keeping tight control on their citizens.

Clinton’s National Security Adviser Sandy Berger noted, that Luong had indicated that the two sides "have different definitions or different meanings for "human rights".

In a striking gesture of reconciliation, Clinton went to the Communist Party headquarters in Hanoi and chatted amiably with party secretary Le Kha Phieu who is head of an 18-member politburo that determines government policy.

Clinton also met with Vietnam’s communist party chief, General-Secretary Le Kha Phieu. A White House official said Phieu, regarded as Vietnam’s most powerful figure, spoke with the rhetoric of "old socialism" and failed to respond when Clinton called for more political openness. The two leaders were focused on integrating Vietnam into the world economy and serving the needs of its people.

Relations based on mutual trade

Ho Chi Minh City never quite lost its business flair despite attempts by the communists to impose hard-line central planning after 1975 and has led the country economically since the communist leadership in Hanoi embarked on market-orientated reforms in 1986.

The trend of the past few years certainly suggests that US-Vietnam relations will be warmer. Clinton got the ball rolling in 1994, by lifting a long-standing American trade embargo. The two countries established diplomatic relations in 1995 and last year struck a deal that granted normal bilateral trade relations to Vietnam.

For a start, there are still doubts about the pace of reform. Even if Vietnam does keep opening up, there is another reason to downplay America’s influence, shocking though it may be to Clinton and his compatriots. There is a big difference between liberalising and Americanising. The Vietnamese are likely to opt for developing their own way.