Clinton vows US-Vietnam partnership

2000-11-20 10:58

Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska - President Bill Clinton flew home from Vietnam early on Monday, ending his historic mission by telling the communist foe of a generation past that Americans "wish to be your partners."

"I am going home determined to continue the partnership we have, for a better future for the people of Vietnam, for the people of the United States," Clinton told the Chamber of Commerce in Ho Chi Minh City.

After a week abroad, the president headed back to the White House still uncertain who will succeed him there in just two months, Vice President Al Gore, his candidate, or Republican George W. Bush.

"This is not a crisis in the American system because it will come to an end," he told CNN. "It will come to an end in plenty of time for the new president to take the oath of office."

Clinton also said he doesn't think "we should have all this hand-wringing, dire predictions" that the election dispute over the 25 Florida electoral voters will leave the new president handicapped as a leader.

Air Force One stopped to refuel at this base after Clinton spent a long day in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon that had him speaking, touring and travelling more than around the clock. He lingered over Sunday evening dinner at an elegant restaurant before taking off for home.

All told, his week's journey covered 35,707km, 44 hours of flying.

There could be at least one more foreign trip before the president leaves office on 20 January. He said it is conceivable he could still go to North Korea, a possibility ruled out on this Asian trip for lack of firm progress toward an agreement by the North to stop building and exporting long-range missiles.

Clinton, ever the campaigner, shook hands, shopped and waved at the scene of US surrender and withdrawal in 1975. He said his reception, by thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese who lined the streets of Hanoi and then Ho Chi Minh City, was nothing short of amazing. He called it "a big welcome for America, for the United States."

"I think it says a lot about what the people of Vietnam would like their relationship to America to be," he told reporters in the sweltering sun at a container port in Ho Chi Minh City, where he had hailed the spirit, skills and ingenuity of the new Vietnam.

"Your best days clearly lie ahead," he told about 2 000 business leaders and port workers, most of them in white baseball-style caps against the sun, listening through translation headphones on Sunday afternoon.

"The years of animosity are past," said Clinton, who avoided the draft to a war he said in 1969 he hated and detested. "Today we have a shared interest in your well-being and your prosperity. We have a stake in your future and we wish to be your partners."

In the noon heat of Ho Chi Minh City, the president strolled with daughter Chelsea along a crowded street of open-front shops, stopping in at a half-dozen of them, buying a memento at one. He paid with a $10 bill.

Clinton's journey took him first to Brunei, for the Asia Pacific Economic Forum. Then he became the first American president ever to go to Hanoi, the first to visit Vietnam since the fall of Saigon and the withdrawal of the last US forces here in 1975. The Vietnam War cost 58 000 American lives, and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese.

Clinton saw no display of bitterness, and said that had not surprised him. "I think these years that we spent working together on the MIA (missing-in-action) issue and on other things" have created the foundation of a new friendship, he said.

"I believe that America and Vietnam are linked not just by a shared and often tragic past that must be honoured and remembered but that we have a bright future that we can build together to liberate our people and their potential," Clinton told the audience at the container port.

One of his last meetings was a 10-minute encounter with the Roman Catholic archbishop of Vietnam, Jean Baptiste Pham Minh Man, a symbol of his call for religious freedom and human rights. - Sapa-AP

- SAPA