Lamenting the anguished uncertainty, Clinton honors the missing

Sunday, November 19th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) _ Concluding a historic visit, President Clinton urged this communist nation Sunday to open its economy and allow greater individual freedoms, saying the rewards of a free-market system ``should be embraced, not feared.''

The first U.S. president to visit since the Vietnam War, Clinton declared, ``The years of animosity are past. 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. We wish you success.''

After a two-day visit to Hanoi where he nurtured long-bitter U.S.-Vietnam relations and got the Communist Party's upbeat view of post-war Vietnam from the party's top leader, Clinton arrived in the city once known as Saigon to cheers of thousands of people who lined the streets late at night.

In the final hours of the president's visit to the country, Cinton stopped at a shipping dock on the Saigon River. Under the shadow of two giant cranes, he spoke at a container terminal that is a joint venture between a Vietnamese state-owned company and a multinational firm.

Clinton said Vietnam's own government acknowledges that state-owned enterprises cannot create enough jobs for Vietnam, one of the poorest countries in the world with an average annual income of $372. ``But Vietnam's young people have the talent and ideas to create the jobs of the future for themselves in a new era of entrepreneurship, innovation and competition.

``That must be the future for Vietnam and its young people,'' the president told an audience of about 2,000 people in the midday heat. The United States and Vietnam signed a sweeping trade agreement this year that will force major economic reforms and allow generally unfettered commerce. Clinton said it would bring more investors here.

``Both our nations should ratify this agreement and implement it. The changes it will bring should be embraced, not feared,'' he said. Clinton promised that the United States would establish a $200 million line of credit to support U.S. investment in Vietnam.

Earlier, Clinton plunged into crowds in a narrow shopping street, shaking hands and stopping at open-front markets to buy last-minute gifts. To a generation of American GIs, this bustling city of 5 million people was known as Saigon before its surrender to communist forces in America's most humiliating military defeat.

The president sat in a courtyard of the city's fine arts museum to discuss Vietnam's future with young people in business, academia, the arts and the media. He extolled the virtues of freedom and opportunity and the challenges of the global economy.

``One of the great debates every society must have is how to balance individual freedom with the need for ... cohesion of families, communities and nation,'' the president said.

Despite Clinton's pleas, Vietnam's powerful Communist Party chief said his country would go its own way. ``We respect other nations' choices of lifestyle and political systems,'' Le Kha Phieu was quoted as telling Clinton. ``We also demand other nations respect our country's political system and choices.''

Clinton, after two days in Hanoi, arrived near midnight Saturday. Despite the hour, thousands lined the route for his 15-minute drive from the airport, many waving, some cheering, as his motorcade swept by.

Before leaving Vietnam on Sunday, Clinton also met with Jean-Baptiste Pham Minh Man, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Ho Chi Minh City. They talked for several minutes at city hall after Clinton addressed business leaders.

National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley said they spoke about problems the archbishop faces in a country where international human rights groups cite a pattern of harassment and imprisonment of Buddhist and other religious leaders. The president also met with the mayor, Vo Viet Thanh.

Ahead of Clinton's appearances, police broke up a sit-in by more than 150 peasants who had camped out beneath protest banners for several months near a government office.

The communist government's decision to allow the protest over land to go on for so long suggested a gradual loosening of official controls. But the peaceful overnight dispersal revealed the limits of what the regime will tolerate, as well as its sensitivity to international scrutiny during the U.S. president's visit.

Leaving Hanoi, Clinton stood at attention on a floodlit tarmac as a U.S. military honor guard took possession of the remains of three missing Americans and sent them to Hawaii for identification.

Much of Saturday was devoted to American MIAs and Vietnamese children maimed from leftover mines and bombs in the Vietnam War, subjects that weighed heavily on Clinton's emotions.

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, Ariz., accompanied the president.

``When we were younger, about 6 and 8, we used to talk about how we would come over to Vietnam and come get him out of jail _ we thought he was alive so we thought we'd come get him and take him home and rescue him,'' said David, now 39. ``And we kind of feel like that's what we're doing right now.''

Tears welled in Clinton's eyes as he stood on a bamboo-supported platform beside the excavation pit.

``Whether we are American or Vietnamese,'' Clinton said, ``I think we all want to know where our loved ones are buried.''

Clinton is the first president in 31 years to visit Vietnam and the first ever to stop in Hanoi. In a farewell meeting with President Tran Duc Luong in Hanoi, he joked about the U.S. election stalemate: ``I have to go home to see if there's a president.''

Luong called Clinton's visit ``a new page'' in relations.

``It's a shame this is so short,'' Luong said. ``I hope the next U.S. president will continue what we have started.'' U.S. Ambassador Pete Peterson said the visit had improved understanding and trust between the two nations.

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 U.S. Embassy in a blaze of tear gas and smoke grenades. They fled Saigon as communist forces surged into the city and the U.S.-backed government announced an unconditional surrender.

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

In a striking gesture of reconciliation, Clinton went to the Communist Party headquarters in Hanoi and chatted amiably with party secretary Phieu.

Vietnam began opening its economy in the mid-1980s. The effort waned during the Asian financial crisis, but then Vietnam signed a bilateral trade agreement with the United States in July that will force major reforms.

``We have a private economic sector, but we do not privatize the entire economy. We are reorganizing cooperatives, not dismantling them,'' Phieu said in remarks quoted by the Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan.

The president also attended a ceremony intended to raise consciousness about unexploded 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.