HO CHI MINH CITY, NOV 19: Vietnam hailed war with America as the birth of Communism while President Bill Clinton made an impassioned plea for freedom today as past enmity returned to mar the final day of his historic reconciliation visit.After two days of ostensible rapprochement, the former foes' tortured history threatened to reopen old wounds and overshadow the rich symbolism of Clinton's visit, the first by a US head of state since the war.Apparently goaded by the ecstatic welcomes given to Clinton by tens of thousands of Vietnamese in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the Communist authorities' irritation spilled over in public with an uncompromising defence of state control.In a tone contrasting with reformers in his own government and in a rebuff to Clinton's pleas to heal "shared suffering," Communist party general secretary Le Kha Phieu cast the war against the United States as the cradle of modern Vietnam.He demanded the US respect Vietnam's monolithic political system and banged the drum of the North's victory over the US-backed South as Clinton visited the scene of America's wartime humiliation in Saigon, now renamed after Washington's guerrilla nemesis."The resistance wars brought the Vietnamese people national independence and reunification to advance the country toward socialism so for the Vietnamese people the war was not ultimately a story of darkness, sadness and unhappiness," the official Vietnam News Agency quoted Phieu as saying when he met Clinton yesterday."The future of the Vietnamese nation is independence and socialism . socialism (will) not only exist but further develop."He also stressed the "primary role" of the state in business.But in Ho Chi Minh City, where 25 years before America made an ignominious helicopter exit from Vietnam via the US embassy roof, Clinton warned "no one should deny Vietnam the opportunity to grow."The President rammed home the country would only fulfil its potential if the authorities loosened their iron grip on dissent, a message which also led his unprecedented live address to the nation on Friday.He said the whole thrust of July's landmark bilateral trade deal between Hanoi and Washington was to open state-controlled Vietnam to new ideas which he stressed as vital for economic development in an information-based economy."Imagine how much more you will achieve as even more young people gain the freedom to shape the decisions that will affect their lives," he said at a speech to Vietnamese business leaders at a container port in the country's economic capital."No one should deny Vietnam the opportunity to grow - that is the meaning of our trade agreement. Your best days clearly lie ahead as you continue to find the means to release the skill and ingenuity of your people."He also pledged 200 million dollars in aid to help implement July's deal, still yet to be ratified by either country.
