Date published: Monday, August 23, 2004
By Scott Beveridge, Staff writer

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Communists are working with their former U.S. enemies, hoping Vietnamese children may someday be able to play outside without stumbling upon old war explosives.

Vietnam's ministry of defense has signed a landmark agreement with American Vietnam veterans on the first-ever assessment of land mines and unexploded ordnance that continue to kill and harm people in striking numbers.

"We committed ourselves to reconciliation," said John F. Terzano, vice president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation in Washington, D.C, a partner in the deal.

The $3 million project funded by the U.S. State Department was approved Feb. 25. The pact also marked the 10th anniversary of normalized trade relations between the two countries, and came on the heels of a 2002 agreement that the U.S. would supply Vietnam with $1.75 million in de-mining equipment.

Over the next three years, the survey will provide Vietnam with critical data, some drawn from U.S. war records, to locate areas in Vietnam with the highest concentations of such explosives.

Vietnam counts itself among many countries across the globe that must deal with these dangers to the public. As many as 25 million live cluster bombs remain in bordering Laos from U.S. missions during the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese government estimates.

Such explosives can be found today in England, France and Germany dating from World War II, and they are beginning to pile up in Iraq, Terzano said. In Europe, however, governments have fenced off the danger areas and do not deal with the explosives unless they leak and pollute the water, he said.

"That's just the reality of war," Terzano said.

A serious attempt to remove the warheads in Vietnam, however, cannot be accomplished without the survey, he said.

The American group was founded by Vietnam War veteran Bobby Mueller, a former U.S. marine lieutenant who became paralyzed from the chest down when a bullet severed his spine on a combat mission in 1969. In 1981, he led the first delegation of Americans to return to Vietnam since the United States pulled out of Saigon in 1975.

The foundation also operates a clinic in Bach Mai Hospital that provides medical care to victims of land mines, unexploded ordnance, strokes and accidents.

"Reconciliation is always difficult when you take a look at Vietnam. Our experience was not a unified experience," Terzano said.

On the Net:

www.vvaf.org