Clinton meets young victims scarred by an old war

HANOI, Vietnam - When President Clinton reached out to shake Hoan Quang Sy's hand, the 11-year-old boy responded with a traditional show of respect, extending both arms. But the left hand was missing, the result of a bomb from a war over long before his birth.

Sy was among four young boys who met the president Saturday during an event highlighting efforts to clear an estimated 3 million land mines and 300,000 tons of unexploded ordnance scattered about Vietnam.

The youths were maimed in the central province of Quang Tri, which straddled the Demilitarized Zone during the Vietnam War and was the site of fierce fighting.

Clinton squeezed the boys' shoulders and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton put her arm around the short, slightly stocky Sy as the couple viewed an exhibition of art by children injured by unexploded ordnance.

One had suffered severe burns to his face that led to extensive treatment, including eight months at Boston's Shriners Hospital; more reconstructive surgery is possible. A second lost his left hand and right eye. His twin brother still has fragments in his body from the same explosion.

Noting that unexploded leftovers of war still wound or kill about 2,000 Vietnamese a year, Clinton called land mines ''the curse of innocent children all over the world.'' He said the United States will help remove them in Vietnam and war zones in Africa and the Balkans.

''You will have America's support until you have found every land mine and every piece of unexploded ordnance,'' the president told a group that included five members of Congress. ''This is the tragedy of war for which peace produces no answer.''

Yet neither nation has signed the 139-country treaty outlawing land mines; the United States stockpiles an estimated 11 million of them and Vietnam is still listed as a producer. Washington says mines remain a necessary deterrent protecting South Korea from the North.

Sy's father and uncle were collecting scrap metal five years ago when they found a bomb, according to Kristen Leadem of PeaceTrees Vietnam, a group helping to remove mines.

When they used a hammer to try to extract the explosive, the bomb went off, seriously injuring Sy and killing his father on the spot. His mother was left with six children to raise.

The Clintons saw an outdoor exhibit that included a variety of artificial limbs and wheelchairs, along with a large, rusting bomb and dug-up mines, mortars and grenades.

The United States has provided more than $3 million since July to buy mine-removing equipment and survey the countryside. Clinton said Washington had spent $350 million in the past eight years for such efforts around the world.

''I think we should do more,'' he said.

Vietnam said in a detailed report a year ago that 38,248 people had died from unexploded ordnance since the war between the communist North and U.S.-backed South ended April 30, 1975. Most deaths were attributed to that war; others occurred in the far north, site of a brief but bloody border war with China in 1979.

Some 3 million unexploded devices were cleared in a 1975-77 campaign while another, from 1991 to 1998 in the North, found 2.3 million - and left 37 soldiers dead.

Clearing infested land is especially important in a nation where three-quarters of the population lives in the countryside farming small plots.

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On the Net:

PeaceTrees Vietnam site: http://www.PeaceTreesVietnam.org/default.htm

International Campaign to Ban Landmines: http://www.icbl.org

Land mine treaty: http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/mine/UNDocs/ban-trty.htm