New phase starts in Vietnam war weapons clearance

HANOI, Nov 10 (Reuters) Vietnamese and Americans today began the next phase of clearing hundreds of thousands of tons of unexploded Vietnam War ordnance and landmines that still kill and wound people more than 30 years after the conflict ended.

An expert group from each country signed an agreement a week before US President George W Bush is due to make an official visit to Vietnam and attend an Asia-Pacific summit in Hanoi.

''We pledge that for as long as any of these remnants of war remain, we will dedicate our energies to see them removed and destroyed, so that the land can be used to pursue better lives for the Vietnamese people,'' Tom Leckinger, representative of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF), said at the signing ceremony.

During the initial phase in 2004 and 2005, the VVAF and the Centre for Bomb and Mine Disposal of Engineering Command (BOMICEN) at Vietnam's Defence Ministry cleared 421 hectares.

Weapons disposal experts found and destroyed 6,025 pieces of unexploded ordnance and landmines in the northern and central provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh and Quang Tri, the groups said. The second phase would complete any remaining work in those provinces and extend it to Nghe An in the north and Thua Thien Hue province in central Vietnam.

''There needs to be a national inspection to determine the amount of unexploded ordnance landmines that are still out there so we can deal with the issue thoroughly,'' Senior Colonel Nguyen Trong Canh said at today's event, which was attended by wounded victims of the ordnance.

The explosives hinder farming and the building of houses and roads as well as being dangerous to the public and the explosives experts trying to destroy them.

Since the war ended in 1975, bombs, artillery shells, mortar bombs and rockets have killed 38,000 people and wounded 64,000, Vietnam government figures show. The Defence Ministry estimates that 350,000 to 850,000 tons of weaponry remains scattered across all 64 provinces.

Vietnam estimates that only 20-25 percent of explosives left after the war have been cleared.

The project, formally called ''Vietnam UXO/landmine Impact Assessment and Rapid Technical Response'' also has the support of the U.S. government.

''As they begin this difficult, dangerous work, we wish them nothing but success,'' said U.S. Ambassador to Hanoi Michael Marine.

The governments of the two countries, which normalised relations in 1995, have also made progress in recent months in dealing with another war legacy -- land contaminated by dioxin or ''agent orange'', a defoliant used by the Americans in the war.

REUTERS BDP PM1429