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Chirac in Vietnam to boost economic ties

Summit of French-speaking nations to follow

In this story:

November 12, 1997
Web posted at: 8:32 a.m. EDT (1232 GMT)

HANOI, Vietnam (CNN) -- French President Jacques Chirac arrived here Wednesday, looking to boost France's economic ties with its former colony. While in the Vietnamese capital, he'll also attend a weekend summit of leaders from French-speaking countries.

The communist country's official newspapers carried gushing editorials which praised relations with France, Vietnam's leading European investor, trading partner and aid donor.

But even before Chirac arrived, Hanoi's human rights record emerged as an issue which could serve as a backdrop to his bilateral visit as well as the November 14-16 Francophone summit.

The meeting of 47 nations is the seventh such gathering and the first to be held in Asia. It gives Vietnam the opportunity to showcase its economic advancements and demonstrate its capability to host a major event.

Next year, Hanoi will be the site of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, Vietnam's first since joining the group in 1995.

Human rights concerns

The Paris-based Vietnam Committee on Human Rights handed Chirac a statement signed by dozens of celebrities urging leaders of French-speaking nations not to avoid the issue of human rights, and called on Hanoi to release political and religious prisoners.

Diplomats said Chirac and members of his delegation would bring up the issue in bilateral meetings, specifying dissidents about whom Paris is particularly concerned.

On Thursday, a French television station will broadcast film of a Vietnamese prison camp where a leading dissident is being held. Hanoi authorities had tried to seize the film.

Band music before business

Chirac's delegation sped along the road from the airport, past a splash of red and gold-star Vietnamese flags, to the French colonial-era Metropole Hotel.

A military band struck up and girls in traditional Vietnamese dress waved flowers as Chirac arrived at the Presidential Palace, built at the beginning of the century for the governor of French Indochina.

Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong and Chirac inspected the honor guard and then headed inside for talks. Chirac was also due to meet Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and Secretary-General of the Communist Party Do Muoi.

The French leader will also meet with French business leaders in the southern Vietnamese hub Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon. During his visit, Chirac is expected to sign several bilateral agreements on economic cooperation and development.

Enemies turn friendly

Once enemies, France and communist Vietnam have reconciled their pasts and developed a strong partnership, Chirac said.

Vietnam was the crowning jewel in France's network of colonies through the late 1800s and much of the 1900s.

More than 40 years after the end of French rule, Paris is eager to again exert some influence -- economic and cultural -- over its former colonies.

Communist unrest and the Japanese occupation of French Indochina during World War II dramatically weakened Paris' hold on its colony.

Although Paris worked and fought to reassert its authority over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos at the end of World War II, communist forces led by revolutionary hero Ho Chi Minh eventually toppled French rule and seized control of Hanoi in 1954.

The military bloodbath at Dien Bien Phu, the site of France's most humiliating defeat at the hands of the communists, was one of the defining moments in the collapse of French rule in Indochina.

U.S. aid for typhoon victims

Typhoon

While both the French and Americans fought on the battlefields here, most Vietnamese have no hard feelings.

On Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam , a former prisoner of war, announced that Washington was giving $600,000 to aid tens of thousands of people left homeless by last week's killer typhoon in southern Vietnam.

It's the first major donation by the United States to its former enemy since the fall of Saigon in 1975.

In addition, a U.S. military C-141 transport plane brought in an additional $400,000 worth of relief supplies. The British government has also donated $80,000 for disaster relief.

Correspondent Tom Mintier andReuters contributed to this report.

 
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