Old Foe Returns to Vietnam in Peace

Three decades after he fled by flying a helicopter out to an American aircraft carrier, the former wartime prime minister of South Vietnam, Nguyen Cao Ky, returned to his homeland as a tourist yesterday.

Mr Ky, 73, a former fighter pilot and air force commander, was prime minister of the US-backed state from 1965 to 1967, after a military coup, and then vice-president for four years. He is one of the most prominent former opponents of the Communist regime to be allowed to return.

The former fighter who was known as much for his drinking, womanising and gambling as his courage - and was once described by a US official as an "unguided missile" - landed in Ho Chi Minh City with his wife, daughter and two friends. One of the first people to greet him at his hotel in the city he knew as Saigon was his former bodyguard, whom he had not met since he fled in 1975 after the Communist army conquered the city.

Mr Ky, who has regularly criticised the Vietnamese government from his adopted home in California, said it was time to bury the past. "The war ended 30 years ago, but it still divides us into two camps," he told Radio Free Asia. "I want to put aside the past hatred and just sit together and talk to one another, face to face."

After spending two weeks in the south, Mr Ky and his family are due to fly to Hanoi and then on to his home town, Son Tay.

Some Vietnamese community leaders in the US have condemned the visit, timed to coincide with the lunar new year, as a betrayal of his opposition to the Communist government. But increasing numbers of Vietnamese are returning every year as Hanoi relaxes restrictions in a bid to attract visitors and foreign currency. Some 200,000 returned for the 2002 new year ceremonies, and the diaspora sent back more than £1.1bn last year.

"A lot of people said 'Don't go, don't go,' but I said this is my home, my country," Mr Ky said on his arrival. "We Asians, we believe in destiny, so it's the right moment to come."

Many people in Ho Chi Minh city welcomed his return. Doan Dinh Nhat, 65, a former soldier in the South Vietnamese army who spent three years in a re-education camp after the war, said it was normal that Mr Ky would want to return.

"If we stay bitter, it doesn't change anything," the motorbike taxi driver said.