VIETNAM

Battle for

health

By FREDA COOK
HANOI

One of the most encouraging
things about North Vietnam’s re-
sponses to the war has been her
persistent determination to keep
on improving facilities for better
living conditions, especially
among the villagers.

Nguyen van That, is the 32-
year-old head of the western
medical section at Bot Xuyen
village’s medical centre. The cen-
tre ministers to about 30 pa-
tients a day.

There are two whitewashed
buildings, one with a 14 bed
ward, and the other with dispen-
sary, Offices, and living quarters
of the staff. Bunches of tradi-
tional medical herbs are drying
on the walls and give off an aro-
matic smell.

Western medicines and vita-
mins are good, when they can
get them, but sometimes they
may have to go for months with-
out supplies in which time. her-
bal potions are invaluable. Some
of the old people even prefer
them.

TARIFFS, TRADE AND TROUB!

Most of those who come, suf-
fer from coughs, diarrhoea, sore
eyes, ulcers, boils and, of
ccurse, pregnancy. The medical
workers have charge of the hy-
giene campaign, which is gradu-
ally having its effect on latrine
arrangements and provision of
clean water in all the hamlets.

All the babies born in the cen-
tre have been healthy. Because
milk and sugar are not always
available, sugared water and
rice gruel are fed to the in-
fants.

Thinking of local -plants for
medical uses reminds me of a
sad loss the Vietnamese have re-
cently sustained in the death of
Dr. Dung van Nhu, veteran of
the anti-French Resistance. He
was the first to be decorated by
President Ho Chi Minh after lib-
eration for his magnificent work
in the jungle as part of a small
team with Dr. Ton-that Tung
and his uncle Dr. Di.

Of late Dr. Nhu had been
almost wholly engaged in the
attempt to eradicate malaria
from those parts of the country
still troubled by anopheles.

THE

He and all his research ma-
terial with which he was trying
to find local substitutes for palu-
drin, etc., were blotted com-
pletely out in one of the Ameri-
can raids. Only a short time later
his hospital in Hanoi, where
malaria patients were treated,
was also bombarded.

Ironically enough, before Pre-
sident Ho appealed to him to
give his skilled service to the
resistance fighters in the jungle,
he was doing research in Japan
in the laboratory attached to a
U.S. military hospital—serving
the very machine which in the
end destroyed him.

In those early days, of course,
America and Vietnam were
more or less allies, having been
on the same side fighting against
the Japanese fascists.

Hanoi hospitals have been dis-
persed here and there about the
countryside and the majority of
beds still remaining in the city
are reserved for serious surgical
cases and war casualties. Of
these there are too many some-
times for the equipment avail-
able.

Many of the casualties arriv-
ing in the hospital are €.B.U. or
pellet-bomb victims. These hor-
rible weapons explode at vari-
ous altitudes, not only when
they reach the ground. If the pel-
lets enter your leg it is not very
serious, but if they enter the
belly or the brain, it is impos-
sible to say where the damage
will stop. The tiny fragments
keep travelling, tearing through
any soft organs in their path.

During the course of the war
there have been many Vietna-
mese doctors killed, but the

North Vietnamese are _ proud.

that the hospitals from the 17th
parallel to the Chinese frontier
are staffed with Vietnamese per-
sonnel, and the Medical Insti-
tute is turning out 500 medical

workers, of various stages each
year.

One excellent result is that
there have been no serious epi-
demics, cholera, or bubonic
plague for several years. This is
a sharp contrast to South Viet-
nam,

First aid courses are compul-
sory in offices and workshops,
and everyone gets first aid train-
ing somewhere, as well as being
issued a first aid kit.

The war has brought many
problems, but, in spite of all,
there is a consistent feeling of
gaiety which is rather hard to
explain. I asked Dr. Tung how
he would explain it.

“The Vietnamese are rather
strange people,” he said. “As a
whole, they are not afraid and
don’t remember bad experiences
for long.

“While the bombs are falling
around they may be frightened,
but immediately there is quiet
they begin making jokes about

Medical team at work at the Phudoan Hos

KENNEDY ROUND

While the Kennedy Round of Tariff talks are over, the results
and conclusions are far from clear. What effects they will have on
Canadian and world trade agreements are vague. Finance Minister
Sharpe has evaded questions in the House of Commons which de-
manded details of concessions Canada has granted or received.
Sharp: says details are not ready, therefore, it is impossible to see
how the negotiations will affect the future of Canadian manufac-

tures.

One conclusion is that for workers in manufacturing in Canada
the prospect is for increased pressure to boost productivity and
continued attempts by employers to restrain wage payments—“‘in

order to compete.”

By A. SUTULIN

ATE at night on May 15, the
Kennedy Round of tariff
talks finally ended. Initiated

by President Kennedy, these
talks were held within the frame-
work of the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),
which comprises the developed
capitalist states and some of the
developing countries.

The idea was formulated when

‘the U.S. passed its Trade Expan-

sion Act (1962) authorizing the
President to cut U.S. tariff by
half in GATT countries in return
for similar action by them.

To grasp the purpose behind
these moves, one has to take a
look at the background.

After the war the United
States seemed beyond competi-
tion in the capitalist world and,
weakened by the war, the West-
European countries were depen-

eit : tng M a Fens

July 7,'1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 6

dent on the U.S. for aid and
followed where Washington led.

However, after restoring their
economic potential Western Eu-
rope and Japan began to develop
more rapidly than the U.S: The
result was that America’s share
in the industrial output of the
capitalist world dropped while
the share of the others rose.

The European Common Mar-
ket and Free Trade Association
very soon began to acquire a
cutting edge as weapons of econ-
omic warfare against their com-
petitors; the U.S. for one.

This made it hard for Ameri-
can goods to compete and held
back their sales.

Washington is faced with the
urgent problem of boosting
American exports which have
slowed down, while imports have
been growing faster.

The growth of export can be
stepped up only if other coun-

©

tries reduce their import tariffs.
But this they will not do without
reciprocal concessions.

The objects of the Kennedy
Round were to boost American
exports to Western Europe, and
especially to the Common Mar-
ket; to penetrate the tariff wall
erected by the Six by granting
them equivalent concessions, but
without detriment to U.S. big
business in the home market;
to prevent any weakening of
America’s economic ties with
Western Europe; to provide suit-
able conditions for American
commercial expansion in the
developing countries; to consoli-
date the West economically and
politically under American lead-
ership.

The question of cutting tariffs
on many items by more than half
or lifting them altogether was
not even raised. On many pro-
ducts delegation; refused to
make any cuts at:all. Each dele-
gation did its best to lengthen
its own “list of exceptions” and
shorten those of its competitors.

The end result, what with all
the exceptions, is that instead
of a majority of goods, as plan-
ned, the cuts affect less than a
quarter of the capitalist world’s
imports.

Washington got an unpleasant
surprise when the Six attacked
America’s non-tariff obstacles to

imports, notably the system of
charging duty on some goods
not on the basis of their import
price, as is the accepted practice,
but on the basis of the higher
“American selling price’ (ASP).
This is very disadvantageous, for
one thing, to exporters of chemi-
cals to the U.S.

Americans promised to give
up ASP, in return for a 20 per-
cent cut in Common Market
chemical tariffs, with a further
30 percent cut to follow when
Congress abolished ASP.

All the deals did not remove
the mutual dissatisfaction.
French Information Minister,
Georges Gorse, pointed out in
the French cabinet that “two
fundamental questions — grain
and chemicals — remain unset-
tled.” Is another round of the
Western trade war in the offing?

The Americans wanted to re-
duce tariffs on a few goods from
developing countries, and only
in turn for similar action.

In this way, U.S. monopolies
wished to increase their sales
and undermine sales of their
competitors in these countries.
The West would not grant the
developing countries the unila-
teral advantages they had re-
peatedly been promised. All in
all, the underdeveloped countries
did not get freer access to the
markets of the developed. capi-

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