| Stern” Friends”’,

mR Aan aces la alban

[rest

[thi

Nicaragua's triumphant
~Mocratic Government of Na-

Pin Reconstruction held its first

King session in Managua last
ay and was greeted by more
200,000 cheering Nicaraguans
the Tenamed ‘‘Plaza of the
“olution” in central Managua.

ae Barrios de Chamorro,
o Hassan and Daniel Ortega

avedra.
_ Among the first decisions of the

NeW government were:

©The dissolution of the

Somozan_ national guard,
legislature and supreme court.

@ The expropriation of all of
Somoza’s business and real estate
holdings.

@ The establishment of three .

member military-civilian tribunals
throughout the country to act as in-
terim courts to enforce civil law.

e@ Filing of extradition pro-
ceedings against exiled former dic-
tator Anastasia Somoza from the
U.S. to stand trial for the ‘‘destruc-
tion and death of thousands. of
Nicaraguans”’ and for stealing the

entire Nicaraguan national
treasury.

International recognition of the
new government has come from
countries the world over, added to
last week by the Andean Pact na-
tions of Bolivia, Colombia,
Ecuador, Peru and , Venezuela.
Also, last week, Cuba joined with
Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama,
Grenada, Iran and Vietnam in ex-
tending recognition. Friday, the
Mongolian People’s Republic of-
ficially recognized the new govern-
ment with a message from president
Yumjaagiyn Tsedenbal who said,
“The historic victory of the
Nicaraguan people, who enjoy
broad international solidarity and

and has opened up a bright prospect

of progressive and democratic

development to Nicaragua.’”
Alongside the five member

government of National
Reconstruction, a 30 member
“Council of State’? has been

- established which includes represen-

tatives of the major forces in the
anti-Somoza front. Included in the
Council of State are delegates from
the Sandinista Liberation Front, the
National Patriotic Front, the Broad
Opposition Front and the Higher
Council of Private Enterprise. The

The following ‘‘Letter to
issued in
“£SPonse to a massive international
Campaign against Vietnam in the

‘| -“"opean and North American

Media, was signed by 30 intellec-

| “als from what was formerly

South Viernam. Many of them,

: including such people as Tan Thuc

nh, an attorney formerly with
le Supreme Court, were con-

[ected with the Saigon regime.

any others were part of the

|%"0ad opposition to the former

leu regime.
eae appears here slightly abridg-

We, intellectuals from. what was
Called South Vietnam, deeply

‘{Fvolted at the noisy campaign of

Paragement and slander laun-

{Shed in a number of western coun-

tties against the Socialist Republic

‘4° Vietnam, feel it our duty to
'}Publish the present letter.

|. We neither address those who,

Ween 1945 and 1975, have been

#{7Sponsible for the two military
Yentures in Indochina, nor those

Who, of their own will, took a part
them or supported them. It is

: faa that those have not yet put
{2 with their defeat and are trying

'0 seek their revenge in one way or
Nother.

|, But we would like to address the

Mnumerable friends who, between
5 and 1975, with courage and

‘{2*herosity, have granted their ac-

tive support or sympathy to the
artacted ‘and arduous struggle
Our people for the recovery of
Sit independence and unity. To
sa friends of whom, in the
Saag of this campaign, a
wht er might be wondering
ether they have actually con-
uted to a good cause, we simp-
Say this: ;
yer thirty years of nearly
Deo eo war, the Vietnamese
tee. yearn ‘but one thing: be
Own masters on their own
» €njoy peace at long last

“merge from the ruins to build a
that Vietnam following the path
they have chosen, right from

1
945, the socialist path.

* Course not everyone finds
Choice to his. taste but
Soci a can set his mind at rest;
Do M is not a product for ex-
doe. 22d. Hanoi, our capital city,
center take itself for a new
have nol world revolution. We
territora) emstic views, no
Conflict ambition, no matter of
Southe with our neighbours in

ee ast Asia. We want to live in
~~© and we need peace.

Digg **efore there is any com-
Conflict liable to bring about a
the w, Somewhere in this part of
looked fa its cause should be
eki,,. Cf not in Hanoi, but in
has Ing. For all ages the Southeast
N China’s traditional direc-

Cred, heal their wounds, .

barrier on the way of this expan-
sion.

The Peking leaders who have
never accepted an independent
Vietnam in what they consider as
their influence zone, have tried by
all means since the reunification
of our country, to weaken us with
a view to bring us under their
sway. It is they who drove their
fanatical disciples in Kampuchea
to invade and wreck our

southwestern provinces, giving’

birth. to a border war which,
together with the uprising oft the
Kampuchean people, has led to
the overthrow of the genocide
regime in Phnom Penh. It is they
who, by means of threat and in-
toxication, have provoked the
massive exodus of Chinese
residents from Vietnam. It is they
once more who invaded our six
northern provinces in February
1979 and who, even though beaten
flat, still threaten to teach us a
“second lesson’’.

Let no one therefore accuse us
of wanting to disturb peace and

Vietnam answers ‘slanders'

horse of human rights for a new
crusade against communism.

We do not intend to discuss
these much-debated rights for
each society holds its own concep-
tions of them and history will tell
which is the most correct. We only
say that in spite of the dreadful
consequences of thirty years of
war and the immense difficulties
left behind by the former regime, |
socialist Vietnam endeavors ‘to
give each of her citizens, especially.
those who have been oppressed
and exploited in the old society,
the right to live fully a human life.

All Vietnamese regardless of
any distinction and of any past
whatsoever are entreated to take
part in this common endeavor.
But, of course, to participate in a
revolution, one has to believe in it.
This supposes on the part of peo-
ple from the old regime a radical
change in their way of conceiving
life and of living it.

It is to achieve this change that
former officers and high officials
have been sent to the “re-

~

above, it is the Peking leaders who
provoked the massive exodus of
the Chinese residents in order to

thus be in a position to accuse us |.

of ‘“‘terrorizing and expelling’’ the
Hoas, justifying thereby their un-
friendly (curtailing of economic
aid) and then openly aggressive
policy towards Vietnam.

We think that these reasons are
enough to explain the emigration
of several hundred thousand Viet-
namese and Hoas before and after
the liberation of Saigon. The
dramatic thing for those
emigrants, when they leave the
country illegally, is that they can
only take to the sea with all its
risks and perils.

We understand the reaction of
certain neighbour countries for
which this emigration has brought
about many difficulties, par-
ticularly in the case of the Hoa
emigrants. But we find that it is
unfair to project the responsibility
for this on Vietnam.

On the other hand, we feel

HATED CHINESE FLEECED BY VIETNAMESE

mene pars e--

Boat people

World

INDOCHINA

he policy was born of desperation. 2! °
3 Bees it seemed shoe’

mane. Malaysia's ~

Mahatt*

The plight of the refugees in Southeast Asia grows*

—

= ;
pariel \ that
ray Batata Bre powetiny with

: “Liquid Ausc fitz” py sian
Facing a “Liquid Auschwitz” NN : Han o's hypocrisy

{__

HEADLINES . .

security in Southeast Asia, for the
trouble-makers are the present
Peking leaders who now act in
connivance with those in
Washington.

2. The socialist path is a revolu-
tionary path and no revolution
goes without violence. But ge-
nuine revolutionary violence is
directed only at the oppressive,
unjust and outdated structures,
not at man. :

We have witnessed or par-
ticipated in the liberation and then
the socialist transformation of Sai
Gon, now Ho Chi Minh City. We
can assure you that everything has
been done so that the old social
order may ber toppled, and the
new society be born with as little
suffering and as much human
tolerance as can be.

We can assure you that in our
country, there is no bloodbath, no
red terror, no religious persecu-
tion, no organized expulsion, no
ideological hammering, no brain-
washing . . . All this terrifying
imagery that one thought forever
buried together with anti-
communism from the witchhunt

times, has suddenly surfaced’

again in a certain kind of press as
with a stroke of a magic wand as
soon as the president of the
United States mounted the war

education centres’’. These are
neither convicts nor political
prisoners and these centres, of
which we have visited a few, in no
way resemble the sinister concen-
tration camps. There, people will
work and study, they will listen to
the radio and read newspapers.
Visits, letters and parcels are
allowed. A large number of “‘re-
educated’’ have’ already returned
to a normal life; soon it will be the
turn of others.

3, In all ages revolutions have
caused one part of the population
to emigrate for, even in the case of
tolerant revolution, there will
always be people who cannot
eventually adapt themselves to the
new regime or who refuse to do
so.
In South Vietnam, one century
of colonialism, twenty years of
neo-colonialism, ten years of
massive presence of U.S. troops,
intensive anti-communist pro-
paganda combined with a huge
psycho-social conditioning
machine (artificial prosperity,
‘““consumer society’’ gad-
gets . . .) — all of these factors
have led to the formation of a
sizable stratum of people either
objectively or subjectively unad-
justed to socialism.

Finally, as has been pointed out

. a glimpse at the enormity of the media campaign.

thoroughly disgusted at the
hypocrisy of the leaders of some
western countries who shed
crocodile tears over the fate of the

emigrants but did actually nothing

to help them or, even worse, used

them as instruments for their anti-

Vietnamese campaign.
It is our opinion that the seven-

icaragua hails Sandinista victory

support, has brought peace and
freedom to your long-suffering land |

Council of State reflects the broad
range of political opposition to the
Somoza regime and includes Marx-
ists, social democrats and liberal
democratic forces.

In June, the Sandinista Libera-
tion Front released the economic
and social program which the
Government of National
Reconstruction would carry out.
The program called for the repeal
of all repressive legislation and the
legalization of all trade union,
political and-mass organizations in
Nicaragua.

In the area of foreign policy, the
program called for ‘‘a foreign
policy based on independence and
non-alignment, with special em-
phasis on relations with the Central
American and Caribbean com-
monwealth.”’

The political economy of the new
Nicaragua, it continued, would be
based on a mixed economy in which
state, private and mixed enterprises
would co-exist. Control over the
country’s national resources would

be in the exclusive hands of the

state.

The social program outlined by
the Sandinistas would see an attack
on the unemployment and housing
crisis and a country wide campaign
against illiteracy. The enactment of
a meaningful labor code to
guarantee the right to strike and
other trade union rights was pro-
mised, together with new minimum
wage legislation in the city and the
countryside.

CLASSIFIED
ADVERTISING

COMING EVENTS

JULY 29 — Canadian Cuban
Friendship Association Annual
Garden Party. Entertainment,
speaker, refreshments, Cuban
dinner. 805 E. Pender St., Van.,
2 p.m. Dinner, 5:30 p.m. Adults
$5, children $2.50.

point agreement between the
government of Vietnam and the
UN High Commission for
Refugees offers a reasonable basis
for the settlement of this delicate
problem in the interest of all con-
cerned and, first and foremost,
for the refugees themselves.
Assistance and comprehension
would be as helpful to us as
criticisms. But it can surely not
belong to those who murdered
Vietnamese women and children,
those who invented the ‘‘tiger
cages’’, or those who inspired and
bolstered the former genocidal
regime in Phnom Penh to give
lessons on morality. or
humanitarianism. -
As far as our friends are con-
cerned, we wish that they were
able to come and seen on the spot
what we are doing. We have
nothing to hide. In spite of our
flaws and deficiencies we have the
certainty of working for man’s

happiness. y

tio
yen €xpansion and for all ages -
\2am has been the staunchest

JULY 29 — from 12 noon — Fed-
eration of Russian Canadian pic-
nic, exotic foods, games, music,
speaker on current events, Con-

_ federation Park, Burnaby. In
event of rain we will picnic at
Russian People’s Home, 600
Campbell Ave., Vancouver.

AUGUST 12 — COPE Garden
Party at Rankin’s Place, 3570
Hull St. From 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Food, games, entertainment, re-
freshments. Admission $5; old
age pensioners, students $3.50;
small children free. In case of
rain; at Russian People’s Home,
600 Campbell Ave.

AUGUST 12 — Keep t his after-
noon free for the East Fraser
sie regional picnic, Sampo

all. :

AUG 19 — Save this date for the

first anniversary celebration of —

the 1978 World Youth Festival.

AUG. 19 — from 1 p.m. — Annual
picnic at Bianco’s, 10246 — 132nd
St: Surrey. Entertainment, speaker,
children’s sports, horseshoe tour-
nament, mushroom burgers,
homemade pies, hot dogs and
more. Free admission, everyone
welcome. Auspices: South Fraser
region, CPC.

AUG. 25, 26 — YCL Children’s
Camp, Websters Corners. For ages
6-13. Activities include biology trip,
look at children around the world,
arts and crafts, singalong. For more
info. Ph. Kim Zander 585-9935.

‘SEPT. 3 — Labor Day Salmon Bake

with entertainment, speaker,
games, refreshments. Outdoors at
the Ukrainian Hall, 805 East Pender,
Vancouver. Sponsored by the
Greater Vancouver Regional Com-
mittee, Communist Party.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 27, 1979—Page 7

P ae