WOVERONTATION:

| “Resolyag.
Mely withar, that the United States should immedi-
Faw its forces from Vietnam.”

This
| *Nd lips cn Proposition—currently on the minds
Unique guions all over the world—was the topic
Toronto, “Sunqee national Centennial Debate held in
"Sunday, April 2.

Ome 1,7

Teviy.buily > Persons, mostly students, came to the

1" watch thes nasium building of York University
&vent, while a Canada-wide TV audience

Matched j
t live on the CBC’s national network.

© deb :
e sty Reyes conceived and organized entirely
of the two-year-old university, As was

Ned b
Biity. it cin, Murray Ross, president of York
Ween 13 tj; .atted first as a debate’ marathon be-

». Universities and eight Canadian col-
th “Canada a iy was born that the winner of the
© Soviet an €st should take on two students from
tion Was a ae invited specifically for this event.
; ale ad involve ~packed “happening.” All the emo-
* around : Ment that is inherent in today’s strug-
Mhasium 4... 12 Vietnam could be felt in that
Ay © Soviet a afternoon.
aN upholding the affirmative side, was
The Bduate gt a) Brychkov and Evgenyi Kubichev,
ie Metican as of the University of Moscow.
el Ansel, fam, defending the negative side, wax

Mi and Patrick Hacker, from the Uni-
YyYoming.
SSians,

skills of formal debate and handicapped somewhat by
language difficulties, especially during the rapid cross-
examination, put up a powerful and convincing case.
They presented their arguments and facts with much
passion and feeling, revealing their great emotional
involvement in the issues of the Vietnam war.

The Americans, on the other hand, were calm and
clinical about it all. Slick and sophisticated—:. vines
almost smart alecky—in their attitude, they piled up
facts, figures and quotations from every source they.
could find to bolster their stand. (They even included
Toronto Telegram columnist Lubor J. Zink as an
authority!)

The Americans sought to make two main points:

(1) The U.S. is fully justified in being in Vietnam.
(We're not bound by the Geneva agreement because
we didn’t sign it, nor did South Vietnam. . . In any
case, we’re there because Premier Diem asked us to
come. . . North Vietnam has 100,000 troops in the
South, therefore it is the aggressor, not the United
States, etc.)

(2) By staying in Vietnam the US. is helping the -

Soviet Union. (The Soviet Union is for peaceful co-
existence, China is for wars of national liberation;
therefore, if U.S. were to withdraw or admit defeat
China would see this as proof that its policy is right
and Soviet policy wrong).

Other than admitting that “all war is inhuman”
the two U.S. debaters ignored the moral issues of the
war. One of them went so far as to say there is no

US, SOVIET STUDENTS
DEBATE VIETNAM WAR

proof that children have been maimed by bombs or
burned by napalm. (This brought loud groans and
cries of ‘Oh, no!” from all parts of the hall.)

The Soviet team branded as a lie the argument that
the security of the United States is threatened in Viet-
nam. America, they argued, is there to establish a
military and economic base in Southeast Asia.

“In the past 15 years,” said Kubichev, ‘U.S. invest-
ments in Southeast Asia have increased six times. In
Latin America in the same period they increased two
or three times. It’s simply a matter of cold cash.”

It’s not “McNamara’s war” or “Johnson’s war,” he
said. These are catch phrases. “It’s the war of Ameri-
can big business. And the U.S. troops are in South
Vietnam to protect the investments of big business.”’

The Russians laughed at the U.S. team’s references
to peaceful coexistence. One of them asked: “All
that burning and bombing and destroying—is this
your idea of peaceful coexistence?”

_All in all, it was a well-matched confrontation. On

_debating points the Americans scored substantially;

on weight of arguments, moral and factual, the Rus-
sians carried the day. Which prompted Mr. -Justice
Bora Laskin, who had adjudicated the earlier debates,
to remark that he was glad he ‘did not have to make
a decision,” as to who won.

Not so the largely student audience. Their applause
for the Soviet debaters and their negative reaction to
several of the points made by the Americans left no
doubt as to who they thought had won.

After
YY t
; ber a ebate, Tribune staff
nen? too, U’Phy interview-
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on, Out fe questions he
St to pp. OF Particular in-
"ibune readers, espe-
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" ee _and doing
8 th n Vietnam. Fol-
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Obviously not experienced in the

We're doing everything Vietnamese ask us"

All these activities are based
on a very clear understanding
of what is actually happening in
Vietnam, because they have
first-hand information on this.
Not a single day goes by in
which there is not organized in
one university or another a soli-
darity meeting in support of
also in that very often we can
Vietnam.

We are privileged in a sense
hear directly from the Vietna-
mese young people themselves.
This helps our understanding of
the real essence of the just
struggle of the Vietnamese peo-
ple, and enthuses our Soviet
young people to help our Viet-
namese brothers as much as pos-
sible.

Some people who support
the struggle of the Vietnamese
people say that the actions of
the United States in Vietnam
call into question the validity
of the theory of peaceful co-
existence.

EVGENYI: Peaceful coexist-
ence excludes war as a means
of solving international dis-
putes. In Vietnam you have a
clear-cut case of aggression
against a people struggling for
independence. . ;

During the debate one mem-
bers of the American team said
—it sounds queer you know—
that actions of the American
government in fact help peace-
ful coexistence between all
coutries: This is nonsense, of
course. There are some instru-
ments of international law which
make it possible to settle dis-
putes by peaceful means, for ex-
ample the current disarmament
negotiations in Geneva.

The United States, by its ag-
gression in Vietnam, violates
the concept of peaceful coexist-
ence.

SASHA: There was a time
when the idea of peaceful co-
existence was first put on the
open public forum. At that time
many people thought this was
just Communist propaganda, and
nothing more. It is interesting
to note that at present the idea
of peaceful coexistence is going
deeper into the minds of people
all over the world.

As a Communist, I understand
that it is the policy of Com-
munists to try to promote peace-
ful coexistence between nations.

Two Soviet
students
talk with
Tribune

I know that people just don’t
adopt all the ideas of Commun-
ists overnight, but it is interest-
ing that those humanistic ideas
that have a all times been pro-
pagated by the Communists are
coming closer to the hearts of
vast sectors of youth and stu-
dents all over the world. The
fact that great numbers of peo-
ple accept the idea that there
should be peaceful coexistence
between nations is a very PoOSi-
tive thing. This is very impor-
tant phenomenon.

There can, of course, be dif-
ferent understandings of the
meaning of peaceful coexist-
ence, regardless of how different
their opinions are, it is a posi-
tive factor. It makes people

think about this problem, to
learn about the benefits for man-
kind that would come about
with the realization of peaceful
coexistence in international af-
fairs. In my opinion it helps
very much to bring people closer
together in a united fight for the
burning issues of our time.

How do you think Soviet
young people would react to
the charge that they are not
fully helping the struggle of
the Vietnamese people be-
cause of the policy of coexist-
ence with America? How
would they answer that
charge?

EVGENYI: We, wouldn't take
such a charge seriously, of
course. The contribution of
Soviet young people to the
struggle of the Vietnamese is
very widely known. We under-
stand where these charges come
from, and the only thing that
can be said about them is that
we're doing everything the
North Vietnamese government
and the National Liberation
Front ask of us. If they ask
more, we will do more.

The Soviet government and
the Soviet people also feel a bur-
den of responsibility for the
world as a whole, because we
are a great power. We have a
parallel responsibility. Along
with helping the Vietnamese
people we must help somehow
to maintain peace, and we are
trying to do so.

The American peace move-
ment is widely reported in the
Soviet Union, | imagine. What
is the reaction among Soviet
sutdents to this movement and
their understanding of the

various trends within it, such
as the pacifists and thereli-
gious people involved?

EVGENYI: The editorial office
of the Komsomolskaya Pravda,
the newspaper for our young
people, receives letters from its
readers every day, thanking it
for material published on the
peace movement in Canada and
the United States and urging it
to publish more. This, I feel, is
natural. After all, we are inter-
nationalists, that is, we strive to
unite-all positive forces to solve
our common problems in the
common interest. That is why
the interest in the peace move-
ment in North America is so
deep and sincere.

SASHA: At the debate today
I met many members of the
peace movement, pacifists and
many others. All peace fighters
have common issues, whatever
their ideological viewpoint is.
For example, as a Communist I
can’t accept the ideology of the
American Quakers, although I
can sympathize with their ac-
tions for peace. I understand
their actions are based on that
part of the Bible which says, “If
your enemy be hungry, feed
him; if he be thirsty, give him
drink.”

It is good that the American
Quakers understand that the
Vietnamese are now in need of
medicine because of all the atro-
cities committed there. It was
a humane act on their part
when they collected money, and
when they sent their yacht to
Haiphong. We disagree with the
Quakers on the approach to
peaceful coexistence but, whe-
ther we agree or disagree on
many points, we realize they are
making a great contribution to

‘the worldwide struggle for

peace.

April 14, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Poge 3