They call it

‘pacification’ but

its really

Conquest |

by terror

By RAE-MURPHY

(Last of three articles)

“The United States can do anything in this world that she wants
to—so let’s get on with this task and get it cleared up.”

—GENERAL JOHN K. WATERS, former commander of the

U.S. forces in the Pacific, in an article in U.S. News and

World Report which
Vietnam war.

Te fascist mentality of -the
U.S. war hawks, which is

sometimes stated crudely,
as above, and sometimes placed
‘more cunningly, is at the bot-
tom of the frantic and horrible
Programs launched by the Am-
erican military to destroy a peo-
ple who would: defy their will.

“All who stand in our way
must be destroyed,” they say
and, as Congressman Mendel
Rivers put it, “foreign opinion
can go fly a kite.”

The United States military
use two methods in their con-
quest of South Vietnam. In the
overwhelming area of the coun-
tryside considered under the
control of the National Libera-
tion Front they have adopted a
scorched earth policy. In other
areas, mainly around American
bases and in suburbs of the

Cities, they are trying to effect
@ program which they call “pa-
Cification.”

In the south, according to the
New York Times, there are about
200 regions which are labelled
“bombing zones,” Here the peo-
ple are subjected to massive
daily air raids, the generalized
use of toxic chemicals and poison
gases. The food is poisoned
and the villages are systematic-
ally destroyed. In these areas
the Americans move their troops
in by heliconter, which are
sometimes called “Jolly Green
Giants,” and in so-called
“search-and-destroy” missions
burn everything before them to
the ground and in general con-
duct a scorched earth policy.

The object here is to kill as
many people as possible and
make the land uninhabitable or,
as one magazine put it, “to deny
the Viet Cong the means of life.”

‘completely

proposed the further escalation of the

carried out through the so-called
“pacification” program. Here
also the people of Vietnam are
being used by the Americans as
laboratory specimens, just as
other Vietnamese are being used
as guinea pigs for chemical war-
fare. For it is not only in Viet-
nam that the U.S. military feel
they will require “pacification”
programs to protect their em-
pire.

These “pacification” programs
have been developed by the
Americans and their Vietnamese
puppets ever since 1956. One of
the early efforts was known as
the Staley-Taylor plan or “‘Ope-
ration Sunrise,” which was sup-
posed to have had the people
subdued in 18
months. The main element of
this plan was the concept of
“strategic hamlets’ — better
known in the English language

-as concentration camps.

x

_ Square.

The barbarism of this policy is’

in the unstated approach that
everyone, babes in arms and old
men, women, are the Viet Cong
and must die.

In the other areas of Vietnam
this policy of genocide is being

4,5%

tt oped. -a4uaiat

WURAG.. CECT
ese FA SONG

The workings of this plan are
described in the Dallas Evening
News of Jan. 1, 1963:- “Suppos-
edly the purpose of the fortified
villages is to keep the Viet Cong
out. But barbed wire denies en-
trance and exit. Vietnamese far-
mers are forced at gunpoint into
these virtual! concentration
camps. Their homes, possessions
and crops are burned .. .”

The same article describes
how the opposition to this “re-
settlement” was answered by
the army of former puppet pre-
sident Ngo Dinh Dien: “In the
province of Kien-Tuong, seven
villagers were led to the town
Their stomachs were
slashed and their livers extrac-
ted and put on display. These
victims were women and chil-
dren. In another village a dozen
mothers were decapitated before
the eyes of compatriots. In still
another village, expectant mo-
thers were invited to the square
by government forces to: be
honored. Their stomachs were
ripped and unborn babies re-
moved==— :

In spite of the terror, by the
end of 1963, Diem was over-
thrown and the “strategic ham-
let” concept of Staley and Tay-
lor was a total fiasco. Since then

other “pacification” programs
have been launched, all bearing
high-sounding names but all
with one purpose in mind—the
conquest of the people.

In an interview in U.S. News
and World Report, General Wal-
lace Green, commandant. of: the
U.S. Marine Corps, describes
the “‘pacification’’ program thus:

“Our pacification program, is
also known under the terms of
‘civic action,’ ‘revolutionary de-
velopment’ or ‘rehabilitation.’
This program consists cf pulling
out of the village and hamlet
structure the Viet Cong who
have been: living in these areas
for years—identifying them, en-
couraging them to return to the
government side through the
‘open arms’ defector program,
capturing, killing them, or forc-
ing them into the jungle and
mountains to the west — and
then starting on community pro-
grams to get people back on
their feet.

“Q.—How in the world do you
identify the enemy in any par-
ticular village?

“A.—Back in the 1940s the
Marine Corps, which has had a
great deal of experience in small
wars, developed a ‘cordon sys-
tem’ for the pacification of small
areas. We’re actually using this
method—we call it the ‘County
Fair’ operation. I saw one of
these operations actually being
conducted during my _ recent
visit, and it was most interest-
ing.

“We select a hamlet, say of
500 or 600 people. We put a
cordon around that hamlet, usu-
ally before daylight. Then, with
South Vietnamese troops, we
enter the hamlet, assemble all
the people, screen each indivi-

dual, move the people out of the .

hamlet into-an enclosure where
we can start giving them med-
ical treatment, feeding them and
issuing identity cards. This
takes about three days.

“Now, if any of the Viet Cong
in the village attempt to escape,

. Long. . As
. through the hamlet, a wrinkled

the cordon snares them. If they
attempt to hide, we find out
where they are and dig them
out. In this particular village, we
killed 10 Viet Cong...”

“Q.—Do -you occupy these
hamlets?”

“A.—Yes, and that’s an im-
portant thing. When this screen-
ing operation is over, we then
leave one Marine squad, plus
two squads of local militia.”

A further description of these
“pacification” raids is given in
the Jan. 2 issue of Newsweek:

“In the morning, it was time
for the patrols to move out and
check the dozens of farm huts
in the neighborhood. The fields
were empty—oddly so, since the

Tice was ripe and ready for har-

vest. Then some sniper rounds
popped in the distance as a pa-
trol slithered along a dike and
came to a house. Inside, they

_found two old men and a young-
.er man. They also found 40

pounds of salt and 2,000 pounds

‘of rice. ‘That’s too much. for

them to have for themselves,’
declared the Vietnamese inter-
preter, Sgt. Nguyen Huu Ngoc,
and the young man was taken
along for questioning.

“At the next hut inspected,
the scene was studiedly domes-
tic. A grandmother and a baby
swung above the mud floor in a
gunny sack hammock. The mo-
ther was sewing. The father

~ smoked, and his 15-year-old son

went on with his English lesson

-at the table. As the GI’s walked

in, no one looked up. ‘This is
too pat,’ said Staff Sgt. Norman
Sellers, the 36-year-old Missour-
ian who led the patrol. After a
search, they were about to leave
when one of the Gl’s found the

. remnants of a recent fire behind

the house and a charred piece
of camouflaged uniform. ‘Get
that VC and -his VC son,’ or-
dered Sellers. ‘We’d better take

. them in for questioning.’

“The prisoners were led off,
back across the dikes to Hung
the patrol passed

old woman cried softly. ‘Look at

. her,’ said a GI. ‘They sure don’t

»9”

seem to want us here.
By all accounts the various

U
‘January 20, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PO9

‘one area of the country

Photo at left shows, toP!
of a “strategic hamlet” $
one of guard towers;
bodies of villagers killed ®
Cong suspects. :

“pacification” programs
not gone well. On Sept. 19,"
R. W.  Krommer, Pf
Johnson’s special assistal
pacification, gave the fdl
statistics: “Since 1956, 53!
lets with 580,000 inhale
have been pacified.” Kree
went on to say that the 8
1966 was 1,900 hamlets:
Krommer’s figures al®
taken seriously by Am
correspondents. Both thé
News and World Repoll
the New. York Times @
them. According to
Mohr, of the New York 1
Krommer’s figures inclu@y
lages that have been “pat
several times.

Newsweek magazine dest

(o— ol, ee - fl » il — te ee @ ee’)

i
Cc
t

-declared «padl

a
has been d
thus: i
“The province of Hau N i
for example, has been thé’ ,
ject of an extremely opt) 4
report to Washington ft0™)
U.S. Embassy in SaigoM | y
truth seems to be, howev@ |
Hau Nghia, where the Viel’
have one of their oldest P®
bases, is farther from P#
tion than ever. Vietnamest
drivers, who a year ago wil
drove over almost every #
the province, now rell!
drive even to two of thé?
vince’s four district capital
The “pacification” Pm
also gets bogged down #) ,
traditions between the Al™, ,
government and the Am .
“Invisible Government.” ™
village, for example, .a pron ]
1
1
1

]
j
!
{
]

when it was found out tH
director of the school, Mil)
Xuan Mai, was an agent
Central Intelligence Agen
was preaching a brand of
ganda that was not only
Viet Cong, but anti-Saig”
ernment. {
However, aside from.
veracity, Krommer’s st!
on “pacification” and thos®
out later indicate that abo”
percent of the populatio"
been successfully force P|
these misnamed concen! |
camps. :
It is part of the fat"
American lexicon that 4,
can be given a program wt
effect seeks to turn it ing
exact opposite. ‘Project 4
rack” is the clever name i
development of experi
gases and_ bacteriological
fare, a “County Fair’
herding of people togeth
be investigated and tagg®’
so many cattle. The “pacilié
program” is but a variall®
the principle of herding
into concentration camp
projects, according to the if
cans, are part of the “P®;
war” to win “mass supp0
the Saigon government.
Commenting on the &%&
failure of the “pacificatio?
grams and the “political
Newsweek magazine wa
ably being more prophet,
honest than it intended 7
stated: af
“Under these circums!
the attempt to win ric@,
support for the Saigon 8°
ment through pacificatl®
tough proposition to start
becomes almost Utopian.
says one American, like fi
to make the Sheriff of N?

y99

ham popular’.

da school had to be out