tions—regiments, brigades,
sions—are in process of organ-
ization.

2 The army’s direct reserve is
constituted by what are known
as “regional units’ — territorial
regiments set up in every prov-
ince.
carry out local garrison functions,
thus releasing the regular troops.
*: was received by the comman-
der-in-chief of the Viet-Nam Na-
tional Army, General Vo Nquyen
Giap, one of the most outstanding
leaders of the people’s liberation
movement. Still under 50, the
general is a sturdy, youthful -look-
ing man of evident high culture.

General Giap formerly was a
teacher in Hanoi.
anese occupied the country, he
left for the mountain districts of
North Viet-Nam, where he or-
ganized the country’ s first partisan
detachments. He described to
me the ‘period following the ev-
ents of March 9, 1945, when the
Japanese disarmed the French
troops. At one period, his parti-
san unit acted together with a
certain French battalion; but it
was not long before the Officers
of this battalion slipped across
ithe border into China.

By the time of Japan’s surren-
der, most of the Tonkin towns
had already been liberated by
Giap‘s forces, which then num-
bered several thousand men,

Since 1946 General Giap has
been in command of all the Re-
public’s armed forces, He explain-
ed to me the conditions of war-
fare in Indo-China and the tac-
tics of the enemy.

The Viet-Nam command firmly
retains the military initiative.
Giap’s forces frequently engage
in offensive operations, such as,
for example, the seizure of enemy
strong points at Pholue and
Dong-Khe. The chief French

positions in the north are isolated, |

receiving supplies only by plane,
and their situation is extremely
precarious. :

As yet, the Viet-Nam forces do
not always have the means to.
retain the enemy strong points
they capture. Such means, how-
ever, are being accumulated.
cibining my travels through the
country I met ordinary folk, out-
standing intellectuals, army com-
manders, army rank-and-filers. I
saw ¢abinet ministers, men of the
most varying class origin and
views, yet all united by the com-
mon will to lead their country
to independence.

Vice-Premier Pham Van Dong, ©

a Communist, works side by side

with Minister of Home Affairs .

_ Pham Ke Toai, former viceroy
of Tonkin under the empire. .For-
eign Minister Hoang Hinh Giam

is a member of the Socialist Par-

ty of Viet-Nam; the minister ‘of
“economy is a prominent ‘lawyer
from Hanoi; the minister of fi-
mance, Le Van Hien, a Commun-

Sr

In Viet-Nam

divi- -

In many regions these units .

When the Jap- —

ist. The minister of war disabled
and veterans, Vu Dingh Tung, is
a Catholic; and Phan Ba Truc,
vice-chairman of the national as-
sembly, is a Catholic priest.

The Viet Nam government con-
stitutes a democratic patriotic
bloc. It is recognized by the po-
pulation as the only legitimate and
representative government of the
country since the anti-Japanese
revolt of August 19, 1945, and the
proclamation of the Democratic
Republic of Viet Nam on Sep-
tember 2, 1945.. This government
embodies the democratic ‘unity
of all strata of the people headed
by the small, but valorous work-
ing class.

This year, the National Front
is to be still further, consolidated
by the projected amalgamation of
two important national organiza-
tions: the Viet Minh, and the
Viet-Nam People National Union,
founded in 1946.

The National Front is headed
by Viet-Nam’s leader and the

head of its government, Ho Chi —

“Minh, a patriot who has been
fighting for nearly half a century
for, his country’s independence.

Of all my encounters in Viet-_

Nam, I was most deeply impres-
sed by my meetings with General
Giap and with Ho.

I saw and spoke to Ho, I found

him in the best of health, in his_

residence, also located in ‘the for-

est. I saw the people’s love for

him, heard the respect and re-
gard with which they pronounce
the name, “Uncle Ho,” as they
like to call him.

I was shown through the rustic
house in which he lives, his offi-
ces, his vegetable garden—for, ev-
en in raising vegetables, the head

of Viet-Nam government sets the |

example for his people.

Ho asked me to describe in de-
tail the situation in France, and
the attitude of the French people
towards the war in Indo-China.
He also put many questions as to
the actions of the working people
in other countries, life in the Peo-
ple’s Democracies, and the ach-
ievements of the Soviet Union.

When I, in turn, inquired how
he regarded the recognition of his
government by the Soviet Union

-and People’s China, he replied:

“With pore vak and grati-
tudei"<

I brought up the question of
U.S. intervention. Ho replied:

“America’s intervention in Viet-
Nam affairs? It will come to the
game sorry end as the American
intervention in China.”

Further, he declared: “We did
not want this war. Both here and
in France, during my stay there,
we did everything possible to
avoid it. To our patience, to our
desire for peaceful agreement,
the colonialists replied by unceas-

ing acts of provocation. Now, we

are detrmined to carry on this
war they have forced on us to the
very end, to victory. Peace? It
can be achieved in a day! All that
is required for peace is for colon-
ialist troops to get out!”

to

By GEORGE S.
WUCHINICH

WO planes left the Pacific

Coast last week, bound for
Asia. It’s well known that
President Truman flew in one
to meet General MacArthur.
The other left unheralded; no
headline anywhere to wish it
‘well. And yet in these two
planes rides the history of our
times. A very small press no-
tice was given the second
plane:

“San Diego, Oct. 12—(AP)—
Fifty-one’ Oriental merchant
seamen who..refused to sail
from here with: a military car-
go aboard the British freighter
John Lyras are enroute to their
homes in Bombay;,: seine by
plane.

“Joasinho  V. osiaaics,
spokesman for the crew, said
the men first went on strike
several weeks ago in New Or-
leans when they believed the
vessel would be sent to Korea.

“Later, in San Francisco,
when the Indian Consul in-
formed them that the craft
was headed for Japan, the men
continued to insist on being
returned home.

“The group includes 38 Mo-
hammedan Indians, 12 Roman
Catholic Indians and one Chin-
ese,”

These 51 Indians are a living
spark of one and a quarter
billion people of Asia. They
have refused to work a ship
under charter to the American
Military Sea Transport Ser-
vice. They have refused to
give the sweat off their muscles

Two planes - two ends

' to war against their own—
whether it be Korea, Indo-
China, Malaya, China or any-
where else that colored peoples
inhabit the earth.

I. know there is hunger in
‘India, and.I know the people
have little; I have been there.
For all that, principle comes
first and if Asia’s voice shook
these seamen to give up their
jobs. in New Orleans and San
Francisco, how strong must
that voice be in half the land

_ mass and half the world’s pop-
ulation that we call the Orient?

4

The pomp, dollars, ceremony .
and American centurions rode
one plane, heading out to meet
an aged Ceasar who lives for
new conquests. He and Presi-
dent Truman, in their calcu-
lations, spent no moment think-
ing of these 51 Indian seamen.
Across maps and on (plans
heavily marked with logistics
of all kinds, the two no doubt
figured this way and that—
where to put a pygmy plug
into a dike that’s already
crashing about them. — be

“So,” Truman might have
said, “we have plans well laid
for an army of three million
men with all the planes and
‘guns to go with them.”

From this conference will
emerge further bloody steps in
the military program against
Asia, as yet undisclosed by
official statements.

Peack home in Bombay, the
51 seamen will have a different
story to tell 350 million Indians.

It happens they were in
New Orleans and can tell a

“spread; speeding the tempo of

. example of liberated China and

little about democracy in the
South. The color of their
skin makes them particularly
sensitive about the American
way of life. No, they won’t
have any jet planes to pass
out; nor will they have tanks
and flame throwers to juggle;
but, they will have people to
listen to their stories.

There will be seamen’s un-
ions who will honor these men;
there will be untold Indians
who will know of what their
countrymen did against war
and for peace.

The story will go into China,
to Japan, to Malayasia, to
Africa, and it will spread and

an Asia and Africa already
moving into a fast gallop for
their freedom, headed by the

fighting Korea.

Truman and his general scan
war plans, stirring further a
cauldron. boiling over. with
blood, while Warren Austin in
the UN racks up his puppet.
majorities. Back in Asia are
other majorities, of which Pre-
mier Nehru is quite aware in
his constant warnings to the
West.

When India, Soviet Union,
and China are counted in the
voting the total is not three
votes—but, 1,000,000,000 people.

How many people can Presi-
dent Truman and General Mac-
Arthur tote?

The very thought of people
is frightening to them and the
Wake Island meeting was sil-
ent on this score.

The 51 Indian seamen will
have a lot to say—and I'll bet
they’ve already begun. :

Australia’s outcasts

sctstihia tees ee a ;
MURRAY-SMITH
ECENTLY an interesting film
about Australia, The Over-
landers, been shown to
world audiences. This film was
warmly received for its qualities
of simple realism. Its success in-
spired its makers, Ealing Studios
of London, to make other films on
Australia. The second of these,
Bitter Springs, has recently been
completed. : .

cent

has

Thousands who have since
seen this film have been shocked
read. that the aboriginals
whose acting is the main contri-
bution to its success are now
begging food along the trans-
continental train route across
Western Australia. While the
film was being produced, these
people were taken by train to
the location and treated well—
“Fed as never before”, ag one of
the newspapers wrote. When the
film was finished, they were re-
turned without delay to their mis-

erable settlements. Dispossessed

from their ancestral territories

“by the white man, they have to

depend for their livelihood on
begging crusts from travellers
along this railway, and by selling
them crude souvenirs.

‘Progressive circles in Australia
raised an outcry when the film
was being produced at the treat-
ment meted out to the aborigin-
als, who were treated as “infer-
ior” beings. The leading abor-
iginal actor was to be paid £15
($45) a week for his work by the
film company. The Australian
government, however, allowed
him to receive only six pounds

a week. Four pounds of this

»

“held”
reason given was that the abor-—

money, it announced, would be
for him. The insulting
iginals are assumed to be “shift-
less and unreliable.”

These are perhaps small mat-
ters. But they trepresent the
ceaseless dicrimination and op-
pression to which the native
people are daily subjected both
by private individuals and by a
government that cares so little

‘for their welfare that there is
not even a specific federal gov-~

ernment department in existence
to look after their interests.

They are some of the facts
behind the hypocrisy of the Aus-
tralian government, which prates
of “human rights” at Lake Suc-
cess.

The Australian government was
one of the governments that ap-
proved the outlawing of geno-
cide—race slaughter. Yet estab-
lishment of the Testing Range
for Guided Missiles (more fam-
iliarly known as the Rocket
Range) in South Western Aus-
tralia has meant dispossession
and death to whole tribes of
aboriginals, amounting to hund-

reds, perhaps thousands of human |

beings. —

Acting jointly, the British and
U.S. governments brought pres-

sure to bear on the Australian

government in 1946 to establish
this range in Australia—suppos-
edly the only place in the capital-
ist world having the right condi-
tions for a range which will
eventually extend over 3000 miles.

(The Australian Communist

party has led the opposition to _

this project. There is not. only
the immense cost to the Austra-
Ahan paople—estimated at al

PACIFIC TRIBUNE —

million pounds by 1952—to be
‘borne in mind, but the fact that —
such an undisguisedly aggressive —
project places Australia in the —
front line of a third world war.

A third tragic sequel of the
establishment of the range is that
one of the last remaining secure
homes of the tribal aboriginals, —

the Central Reserve, was affected _

establishment and _ the
aboriginals from that Reserve
deported. “The whole fabric of
life of 1,500 or even more of our
tribal aboriginals is to be sacri-
ficed to this preparation of ©
another war,”
tinguished Australian anthropolo-
gist, Dr. Charles Duguid.

by its

For the aboriginals of Aus-
tralia, whose religion ig built
around the “Spirit of Place,” de-
portation to other territories
méans extinction, not only from
melancholy but from the retalia- _
tion of other tribes whose ter-

_rvitory is thugs intruded upon. —

At the great Human Rights
Assembly held in Melbourne this
summer, at which” almost 500,-
000 Australians were represented,
a section of the proceedings was
concerned with the plight of oe.
aboriginals.

Padre Peter Hodge of South
Australia exhibited to the As-
sembly a leg-iron which had been
worn by an aboriginal member

of a slave chain-gang and which ~

he had broken attempting to es-
cape. “This leg-iron is a symbol
of the Australian people’s fight to —
break its bonds and win free-—
dom,” declared the padre, there-
by emphasizing that the fate of
the aboriginals is bound up with —
the success of all Australian
democrats in their fight for dem-
ocratic liberties, better seaboes
standards and peace.

OCTOBER 20, 1950 — PAGE os

said another dis-