le Duc Tho (left) and Henry Kissinger

‘Still no real peace

in

By Tom Foley

It has been almost a year since
x the signing, of the historic Paris
pecneat on Vietnam, on January 27,
So . but there is still no real peace in

se Vietnam. The Democratic Re-
scan of Vietnam (North Vietnam)
oo Provisional Revolutionary Gov-
oth ent of the Republic of South Viet-
ee Still firmly adhere to the Paris
. - peement ‘but the U.S. and the Saigon
hea have violated its provi-
bath Tom the beginning, and in recent
‘< S have been edging ever closer
Wards renewing the war.
baa December 20 meeting in Paris
Political Le Duc Tho, member of the
rah si Bureau ‘of the DRV’s Viet-
Sec orkers Party, and Henry Kis-
ae T, the US. Secretary of State,
meses Important effort by the Vietna-
mae Patriots to get the U.S. to
vill. the Paris Agreement. Only time
eliese whether or not this had any

The Januar i
* y 27 Paris Agreement,
signed by the PRG, the DRV. the U.S.

wnt Saigon, provided that the U.S.
‘ould respect the independence, sover-

~ @lgnty, unity and territorial integrity

Genvictnam as defined by the 1954
fire, w; ents, observe a cease-
meas draw all U.S. troops and dis-
a all U.S. bases within 60 days
volver nae and cease its military in-
ints €nt or other intervention in the
Tal affairs of South Vietnam.

oa the terms of the Paris Agree-
(the ae two South Vietnamese parties
all pri and Saigon ) were to return

ook Ae and aclalnees: Spee oe

; rues for the people, ho

©onsultations to set up a patio coun-

cil . here
of national reconciliation and con-
Cord ¢.

(P 4 i
pe Saigon, neutrals) to organize

The ae democratic general elections.
Seigon oo forces of the PRG and
Le were to remain ‘in place,”
tims n Control of areas held at the
. . the cease-fire,
ion cut-Party Joint Military Commis-
os MC), a PRG-Saigon Joint Mili
Commin ssion, and an International
i ‘ssion of Control and Supervision
) Were established by the Paris

Omposed of three equal segments .

Agreement to oversee the cease-fire,
the prohibition of military intervention,
the return of South Vietnamese civi-
lian prisoners, and the question of
general elections.

Other provisions obligated the U.S.
to sweep up all mines dropped in
DRV territorial waters. :

An international conference in Paris,
February ‘27-March -3, attended by 12
States and Kurt Waldheim, Secretary
General of the United Nations, gave
full and complete support to the Paris
Agreement of January 27. By March
27, the U.S. had withdrawn all its uni-
formed, regular military personnel
from South Vietnam.

But the U.S. and Saigon engaged in
systematic violations of the Paris Agree-
ment. The Saigon regime of President
Nguyen Van Thieu insisted it was the
only “legal” government in South Viet-
nam, a claim that received the instant
approval of the Nixon administration.
Thieu used his military and_ police
forces to launch attacks on PRG-held

areas and permitted none of the de-.

mocratic liberties spelled out in the
Paris Agreement. Saigon kept more
than 200,000 civilian prisoners in camps
and prisons scattered all over South
Vietnam and has not even yet returned
one single civilian prisoner to the
PRG. : :

It was to try to straighten out these
problems that Le Duc Tho and Kissing-
er met in Paris on May 27, and work-
ed out the June 13 four-party agree-

“ment to enforce the Paris Agreement.

The June 13 agreement provided
that ‘the U.S. shall cease immediately,
completely and indefinitely aerial re-
connaissance over the territory of the
DRV,” shall complete its DRV mine-
clearing operations, and that the PRG
and Saigon shall observe the cease-
fire, which prohibits all hostile acts,
terrorism or reprisals. All other pro-
visions of the January 27 Agreement
were reaffirmed.

Unfortunately, neither the U.S. nor
Saigon has carried out its  obliga-
tions under the terms of the June 13
agreement. The situation became in-
creasingly serious in the fall of
1973, with the U.S. flying more and
more reconnaissance missions over

_DRV territory and moving aircraft

po A IPE ANTE I

South Vietnam’

carriers into the Gulf of Tonkin, with
the carrier planes carrying out daily
provocative flights along the DRV
coast.

A November 29 New York Times
story by Leslie H. Gelb from Wash-
ington stated: “‘The State Department
has been examining whether President
Nixon could legally order a resump-
tion of U.S. bombing in Indochina. . . .
Meanwhile, for more than a month, the
Administration has been quietly alert-
ing members of Congress to what it
has described as the likelihood of a
new North Vietnamese attack.”

The Times reporter wrote: ‘‘In hand
also at the Pentagon are contingency
plans providing for air support to South
Vietnamese (Saigon) forces and the
bombing of targets in North Vietnam.”’

The next day, at a Pentagon news
conference, Defense Secretary James
R. Schlesinger said that new ‘war
powers” legislation passed by Congress
might make it legally permissible for
Nixon to order a new bombing offen-
sive against Vietnam. :

That Schlesinger was not just talk-
ing through his helmet was shown by
historian Gabriel Kolko, in a Decem-
ber 7 article in the Times, analyzing
the Pentagon’s budget items for Indo-
china through July 1974. Kolko point-
ed out that there is still $225 million
available to the Pentagon: for direct
use of air power against Vietnam—
enough for 120,000 bombs to be deliver-
ed by 3,800 B-52 and 16,700 fighter-
bomber sorties, an amount far in ex-
cess of the total 1965 cost of the air
war. The U.S. 7th Fleet, Kolko said,
has been allowed to keep 77 warships

‘and 331 warplanes in the area. More-

over there are 8,100 civilian ‘‘advisers”
paid by the Pentagon still in South Viet-
nam and an undisclosed number of
non-Vietnamese foreigners (Australians?
South Koreans?) on the Pentagon pay-
roll in the same capacity.

The PRG, on November 30, charged
that the U.S. is maintaining more than
24,000 military personnel in South Viet-
nam disguised as civilians. It said:
“In early ‘April 1973, U.S. military
personnel in South Vietnam, including
disguised ones, were 10,000. But now,
the number of disguised U.S. military

personnel exceeds 24,000.” The PRG

said these Pentagon military person-
nel were working with the Saigon mili-
tary, national police and secret police.
In some cases, the U.S. advisers play
directing roles in the Saigon Defense
Ministry in planning and overseeing
military operations launched against
liberated areas, the PRG said.

Saigon attacks on PRG-held areas
became particularly fierce in late Octo-
ber and early November, the time of
the rice harvest. On November 7, war-
planes of the Saigon air force made
repeated attacks on Loc Ninh city and
province, causing heavy casualties and
levelling more than half the city. Fur-
ther borabing attacks left Loc Ninh
with almost no buildings standing.
There were strong Saigon air and
ground attacks across. the Mekong
Delta region at the same time. The
main object seemed to be to grab
rice; the second. to seize PRG-held
land and to annihilate all PRG forces,
cadres. and sympathizers. :

There are: real, material reasons
why the Thieu regime is increasingly
resorting to open military action against
the PRG and the liberated areas of
South Vietnam. The Saigon regime's
economy since January has gone from
simple ruin to sheer catastrophe. Its
monetary unit, the piaster. has been
devalued six times officially, and has
steadily fallen on the black market.
U.S. sources friendly to.Thieu in Sai-
gon estimate that the cost of living has
risen nearly 60% since January: cost of
the basic staple. rice, has gone up 85%;
another staple item, sugar, has risen in
price by 220'<.

Saigon’s rice actually comes from
Louisiana and is all imported, although
South Vietnam is a major world rice-
producing area. But the PRG controls
the rice areas of the country. The fact
that Saigon must import nearly every-
thing it needs to live gives it an utter-
ly impossible balance-of-trade deficit
(excess of imports over exports); 1973
imports are expected to total $800
million, while exports may not even
reach $50 million. so the deficit for
one year alone will be on the order of
three-quarters of a billion dollars. The
only way of solving this for Thieu is
—to restart the war and let the US.
taxpayer foot the bill. as he did in the
past.

The Saigon economic catastrophe
also includes an estimated 300,000 peo-
ple unemployed since the March de-
parture of U.S. troops, with the real
jobless figure easily double that. Mas-
sive unemployment, skyrocketing food
prices and a plunge in currency values
add up to great unrest among the work-
ing population still under Saigon control.
Saigon has proclaimed martial law and
says there is only one legal party in
South Vietnam — Thieu’s Democracy
Party—all others are forbidden.

There have been a number of strikes
despite the establishment of _this re-
pressive state of affairs; the most im-
portant were the strikes by railroad
workers, bank workers and oil work-
ers. Leaders of these unions were
thrown into prison by Thieu in April.
A Saigon regime spokesman admitted
on July 5 that Pham Van Hi, head of
the Bank Workers’ Union, had died in
prison. Although Saigon said Hi com-'
mitted suicide and had been a ‘‘Com-
munist agent’’ for 25 years, informed
sources said Hi was tortured to death
by police. The uproar created by these
jailings, which were assailed in the
U.S. Congress and news media, forced
Thieu to release three of the imprison-
ed trade union leaders on September
21. But it is known that there are still
more than 200,000 prisoners in Thieu’s
jails.

World public opinion and the anti-
war movement in the U.S. played an
important role in bringing about the
Paris Agreement on Vietnam. Now, the
task ‘is to see that the Agreement is
carried out in all respects and to pre-
vent Thieu and his backers in Washing-
ton from unleashing a new Vietnam
war.

WORLD MAGAZINE

PACIFIC TRIBUNE FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1974. - PAGE 9