Vietnamese triumphant
but need material aid

. TORONTO — Nancy Pocock
of the Society of Friends (Quak-
ers). and an active member of
the Committee to Free South
Vietnamese Prisoners, travelling
with a delegation of Christians,
visited the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam during the last week
of September and the first in
October.

At one of the meetings to
which she reported on her return,
at the Unitarian Church here, on
Jan. 8, she gave a picture of
Hanoi and other centres as places
of contrasts eliciting mixed feel-
ings. While the people were
buoyant about the new life they
were ‘building, and the ruins
were often grown over with lush
greenery, yet the ruins were

there, and only months before, .

bombs had been raining down.

They Had Won

“The people were not what I
expected, broken and _ tired,”
Mrs. Pocock said, “they were
feeling triumphant — they had
won and you felt this very
much.” They were looking for-
ward, she said, to developing
their country, “to the life they
were going to build, to their jobs
and their children.”

The little individual air raid
shelters along the streets had
‘been dismantled or filled in.
“They didn’t dwell on that at
all,” Mrs.- Pocock said. “They
didn’t dwell on any sufferings.
... They mainly wanted to show
what they were doing, what
they were planning.”

She learned that “most of their
‘industry was destroyed in the
last-bombings a year ago.” There
were, she said, blocks of ruins,
factories in ruins, “larger build-
ings, the institutions, the
schools, places like that were
hit.”

Just Shells

She described a factory town.
“There were large textile fac-
tories there. And these were
practically doomed; they were
just shells.” She said: “We saw
apartment’ houses that were
sliced in half, and people were
still living in them, although they
told us they were very danger-
ous, and when a storm. came,
they went around and got all
the people out . . . And the place
was full of children. All the chil-
dren are back in the cities now,
whereas, during the war they
were all out in the country.” -

There are few Westerners in

_ Catholic magazine,

The children of the DRV were very curious about Westerners, Mrs.

Speaking about her journey to the Democratic Republic of Viet-
nam, Mrs. Nancy Pocock urged appeals for Canadian government
aid to that bomb-wrecked country. Paul D’Allaire reported (see page
9) the facts of the U.S. war against Cambodia revealed at the In-
ternational Conference on Cambodia, held in. Paris.

the DRV, Mrs. Pocock said.
Their delegation consisted: of
three priests, one French, one
Italian and one Vietnamese who
had not been home for 19 years,
as well as a French Protestant
pastor, the editor of a French
and Mrs.
Pocock.

The children “were very curi-
ous” and crowded around. She
described an emotional moment
when a girl about 17 presented
her with some roses as the dele-
gation climbed down into a crat-
er to see where a U.S. bomber
had crashed in a thickly popu-
lated neighborhood.

Immunized Everyone

“But what surprised us was.

that they were so healthy look-
ing. How children could come
through the war in Vietnam and
be so healthy was something we
couldn’t understand.” :

Later they were to visit a
public health institute and were
told that “even during the war
they managed to immunize
everyone. They had none of the
big epidemics they had in the
south — cholera and other dis-
eases . . . the children were all
immunized, and they managed
to look after them away from
the cities.”

She told of the heavy respon-
sibilities the teachers bore dur-
ing the war, how one typical
teacher had taken the children
to the country “and cared for
them, taught them, looked after
them, planted a garden (with the

help of the children, of course) ,
and fed them as much as she

could with the garden and the.

chickens.

Short of Schools

“At the present time,” Mrs.
Pocock said, “every child in
North Vietnam goes to school.
They are very short of schools,
but they manage to get some
part of each day in school.”
Some children, she said, have
to go in the evening.

“While we were there we visit-
ed the Provisional Revolutionary
Government Embassy in Hanoi,”
Mrs. Pocock told the audience,
“and there we were able to learn
about the present situation —
which is very bad — in South
Vietnam. There are constant at-
tacks going on by the Saigon
government; there are millions
and millions of dollars in arms
given by the United States .. .”

Paris Accords

The Thieu forces “are attack-
ing the PRG occupied areas all
the time with planes.” They are
going into parts that were ac-
knowledged as PRG areas by the
Paris Accords. “They are going
into these parts of the country,
scooping up the villagers .. .

and putting these people into

concentration camps.”

Mrs. Pocock said she met two
-women who were former pris-
oners and victims of torture.
“They told us in detail of the
torture,” she said. “It was un-
believable and very harsh,” even
for one who has read much
about it, and has been very -con-
cerned about the prisoners over
a long period.

’ Stressing that there is “‘a great
need for aid” in the DRV and in
the PRG areas, Mrs. Pocock
said that “one thing I would
ask” is for more “people who
are interested in writing our

. . government and asking that they

Pocock told a Toronto audience. Amazed at their appearance of
good health, her delegation learned that they had been cared for
_in the countryside during U.S. air attacks on populated areas, and
thad all been immunized, thus heading off the epidemics rampant in

the south.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1974. PAGE 6.

- sponsor aid to North Vietnam.”

a

Half of the tropical forests

| eand two-thirds of the rubber

plantations were destroyed by
the Americans in South Viet-
nam.

Many reservoirs were poison-

ed and even today you find no
birds or animals in the. zones
where warfare raged.
_ These facts were given to the
World’ Congress of Peace Forces
in Moscow by Dr. Ma Thi Chu
from South Vietnam, addressing
the Commission on the Environ-
ment, :

Saigon regime bombers have
struck at the provisional revo-
lutionary government-controlled
town of Duc Ko, deep in South
Vietnam’s liberated areas.

One of the targets the U.S.-
supplied jets chose was the
local offices of the International
Commission for Control and
Supervision of the ceasefire pact
signed in Paris last year.

The office was completely de-
stroyed and two officers of the
ICCS were wounded.

In the same raid, revealed
Jan. 14 in a PRG communique
issued by its delegation in Paris,
the Saigon bombers attacked a
centre for the exchange of -pri-
soners of war between the two
sides.

Exchanges Blocked

PRG leaders charged that the
purpose of the Duc Ko raids was
to interfere with the working of
the commission and to block yet
again the exchange of prisoners
laid down in the Paris ceasefire
aggreement.

has once again
pact’s provisions.

agreement, Saigon
announced Jan, 14t
landed a group of Pa
on top of the hill Le
the border with Ca’
“A Saigon regime b
up on the hill soo
Paris agreement
but the base was 9
liberated forces last
Saigon then tried
way: through the lib
to the base, but 1
over 5,000 troops wi

. tanks and artillery
beaten back.

Heavy Fig Us
The whole area —
town of Pleiku in

Solzhenitsyn

“Solzhenitsyn’s name has for
long been adopted by ‘propa-
ganda abroad and is now being
used extensively for anti-Soviet
purposes,” said Literary Ga-
zette, magazine of Soviet writ-
ers. They point out that the
USSR’s_ ideological opponents
have been portraying Solzheni-
tsyn as a “literary giant” in or-
der to step up their anti-Soviet
campaign.

“We. have more than once
pointed out to Solzhenitsyn that
he himself and his writings are
being used in a filthy political
game by the enemies of social-
ism,” the magazine commented.
“At one time it appeared that
Solzhenitsyn had simply failed
to understand, that he had erred.
Now there is no doubt that it
was not a matter of mistakes but
that he was acting as a con-
vinced opponent of the Soviet
system. He turned a deaf ear to
the criticism and instead chose
the path of a malicious lam-
poonist to slander his own coun-
try and people. Soviet writers,
quite naturally, threw him out
of their own ranks because it is
clear that a man whose pen
serves the forces of reaction
cannot be considered a writer of
a socialist country.”

Solzhenitsyn’s new
“Gulag Archipelago” has trig-
gered another, round of anti-So-
viet hysteria. Western propa-
ganda experts attach special im-
portance to it, calling it ‘‘Solz-
henitsyn’s key work’”,.as does
the British Observer Weekly.
“Indeed, this book is the quin-
tessence of everything he has
written”, comments the Soviet
writer’s journal. “It incorporates
the many thoughts. that were
voiced in such writings as the
play ‘The Victor’s Feast’ and the
novels ‘In the First Circle’ and
‘August 1914’, ;

Denigate Soviet System

“At the same time his new
book is no mere repetition of
something expressed long ago.
Formerly his thoughts were
coded into involved ‘plots

mouthed by characters. Now his-

ideas are proclaimed in a
straightforward manner directly
by the author as his symbol of
faith. The characteristic of this

book, *

symbol of faith,
open, fierce hatred Of
Soviet. To denigrate
system, Solzhenitsy?
the vilest inventions
parisons. ;

“Tt may appear '
ern readers that
speaks out only agai!
violations of Social
which took place in
and which have bee!
by our Party. Actu'
tsyn uses such fa
out Soviet achiev
victories. Having lo
of conscience, he j
USSR’s victories
cism and equates
people with nazi mul

Literary Gazette
would be a mistake
“Gulag Archipelago’
only to notes of m#
point out that Solzhe
writes about people ©
he feels sympath
“the courageous
who waged a regl
ground struggle i?
1920’s” in an effort
socialism. “He spea
greater warmth ab
sovite traitors, his ©
Indeed, in his play 71/5
Feast’, when he jeere >.
armymen, Solzhenitsy,
vindicated the Vlas0¥
in his new book,
lauds the traitors.

Kinship with

“We have every Te
out against his spiril
with traitors who t0®
against their own ‘
verbal bullets fired
tsyn are aimed at
citizen and what *
them.” The close col

' writer with Weste'

publishing people t
advance a well-orch@,
lyhoo becomes clea
script was sent ab
advance ‘with the
date fixed. A worl
paign was launch@
wasn’t a single co
Archipelago (paper?
available in the quié
Press bookshop in
radio stations and
had already prepa
selected excerpts ff