a CYNTHIA FREDERICK
mmber of the Committee of
ehcerned Asian Scholars)
#IGON (LNS) — Before ar-
B in Saigon this November
brief visit, ’'d heard many
cting reports about impor-
€velopments occurring in
Country, What I found ex-
Gall expectations. The
Its of the past nine months,
3 Publicize in the U.S. re-
r re and vigorous opposi-
fr... ‘© the fighting and to
leu-Ky government.
ys. Spposition which once
bas eeparily = the coun-
e Surfacing in the
Ha Saigon — long an
2° tage point for “observ-
(i war from afar — is now
me at an intensive politi-
; :

6

)

}

oe women, veterans, re-
on ; Politicians, students,
aa ee (including Ro-

= Olics, formerly among
3 ca anti-Communist, en-
} ae Supporters of the war)
= aken a public stand in

Boe binh—peace. For

me, they have linked

34 Peace with demands for:
Tawal of “foreign” (i.e.,

i

ie e troops from the South,

|X“) the ouster of the mili
f Tegime in Saigon. e mili-

Popular Discontent

ave contributed
break of popular
heavy costs of

see aud Febru-

a St of living j

4 in
TOSE 300%): the militar-

n $
at Vietnamese society
aS two million men are
fitonica es in the South);
it y, Vietnamization”
is
bn denmetican presence in
MSition to the ae antes
Tesponse, the
t is forced to,
1 repression j
5 in
Tomteract this threat.
i :000-200,000 politi-
ft feures (0 one knows the
inten are now being held
tropa Table Conditions in
Uding on centers” and jails
:”), 2 infamous “tiger

h

South Vietnam’s urban centers
have witnessed anti-war activity
in the past. But even after the
1968 Tet offensive, public oppo-
sition to the fighting was weak
and sporadic; the regime had lit-
tle trouble silencing it.

Early in 1970, a new trend de-
veloped, which initially centered
on rather specific, often person-
al grievances, and has now evol-
ved into a concerted movement
for peace.

Catholics Take Stand

Students set the events in mo-
tion. Last February, they renew-
ed their demands for the “auto-
nomy of the university” —which
asked the Thieu police to stop
meddling with student activities
in university buildings.

Shortly after, the two top-
ranking Roman Catholic bishops
in the South publicly issued a

7-point program for peace. Their
statement, addressed to the Viet-
namese delegations in Paris, was
the first openly political stand
on the issues of war and peace
by the official Vietnamese Cath-
olic hierachy.

In March, Congressman Tran
Ngoc Chau was illegally senten-

ced to 10 years of hard labor for

having “unauthorized” connec-
tions with a Communist agent
(his brother). Soon after, Thieu
carried out a “preemptive strike”
against the student leaders, ar-
resting and torturing several of

them. The student body respond-__

ed by launching a new wave of
protests; they demanded immed-
iate release of their comrades.

They organized a university
boycott — demonstrators poured
into the streets. Hard on their
heels followed a new group: the
war invalids, who protested bit-
terly the government's refusal to

help them find housing and jobs.
While the crippled veterans
roamed the city looking for emp-
ty plots of land to squat on, the
students attempted to stage a
hunger strike in the National As-
sembly building.

Cambodia Spurs Change

The struggle escalated with
the invasion of Cambodia. Stud-
ent demands changed from their
earlier timid legal-constitutional
points to a condemnation of the
Lon Nol regime’s brutal massa-
cres of Vietnamese in Cambodia.
The empty Cambodian embassy

in Saigon was “liberated” by the .

students, and militant peace ban-
ners appeared with increasing
frequency during the mass pro-
test marches.

Then, on May 31, the An

Quang Buddhists called for a 48- .

hour hunger strike to launch an
Official peace campaign.

In July the funeral of another
“torch,” Venerable Thich Thien
Lai, was transformed into a mas-
sive peace march by students,
workers, professors, a number of
Catholic priests and congress-
men.

Just prior to the funeral march,
100,600 Saigon workers had call-

ed for a general strike; on June ~

26, 60,000 of them joined stud-
ents in calling for an end to the
fighting. On July 11, the stud-
ents issued a statement demand-
ing: (1) immediate withdrawal of
foreign troops from South Viet-
nam and immediate end of sup-
port to the Thieu-Ky regime, and
(2) that the question of peace be
left to the Vietnamese to decide
on the sole basis of self-deter-
mination.

New Coalition

The peace demands did not re-
main a student monopoly. Dur-
ing the summer months, new
anti-war organizations were
formed to provide the focus and
direction for mounting public

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY—FEBRUARY 5, 1971—PAGE 9

outrage in all segments of South
Vietnamese society. Their mem-
bership swelled as government
repression increased.

On October 11, four organiza-
tions—the Committee of Wom-
en’s Action for the Right to Live,
the National Movement for Self-
Determination, the High School
Teachers Union, and the Student
Committee for Human Rights—
convened to plan the formation
of a mass-based peace front.
Over one thousand delegates in-
cluding students, workers, wom-
en, intellectuals, politicians, and
religious leaders were present at
this session. 2

Three weeks later, on Novem-
ber 7, the principal spokesmen
and women of these groups met
again in a pagoda near Saigon to
pledge their official support for
the new movement—the Popular
Front for the Defense of Peace
(PFDP).

In addition to the four groups
responsible for organizing the
October 11 meeting, other organ-
izations represented include the
Catholic Labor Youth Move-
ment, the Vietnamese Women’s
Association, the Buddhist Wom-
en’s Federation, the Committee
for Prison Reform, the National
Progressive Labor Liaison Com-
mittee, various trade unions
(dockworkers, railway workers,
civil servants, vendors, petrol-
eum workers, market workers,
and bank clerks), the Vietna-
mese Student Association, the
Saigon and Van Hanh (Buddhist)
Student Unions, and the 1965
Peace Action Committee.

For U.S. Withdrawal

The PFDP’s positions, express-
ed in their official 10-point mani-
festo calls for (1) the departure
of all U.S. and Allied troops as a
necessary prerequisite to ending
the war, and (2) the establish-
ment of a “truly representative
government so that the South
Vietnamese people can establish
an end to the war as soon as.
possible which corresponds to
the wishes of the whole people.”

Why has the American public
been so ill-informed about this
development? Few U.S. newsmen
in Saigon have contacts with
Vietnamese outside the tiny rul-
ing circles; most of them de-
pend on JUSPAO (the official
U.S. news agency in Saigon) for
information about local politics.
JUSPAO avoided any mention of
the PEDP’s formation. News
about the PFDP was censored in
all but a half dozen of Saigon’s
40 newspapers. Only two Amer-
icans, Michael - Morrow of Dis-
patch News Service and myself,
were present at the Nov. 7 meet-
ings (as “unofficial observer's”);
both of us were promptly expell-
ed from South Vietnam.

gence
y