Section

| LLIN TUT ni

A war the U.S. can never win

VIETNAM is in the headlines these days. How many Cana-
dians know anything about this South-east Asia country with a
Population of 30 million? This week the Pacific Tribune pre-
sents a report in depth on Vietnam, deating with the situation
both North and South of the 17th parallel dividing line. The
report has been prepared by staff writer BERT WHYTE, who
visited North Vietnam on two occasions during the years he was
our foreign correspondent in China.

NEW MILITARY coup d’etat in
ao Vietnam — less than three
Peta. after the U.S.-inspired coup
the ¢ a Nov. 1, 1963 — demonstrates
any Buty of attempting to stabilize
Se onary puppet government in

It
S .
tates cannot win its undeclared war

oe the Vietnamese people — no
it ct, HOw much Vietnamese blood
domes and how many millions of
C ts it pours down the drain.
be fouans have a special reason to
count, frested in Vietnam because our
sits ae along with India and Poland,
Set up Ee, qenations! Commission
agreements. plement the Geneva peace
‘one is one country, not two.
the Ge parallel was designated by
mnilita neva Conference of 1954 as a
the ca, pocmarcation line only, and
tions for erence called for free elec-
Ment ¢ ra united Vietnamese. govern-
1956, © be held not later than July

N 3

- pcttions were ever held be-
Pet So e United States and its pup-
Wh uth Vietnam government knew

" he result would be.
hag Bor almost 10 years, Vietnam
In eae a country divided.
People as Vietnam some 16 million
0 Nave taken power into their
One aaa united their forces into
ahead an bloc, and are marching
Inc Ong the socialist path.
Striken Outh Vietnam the poverty-
heroic Boole have been waging an
Zim hacen’ against reactionary re-
first Cked by the United States —
Diem 8ainst _the puppet Ngo Dinh
» €@nd since his overthrow and

Aggression mus

Hi
WE CONCERNED
through, Peace and justice
Much gout the world are very
Of the rutbed by the gravity
Ram g. uation in South Viet-
Rression to the policy of ag-

Sued by and intervention pur-
: Regardlen can imperialism.
It has ,°SS Of the agreements |
Of the yu2de, the government
tageq ,,Zited States has sabo-
Ment Geneva agree-

dereq as letnam, has hin-
Sow, an reunification of Viet-
te th Viet has transformed
ase ang 12 into a military

spite qr tyPe of colony.
Public aan Protests of world
ery ae including those
¢ Unitea & of the people of
Soy, eaPeri States, the Ameri-
povth. Vy; alists have set up in
| Jtorshin mam a fascist dic-
King, unt Of the most barbaric
Bains, i Shed “special war”
h ee “ People of South

hae,

Clearly shows that the United

Vietnam with methods of ex-
termination which are both
modern and medieval: napalm
bombings, I
ments, spreading of toxic che-
mical products.

The people of
nam have undergone unspeak-
able sufferings. :
over 160,000 dead in nine years,
670,000 persons i [
tortured, several millions 1n-
terned in concealed concentra-
tion camps known as
tegic hamlets.”

The military coup d’etat on

Nov. 1, c
nam, set up and directed by

the American imperialists, 1S
only a clumsy and dangerous
manoeuver on their part, by
they have h
horses in midstream” with the
aim of intensifying the “dirty
war” of aggression 1D

which

death following the coup d'etat in
Saigon on November 1, 1963, against
the new puppets who have succeeded
him.

People who tend to minimize the
scale of the fighting in South Viet-
nam and dismiss it as a “brushfire
war” should remember that it is at
present the largest war being fought
in the world.

The United States cannot win this
war because it cannot win the sup-
port of the people.

During the course of two visits to
Vietnam (I was the first Canadian re-
porter to tour North Vietnam since
liberation) it became evident to me
that the key decision of the Geneva
agreements — action to reunify Viet-
nam — had not only been shamefully
violated over the years but that Can-
ada’s representatives on the Interna-
tional Commission have consistently
danced to a tune played in far-off
Washington.

Let no one be in doubt as to what
that tune is: American determination
to use Vietnam as a base to suppress
movements of liberation.

The facts are crystal clear.

Within 24 hours of the signing of
the Geneva agreements on July 20,
1954, President Eisenhower declared
that the U.S. had not itself been a
party to the agreements and was ac-
cordingly not bound by the decisions.

Before another 24 hours had passed
John Foster Dulles (who had stalked
out of the Geneva conference in a
rage) called for the setting up of an
“anti-Communist security orgamiza-
tion” in South-east Asia.

Next came recognition of Ngo Dinh
Diem, who scuttled back from the

mass __ imprison-

South Viet-

As a result, demands:

arrested and

“stra-

1963, in South Viet-

Vietnam.

perialists
“changed

South

Vietnam. (Now the U.S. has
engineered a second coup. ED.)

The World Council of Peace,
meeting in Warsaw, emphati-
cally condemns the war of ag-
gression being conducted by
the imperialists of the United
States in South Vietnam, and

e That the imperialists of
the United States should fully
respect the spirit and the let-
ter of the Geneva agreements
of 1954 on Vietnam, agree-
ments which solemnly recog-
nized the sovereignty, the na-
tional independence, the unity
and __ territorial

e That the United States im-
immediately
their aggression in South Viet-
nam, withdraw
country all their troops, mili-
tary personnel, American ad-

Puppet dictator succeeds puppet dictator in South Vietnam—but the
killing of patriots goes on. Photo shows a U.S. military “adviser” smiling grimly
as he looks at the dead body of a Vietnamese peasant killed for taking part
in the resistance struggle against U.S. aggression and intervention.

U.S. to set up headquarters in Saigon.

After Diem “refused to ratify” the
Geneva agreements the U.S. organ-
ized a conference at Manila to form
SEATO, with the support of Britain,
France, the Philippines, Australia, New
Zealand, Thailand and Pakistan. And
finally, the U.S. manoeuvred an addi-
tion to the Manila Treaty of a proto-
col extending its “covering umbrella”
to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam south
of the 17th parallel — although at
Geneva it had been agreed these coun-
tries should be neutral.

On June 1, 1956, Senator John F.
Kennedy (later President Kennedy)

said: “If we are not the parents of.

little Vietnam, then surely we are its
godparents. We presided at its birth,
we have given assistance to its life,
and we have helped to shape its

future.”
The future of South Vietnam, how-

operations,

the

abolished, that

pected.

integrity of
stop totally abolished too.

from this @:.

The people of South Vietnam
must be allowed to handle

ever, is today being shaped by its peo-
ple, the 14 million poverty-stricken
peasants and workers living south of
the Ben Hai River. Growth of resist-
ance movements compelled the U.S.
to spend ever-increasing sums of
money (the current rate is $1.5 mil-
lion a day) and send thousands of
American troops in a vain attempt to
save the Diem regime.

In December 1960 the South Viet-
nam National Front for Liberation
was formed to unite all sections of
the people.

Today the Front cofitrols three-
quarters of South Vietnam’s area con-
taining half of the population.

It is winning new victories from
day to day. Soon final victory will be
achieved and the reunification of Viet-
nam will proceed apace.

That time is not far distant.

+ end—World Peace Council

visers and all American war
equipment, that the military
high command in Saigon be
removed, that the mopping-up
repressions, ar-
rests, summary executions em-
ployed against the population
of South Vietnam cease at
once, that the use of toxic che-
mical substances cease,
“strategic hamlets”
other concentration centers be
t democratic
rights, freedom of belief, and
equality of religions be res-

their own affairs; the Ameri-
can imperialists have no right
to intervene in them.

The Council fully supports
the just struggle for national
independence and peace in
South-east Asia and in the
world which is being conduct-
ed by the heroic people of
South Vietnam under the guid-
ance of the National Libera-
tion Front of South Vietnam,
and the six-point declaration
of the NLF made on Nov. 16,
1963, on the situation in 4.
Vietnam.

that
and

e@ That the “protective” um-
brella of the aggressive mili-
tary block of SEATO over
South Vietnam be abolished,
and that the bloc itself be

The Council makes
gent appeal to all peac

ers and to all peoples 2
world to develop the =
ment of active solidar i

the gallant people « a
Vietnam and to give i: :
diate and effective ai
moral and material.

February 21, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE-