TIM BUCK

ore than 2,000 people pack-
ed Vancouver’s Exhibition
Gardens last Sunday to
hear Communist Party national
chairman Tim Buck and PT as-
sociate editor Maurice Rush

report on their recent trip to-

North Vietnam,

In response to an appeal for:

medical aid for Vietnam the en-
thusiastic crowd contributed
$2,410 and adopted a resolution
to Prime Minister Pearson urg-
ing that he make representation
to President Lyndon Johnson ask-
ing that the U.S, accept the Geneva
Agreement as the foundation for
peace in Vietnam,

Halt the
escalator

The resolution, which was
adopted amid loud applause, also
urged that “Canada protest any
further escalation of the war by
the U.S, and that the U.S. per-
manently halt U.S, bombings of
North Vietnam and indicate its
willingness to include the Na-
tional Liberation Front in any
negotiations for a peace Settle-
ment in Vietnam,”

Speaking under a huge banner
which read: “Stop U.S, aggression
in Vietnam,” Buck said that peace
could be restored in Vietnam if
President Johnson gave a pledge
that the U.S, would accept the
Geneva Agreement.

Buck said that Minister Pham
Van Dong told him “we don’t care
how long it takes for U.S, forces
to leave so long as they agree
to go... we will even provide
red carpets and allow them to
leave with their bands playing
. e« all we ask is that they leave
us alone,”

Nazi-style
violations

Describing the bombings of
North Vietnam, Buck said these
“bombings were a violation of
international law and described
them as the acts of “bandits”
and “brigands,’’ He pointed out
that the U,S. insisted at the
Nuremberg trials that no Nazi
be immune from punishment for
carrying out atrocities even
though they were carried out on
orders from superior officers,

“If the same rule applied to
American bomber crews they
are also guilty of war crimes,
The only difference is that the
Nazis did it before the Nurem-
berg trials while the Americans
are doing it after,” said Buck,

As proof that the U.S, govern-
ment knows thatits bomber pilots
are violating international law
and cannot expect to be treated
as prisoners of war if captured,

$2400 COLLECTED

Huge rally

8

hears report |
on Vietnam

Buck displayed a ‘‘survival flag*
carried by U,S, pilots whichcar-
ries a message in many languages
promising that the U.S, govern-
ment will generously reward any-
one who helps them escape,

Describing the U.S, bombings,
Buck gave the example of the
city of Nanh Dinh near the Gulf
of Tonkin where 100,000 people
live in an area one and a quarter
square miles large, He said that
1,142 homes had been demolished
in this area; that more than 260
huge bomb craters were counted,

_ He related how in one city
hundreds of boys and girls were
killed in a U.S, bombing raid
and that the next day the planes
came back and dropped toys for
the children. :

Buck told of a discussion with
President Ho Chi Minh in which
the Vietnamese leader said that
historically Vietnam — both north
and south — was one homegeneous
country and that the Vietnamese
people have a 4,000 year history
during which they have often
united to drive out foreign in-
vaders.

President Ho, who worked in the
United States as a young man,
said that there are ten times
more differences between Ameri-
cans born in the south than those
in the north compared to the
Vietnamese,

He told Buck that at the Geneva
conference Vietnam insisted that
Vietnam was one nation and that
the 17th parallel was to be only
a temporary demarcation line
until 1956 when elections were to
be held. This was agreed upon and
written into the Geneva agree-
ment,

A smiling Tim Buck, Communist Party national chairman,
acknowledges the warm greetings of the platform guests
‘behind him and an audience of over 2,000 people at the
Exhibition Gardens in Vancouver last Sunday evening.

Buck said that elections in
1956 were to be held on two
questions: (1) Whether thepeople
favored the country to remain
in two parts or be reunited, and
(2) whether the people of South
Vietnam favored a government
such as in North Vietnam or in
Saigon.

The U.S, refused to allow the
people to vote on this plebiscite
because, as President Eisen-
hower admitted, more than 80
percent of South Vietnam would
have voted for Ho Chi Minh,

“The National Liberation
Front today represent four-fifths
of the territory of South Vietnam
and over 80 percent of the people,”
said Buck. He pointed out that
the NLF includes ‘17 different
organizations including Buddists,
Catholics, peasant unions and
trade unions as well as business
and professional people,

They recognize that the divi-
sion between north and south will
exist for some time, Buck said
the people in both the north and
south want to see the country re-
unified in a peaceful way but
the Vietnamese people want to
make the decision about their
future under their own control
and not under the control of the
U.S,

Buck quoted Le Duan, first
secretary of the Vietnam Work-
ers’ Party who said “we see
the struggle in Vietnam as a
struggle for national indepen-
dence and as a fight to establish
the right of people to decide
which social system they wish to
live under, and that if the U.S,

is allowed to impose its will on

PT associate editor Maurice Rush makes a point to the attentive but enthusiastic
crowd last Sunday. Theme of the rally was How to End the War in Vietnam.

Vietnam no country in Asia will

be free to decide according to the
wishes of their own people,”

Buck charged that the real
purpose of the U,S, peace of-
fensive was disclosed by Vice-
President Hubert Humphrey when
he said, after returning from a
tour of Pacific countries, that
the U.S, is ready to surrender
everything except Vietnam,

Buck said the real purpose of
Humphrey’s visit was not peace
but to convince other govern-
ments to send troops to support

-the U.S, in Vietnam,

He also charged that when
Vietnam wanted to discuss peace
shortly after Johnson’s election
the U.S, president stalled and
then sent Gen, Maxwell Taylor
to escalate the war,

«Johnson never at any time
has asked through the proper
diplomatic channels | whether
North Vietnam is interested in
holding peace discussions,’’ Buck
revealed,

Could mean
world war

Buck said that if the U.S, is
allowed to escalate the war in
South East Asia China may not
be able to stay out, American
escalation of the war could lead
to world war and it may be im-
possible to prevent such a war
becoming a nuclear war, he
warned,

He called on Canadians to keep
Canada out of involvement in the

The public rally on Vietnam, sponsored by the party, was
one of the most successful anti-war demonstrations in re-
cent years and yielded $2400 toward the newly launched
fund to aid the Vietnamese people.

—Fisherman Photos

war and said the best way for
Canada to do this is for the Ca-
nadian people to “pyll down the
hand of Johnson® and stop him
from escalating the war. He urged
Canadians to extend medical aid
to Vietnam which he said was

badly needed,

*The people of Vietnam need
our moral support and under-
standing, They are fighting the
battle for freedom and indepen-
dence today. They ask Canadians
to demand that the U.S, live up
to the Geneva Agreement,

“Democratic opinion in Canada
should unite to frustrate Ameri-
ca’s plans to extend the: war in
South East Asia and compel Wash-
ington to abandon its idea of
subjecting South East Asia,” said
Buck in a closing appeal to the
huge audience,

PT associate editor Maurice
Rush said the U,S, bombings of
North Vietnam are having the
opposite affect than Washington
hoped for, “Just as Hitler failed
with his plan to bomb the people
of Britain into submitting to his
peace terms so the Americans
are failing to bomb the people
of North Vietnam into submitting
to their peace terms.”

“Instead,” said Rush, “the U.S,
bombings are uniting the people of
North Vietnam as they have never
been united before.”

Rush pointed out that the war
in South Vietnam has changed
since the large scale intervention
of American troops, and that what
was formerly a civil war has be-
come a war for national freedom
against a foreign invader which
is uniting the whole of the popu-
lation. He said that six to seven
thousand villages in South Viet-
nam have organized their own
military forces to fight th
American invaders, ,

Peace—not
surrender

He said the Canadian delegation
came away from Vietnam con-
vinced that the people dearly want
peace but it must be on the basis
of recognizing their national free-
dom which was guaranteed in the
Geneva agreement,

“Peace,’? said Rush, “is up to
Washington, If President Johnson
wants to launch a meaningful and
sincere peace offensive let him
declare he will ahide by the
Geneva Agreement and that he
is prepared to stop U.S, interven-
tion in Vietnam.”

Saturday night Buck and Rush -

spoke to an overflow meeting in
Victoria and this week are con-
tinuing their tour of Vancouver
Island centres,

January 28, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 2

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