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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 6. 4th April 1973

Indo China — The Other Side of the Story — Thieu's Only Chance Of Surival Is To Keep The War Going — Bogus Atrocity Stories

page 7

Indo China

The Other Side of the Story

Thieu's Only Chance Of Surival Is To Keep The War Going

Bogus Atrocity Stories

Wilfred Burchett has spent the last three decades covering Asian revolutions. He has been the only western journalist to consistently report the Indochina war from the side (indeed from the inside) of the liberation movements. For most of that time he has been an exile from his home country — Australia.

For seventeen years the Australian Government refused to renew his passport, alleging, amongst other things, that he participated in "brainwashing" activities during the Korean War. When the Labour Government came to office in December 1972, one of Whitlam's first acts was to renew Burchett's passport. Burchett has just visited Australia again and the extreme right-wing Democratic Labour Party tried to jack up a Senate investigation into his activities abroad in an effort to prevent civil action by him against one of the D.L.P.'s leading members for defamation.

The Committee on Vietnam has sponsored a New Zealand tour by Burchett, during which he has spoken to large meetings throughout the country, and shown a film, 'The Price of Peace", which he helped to make in North Vietnam last month. His depth of knowledge and intimate experience of the leadership of revolutionary Asia have made his tour of immense value to the New Zealand anti-imperialist movement.

Salient recorded a long interview with Burchett during one of his brief rest spells in Wellington, the bulk of which is printed in this issue.

Photo of Wilfred Burchett

Changes in Foreign Policy

Salient: How much importance do you attach to the recent foreign policy moves by Australia and do you think they are going to have any lasting impact?

Since taking office the Whitlam Government has done a few things which are irreversible. Certainty they were things that needed to be done and which only brought Australia into line with a lot of other countries. But still these were steps which simply could not have taken place if the old Government had remained in power; specifically things like the recognition of People's China, recognition of North Vietnam, and the establishment of Diplomatic relations with China and North Vietnam. The Australian delegation in the United Nations has been instructed to vote with Third World countries on all questions pertaining to colonialism and neo-colonialism. The previous Government had always voted with South Africa, Rhodesia and New Zealand, and there is an effort to carve out more or less for the first time in Australian history, an independent foreign policy and orient it pretty much toward Asia. These are irreversible trends which are all to the good.

Photo of people carting plane wreckage

The Australian Government and, I suspect, the New Zealand Labour Government, is up against one thing in making these moves. That is, the permanent establishment of the Departments of External Affairs. They're extremely conservative and ultra-reactionary characters for the main part, and their automatic reflex when any question of change comes up is to check it with Washington. Last lime I went to Canberra, I walked into the main hotel, the Canberra Rex Hotel, and there's this clock in the entrance, which shows two times, Canberra time and Washington time, it was simply symbolic of this automatic reflex to check everything. As far as I know, every proposal that was made to change foreign policy, to take an independent line, especially if it was progressive brought an immediate reaction from Washington funnelled through the External Affairs Department. "We musn't move too quickly, this would offend the United States, this would put us in wrong with the United States", and so on. So even with the best will in the world the new Government in Australia and, I suspect, in New Zealand, has got that sort of braking process.

Australia's never had an independent foreign policy. In the old days before World War II it was a carbon copy of British foreign policy, since world war II it's been a carbon copy of American foreign policy. Now there's a clear trend to have an independent foreign policy even if it upsets the United Stales and Great Britain, and that's all to the good.

Salient: Could you tell us the reaction of people in socialist countries to the "normalisation of relations" with capitalist countries?

This goes back to a principle which was enunciated quite a long time ago — the principle of peaceful co-existence between countries with differing social systems. In China's relations with foreign countries this principle was enunciated very early in its first negotiations with the Soviet Union (it's not a capitalist country, but the principle was stated there). Relations between all states had to be on an equal basis, with mutual respect and non-interference in each other's internal affairs. That was the first time the Soviet Union had established relations with another socialist country on that basis, but Mao Tsetung insisted on those principles when he headed a delegation to the Soviet Union shortly after the setting up of the Chinese People's Republic.

China has used that formula as the basis of its relations with capitalist states right from the beginning. This doctrine, the five points of peaceful coexistence, was developed further in June 1954 when Chou [unclear: En-Lal] visited India, and together with Nehru formulated what became known as the Panchsila principles. At China's insistence it was also the formula accepted by Afro-Asian states at the Bandung Conference in 1955. This is the basis of the foreign policy cetainly of China and a lot of other socialist states: the capitalist world exists, it's a reality you can't ignore, so get the best possible deal you can with them. The "best deal" is the five principles of mutual non-interference in each other's affairs.

I visited Peking immediately after the decision announced by Australia and N.Z. to recognise People's China, and the decision by Australia to recognise North Vietnam (took place while I was in Hanoi) The official and popular attitude was, "well, so much the better, there are more areas of friendship". They came to think, rightly or wrongly, that Australia and New Zealand are not tarred with the same brush as the old imperialist powers or the new neo-colonialist powers like the United States. Now our governments have changed they believe they can look forward not only to formal relations based on the five principles but to friendly relations. They hope that this new independent foreign policy which is beginning to take shape will not only be an independent but also a progressive foreign policy.

Many countries in Asia have had enough of being tied up to military alliances and being put under the "protectorate" of S.E.A.T.O.

I think the neutral countries in Asia are looking for these new type of relation- page 8 ships. They've had enough of being tied up with the old type of colonial relationships which involve military pacts, military alliances, being put under the "protectorate" of things like S.E.A.T.O.

All sorts of countries in Asia which don't have anything like progressive regimes, want to have neutral and independent foreign relations and end the old type of cold war relationships.

Salient: I suppose Malaysia would be a good example of this development?

I was in Australia when the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister was there and 1 saw him on television a couple of times. I thought it was significant that he was taking this sort of line: "we want to be independent, we want to be neutral and we want to get rid of all the old entanglements that plagued us in the past". I don't know whether to take that as a statement of government policy or as a reflection of what public opinion wants to hear in Malaysia. 1 think it's quite definite that public opinion wants this.

Even in Thailand after the Draft Agreement to End the War and Re-establish Peace in Vietnam was announced, the number two man in Thailand, General Parapas, made a statement that if the agreement was implemented Thailand would withdraw from S.E.A.T.O. and revert to its traditional neutralist stance. I don't think that that was a statement of government policy or government intention either but it was something the people wanted to hear. There's very strong public pressure reaching up into very important sections of the bourgeoisie and the intellectuals in Thailand to revert to its old neutralist stance. Thailand was always very proud it wasn't colonised and they're very unhappy to see themselves all of a sudden being taken from behind.

So there's a very definite tendency among the peoples of South-East Asia to end these old unequal relationships which have brought disaster and catastrophe, as has happened in South Vietnam.

The D.R.V. and P.R.G. leaderships see the Ceasefire Agreement as the concrete expression of very important gains for their revolution.

Photo of two men

The Peace Agreement and Aid Schemes

Salient: Could you explain the Vietnamese concept of the stages of the revolution and its connection with the Peace Agreement?

Let's take the discussions I had with the leadership of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi and the leadership of the Provisional Revolutionary Government. They see the Agreement as being the concrete expression of very important gains for the revolution in Vietnam. The 1954 Geneva Agreements allowed the revolutionary forces to consolidate completely in North Vietnam, and to build a socialist regime. This time the Agreement gives them half of South Vietnam. It will be seen when the various maps are published as well showing where the zones are delimited, that the N.F.L, holds a good half of South Vietnam territorially. If the people who were bombed out of the countryside and had to take refuge in shanty towns around the big cities, were allowed to go home you would have half the population within the areas controlled by the Provisional Revolutionary Government. So as far as Vietnam is concerned, the revolutionary forces have the top half which has the greatest part of the population, 21 million compared to 17 million in the south; they have half of the south territorially and population-wise when conditions are normalised, and politically they have at least half of the other sector which is nominally controlled by the Saigon regime. So this is a very important thing for them, after all they've been engaged in this independence struggle for about 2,000 years, 114 years of which has been the stage against colonialism and neo-colonialism. They think they've come to the end of that stage and now the stage is set for the consolidation of all these gains.

Photo of soldiers shooting a man

If one takes the position in Indo-China as a whole, the revolutionary forces in Laos and Cambodia have been immeasurably strengthened by their struggle, not by any action taken by the North 'Vietnamese but by the United States. They provoked the resistance movement, they fertilised the resistance movement by the brutality of their methods; the wholesale bombing of villages and towns, the wholesale looting and murder. So the revolutionary forces in Laos and Cambodia have been enormously strengthened. In Laos, at least two-thirds of the territory and over half the population is under the solid control of the Pathet Lao. In Cambodia 85 - 90% of the territory is controlled by the resistance forces. Lon No. hangs on in Phnom Penh exclusively due to the operations of the United States Air Force. Take the events of recent days when someone from the Lon Nol Air force bombed Lon No1's own palace and then took off and landed in the resistance areas, following which Lon Nol grounded his whole air force and still has it grounded. The latest news is that he has arrested 50 astrologers. Lon Nol lakes more notice than anyone in Cambodia of astrologers and they predicted that his reign in Cambodia would be ended by the end of this month. These are facts which are public knowledge, so if one looks at the position in Indo-China from a revolutionary standpoint the situation is extremely favourable and immensely more favourable in Vietnam than it was at the time the United States decided to intervene.

In Cambodia Lon Nol hangs on in Phnom Penh exclusively due to the operations of the U.S. Air Force.

Salient: Some sections of the anti-war movement in New Zealand and elsewhere have accused the Chinese of forcing the Peace Agreement on the North Vietnamese and the P.R.G. They have claimed that from the Nixon visit onwards the Chinese have "sold out" on the Vietnamese revolution. There was a rumour that straight after the Nixon visit Chou En-Lai flew to Hanoi to brief the Vietnamese on his talks with Nixon. Is that correct?

Yes. Two or three days after Nixon had left China, Chou En-Lai went to Hanoi and briefed the North Vietnamese leadership, in fact the Political Bureau of the Lao Dong party, on exactly what had gone on and offered stepped up aid, military aid. His assessment was that there were no signs that Nixon was going to wind up that war in a very great hurry. After seeing the North Vietnamese he went and saw Sihanouk for about three hours and gave him the same sort of briefing on Indochina, and offered stepped up military aid to Cambodia. The aid was accepted in both cases. I saw Sihanouk immediately after that, within about 48 hours of his seeing Chou En-Lai. He explained what he'd been told by Chou En-Lai to me and a couple of other correspondents and there was no request not to publish it. Nixon raised the question of Indochina himself, and Chou En-Lai said: "I think our conversations should be limited to matters of bi-lateral interest, of mutual interest. But as you have raised the matter of Indo-China I would like to state our position. Our position is that you should not be there and that it is shameful for a world power like you to be engaged there against small developing countries. We think you shouldn't be there and that you should get out". Then he said "we have explained our position that as far as normalisation of relations is concerned this can not be brought about as long as you are occupying part of the Chinese province of Taiwan. Your position is that until tensions are lessened in South-East Asia you will have to continue to occupy part of Taiwan, What is the cause of tensions in South-East Asia? — your presence in Indochina. So from your own logic it's clear that until you leave Indo-China there can be no normalisation of relations with China. We think you should leave but I would like to make our position quite clear. If you don't leave we will continue to support the people of Vietnam and the peoples of Indochina and give them everything we have and they need to continue on their struggle until you go". And that was it. The aid to both Cambodia and North Vietnam, 1 don't know about Laos because I was not informed of that, was considerably stepped up after the Nixon visit. If you look you can find absolutely no trace of how the Vietnamese position has really changed. If you go right back to April 1965 when Pham Van Dong made his first five point statement on the basis on which negotiations could be conducted, and take that and the various proposals of the N.F.L. including the seven point proposals of July 1971 and compare them with the Agreement, this is a logical succession of negotiating positions, which were spelt out in a little more detail at various stages of the negotiations. What is embodied in the Agreement is a logical development of negotiating positions going back to April 1965. So I don't see any evidence where the Vietnamese have changed their positions at all. I think one thing on which the Vietnam watchers' all over the world are agreed on is that the Vietnamese always retained in their own hands their own decisions and remained completely independent of any outside pressures, advice or whatever you want to call it.

Chou En-Lai told Nixon: "If you don't leave we will continue to give the people of Indochina everything we have and they need to continue their struggle until you go".

Salient. Could you give a clear indication of the D'.R. V. and P.R.G. positions on aid from countries like Australia and New Zealand?

If there's one thing that the D.R.V. and the P.R.G. are absolutely adamant on it's that they are not going to fritter away their independence which they have defended with such difficulty overall these years by falling for the machinations of international aid organisations. I can quote the words of Pham Van Dong when I spoke to him at the beginning of February. They're absolutely determined to remain masters of their own house and to rebuild in their own way, with their own plans, and with their own people. "Masters of their own house", that was the key phrase he used. They don't want multi-lateral aid from international agencies at all because they consider them to be very dangerous sorts of organisations, and they've studied what's gone on in other countries, which apparently gained their independence only to lose it economically. They want bi-lateral aid. What they realty need are freely disposable funds on which there are absolutely page 9 no conditions attached whatsoever. Pham Van Dong made another remark which was quite interesting considering the low living standards, the poverty really, of North Vietnam. He said, "well, we have to do everything possible to raise the living standards of our people, that's absolutely essential, but we're not going to become slaves of the consumer society concept. We think there are other things in life apart from material things, there ate certain thresholds beyond which you have to go when you are considering the reconstruction. We are discussing these things now, but we have to define what are the ingredients, what is the quality of man, the quality of life, the quality of society? We are specifically going to take these things into account in our reconstruction of society. We are going to be original, we are going to find the Vietnamese way of doing these things in accordance with our own" traditions, our own history and our own culture". I think we are going to see a mushrooming of all sorts of phoney organisations exploiting the natural generosity and guilty consciences of people to pull in money and to use this money to gain political influence in Vietnam, perhaps particularly in South Vietnam and particularly in that area which is still under the control of the Thieu government. For instance I don't know too many of the details but as far as I understand this World Vision Organisation, it proposes to collect large sums of money, part of which will be used to resettle those unfortunate people who were bombed out of the countryside and forced to settle in shanty towns on the outskirts of Saigon and other areas. The idea is to put them in so-called model housing projects around Saigon in order to prevent them in fact from going back to their villages, and there are all sorts of political conditions, or religious conditions which amount to the same thing, to which people have to subscribe to become beneficiaries of this aid. This is an absolutely intolerable form of external interference in the affairs of the Vietnamese people which they will reject. But the United States has every reason to encourage these people to spread the burden of reconstruction out into the international field, to restore the things they have destroyed and at the same time to use political pressures to keep the people inside the sphere of this fascist regime in Saigon. I think one has to be terribly vigilant about these agencies and consult the real representatives of the Vietnamese people. The Government of North Vietnam, the Provisional Revolutionary Government and other Third Force elements as representatives of the Vietnamese people in Paris and elsewhere all reject this World Vision sort of planning.

The Vietnamese don't want multilateral aid from international organisations because they've studied what's gone on in other countries, which apparently gained their independence, only to lose it economically.

U.S. Prisoners Well Treated

Salient: Now all the P.O.W.'s are back in the United Sates they're starting to make statements about the brutal treatment they got in the D.R. V.

I think the way that was reported was pretty significant. The day after the last P.O.W. had returned there were simultaneous press conferences across the length and breadth of the United States, at which the old atrocity stories were hauled out. The commentary was that these stories would probably strengthen the hand of those in Congress who wanted to block any economic aid to North Vietnam. I think you only have to look at those two things to see why the atrocity stories were cooked up. It would be a good idea if somebody suggested that an impartial doctor would look at this chap Stratton who said that his arms and body had been burned by cigarette butts. To the best of my knowledge and belief the Vietnamese simply don't go in for that sort of thing and I think these atrocity stories have just been invented for a very specific political purpose. The manner in which this rash of atrocity stories suddenly occurred and the reasons attributed to it confirms my suspicion.

Photo of a mna with a bicycle

At least the American P.O.W.'s back home are not like the unfortunate N.F.L. prisoners who were thrown out of helicopters to their deaths in the hundreds, and the people of My Lai, and hundreds and hundreds of other villages which suffered the same fate. The Americans all said officially that they were in very good condition when they were released; then all of a sudden, when the political motives dictate the need, they find they've been the victims of atrocities. I think it's a put up job.

Salient: Did you see any of the Prisoner of War camps fit the North, as you did during the Korean War?

No I didn't see any of the camps, but I spoke with individual pilots. One or two said they had some rough treatment from peasants when they were captured but that was normal. They fell alongside villages which had just been bombed out. Not only that but they had to be secured very quickly because they had all sorts of means of communicating with helicopters and planes. The peasants had to grab them quickly and immobilise them before they could call in the rescue planes which had a standing operating procedure. This was to spray the whole area, where the pilot went down, with vomiting and nausea gas which immobilised people temporarily, sometimes for weeks, so the Americans could come in without any opposition and rescue the pilot.

I suppose I talked to about half a dozen pilots. A couple said they had been a bit roughly treated by peasants who captured them, but the moment the first militia man, or someone from the army, appeared they were given medical attention first and were treated absolutely correctly. I saw the first 114 prisoners who were released, and they were the ones who should have looked the worst. The priority release was for those who had been in prison the longest, those who had been captured in 1964 and 1965, and the sick and wounded. They all looked in remarkably good shape. The first comments when they got back to the Clark Airbase in the Philippines were what good condition they were in. They were the worst! The others afterwards were in much better condition.

At least the American P.O.W.s are home, not like the hundreds of unfortunate N.F.L. prisoners who were thrown out of helicopters to their deaths.

Salient: Let's talk about the political prisoners held by Thieu in the South. How many people are being held and is it true that he is planning to eliminate the lot?

There are two broad categories of prisoners. Firstly those who were arrested from 1954 onward for actual or suspected support tor the resistance war against the French. That was a crime. That was subversive! Especially after May 1959 anyone who was suspected of 'harbouring an intention to perform an act which would menace or threaten the security of the state', which meant anybody who had the slightest sympathy with the N.F.L. was jailed. The numbers of prisoners was increased by the 'Phoenix Programme' which was aimed at eliminating what they called the 'Vietcong infrastructure'. 21, 000 people were officially stated by the Saigon administration to have been executed, and another 30,000 to 40,000 were supposed to have been arrested. So that is one category.

But after the Draft Agreement to End the War was published toward the end of October, and Thieu saw the role the 'Third Force' elements were to play in the proposed Council of National Reconciliation and National Concord, he directed his police machine against anybody suspected of neutralist sentiments, or anybody who had not supported completely his line on the war. According to official figures published in Saigon, 40,000 people were arrested within the first two or three weeks of the publication of the Draft Agreement, and arrests have kept going at the same tempo ever since. The victims have been the urban intelligensia who were not aligned during the war, a lot of them doctors, school teachers, students, buddhists and catholics, who in the later stages of the war turned against Thieu. Thieu no longer has the support of the majority of the catholics in South Vietnam.

The number of neutralists and leftists held prisoner is usually staled at approximately 300,000. People who had relatives in prison, came through from Saigon to Paris before I left. They brought lists, and various documents which showed that a black list has been drawn up of those marked down tor execution, just as the Nazis, towards the end of World War II, dragged out all those they thought would become political activists after the war was over, like Thalemann the German Communist Party leader, and shot them. There have been numerous authenticated accounts of people actually executed, and authenticated black lists of those political activists who have to he liquidated. According to the Agreement, political prisoners have to be released within 90 days of the signing of the Agreement, by the end of April, but so far practically none have been released at all.

It's a very serious matter, apart from the sheer injustice of the arrest of all these people for political reasons, because it's very difficult to envisage a political solution when the vital third ingredient is simply eliminated. The concept that was written into the Agreement and officially endorsed by Thieu and the United States, is that there should be this National Council composed of three equal parts the Saigon Government, the P.R.G. and the vital bridge element, the 'Third Force'. The whole concept cannot work if the third element is missing. This is a very serious matter on which great concern is being expressed all over the world, especially by the buddhists, and catholics and other exiles in France who know the real facts. They're the people who've borne the brunt of this latest wave of arrests.

Ceasefire Violations

Salient: Newspapers here have described the violations of the Ceasefire page 10 as if the war hasn 't stopped. Could you tell us of the real position as regards the violations of the Ceasefire? How serious are they?

One of the difficulties is that all the news comes out of the Saigon Command, and the correspondents themselves have been bitterly complaining of this. In fact a number of correspondents have been chucked out, not because they are progressives but because they felt they had to try to get to the truth of the violations. They were prevented from going out on the spot, and checking up for themselves. When the D.R.V. and the P.R.G. members of the quadripartite Joint Military Affairs Commission arrived in Saigon they were immediately put behind barbed wire on Saigon Airport and held absolutely incommunicado; it was absolutely forbidden for the press to come anywhere near them. The first meeting of the quadripartite commission took place with armed military helicopters soaring over the top of the buildings where they were kept. Six tanks were drawn up outside the building with their guns trained on the building and truckloads of troops, armed to the teeth were placed all round the building. The head of the D.R.V. delegation protested and said "you've tried to threaten us ever since the start of the war with your bombs, your shells, your planes, and don't think you're going to have any influence on us through military pressures at this first meeting of the Military Affairs Commission".

A number of correspondents were chucked out of Saigon, not because they are progressives, but because they tried to get to the truth of the violations of the Ceasefire.

That was the atmosphere and the press couldn't get anywhere near. Well known American agencies like N.B.C. and U.P.I. had their chief correspondents thrown out just because they tried to get some sort of contact and check up on the violations. All the news about the violations comes exclusively from Thieu's side. I don't think anybody doubts that Thieu's only chance of survival is to keep the war going. There was a report in the "Chicago Daily News" on March 21st by Larry Green, their local correspondent, who quoted official American figures claiming that tremendous violations had been going on and quantities of tanks, armoured vehicles and North Vietnamese troops were moving down towards South Vietnam in violation of the Agreement. But this correspondent was a tittle bit sceptical and he wrote: "Both the press, which is disseminating the information and the public, which is reading it, are prisoners of what they're being told. There is no way to check the government's claims; to count the trucks moving down the Ho Chi Minh trail or the tanks moving across the Demilitarised Zone, or the communist troops moving into South Vietnam.

There's no way to confirm when or where pictures they might show of the infiltration movements were taken. It should be remembered that in the past there frequently has been little correlation between what was being said officially about conditions and events in Vietnam and reality, except when the news from Washington was bad". He poured complete scepticism on this report of what seemed to be a major violation.

A few days later there was an N.Z.P.A? — Reuter report from Washington which was published in "The New Zealand Herald" on the 29th of March, saying that "the White House Press Secretary, Mr Ronald Ziegler, hinted that Mr Nixon was less concerned than he was two weeks ago by the alleged movement of thousands of North Vietnamese troops and hundreds of tanks into the South in violation of the Ceasefire. Asked how the President felt about the infiltrations Ziegler said the United States had every hope and expectation that all parties would scrupulously observe the Ceasefire".

In other words these 'violations' are what the hard-boiled journalists call 'diplomatic statistics'. To serve some political or diplomatic move the Americans invent things like the 9,000 violations or the 40,000 troops. If it suits them to do away with it then all of a sudden they disappear into thin air. There have been violations from the very beginning by the Thieu forces. After all it's not the N.F.L. who have planes, and Thieu's airforce has been operational until very recently, averaging about 200 sorties a day. They have been moving in to try and take positions around the perimeters of the zones controlled by the N.F.L. I'm sure the N.F.L. have instructions to bend over backwards to avoid responding to provocation and so give pretext for large scale renewal of the fighting. I'm sure that if they push into some sensitive area the N.F.L. will hit back, and that's apparently what has been going on in the last few days.

The very day after the conclusion of the Ceasefire, according to the word I had in Hanoi at the time, the Saigon regime dropped parachutists and carried out a very big operation at the Qua Viet estuary south of the Demilitarised Zone. Aerial bombings preceded this attack, parachutists' were dropped in an attempt to seize territory right up to the Demilitarised Zone. The N.F.L. resisted and flung them back. This was a very sensitive area deep inside the N.F.L. lines, and I suspect the same thing has happened when we keep getting word about a Saigon base encircled by the N.F.L. I imagine that they, parachuted troops in and tried to seize an area inside N.F.L. territory and met strong resistance. But what is clear is that the D.R.V. and the P.R.G. have absolutely no interest in violating the Ceasefire. The Ceasefire Agreement is a good one, a very good one. The only person who has a vested interest in violating the Ceasefire, as he threatened he would, is Thieu. So 1 think all these reports of violations must be taken with a very large grain of salt when they refer to violations by the N.F.L. and the P.R.G.

The only person who has a vested interest in violating the Ceasefire Agreement is Thieu, just as he threatened he would.

Salient: On the subject of getting news out of Vietnam can you tell us what was the success of the American blockade, the mining of the harbours and the rivers?

Well it was another of the Americans' inglorious failures. Of course it caused some difficulties at times, but it never prevented supplies moving to the south in the quantities they wanted to move them; as the pattern of the warfare showed. The resistance forces were never short of materials because of that blockade, and right up to the Ceasefire they seemed to have ample quantities of whatever they needed in any particular place. One quality of the Vietnamese is that they are never taken by suprise. They'd anticipated the blockade, the mining of Haiphong harbour, and the renewed bombings, from the time the bombings first started. They'd made alternative arrangements and contingency plans. The day the mines went into operation they pulled a lever and 'Plan B' went into operation, and the supplies never stopped moving towards the front.

Next week Burchett talks about the situation in Cambodia and discusses the past, present and future roles of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who was ousted by a right-wing putsch in 1970.

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