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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 36 No. 12. 6 June 1973

"I don't believe the Vietnamese said it."

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"I don't believe the Vietnamese said it."

Dear Sirs,

The Franks brothers' reply printed next to my article in the last Salient contains so many errors that it would be impossible to answer them all in one letter. However, you readers can be assured that a full, rounded analysis will appear in a special four page feature on Indochina in the next issue of Socialist Action which will be on sale from June 15 onwards.

But there is one central point which I must take up here:

The Franks' position boils down to the repetitive bleating of the refrain: "All we demand is what the Vietnamese themselves are asking". I dispute their claim to faithfully represent the Vietnamese" views on the slogans and demands of the international antiwar movement. In particular I refuse to believe that the Vietnamese insist, or even suggest, that the antiwar movement abandon its long-held demand that no support whatsoever be given to the Thieu puppet regime. I will offer two proofs of this:
(i)If the Vietnamese do in fact insist that "two administrations" be recognised internationally, why do they not request their "allies" in Moscow and Peking to give diplomatic recognition to both the PRG and the Saigon regime? Is not the Vietnamese position rather that at the minimum, states such as New Zealand should recognise both administrations, but that preferably they should recognise only the Provisional Revolutionary Government?
(ii)In relation to the most important component of the international antiwar movement (that in the United States), the Vietnamese have never sided with any of the differing tendencies within that movement.

From the beginning, the antiwar movement in the U.S.A. has been split into two principal camps. One of these, now represented by the National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC) has consistently had as its central demand "All U.S. troops out of South East Asia Now". NPAC takes the view that the United States has no right to negotiate anything at all in Indochina, and that everything connected with U.S. presence there — including the puppet regimes in Saigon, Pnom Penh etc — should be pulled out. This is the "Out Now" strategy. NPAC has been behind all the key mass antiwar mobilisations in Washington and other U.S. cities in recent years.

The other wing of the U.S. antiwar movement, which has supported some of the mass mobilisations, is currently represented by the People's Coalition for Peace and Justice (PCPJ), in which the thoroughly conservative, pro-Moscow U.S. Communist Party participates. These latter forces have hopped from one line to another through the yean. In 1965 they called for "Stop the Bombing; Negotiate" as opposed "Out Now". And in fact when President Johnson stopped the bombing and started to negotiate, they were completely disoriented and demobilised for a whole period.

Then in 1971 the PCPJ took up the call to support the "Support the 7 Points" as opposed to "Out Now". (The 7 Point Programme was at that time the negotiating position of the Vietnamese.) The difference between "Out Now" and the "7 Points" has been aptly summarised as the difference between "Out Now" and "Out Later".

Later, in 1972, PCPJ called for "Sign the Peace Agreement Now" as opposed to "Out Now". Now they call for "Respect the Cease Fire Agreement" as opposed to "Out Now". Of course the PCPJ has adopted all these positions under the cover of "doing what the Vietnamese ask".

But the Vietnamese always give enthusiastic support to whatever antiwar activities are organised. Here, for example is the telegram from Nguyen Vy Minh ( a Hanoi representative) to NPAC's "Out Now" demonstrations of Novem ber 18 last year. This message was sent at the same time as the Vietnamese were presenting their new peace proposals, which essentially became the final accords signed in January this year:

"Firmly believe your activities will contribute important part to mobilisation of American opinion demanding Nixon Administration end immediately Vietnam war and support to Thieu puppet administration. Withdraw U.S. troops from South Vietnam. Let the South Vietnamese people settle their own affairs without foreign interfernce. Wish you every success."

They did not ask "demand Nixon sign the Agreement now" or that Nixon "recognise two Administrations" in the South, though this was what they were offering at that lime at the conference table. Any claim that the Vietnamese want the antiwar movement to water down its demands to such provisions of the peace accords is hogwash.

Sincerely,

George Fyson

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