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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 18. 26th July 1973

Trotskyist Picket

Trotskyist Picket

Photo of someone holding up a paper

In initiating nation wide pickets for this coming Friday, June 27, the National Mobilisation Committee for Out of Southeast Asia Now has issued a call to all antiwar bodies throughout NZ for united action on that day. A press release issued recently by the NMC read in part:

"The National Mobilisation Committee...is calling on all antiwar groups to participate in these pickets, under whatever demands they see fit....At this crucial time tor the Indochinese people, it is more important than ever that all individuals and groups in the antiwar movement can come together in united action against the war."

This release was issued following a meeting of representatives from the Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch Mobilisation Committees in Auckland on July 15, and has been mailed to many antiwar groups throughout the country.

In Wellington, where the antiwar movement is more clearly divided than anywhere else in the country (between the Wellington Mobilisation Committee which is demanding US and NZ Out of Southeast Asia Now' and the Wellington Committee on Vietnam which is working around 'Strict Implementation of the Peace Agreement' and Medical Aid), the Wellington Mobilisation Committee made a formal approach to the Wellington Committee on Vietnam in a letter dated July 11. In line with the policy outlined in the NMC press release, this letter requested that the Wellington Committee on Vietnam participate in building the pickets, under its own demands if necessary, as a means of gaining united action in Wellington on July 27. Briefly this letter stated:

"....while openly recognising that there is no basis in Wellington at this stage for agreement on central demands for the antiwar movement, there is nevertheless a basis lor the COV and the WMC expressing some form of unity in action. That is, both organisations can publicise the picket under their own demands, produce their own placards for the action, and so on."

With or without a formal written reply from the Wellington Committee on Vietnam (and to date, July 19, the Wellington Mobilisation Committee has not received one), it is still hoped that all the diverse forces in the Wellington antiwar movement will help to build the July 27 picket, and participate actively in it. If this can be achieved in Wellington (where the picket will take place outside the Saigon embassy), then there is every reason to hope that united action can also take place in all the other main centres of New Zealand.

Peter Rotherham,

Co-ordinator, Wellington Mobilisation Committee