Clergymen Attack S. Vietnam Govt.

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30169, 28 June 1963, Page 11

Clergymen Attack S. Vietnam Govt.

(N.Z. Press Association— Copyright) NEW YORK, June 27. ‘ Twelve leading American Protestant, Buddhist and Jewish clergymen today issued a statement con« denining the Government of South Vietnam and attacking United States support of the regime.

The statement appeared as a full-page advertisement in the “New York Times” today. It was accompanied by a picture showing the death of Qua ng Due, the Buddhist priest who earlier this month set himself on fire in protest against the South Vietnamese Government’s policy towards Buddhists. The advertisement said: “We. American clergymen of various faiths, also protest. “We protest at:— Our country’s military aid to those who denied Quang Due religious freedom. The immoral spraying of parts of South Vietnam with crop - destroying chemicals and the herding of many of its people into concentration camps

' called “strategic hamlets.” The loss of American lives and billions of dollars to bolster a regime universally regarded as unjust, undemocratic, and unstable. The fiction that this is "fighting for freedom."

The advertisement quoted the recent findings of a bipartisan Senate committee appointed by President Kennedy, which visited South Vietnam to review United States policy.

The advertisement said: "The committee's report concluded—‘lt is most disturbing to find that after seven years of the republic. South Vietnam appears less, not more, stable than it was at the outset, and that it appears more removed from, rather than closer to, the achievement of popularly responsive government. The pressures of the Viet Cong guerrillas do not entirely explain this situation.' ”