Troops Occupy All High Schools In Saigon

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30233, 11 September 1963, Page 15

Troops Occupy All High Schools In Saigon

(N.Z.P.A .-Reuter—Copyright) SAIGON, September 10. All Saigon high schools are heavily occupied by armed combat troops and police today. In several schools, troops were seen in classrooms, with classes apparently proceeding normally. But at the Gia Long Girls’ High school, one of the schools which rebelled on Saturday, the pupils appeared to be in revolt. Shortly after classes began, the sound of shouting, laughing and banging of desks could be heard.

Five or six schoolgirls later were seen taken away from the Gia Long school in a utility vehicle. The rest walked out the school gate and the school was closed. There were about 260 troops in the school. In some schools, including the Technical Institute where pupils are considered very militant, troops moved in before the classes were

scheduled to begin. They sent the pupils home. At the Technical Institute, about 400 troops were sitting about, apparently ready to siay the whole day. The South Vietnamese Government claims to have arrested two pupils who are connected with a Communist group said by the Government to be directing tire school strike. While troops in Saigon were rounding up student ■ demonstrators, other Army ■ forces yesterday scored their most impressive victory over ; the Communist Viet Cong

guerrillas for many months, military officials said today, , the British United Press ; reported. > The officials said the Government troops killed an • estimated 80 Viet Cong regulars and wounded ■ another 100 near Go Cong, a . village about 30 miles south of Saigon. : Estimates of Government losses in the encounter were 25 or 26 ki’led and 30 . wounded. The fighting still ■ was continuing late last ■ night. In Saigon, last night, Mr ; Ngo Dinh Nhu, the brother

and adviser of President Ngo Dinh Diem, laughingly replied “you would like me to” when asked about reports that he intended to move out of the Presidential palace. Usually informed Saigon sources had said earlier the move was planned in an attempt to stem American charges that he had too much influence over his brother. The sources said his move from the palace to live elsewhere in Saigon was likely to be almost immediate, to coincide with the departure of his wife, Mrs Nhu, overseas last night on a trip due to last several weeks. Mrs Nhu is heading a delegation of South Vietnamese deputies to the Belgrade Inter-parliamentary conference. She said she would probably stay about 10 days in Belgrade and be in the United States in mid-Octo-ber, returning to Saigon at the end of October.

Mrs Nhu told correspondents at the Saigon airport that during her visit to the United States “I will have nothing to do with the United Nations—l am not even going to visit it because I already have seen it.” Informed sources in Saigon had said she was likely to speak in the United Nations when the question of South Vietnam’s Buddhist crisis would be discussed. Asked when she would be in New York she said: “In midOctober at the latest—if I

go.” Asked what she would do in the United States, she said: “I am invited by the most important groups of the press which, after lynching me more or less, now wish to hear me.”