ASIAN ‘PEACE MISSION’

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30555, 25 September 1964, Page 15

ASIAN ‘PEACE MISSION’

Proposition To S.E.A.T.O. (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) HONOLULU, September 24. The Speaker of the Philippines House of Representatives said yesterday that a multi-nation peace mission from the South-East Treaty Organisation countries, including Australia and New Zealand, should be launched to combat Communism and subversion in Laos and South Vietnam.

Mr Cornelio T. Villareal, in Honolulu to begin a speaking tour of the United States, said he would put the idea to top U.S. executive and legislative leaders while in Washington next week. He is to meet with the Secretary of State (Mr Dean Rusk), the Secretary of Defence (Mr Robert S. McNamara) and the Speaker of the House (Senator John McCormack). Mr Villareal's proposal is that doctors, nurses, engineers, technicians, teachers and agriculturalists be sent to Laos and South Vietnam in an operation strictly under S.E.A.T.O. auspices. “Vietnam and Laos are under Communist military attack arid subversion, and necessary means must be used to combat this and to strengthen the people there by improving living conditions,” Mr Villareal said in an interview. Mr Villareal said that the way the battle against communism was going in Southeast Asia, it would be “long years before communism can be defeated.” Under a

S.E.A.T.O. operation as he proposed, the situation could “improve appreciably.” “A positive operation must be launched that will prove to the world that S.E.A.T.O. is a functioning organisation with concern for the people’s welfare not only in the treaty area but also in Laos and Vietnam.” Mr Villareal said the struggle in South-east Asia was largely a “twilight war where the Communists are on the offensive at a time where there is neither formal war nor peace." “The free world should utilise other instruments which the Communists least expect,” he said. “We have to win the minds of the people before democracy can win in South-east Asia.”