Division Moved Into Saigon

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31062, 18 May 1966, Page 17

Division Moved Into Saigon

<5 Z P A. Reuter—Copyright) SAIGON, May 17. South Vietnam’s military Government today moved a division of troops from the Mekong delta into the Saigon area, a Defence Ministry spokesman said. The move was “to ensure the security of the capital,” he said. But he declined to elaborate.

There have been three Army divisions in the Mekong delta, the flat rice-growing region south of Saigon where the Viet Cong maintain considerable guerrilla forces.

No American combat units are stationed there.

The move followed a series of savage hit-and-run attacks against police stations on the outskirts of Saigon by the Viet Cong last night, apparently taking advantage of the latest political crisis. Two policemen were killed and nine wounded. A police spokesman, announcing this today, said the Viet Cong usually took advantage of disorders or demonstrations to attack the police. Buddhists To Meet The Cabinet and antigovernment Buddhist leaders are meeting later today to consider the latest political crisis, centred on the northern city of Da Nang. Firing broke out again there briefly today, but there were no reports of fresh fighting.

Government troops, flown in early on Sunday, and “rebel” troops still held different parts of the city, but the Government marines and paratroopers control all the key installations. Solemn religious ceremonies went on last night amid preparation for battle at the Tinh Hoa Pagoda in Da Nang, focal point of South Vietnam’s GovemmentBuddhist struggle. The Pagoda, largest in this northern Buddhist stronghold, looks like a cross between the headquarters of a beleaguered garrison and a boy scout camp. Petrol Bombs

Girls in blue jeans and white blouses sat joking in the courtyard last night while youth manufactured crude “Molotov cocktail" petrol bombs in soft-drink bottles a few yards away. A religious service went on in the pagoda, in front of which stood three funeral pyres erected for Buddhist monks who have sworn to burn themselves to death if the pagoda is attacked by Government troops. Fourteen Buddhists tonight began a 48-hour hunger strike inside the pagoda in protest at the Saigon Government’s sending of four battalions of troops to Da Nang. The pagoda, in the centre of the city, has been the headquarters of antiGovernment forces for more than a month, but became an armed camp only on Sunday when Government troops arrived in Da Nang.

Some 400 youths, rebel soldiers and shaven-headed monks are now cut off there. Tough Government paratroopers stand at the ready watching from behind roadblocks a few hundred yards away. Last night, small fires burned in the courtyard and in one darkened corner more Buddhists prayed in front of coffins of three people killed in street fighting on Sunday. Appeal To Johnson A Buddhist leader, Thich Tri Quang, cabled President Johnson yesterday asking him to exercise his responsibilities to try to end the feud between South Vietnam’s pro and anti-Government factions. An appeal for solidarity with the Americans went out from another dissident leader. The commanding officer of Hue, a northern city outside

Government control, said in a broadcast that the forces struggling against the Saigon regime “must maintain co-operation with our allies, particularly the United States ” Reports from Saigon said United States officials in South Vietnam are under Presidential instructions to exert pressure on the feuding groups to settle their differences peacefully. In an emotional speech yesterday, the Buddhist spokesman, the Venerable Thien Minh, demanded that the Government pull back all its troops from the dissident north, the Associated press reported. He vowed that “all monks” were ready to die for their cause.

“All monks will sacrifice themselves to strike against the Government,” Thien Minh told a Buddhist rally.

Earlier in the day. four Government ’inks rumbled towards the Tinh Hoi Pagoda but were stopped by a human wall of praying Buddhists monks and boy scouts among them.

For 80 minutes, the Buddhists and the tanks confronted each other, then the two sides negotiated the return

of 14 Government marines held by the Buddhists. Trade union leaders called off a 24-hour general strike early this morning, which threatened to affect Saigon’s water and electricity supplies today, A.A.P.-Reuter reported. This followed a promise by Premier Ky, in a midnight telephone call, to suspend a provincial police chief whose men were alleged to have beaten up girl textile workers during a sit-down strike at their mill.