BIG RESPONSE TO HO

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31115, 19 July 1966, Page 17

BIG RESPONSE TO HO

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) HONG KONG, July 18. Tens of thousands of armed militia, singing battle songs, marched through Hanoi yesterday in response to President Ho Chi Minh’s call to arms, the New China News Agency reported today.

The report said the militia—men, women and youths—joined North Vietnamese lining the streets after the President’s partial mobilisation order. Their shouted slogans echoed their leader’s fighting

broadcast in which he summoned them to fiercer efforts against the Americans. The agency said the militia pledged at a mass rally in turn every street and every house into a strong fortress. “Would Be Submerged” “Whether the United States aggressors come by air or on the ground, they would be submerged in the people’s war in Vietnam and would have no chance to return home,” a resolution declared. The report said the marchers carried portraits of President Ho and banners reading: “The Army and the people of the whole country unite like one man, defy hardships and sacrifices and fight on to complete victory.” China, reaffirming its support for North Vietnam today, said it was senseless to invoke the Geneva agreement of 1954 which ended the war between France and Indo-Chinese nationalists and changed political frontiers. An editorial in the Peking “People’s Daily,” quoted by the New China News Agency, said: “If the Geneva agreements are referred to, every United States aggressor troop, to the last one, must be withdrawn from Vietnam.” “If this is not done, it is senseless to invoke the Geneva agreements, still less reconvene the Geneva conference.” “Will Of People” The newspaper, Peking’s official mouthpiece, said the question could only be settled in accordance with the will and aspirations of the Vietnamese people. It attacked the Soviet leaders as the chief accomplices in the United States’ “vicious manoeuvres to force peace through bombing.” Last night. North Vietnam protested to the International Control Commission on IndoChina that American planes bombed dykes in attempts to cause floods and drought and destroy crops.

The protest, reported by the North Vietnam news agency, said the bombipg was a gross flouting of the Geneva agreements and international law.

The South Vietnamese National Liberation Front—political arm of the Viet Cong—today called on the South Viet-

namese people to intensify the fight against the United States and the Saigon Government. The call was made just before the 12th anniversary of the signing of the Geneva agreements on Vietnam on July 20, 1954. “Adequate Material” Quoting the Viet Cong Liberation press agency, the news agency said the front’s central committee claimed it already had an adequate material and moral foundation for final victory. “We are afraid of neither a long fight nor difficulties and hardships,” the appeal said. “We are resolved to defeat the United States imperialists, overthrow the puppet and stooge administration in order to liberate the South, contribute to the defence of the North and achieve an independent, democratic, peaceful, neutral South Vietnam with a view to reunifying the country,” it said. In Washington, the United States Deputy-Secretary of Defence, Mr Cyrus R. Vance, has said that no amount of North Vietnamese mobilisation will prevent the United States limiting infiltration into South Vietnam.

In a television interview, Mr Vance speculated that Hanoi might need the extra manpower to repair communication and transportation lines destroyed by United States bombing attacks. “We know that at least 200,000 or so are being devot ed to this task on a daily basis, and we believe 100,000 to 150,000 on a part-time basis” Mr Vance said.

The British Foreign Minis ter, Mr Michael Stewart, said in Washington yesterday he could not rule out the possibility that Russian troops would be drawn into the Vietnam war.

The entry of Russian or other European troops, he said, was “not likely, but is one of the things one has to keep in one’s mind all the time.” In a television interview, Mr Stewart said one factor which might involve Russian troops would be “the intention of the United States to overthrow the government in North Vietnam.”

Mr Stewart also said it was unlikely China would enter the war, unless “They felt it was a question of overthrow ing the Government in North Vietnam.”