‘Pacification’ Role Soon

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31221, 19 November 1966, Page 15

‘Pacification’ Role Soon

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

SAIGON, November 18. South Vietnam’s Defence Minister has confirmed reports that the entire Vietnamese Army will switch to a “pacification” role in 1967.

Lieutenant • General Nguyen Huu Co said yesterday that the 275,000man regular Vietnamese army could concentrate “all its efforts” on the local guerrilla problem in 1967 by switching to a “pacification” role. The Vietnamese forces would be used for “clear-and-hold" operations, leaving “search-and-destroy” missions against the hard-core Viet Cong to the Americans. The Vietnamese forces would provide security for “pacification”—the job of winning the peasants over to the Government side of improving standards and providing security against the Viet Cong, said General Co. “Militarily, we can say we

are winning the war. We started to win last year—around September—at the end of the rainy season, after the coming of large American forces.

“The major problem now,” he said “is to stop the infiltration (of about 6000 to 7000 Viet Cong each month) and wipe out the local guerrillas. “To destroy the hard-core units is easy. Most of their regular units are now suffering 30 to 60 per cent casualties.

“But the problem is to deal with more than 100,000 —maybe 150,000 —local guerrillas because they are not grouped in large units.”