Vietnam Move Towards New Constitution

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31256, 31 December 1966, Page 11

Vietnam Move Towards New Constitution

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Cops right?

SAIGON, December 30.

South Vietnam’s Constituent Assembly today took another step towards drafting a new constitution for the country by approving the establishment of a special body to safeguard the rights of ethnic minorities.

About one million of South Vietnam’s 15 million population are estimated to belong to racial minorities.

Most of these are Montagnards, mountain tribesmen racially akin to the Malays, who live in the Central Highlands. The proposed ethnic minorities council would serve as an advisory body to the Government to protect the interests of the tribesmen, and other racial groups, who are represented by nine deputies in the recentlyelected 117-seat National Assembly. Since the departure of the French in 1954 the Montagnards have accused the lowland Vietnamese—who call them “moi,” or savages—of a policy of repression. They particularly resented the authoritarian regime of the late President Ngo Dinh Diem, which was overthrown in 1963. Since then successive Governments have quelled two bloody Montagnard uprisings. i Other developments in Vietnam today included:

Few Clashes Only light sporadic ground clashes, with a number of terrorist incidents, were reported as another holiday truce neared.

Air strikes over North Vietnam apparently again were hampered by bad weather. A Vietnamese airborne operation begun in the Mekong Delta early in the week appeared to have ground to a halt. In the air war against North Vietnam, American FlO5 Thunderchiefs yesterday hit the southern coastal region, sending bombs on to a fleeing convoy of trucks and damaging a steel highway bridge. Navy pilots from the carrier Enterprise reported touching off a huge explosion in a railway siding just north of Vinh. 852 bombers carried out a saturation bombing raid on infiltration routes in the six-mile-wide demilitarised zone separating North and South Vietnam. “Saved Lives” In New York, Pentagon officials said yesterday that the bombing of North Vietnam had been both effective and restrained, reported the “New York Times” news service. Admiral David McDonald, Chief of Naval Operations, said recently after a visit to Vietnam, that there was

no doubt that the attacks on the north had “saved the lives of a lot of soldiers and marines on the ground in South Vietnam.” Privately, Pentagon sources agree with reports from North Vietnam that civilian residential districts have been hit in the raids and that an undetermined number of North Vietnamese civilians has been killed or wounded. But they said that North Vietnam’s estimates of the number of civilian casualties in the bombing raids, as reported in dispatches to the “New York Times” from Hanoi this week by Harrison Salisbury, appeared to be “grossly exaggerated.” One officer said: “You can’t fight an immaculate war.” Guide For Bombers The U.S. Air Force feels it is taking every possible precaution to ensure that American bombers hit desig-' nated military targets, United Press Internatonal reported.

One of the precautions is the use of converted passenger planes, filled with electronic gear, to ensure that the bombers remain on their scheduled course.

The passenger planes, considerably slower than the bombers, may be hundreds of miles from the target. They fly at very high altitudes and through the use of radio and radar can track dozens of bombers simultaneously, and correct their course if necessary. Bomber pilots are carefully selected, are briefed extensively before their missions, and are cautioned to avoid civilian damage and casualties.