Free Elections For Vietnam Proposed

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31983, 9 May 1969, Page 5

Free Elections For Vietnam Proposed

Mr M. D. Sadler, of Christchurch, said on Wednuesday that he had received a letter from the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam with a five-point formula for settlement of the war, including agreement to the holding of free elections.

He said that an air-mai] letter with Czechoslovak stamps on’ it had arrived in reply to a previous letter he had sent stating that discussion of differing concepts of democracy might help in finding common ground and in speeding up a settlement of the war.

The relevant clause of the five in the letter read: “The internal affairs of the South Vietnamese people must be settled by the South Vietnamese people themselves in accordance with the political programme 'of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation, without foreign interference; formation of a broad national and democratic coalition government, and holding of free elections in South Vietnam.” Mr Sadler said he had sent a letter to Senator G. S. McGovern in the United States asking him to take the matter up- .

In it he said that there would probably be difficulty in getting the Nixon Administration to agree to a settlement based on the holding of free general elections in South Vietnam since it could be a win-or-lose-all gamble.

But this was where the Federal Government idea came in, Mr Sadler said. This would involve dividing South Vietnam into about four “states” and taking the risk that in at least one of them a majority would have been more favourably impressed by the Americans than by the Viet Cong and would vote accordingly. The letter from the N.L.F. emphasised that the Paris conference would find itself at a standstill unless Washington engaged in serious talks, with the N.L.F. competent to resplve ail problems concerning South Vietnam. On this, the front’s fivepoint stand produced a sound basis for a solution, Mr Sadler said.