China Attack “May Be U.S. Aim”

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32287, 4 May 1970, Page 18

China Attack “May Be U.S. Aim”

The invasion of Cambodia suggested much wider war intentions on the part of the United States, and his major fear was that the explanation might be a United States aim to draw China into the conflict and bomb her before she became strong enough to attack America, Mr L. : F. J. Ross said at a panel discussion on Vietnam in Christchurch on Saturday evening. The discussion, arranged by the Christchurch Joint Council on Vietnam, was attended by about 70 persons. The chairman was Canon E. A. Johnston, and the other speakers were Mr James K. Baxter and the Rev. D. M. Taylor. Several commentators had said in the past that the main target of the United States was China, Mr Ross said. The invasion of Cambodia was one of the most shocking

developments in the war. He felt that a lot of the resistance to the new junta was Cambodian, and he believed it was possible that the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk was master-minded by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States. U.N. Treaty The United States had justified its intensification of the war by saying it was protecting South Vietnam from the north, but this was not true, Mr Ross said. Vietnam was one country, and the war was a civil war. The United States had violated the 1954 Geneva Accords. and New Zealand, by joining the United States in

unprovoked aggression against Vietnam, had also violated the accords and the United Nations treaty. Mr Taylor said that generally Christian churches round the world were against the war. Too often the argument was used in such questions that the Government must be right, but Government sources Iwere not reliable. “In Prisons” Referring to an interview (with the New Zealand Ambassador to Saigon (Mr P. K. Edmonds) printed in “The Press” on March 9, Mr Taylor said Mr Edmonds had commented he had not heard anyone in South Vietnam suggest that a coalition Government with National Liberation Front members would be workable. “That is because he has not talked to anyone,” Mr Taylor said. This was because men who supported a coalition Government were in prison. Mr Edmonds would not go into the prisons and talk to them.

Giving an example of the Government's sources of information, he said that in Indonesia he had met a very young man who was the information officer responsible for sending reports to the New Zealand Government.

“He had never even been in an Indonesian home, or

eaten a meal in an Indonesian house.” The Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) had “stuck his neck out” on Vietnam for years, and historians would not be kind to him, Mr Taylor said. Mr Baxter said his main concern was the long-term effect of the war on EuropeanAsian relations, ft would be better to stay out of others’ civil wars. I Resolution

■ The meeting carried a resolution deploring the |action of the United States in ; invading Cambodia and calling on the Prime Minister to dissociate New Zealand from it.

“We note that this action was taken by President Nixon in the face of a contra decision of the United States Foreign Relations Committee and without the sanction of any Cambodian Government. Such action can only be described as an act of intervention which we believe is calculated to extend the Vietnam war and to make still more difficult the possibility of a negotiated settlement,” the resolution said. “We reiterate our belief that a first step towards the settlement of this war should be a complete withdrawal of all foreign troops from Vietnam. In this regard we again urge upon the Government the total withdrawal of the New Zealand force now."