N.Z. policy questioned

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32542, 27 February 1971, Page 18

N.Z. policy questioned

The Christchurch Joint Council on Vietnam questions the New Zealand Government’s acquiescence in a policy that will bring more casualties to many sections of the population of Indo-China, according to a statement from the council submitted by Mr M. J. Brusse. The council said that it 1 had noted a statement by the I Secretary-General of the United Nations (U. Thant), that Laos was “one more deplorable episode in the long history of the barbarous war in Indo-China.”

“By contrast,” said the council, “our Prime Minister (Sir Keith Holyoake), has said that he accepts the reason give by South Vietnam for attacking the North Vietnamese forces and supply lines in southern Laos. “Since President Nixon’s statement that he is willing to use .any U.S. Air Force weapons, short of nuclear ones, increased civilian casualties have become certain,” said the council. “Ascording to the Laotian general Nouphet Deoheueng (“The

Press,” February 8): ‘Every time the Americans are called in to bomb, they destroy friends, not enemies.’ “The Joint Council joins the many people throughout the world who have understood American policy and

have condemned it in no uncertain terms. It is clear that the United States intends to continue its various forms of support for the despotic government of President Thieu, which holds itself together with ‘tiger-cage’ methods, and grimly persecutes all those who dare to speak of peace and coalition government.

“The Joint Council opposes this policy of encouraging the Thieu-Ky regime to continue the war,” said the statement. “This regime does not represent the majority Of the South Vietnamese population and never has done so. It represents the policy of the United States, which to the Vietnamese is a distant and wealthy country, whose armed forces have already killed half a million of their population. How can such a regime unite the population of South Vietnam? How can it bring peace? “CRIMINAL FOLLY” “This policy of the United States, which our Government uncritically supports, has been so widely opposed —in the United Nations, by prominent churchmen, by Western politicians, by scientists all over the world, and even by members of the United States Congress and Senate—that to perpetuate this policy, which has extended the war for more than 10 years now, indicates an attitude of criminal folly.