ISSUE BLOWN UP, SAY STUDENTS

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32588, 23 April 1971, Page 1

ISSUE BLOWN UP, SAY STUDENTS

The Christchurch Returned Services’ Association is hoping to avoid any showdown with university students at Sunday’s Anzac Day services. A student leader says the issue has been blown up out of proportion.

More than 200 students from the University of Canterbury are expected to inarch, under a banner protesting against the war in Indo-China, to the dawn service after an allnight “sleep-in” at the university.

“We are hoping that the R.S.A. members themselves will not become involved in any way,” the president of the Christchurch R.SA. (Mr J. Green) said last evening. The students' association has refused an R.S.A. request to alter the wording in the message which will accompany the students’ wreath. Mr Green was positive that no member of the RSA.

would take any action to remove the wreath from the Citizens’ War Memorial.

Asked what plans were in hand to cope with any disturbance at the dawn service, Mr Green said he knew what would be done but could not reveal any plans at this stage. A large contingent of police will, however, be in attendance. Dunedin view

Mr C. A. Grantham, a member of the executive of the

University of Canterbury Students* Association, said last evening that if the R.S.A. had not reacted to the message to be placed on the students* wreath the matter would have passed almost unnoticed. "The example of the Dunedin R.SA. in allowing the students there to go ahead almost without comment shows how petty the R.S.A. here is,” Mr Grantham said. Mr Grantham said that if no official action was taken by the R.S.A. at the Anzac Day services there was always the risk of individual steps being taken by R.S.A members.

“BLOWN UP" "To my way of thinking the whole issue has been blown up out of proportion. And certainly not all students

i agree with the idea of the i wreath or the message being placed on the memorial oi the march to the dawn service,” he said.

Returned servicemen in Wellington would lay a wreath during the Anzac Day wreath laying ceremony, on behalf of the Wellington Committee on Vietnam, the chair-

man of the committee (Mr M. ’ G. Law) said yesterday, according to a Press Association message.

The card to be attached to the wreath will read: “In

memory of the victims of My Lai.”

Mr Law said that in deciding to take this action the committee was aware of the

need for the community to temper its remembrance of the past deeds of servicemen with an awareness of the human suffering taking place in Indo-China today. AUCKLAND GROUPS Assurances have been given in Auckland that peace groups will not disrupt official Anzac Day observances at the cenotaph on Sunday.

Although the Progressive Youth Movement and a Peace In Vietnam group are reported to be intending to lay wreaths the R.S.A. has been told that the 2 p.m. services—timed to avoid morning church services—will not be disturbed.