Labour calls for bombing protest

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32802, 30 December 1971, Page 2

Labour calls for bombing protest

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

NELSON, December 29.

The increased bombing of targets in North Vietnam was condemned today by Dr A. M. Finlay (Lab., Henderson), who is on holiday with his family in the Nelson district.

“Is our Government so supine that it cannot make some move, some protest, some demand for an explanation that does not insult our intelligence and, if one is not forthcoming, resoundingly dissociate itself from this damnable explosion of a war which seemed to be spluttering to a conclusion?” Dr Finlay asked.

"How long must we submit to the mumbo-jumbo that the new and enlarged air war over North Vietnam is due to breaches by the North of ‘unspoken agreements’ made at the time President Johnson earlier scaled it down?

“My clear impression is that this decision was made because—as the British and Germans earlier found—mass bombing attacks on enemy heartland areas are militarily counter-productive, and were abandoned unconditionally for the reason that they were strengthening; rather than weakening Viet Cong resolve.

“United States spokesmen now, ‘justify’ their resumption, experimenting with new and even more devilish missiles which exterminate everything and everybody within a radius of 1000 yards —more than a mile—on the ground that ‘there have been no substantial peace negotiations as promised.’ But the Pentagon papers reveal just how often peace overtures have been rebuffed by the United States itself,” said Dr Finlay. SOCIALIST PARTY

The New Zealand Socialist Unity Party has condemned the bombing. In a statement today, the

national executive of the party said that United States warplanes, armed or unarmed, should not be flying over North Vietnam because that in itself was an act of aggression. '

e It urged the New Zealand s Government to dissociate itself from "these savage | American actions which will f only extend and intensify the Vietnam war once again.”