PEACE PROPOSALS

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 February 1947, Page 6

PEACE PROPOSALS

VIETNAM REQUESTS RECALL OF TROOPS SUICIDE CORPS FORMED (Rec. 11.10 a.m.) PARIS, Feb. 6. The president of the permanent Vietnamese delegation in Paris has issued a communique in which the Vietnam Republican Government proposes an immediate cessation of hostilities in Indo-China. The ; communique states that the Vietnam people are determined to carry on to the end to safeguard their rights, political independence and territorial unity within the framework of the French Union, but they are convinced that with the new France her objectives could be obtained peacefully. The Vietnamese proposals are:— (1) the cessation of hostilities; (2) the naming of armistice committees to execute the cease-fire order; (3) the recall of troops on both sides to positions defined under the agreements of March 6, 1946, and April 3, 1946; (4) immediate halting, of the embarkation of French reinforcements for Indo-China; and (5) the resumption of negotiations with “the legal Vietnam Government” on the basis of the agreements already concluded. Earlier Radio Hanoi stated that the Vietnamese had formed a suicide volunteer corps pledged to defend the Chinese and Vietnam quarter of Hanoi to the last man. The radio said that the commanding officer at the oath-taking ceremony handed each volunteer a “special weapon” with the words, “You shall give up your lite so that the Fatherland may live 1000 years.” The Vietnam High Command, in another broadcast, claimed that the French lost 3000 men, killed or wounded, in addition to much equipment, including planes and tanks, since December in four heavy drives against the Vietnamese-occupied section of Hanoi. It added that the Vietnamese lost 1500 regulars and “selfdefence youths,” killed or wounded. A report received in Paris from Hanoi, states that French troops captured 56 Vietnamese troops, including a high officer, during an operation outside Hanoi on the road to Haiphong.