Why Thieu Should Get No Aid

We refuse to send aid via the Thieu administration simply because it is apparent from numerous reputable reports (e.g. that of Dr Alje Vennema, former Director of the Canadian Government's Medical Mission to Vietnam) that the little that filters through the notorious graft and black-markrteering of Saigon is unlikely to be used to help the civilian victims of the war. To quote Senator Kennedy (NZ Herald, June 27, 1968): "In the field of refugee care and in many other fields the Saigon Government has been engaged in the systematic looting of its own people."

The third main channel for aid, and the one we intend to continue to use, is via the Red Cross organisations in the DRV and in the PRG areas of South Vietnam.

The high quality of the medical services run by these organisations is incontestable. Time magazine, November 6, 1972, quotes four American doctors who inspected the North Vietnamese health services: "Many countries have met the medical challenges of war; North Vietnam seems to have surmounted them. Despite a blockade and almost daily bombings, the North Vietnamese have one of the best and most extensive health-care systems on the Asian mainland." They go on to describe the organisation of the system and its astronomical growth since the French withdrawl in 1954. Compare this with the stagnation and even the decline of Saigon's services in the same period.

The booklet, "Medicine in Vietnam at War" published by the British Medical Aid Committee of Vietnam in 1968, gives eye-witness descriptions by English, French, German and Canadian doctors of the contrasting state of the medical services provided by the DRV and the NLF (now the PRG) on the one hand and the Saigon administration on the other. Of particular interest, from the report of three French doctors: "In the North, programmes of public health, epidemiology, vaccination and medical research are being carried out and developed. The training of young doctors is being intensified. But what moved and surprised us even more, is that this is occuring in the South as well, in the areas administered by the NLF. There are in the South medical schools and even workshops and laboratories where medicaments are produced and perfected. The Health organisation of the NLF publishes two regular periodicals. Almost incredibly, in the regions under the control of the NLF, clinical medical research and medical conferences go on, geared especially to practical problems." This same NLF Health organisation has established clandestine services throughout the non-liberated areas of South Vietnam—for example, extending its cholera vaccination programme into the suburbs of Saigon itself. Thus by sending our aid by this route we have been able in some measure to reach the population of the Saigon controlled areas whom Saigon has been unable or unprepared to assist.

In conversation with members of this committee, the Mayor of Hanoi, Vu Dinh, enumerated his country's immediate needs in material aid as 1) Medical supplies. 2) Clothing, especially children's clothing 3) Building materials. 4) Cash, so that they can buy these commodities themselves from neighbouring countries. (A report of similar remarks appeared in the Auckland Star, Febuary 23, 1973). We feel that a continuation of our past policy, of purchasing in London and transporting to Indo-China those medical resources specifically requested by responsible, efficient and dedicated Vietnamese medical organisations, is the aid policy best calculated to help the Vietnamese restore their country by their own efforts and in the manner which they desire.

Our aid goes to the Liberation Red Cross of South Vietnam and to the Vietnam Red Cross for use in North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Please send donations to: New Zealand Medical Aid Committee for Vietnam, P.O. Box 6601, Auckland.