Open Letter to the Honorable Persons the Prime Ministers and Leaders of the Opposition in Australia and New Zealand

As an assistant to researchers at Spiri I consider myself comparatively well-informed, and as a New Zealand citizen and rational human being I feet a duty to urge upon you immediate recognition of the PRG of South Vietnam and the Royal Government of Cambodia. Division was forced upon the majority in Vietnam who didn't want it, thus it is a myth that North Vietnamese in the southern part of the country are foreign intruders.

Australian and New Zealand representatives can do more to bring about peace in Indo China, by squaring their policypositions with the facts.

One argument for switching recognition overshadows all other possible considerations :-

Suppose that 'A' and 'B' are opposing sides fighting a civil war with massive injections of aid in weaponry and man-power skills as well as general economic support. 'A' is riddled with corruption and distention and makes only sporadic gains, always seeming to lose ground in the long run. And yet over the last eight or nine years of the conflict, 'A' has received Thirty Times as much help from its foreign backers as has 'B'. This granted, to continue to treat 'A' as if it had a right to act and speak authoritatively for the people of that nation is surely to take part in a cynical farce.

US intelligence figures show that the U.S.A. has spent nearly thirty times as much in Indo China since 1966 as Russia and China combined ... Aid to North Vietnam from the two Communist Powers totalled $3.65 bn. since 1966 — $2.57 bn. from Russia and $1.08 bn. from China ... The U.S.A. spent $107.1 bn. during that period on the war and for aid to its allies in Indo China, according to official Pentagon sources ... In 1973, when US forces withdrew and (supposedly) turned the defense burden over to the South Vietnamese, the figures show, US aid was $2.3 bn. compared to $290 million for Russia and China. (This paragraph is reproduced without significant alleration from The Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis July 1974.)

Although Communist aid in weapons to North Vietnam and the PRG has been stepped up this year, the new Congressional restrictions have not had time to reduce Pentagon aid much below its normal level, and in the mean time the side supported by the Americans is collapsing faster than ever. No North Vietnamese have taken part in the Cambodian war for several years now (Dagens Nyheter 25 March 1975), and the Vietnamese as a whole must be allowed to settle for the kind of peaceful political solution that would be most natural for them, whether we like it or not.

As for the tragic refugees, they are not 'voting with their feet' but are suffering a kind of blackmail. For years they have been subjected to a frantic campaign of Viet Cong atrocity stories — no doubt some of them true — and this has unnerved them. But their more realistic fears concern the atrocities committed impersonally, from the air, through the uninhibited death-technology of the most advanced and powerful nation on earth. This is what makes them fear to stay at their homes in the so-called lost or liberated areas.

(B.P.Lilburn)