FLIGHT FROM HANOI

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27410, 24 July 1954, Page 7

FLIGHT FROM HANOI

I Mass Exodus In Prospect (N.Z.'Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, July 23. The evacuation of the French from Hanoi will begin in five or six days’ time, and the Vietnamese evacuation from the parts of Vietnam given to the Communists will start as soon as the Vietnamese Government gives the signal. The joint French and Vietnamese committee organising the evacuation will as a general rule allocate places in order of application. The scale of evacuation will depend on the terms of the Geneva agreement which has not been received in Hanoi yet, and on the effect of rival Communist and anti-Communist propaganda.

The evacuation is likely to prove the biggest exodus ever from communism. The 6200 French nationals still in Hanoi will be allowed under the French evacuation plan to take out about 11001 b weight of luggage each if they are unmarried, or 17601 b for a married couple, with an allowance of 2201 b for each child.

This means that shopkeepers will have to leave most of their stock and householders most of their furniture, unless they can get transport for it at their own expense. If only about 50,000 of Hanoi’s 300,000 citizens wish to leave they will be allowed to take out as much luggage as the Fench, but if there is a vast number of them the weight will have to be cut. “Ready for Months” The evacuation scheme has been ready for months in case Hanoi was attacked and women and children had to leave under fire. Military trucks will collect evacuees from their homes, take them to the station* or airport, or direct to Haiphong by road. Women and children will have priority. There will be no priority of the French over the Vietnamese. For millions of peasants in the delta to abandon their ancestral rice paddies appears to be a suicidal cutting off of the only known source of food. Most will undoubtedly stay under Communist or any other regime. Many anti-Communists will, even stay in Hanoi in the effort to keep the small shops or restaurants where they 1 have their life savings.

Between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 delta dwellers are Roman Catholics, who will be torn by their love of the land and their hatred of communism. It will be for this section that the rival propaganda teams will fight. The total French population in Northern Vietnam is about 10,000. This figure includes, 6200 in Hanoi, 3000 in Haiphong, and 200 at the Hongay coalfields north of Haiphong. Fighting Stops on Tuesday

The fighting will stop officially in Indo-China on Tuesday, when the cease-fire negotiated at Geneva goes into effect in some areas of north Vietnam, French sources said today. Full details of all three cease-fire

agreements signed on Wednesday for Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, especially the timing of the pogressive cessation of hostilities, are still officially secret, but it was learned today that the nine-nation conference decided to halt the fighting on a phased programme for Vietnam starting on Tuesday.