PEACE EFFORTS REBUFFED

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30954, 10 January 1966, Page 11

PEACE EFFORTS REBUFFED

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) TOKYO, Jan. 9. China, the Soviet Union and North Vietnam have again rebuffed American peace moves in Vietnam, the Associated Press reported. Through its official party newspaper, China today categorically rejected United States overtures for peace. A top Soviet policy-maker, Mr Alexander Shelepin, on a visit to Hanoi, yesterday accused the United States of “aggression” against Vietnam and demanded the withdrawal

of American troops from South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Premier. Mr Pham Van Dong, called American moves “a deceitful campaign.” China made its rejection through the Peking “People’s Daily" which said: “The only way to restore peace to Vietnam and Indo-China is to thoroughly defeat the United States imperialists.” The editorial, carried in a Chinese language broadcast monitored and translated in Tokyo, said “The United States wants to have talks first and withdraw troops afterwards.” It said, “this could only result in talks being held and troop withdrawal remaining unfulfilled.” The editorial claimed that

the United States, acting on the assumption that neither side could gain a decisive military victory in South Vietnam, was now hoping to end the fighting by negotiation. Mr Shelepin, reputed to be the No. 2 man in the Soviet Communist Party said in Hanoi on Friday that the Soviet Union would go on giving aid to the Vietnamese. Mr Pham brushed aside the United States suggestion for peaceful negotiation through the lull in the bombing of North Vietnam.

In a speech shortly after Mr Shelepin’s arrival, he said: “Of late, the United States Government has launched a deceitful campaign which it called ‘quest of peace’ and played the trick of a temporary suspension of bombing of North Vietnam to show that it had good will.” The United States President, Johnson, declared that the United States would pursue peace tirelessly, sent representatives to many countries and put forward the so-called new peace proposals. “Let us see whether the peace words of the United States match its deeds.

“Absolutely no. In reality, the United States ruling circles are still stubbornly pursuing their aggressive policy in Vietnam and clinging to South Vietnam in an attempt to perpetuate the partition of Vietnam. “This is made very clear by the 14 points of United States President Johnson and in the latest statements of the United States ruling circles,” the Premier said.

He added that political settlement of the Vietnam war could be solved only after the United States accepted North Vietnam's four points for peace and “has stopped unconditionally and for good its air raids and all other acts of war against the democratic republic of Vietnam.”

The counter’s four points include a withdrawal of all United States forces from South Vietnam.

“Any war is bound to end sometime. The fact is that the American aggressors are losing the fighting on the South Vietnam battlefield. But the Johnson Government, refusing to recognise this, is continuing to pour its soldiers into Vietnam. . . .”

The newspaper argued that before the Geneva Agreements were signed in 1954, there would have been grounds for calling peace talks while fighting was still in progress.

“But today we have the Geneva Agreements, whose obligations the United States also shoulders,” it said. “If the United States intends to abide sincerely by the agreements, it becomes obvious that there is no need for talks at all. “If the United States will withdraw its forces under terms of the agreement, that is all that is needed.” Hanoi Radio quoted Mr Shelepin as saying at a Hanoi reception last night: “The U.S. imperialists must cease their aggression, withdraw from Vietnam, must not challenge Vietnam and the heroic Vietnamese people." The broadcast monitored in Tokyo said Mr Pham also spoke at the, reception, given in honour of Mr Shelepin and his Soviet delegation.

Mr Shelepin said Vietnam belonged to the Vietnamese people and “only the Vietnamese people have the right to solve all their problems, including the reunification of their country. . . .

“The line for solving the problem of peace in Vietnam has been expounded in the four-point stand of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the stand of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation (Viet Cong).

“The Soviet people and the whole of progressive mankind approve and support these stands,” the Soviet leader was quoted as saying. From Washington, an A.A.P.-Reuter correspondent, John Heffernan, summed up problems the Communist rebuffs have posed for the White House:

President Johnson today faced some of the most testing decisions of his 26 months in office—a decision dictated by the spectre of a continuing war of attrition in Vietnam. Within the next few days the President will be confronted with these weighty judgments on the future of his far-ranging diplomatic quest for peace talks on Vietnam:

Has his peace probe failed? Should he set a time limit for this diplomatic search for peace talks? Should the pause in American bombing attacks on North Vietnam — begun on Christmas Eve —continue into the New Year? In the absence of a direct reply from Hanoi to his call for unconditional peace talks, the President is likely to come under political pressure to make a firm decision on these critical issues.