e continued from page 4

threads look particularly ridi- culous.

If the Americans who will probably read these lines want to imagine what this vacant space is, and what it looks like on the first day of the New Year, let them visualize a strip as wide as from about 80th Street to 83rd or 84th and as long as from Fifth Avenue to First — on Manhattan. Let them visualize that this strip lacks any build- ings, schools, shops, service sta- tions, garages, medical consult- ing rooms, picture galleries, or restaurants, the Metropolitan Museum or the Frick Museum. Nothing of the kind is present, except a misshappen pile of bits of brick, crushed stone and earth clods, and this pile has buried thousands of people wha used to live here. People who had relatives and friends. The bombs had first dug out a trench for these people, lifting build- ings and earth into the air and then filled this trench with the same earth and fragments, cov- ering what remained of the peo- ple with this pile as a huge long and wide common burial mound.

' Bazaar Levelled In New York, it is true, this pile would have been, higher, because its buildings are larger and higher than in Hanoi. But more people are living in Hanoi

-This week hundreds more Canadians have a clearer under- standing of how to get action in Ottawa because, apart from what the mass media was willing to tell, they’ve heard from peo- ple who were there.

Calling for a resolution of the House of Commons asking Nixon ‘‘to cease unconditionally the bombing and to sign the treaty negotiated in October” a representative delegation of over 50 lobbied<ih*Ottawa Jan: 3;-the eve of the opening of Parlia- ment.

In a meeting with New Demo- cratic Party leader, David Lewis, they were assured. that if the government would not do so the

NDP would move such a resolu- -

tion.

External Affairs Minister Sharp refused to meet with more than six members of the delega- tion. To them he expressed the view that while of course the government deplored the -bomb- ing, they would take no action, such as curtailing exports going to the U.S. under the defense production sharing agreement. The Conservatives’ external af- fairs critic Claude Wagner, who along with about 20 from his caucus met the delegation, would only promise to take the views back to the caucus which would ‘give them serious con- sideration.”

Widely Representative

The delegation which came from a number of points in On- tario and Quebec, included Rev. Clark MacDonald of the United ‘Church, Father Gregory Baum of St. Michael College, Rev. G. R. Hutton of the Anglican Church, |l’Abbe O'Neill from Laval, York University profes- sors Lee Lorch, Don Willmott, and Ed Dosman, Sir George Williams professor Bob Keaton, U. of T. professor Hahs Blumen- feld, Canadian Peace Congress Secretary Jean Vautour, Cana-

Hanoi reporter sees b

in the same area and the build- ings are more crowded. The Kham Thien is one of the most densely populated regions of Hanoi. And although there was a partial evacuation of the popu- lation, most people remained at home in just that area. The bombing occurred late at night when all who lived there were at home, and probably asleep.

What is now waste-land con- tained many, many hundreds of blocks of flats, schools, dozens of small shops, hair-dressing salons and workshops for repair- ing pans, watches and primus stoves. The only thing that had always been lacking here was anything like a military target. In the category of fuel dumps there was perhaps a shop selling kerosene for primus and oil stoves.

The American president once said that the best way of seeing the life of a town is to visit its bazaar. That area, too, had a bazaar. A small, in fact tiny bazaar. In size it was no larger than .a skating rink.

People engaged in peaceful pursuits there. They sold rice wrapped in palm leaves, pork, fish and chickens. One could jndeed study the customs and life of the Vietnamese. One could...

Now a vast crater is in place of the bazaar, with a green

dian Labor Congress representa- tive John Simmonds, CNTU representative A. Dupuis, United Auto Workers representative Danny Donlevy, U.E. representa- tives Art Jenkyn, Nelson Lamcn- tagne, and H. B. Hair, Quakers Peter Crysdale and Nancy Po- cock, the president of the Cana- dian Unitarian Council, Clayton Peterson, Al Nigro, president, St. Mikes Student Council, Voice of Women representative Kay Macpherson, and Gloria Montero Fulton from Toronto and Esther Muhlstok and Mario Scott from Montreal, Ed MacDonald repre- senting the Communist Party. of Canada, Clare Demers from the Parti Communiste du Quebec, Fred Weir from the Young Com- munist League, and many others.

Collective Statement

“Through a long decade, suc- cessive governments of the Unit- ed States,” the delegation’s statement said, “have sought through naked military force to impose their will on the people of Vietnam. We have heard, and dismissed as extremist rantings, the call of General Curtis LeMay that North Vietnam be ‘bombed back into the Stone Age.’ It ap- pears that we now must believe this has become the fixed and Official nolicy of the President of the United States.. But we cannot believe that this latest and most brutal use of what James Reston calls ‘power with- out pity’ will be any more likely to diminish the will of the people of Indochina to achieve their right to self-determination.”

’ The statement continued:

Our shock is all the greater because we, together with the rest of the world, had been led to believe that “peace was at hand” in Indochina, that an aPereement was 99% completed.” Yet from this bright moment of hope President Nixon has plung- ed us back into what surely must be among the blackest

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 1973—PAGE 10

tL aDas--Gtei XP YAAUMAL YACHT SVIVEIAT DiatoHnS

pool of stagnant water at the bottom.

I do not know what guided people who gave orders to de- stroy just that square in Hanoi. Maybe curiosity — a desire to see how bazaars look after be- ing bombed.

I do not know for sure how many bombers there were that ploughed this strip. Dozens of B-52s have taken part in daily raids on Hanoi, beginning on December 18. The Kham Thien is said to have been bombed in three waves. It requires a max- imum of nine bombers, with three in each wave. They are always bombing in that way — in threes.

Maybe they will tell in the U.S. department of the army that the strike had been dealt erroneously. Simply three planes had_ slightly deviated from course. But there could be no mistake if only because all the three groups could not lose their course at once. No, they did not lose their course. The first three aircraft ploughed up several hundred metres; they were followed closely by three other aircraft that continued that strip of death, and the job was completed by the third group of three planes. In Penta- gon jargon it is called carpet bombing, if I am not mistaken.

No one knows the precise

days in the history of the world. We can find no explanation for this action on his part other than that he has decided, in the interests of preserving at all costs the Thieu dictatorship in Saigon, to revoke the undertak- ings he made to accept peace based on a cease fire in place, which are embodied in the agree- ment negotiated in October. Extraordinary Actions

“We believe that this is a crisis which calls for extraordinary ac- tions by peoples and by their governments. It is apparent that this is not a time in which quiet diplomatic representations, nor general statements from indivi- dual political leaders will suffice. We are impressed by the exam- ple of Australia, New Zealand, and Italy. In Sweden the leaders of the country’s five political parties have jointly launched an appeal for two million names on a petition calling on President Nixon to end the bombing. It is quite clear that, as the air strikes continue, there will be many more examples of such un- precedented actions by whole countries and their governments:

“Our delegation, representing a wide scope of labor, church, women’s, university, peace and other organizations has found that all contacts with pub- lic opinion show that there is massive support for such a posi- tion in this country. We have no hesitation in stating that a re- solution such as we _ outline would truly reflect not only the sense of the House of Commons, but the wishes of the over- whelming majority of Cana- dians, and indeed of people throughout the world.

“Whether or not there is bombing tomorrow when the House reconvenes, the crimes have been committed and we can only urge you to take a stand by refusing to accept or condone mass murder and destruction as a tool of negotiation.”

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number of bombs dropped. But it is possible to calculate ap- proximately the tonnage of bombs let loose on those peo- ple. If nine aircraft arrived from Guam, each of them could carry under its wings and in its belly up to 30 tons of death. If their base was Utapao, in Thai- land, each could bring 40 to 45 tons of bombs to Hanoi. If every bomb is taken as weigh- ing 550 lbs. then this “carpet” involved between 1,000 and 1,600 bombs from an altitude of 30,000 ft. within a matter of minutes. Only a few minutes, because the groups of three air- craft follow one another.

Everyone Died

Everyone died here. No one could survive, not a human be- ing, not a living thing.

Now on the first day of the New Year small fires are smok- ing here, made up of palm leaves, giving off almost no flames, only smoke. In order to remove the smell of death. And here and there are small coffins made from plain unfinished wood. They are small not only because the Vietnamese are in general short-statured, but also because none of the coffins con- tains a whole dead body, only bits of bodies.

I do not want to ask the read- ers to forgive me these details. It is not for me to do it.

Next to the wooden boxes are smoking aromatic sticks driven in the ground. which are so fashionable in many New York shops. There they are exotic.

Here they are mourning and disinfectants.

In the waste ground people with white bandages around their heads are digging up the smouldering ruins slowly. These bandages are mourning, too.

A woman carefully inserts the blace of her spade into the earth, peering - intently down. As if she expects that the spade may harm somebody down there. I was told that she had been away from her home dur- ing the bombing. She was visit- ing her friends. She lost here her father, mother and six-year- old son. Now she is trying to find their remains. No tears, no shouting, no gestures that might give away her grief. Only the red sunken eyes.

A Child’s Book

She is helped by two men who are also digging with care. The earth is thrown into a bomb crater nearby, it is car-

ng horrors |

The United States will “dedicate ourselves with patience, 90% and hope. ..”—Henry Kissinger, January 7, 1973.

. empty. She had been digginé

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ried there in a small 5¥ woven basket. One of the yi had excavated a_ child i book, wiped it with his s! and held it out to.the w% Either an ABC book or s thing else with bright pict! And then a pupil’s noté scribbled over with child 1 noughts and crosses. The

man took up both, kept thet the palms of her hands and losing strength put her down on the notebook. probably began to cry. Qui Silently. It was the notebo? her son. He did not go to S¢ yet, but she was already ¢ ing him herself.

At her side stood a © where she hcped to put remained of her parents her son in order to give th® proper burial. But the box

several days now, and still not find anything. And she! the ABC book and the noté there.

Several hours later wh? was passing that women ag I saw a child’s leg from to knee, in that wooden bo*

That is perhaps all thi wanted to give in my first patch. I though earlier thé could visualize the grief 9 Vietnamese and the crimes ing perpetrated by the A” cans here. I did see so # pictures, so many film and vision sequences. No, I di visualize them. He who has seen anything like it ca visualize them.

Ancient Scholars

I want the Americans to ' alize all this in the:r — streets, in Manhattan. I ré the difficulty of doing it. let them try. Perhaps the! one more circumstance that must bear in mind when | paring. The Kham Thien 5 is much older than Manhat 80th streets. It is much ! than New York znd all the | ed States of America. It ‘ into existence 600 years Db! the American War for pendence whose bicentena! to be marked in the US three-and-a-half years’ tim arose in Hanoi at the same as the ancient Temple Literature (which, thank is still intact). In the 12th 13th centuries mathemat scholars and astrologers in that street. Perhaps fron it earned its name—Kham 1 Translated, it means “V the Sky.”