LANS for a student March on Washington to protest against the war in Vietnam are taking shape. The demonstration is scheduled for Saturday, April 17, and will begin with a picket line at the White House. The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), who are organising the march, issued their official call on Feb. 14, urging “the participation of all students who agree with us that the war in Vietnam injures both Vietnamese and Americans, and should be stopped.” The SDS call says, “The current war in Vietnam is being waged on behalf of a succession of unpopular South Vienamese dictatorships, not on behalf of freedom, No Americansupported South Vietnamese regime in the past few years has gained the support of its people, for the simple reason that the people overwhelmingly want peace, self-determination,
and the opportunity for development. American prosecution of the war has deprived them of all three. “This war is fundamentally a civil war, waged by South Vietnamese against their government; it is not a ‘war of aggression’. Military assistance from North Vietnam and China has been minimal; most guerrilla weapons are home-made or are by forced settlement in “strategic hamlets’; again and again Government military attacks fail because the people tip off the guerrillas; the people and the guerrillas are inseparable .. .” The call goes on to point out that the war is a losing war. “Well over half the area of South Vietnam is captured American arms. The areas of strongest guerrilla control are not the areas adjacent to North Vietnam. And the people could not and cannot be isolated from the guerrillas
already governed by the National
Liberation Front . . . Thousands of
Government troops have defected —
the traditional signal of a losing
counter-guerrilla war. How many
more lives must be lost before the
Johnson administration accepts the
foregone conclusions? .. .
“Tt is a ‘war never declared by
Congress, although it costs almost
$2 million a day and has cost billions
of dollars . .. We are outraged that
$2 million.a day is expended for a
war on the poor in Vietnam, while
government financing is so desper-
ately needed to abolish poverty at
home. What kind of America is it
whose response to poverty and
oppression in South Vietnam is
napalm and defoliation? Whose res-
ponse to poverty and oppression in
Mississippi is — silence?
“Tt is a hideously immoral war.
America is committing pointless
murder.”
For more information on the
March write: Students for a Demo-
cratic Society, 119 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10003. U.S.A.
Bob Gregory
SPAIN : Workers want e own Unions