ATANGA is incredibly rich in valuable minerals, especially cobalt. Cobalt would be necessary for the Doomsday Bomb. When the Congo became independent, the Western Powers, especially America and Belgium, made a determined effort to preserve for the West the products of Katanga. Lumumba, who was the Congo’s choice as Prime Minister, was murdered, and Tshombe, under Western pressure, was made Prime Minister of the whole country. The country rose “against this decision, and the Americans and Belgians sent a military expedition to enforce their will. This expedition, the British, under the leadership of the Labour Government, supported, and they allowed it to use Ascension Island as a convenient spot from which to conduct the invasion. There is, in consequence, a war of devastation in progress throughout the Congo.. The likelihood is that this will degenerate into guerilla warfare which will continue without securing victory for the West. Perhaps an excerpt from the writing of one of those who was a mercenary fighting for the West in the Congo would bring home the sort of war we are supporting there. I quote this from News of the World for 22nd November, 1964: “On the way to Stanleyville one of our vehicles broke down. We took our gear off it and retreated into the bush. Late in the afternoon we went back to the vehicle, but found it completely®wrecked .. . “The young English lieutenant was furious. ‘We will give the bastards a real lesson.’ He ordered us to move at once on the nearest village and take it apart. “Tt was a familiar enough command. It seemed to me we had been taking villages apart, innocent villages and peaceful farming folk who did not want any part of this war, all the way along the track from far down in the south. “We would turn up unexpectedly, open fire without warning, race through the place, burning every
pathetic shanty and shack to the ground regardless of who might be inside. The idea was to spread the image of our determination and ruthlessness; to terrorize the whole area; to give the rebels an example of what they were in for...
“Tr seemed almost certain that the villagers knew nothing about the activities of the rebels. I doubted they even knew the lorry had been destroyed.
“Tt was just before dusk when we came. Unsuspecting women were hustling around, carrying water and doing about the last of their day’s chores. Children were playing in the dust, laughing and shouting to one another.
“We paused for a few minutes, and then came the order to fire. There was a great crackle of shots from machine guns and our deadly new Belgian rifles. Women screamed and fell. Little children just stood there, dazed, or cartwheeled hideously as bullets slammed into them.
“Then, as usual, we raced into the place, still firing as we went. Some of us pitched cans of petrol on to the homes before putting a match to them. Others threw phosphorous hand grenades, which turned human beings into blazing inextinguishable torches of fire.
“For a while, as we raced along, there was bedlam. Shrieks, moans, shrill cries for mercy. And, above all, the throaty, half-crazed bellowing of those commandoes among us who quite obviously utterly loved this sort of thing.
“Then, as we moved away beyond the village, the comparative silence, the distant, hardly distinguishable criss of the wounded, the acrid smell of burning flesh.”
The account continues, but I do not think that I need pursue it to illustrate my point. The cardinal point in the training of these mercenaries—and again I quote—is “that never, in any circumstances, should prisoners be taken. ‘Even if men, women and children come running to you,’ I was told, ‘even if they fall on
their knees before you, begging for
re don’t hesitate. Just shoot. To
vi Fie
I need hardly say that this young
man was sickened of being a hired
assassin and ceased to be one. But,
in England, under the aegis of the
Labour Government, we are continu-
ing to support this slaughter. On
November 20th, 1964, The Times
announced that Mr. Thomson, our
Minister of State at the Foreign
Office, was informed during the pre-
vious week by the Belgian Govern-
ment that they were engaged in con-
tingency planning with the U.S. Gov-
ernment. Britain then gave her per-
mission to use Ascension Island.
The Times also announced that
Belgian troops were flown to Ascen-
sion Island with British permission.
The Daily Express of 30th November,
1964, reports: “At one, stage the
Cabinet considered sending British
troops. Britain was the first to sug-
gest armed intervention to Belgium.
But officials in Whitehall now say
that the terrain in rebel-held areas
prevents large scale troop landings.”
And, on December 15th, 1964, Mr.
George Thomson, Minister of State
at the Foreign Office, stated: We
give outright support to Tshombe.”’
Yet, two days later our Minister of
Defence (one of them, anyway) “re-
ferred to ‘primitive barbarism’ in the
Congo and said that we had to see
that other parts of Africa and Asia
were not plunged into ‘a similar
state of chaos.’” Does this mean
that we are to uphold similar bloody
and unjustified slaughter otherwhere
in Africa, carried on with the per-
mission and help of the Labour Gov-
ernment? The record is one of which
I as an Englishman, cannot be
proud. Asa member of the Party
responsible, I am sickened.
This item is extracted from an im-
portant speech which Bertrand
Russel! made recently at the London
School of Economics,
The full text is to be published by
the Bertrand Russell Peace Founda-
tion. We hope to carry further ex-
tracts in future.
McNamara's Nuclear Madness by Dave Windsor T is not only on Vietnam that Robert McNamara, U.S. Defence Secretary, shows a complete disregard for reality and callousness over the loss of human life. The following report from the Washington correspondent of the Financial Times shows him speaking glibly of the death of 149,000,000 Americans: Any lingering belief that in a nuclear war exchanges are likely to be confined to military targets on either side does not survive detailed study of the evidence given to Congress by Mr. Robert McNamara, U.S. Defence Secretary. Mr. McNamara’s exposition of current U.S. strategic doctrine makes it clear that American military planners are working mainly on the assumption that a Soviet surprise strike would be directed immediately at American urban centres as well as military targets. The possibility that the Russians might delay their attack on urban targets for perhaps an hour after their initial military attack is discussed, but it is dismissed as “an unlikely contingency.” In either event the American initial response would not avoid Russian urban centres, One of the ideas thrown out by Mr. McNamara in his famous speech in June, 1962, that attacks might be limited to exchanges between “forces” — has thus finally died. 1.—The primary object of U.S. strategic forces — ICBMs and manned bombers — is deterrent by “assured. destruction” — that is, an infallible capability of destroying the enemy “as a viable ‘society.” This is defined as the destruction of at least one-quarter to one-third of the population and two-thirds of the industrial capacity. This task is made easier by the concentration of three-quarters of the Russian population in 200 urban areas, and the concentration of skilled Chinese personnel in even fewer. By the early 1970s, says the Defence Secretary, American calculations show that “our already authorised strategic missile force,” if it were directed on the aggressor’s urban areas could cause more than Ioom.
fatalities and destroy about 80 per cent. of his industrial capacity. It is clear from the content that the “if” here is scarcely hypothetical. 2.—The secondary object of the strategic forces is “damage limitation.”” Mr. McNamara’s argument is directed to show thhat unless the Russians delayed after an initial attack on military targets there would be very little damaging limiting role for ICBMs and manned bombers on which they are targeted would already be on their way to America. As between one form of defence system and another, Mr. McNamara shows that the best value for money in terms of American lives saved comes from an increased fall-out shelter programme. The calculation is based on an assessment that an early Russian attack on urban areas would cause 149m. American deaths, This figure could be reduced to 120m. by the expenditure of $s,000m. on a full shelter programme. Further reductions to a level of about 80m. could be made by expenditure of a further $10,000om. on increased anti-missile defence | systems. But Mr. McNamara warned that if the Soviets choose to frustrate this defensive attempt the extra cost cost to them would be substantially less than the extra cost to America.
z March 4, 1965 — THE WEEK
SPS
A Message to
HE United States has no con-
ceivable justification for its
mad and dangerous actions in Viet-
nam. President Johnson won an
election with an overwhelming
majority of the popular vote.. He
has a masgive majority in the Con-
gress. Eighty-one per cent. of
Americans polled favour a negoti-
ated end to the war in Vietnam. He
has had two months to accept
negotiations with China, Russia,
North Vietnam and the National
Liberation Front, all of whom are
agreeable. His decision to bom
North Vietnam can only mean that
the war councils in the United
States are seeking to destroy China’s
industrial potential and wish to create
a situation in which they will have an
excuse to do so, This is the mea-
sure of the world crisis which has
been imposed on us by America. We
have little time to rally opinion every-
where to stop the United States and
to expedite a united peace in South
East Asia.
19/2/65