RUSSELL'S APPEAL TO NEGRO SOLDIERS IN VIETNAM
(The following "Message from Bertrand Russell to American Negro soldiers in Vietnam," dated September 19, was released to the press in London. ]
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I address myself to you, American Negro soldiers, because you are engaged in a war so unjust and cruel, against an Asian people who wish only to live better and be left alone. Today in the United States the brutality which the Vietnamese experience at the hands of the American army is experienced by American Negroes, whether in the North or South of the United States.
You may know that I have established an international War Crimes Tribunal, which has been set up to examine and condemn the
terrible crimes committed against the people of Vietnam. Gas, chemicals, jelly-gasoline, acids, lazy dogs, torture and mutilation of prisoners -- all these horrors are being committed by American soldiers in Vietnam, on orders from Washington. At the same time, in: Harlem, Watts, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta and in Mississippi, American Negroes are tortured and killed. Humiliation and brutality are imposed on Negro children and families across the United States.
It. is clear that the same Government and the same power structure which commits these acts against Negro citizens of the United States is directing acts of cruelty against the Vietnamese. I. think you know from your own experience in Vietnam that the people of: Vietnam suffer the way oppressed American Negroes suffer in the United States. I think you know also that the oppressor is the same in each case.
I appeal to you, American Negro soldiers, to think where your real struggle lies. Is it in Vietnam, or is it in defence of your own people against oppression inside the United States? Refuse to fight this dirty war any longer. Come forward with evidence of the crimes of Johnson and the U.S. Government in Vietnam. I have already appealed to American soldiers in general to do this, but I am addressing this particular appeal to you personally, as Negroes, because the American Negro is made to suffer more than any other group, both in the United States and in Vietnam.
You know that 430 percent of the U.S. army in Vietnam consists of American Negroes. You are used to fight the dirty wars of the Johnson Government not only because the U.S.Government assigns to its Negro population the dirtiest and the most dangerous jobs, but because the Johnson Government fears courageous and alert Negro men in the United States, who will defend their people against racism, poverty, police brutality and death. Militant Negro organisations are supporting our War Crimes Tribunal in the United States and condemning the war in Vietnam. This is because the struggle against the war in Vietnam and the struggle for the rights of American Negroes is the same struggle against the same enemy. —
I extend to you my greetings and my warm feelings, and I know you will respond to the appeal of your people in the United States and your brothers who are the Vietnamese people themselves.