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THE TESTIMONY OF DO VAN NGOC
[One of the most moving moments at the Stockholm hearings of the International War Crimes Tribunal came when a 9-year-old Vietnamese boy, badly burned over the lower abdomen by napalm, offered his testimony as to war crimes conmmitted by the U.S. invaders of his country. An observer said that the contrast between the brave little boy and the barbarous use of American technology brought tears to the eyes of those present. The following is the full text of the statement made by this witness. ]
My name is Do Van Ngoc, 9 years old, from the village of Vinh, Tuy, hamlet of Vinh Minh, district of Quang Minh, province of Quang Minh, the son of Mr. Do Oj and Mrs. Ha Thi Giee; both my parents are rice growers.
On the afternoon of June 16, 1966, I was looking after the oxen with my two friends, named Ha Khec and Do Van Giau, when three American planes appeared from over the sea and dropped bombs on the place where we were.
The bombs exploded and the flames [Please turn to page 539]
Vol. 5, No. 21
May 26, 1967
Guerrilla Front in Bolivia
Pictured as "Impregnable"
October Antiwar Protest
Set for Washington, D.C.
Hugo Blanco Goes
on Hunger Strike
i]
What Three Parades Show
on Rating of Vietnam War
@
Analysis of Forces Behind
Coup d'Etat in Greece
&
General Strike in France —
New Test for deGaulle
®
Text of Sartre's Address
at War Crimes Tribunal
New York, N.Y. 10010
New York, N. Y. 10010.
GUERRILLA FRONT IN BOLIVIA PICTURED AS "IMPREGNABLE"
[The reports concerning the opening of a guerrilla front in southeastern Bolivia have been so contradictory that until the report below was published, World Outlook considered it best to adopt a reserved attitude.
[The main source of information was the Barrientos regime, one of the most unreliable in all of Latin America -- and that is saying a good deal. What it reported one day canceled out what it had said the previous day.
{The Johnson administration appeared to be dubious as to the accuracy of the accounts, although this did not prevent it from sending additional military supplies and a number of "advisers" and experts in counterguerrilla war.
{It should be added that the sudden reports about guerrilla activities came on the eve of the Punta del Este Conference sponsored by the Johnson administration and were utilized to help whip up the "hate Cuba" propaganda. Moreover, the focusing of attention on the southeast part of Bolivia was not without a certain value in helping to draw a screen over the savage witch-hunt of political opponents which the Barrientos regime has been conducting since last January.
{Various journalists appear to have been trying to ascertain the truth about the reports of a new guerrilla front. Three journalists who went there were promptly seized by the Barrientos regime and one of them, Régis Debray, was accused of being the "political commissar" of the alleged guerrilla group. (See World Qutlook, May 19, p. 507.)
[The Paris daily Le Monde sent one of its best correspondents, Marcel Niedergang, to Bolivia. An unusually reliable journalist, his dispatches have been awaited with interest. His reports concerning Régis Debray soon pointed up a number of lies on the part of the Barrientos regime.
(Arriving in the guerrilla zone, he seems to have succeeded in interviewing some of the representatives of political tendencies that have been driven underground. Coupling this information with facts gleaned from other sources, he offered his first conclusions concerning the guerrilla front in the May 18 issue of Le Monde. We offer below some extracts from this article.]
* * x
(Niedergang begins by reporting the March 23 incident in which a govern-
ment patrol stumbled into an ambush on
the Nancahuazti River north of Lagunillas,
an oil town in the province of Santa Cruz.
A sublieutenant named Amezaga, six sol-
diers and a civilian employee of the Bo-
livian state oil company, one "Vargas,"
were killed. ]
* * *
The news was not released offi-
cially in La Paz until Monday March 27;
the authorities preferring to remain si-
lent at first...
According to a communiqué of the
army high command, Sublieutenant Ameza-
ga's lost patrol was charged with "study-
ing indications of a forest trail" and
the "quick reaction of the forces of law
and order enabled them to capture some
prisoners, a jeep, radio equipment, some
suitcases containing uniforms and Castro-
Communist propaganda of Cuban origin."
A quite different version is of-
fered at Marietta's in Camiri. "For sev-
eral months people in Camiri had noticed
the incessant coming and going of 'Coco'
Perero and his brother Marco, both of
whom are from Beni. Congenial, friendly,
with an easy smile and ‘abrazo' [equiva-
lent to a slap on the back], they said
they had bought a farm near Nancahuazi to
raise stock. People around here ended up
just the same thinking that the two
brothers were buying an abnormal amount
of supplies for their employees. Around
Lagunillas and Monteagudo, they made no
objection to paying double the price for
chickens and meat. At first it was
thought that a new clandestine plant for
making cocaine was involved, these being
numerous in the region. Then things said
in confidence by an employee of the con-
pany about men coming down from the moun-
tains to the Perero farm led the govern-
ment authorities to send a patrol accom-
panied by the guide 'Vargas' to see what
was involved."
* * *
[About ten kilometers from the Pe-
rero farm this army unit ran into a genu-
ine military training camp. ]
x * *
From all appearances, the unex-
pected invasion by the Amezaga patrol
caught the guerrillas by surprise. They
had not expected to be involved in action
so quickly. Actually, three months earli-
er, a young Bolivian technician had by
chance met the Perero brothers in the
Monteagudo market. He knew them well in
Europe when he was a student there. Marco
and "Coco" Perero belonged to an extreme
left formation, but at the end of 1965 they decided, it seems, to join a pro- Chinese group, the leader of which is Oscar Zamora, former general secretary of the International Student Union in Prague.