SWISS DEMONSTRATORS TELL U.S. TO GET OUT OF VIETNAM
Zurich
A meeting packed to capacity with some 800 persons, mostly youth, passed a resounding declaration of solidarity with the antiwar forces in the U.S. and the National Liberation Front October 21.
The mass meeting climaxed a day of protest actions against the war in Vietnem. Under the sponsorship of the "Prog-essive Students" of Zurich, groups of young activists circulated through the city with loudspeakers, banners and leaflets. They held ad hoc "teach ins" to inform the people about International Vietnam Day and the demand to withdraw the U.S. forces from Vietnan.
In Lausanne during the preceding week, six to eight hundred young people demonstrated their opposition to the American aggression in Vietnam. They staged a successful march that wound up with a meeting, both of them featuring advanced slogans demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnan.
Besides this, the "Centrale Sani-
taire Suisse," a left~wing medical soli-
darity organization formed during the
Spanish Civil War, is touring the country
with an X-ray truck. This is to be sent
to North Vietnam in response to a special
appeal from the North Vietnamese Red
Cross. The aim of the tour is to collect
money to buy the truck for this purpose
and to show the population documentary
evidence of the atrocities being commit-
ted by the U.S. forces in Vietnam.
In 1964 public opinion in Switzer-
land was generally "more American than
the Americans." It has shifted in the
last two years to an anti-Johnson posi-
tion; and thousands began demonstrating
in favor of ending the war in Vietnam
through negotiations.
Now, for the first time, in Lau-
sanne and Zurich, sizeable forces of the
left, outside the tiny, splintered pro-
Maoist sects, have come out openly to
raise the banner of solidarity with the
National Liberation Front.
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