ANSWERS RIGHT-WING TORY CHARGES
At a well-attended press conference in London March 19, three leaders of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, Mike Martin, secretary; Pat Jordan, chairman; and Tariq Ali, a leading member of the Ad Hoc Conmittee, repudiated allegations printed in the “yellow press" that they had set out to deliberately provoke violence on March 17.
"At no time," stated Pat Jordan, "did we advocate a confrontation with the police or violence against the police." Tariq Ali stated that the police were as "responsible as anyone for what happened." Mike Martin informed the conference that certain allegations made by several papers were being considered by the Canpaign's lawyers to see if they were actionable.
Since the Sunday demonstration, the reactionary press has been carrying a campaign of intimidation against the organizers. Right-wing Tories were the first to raise the cry, to be quickly joined by some Labour MPs.
The three spokesmen for VSC issued
the following statement:
"We wish to point out that we at-
tempted to deliver letters of protest to
the American Embassy -- as had been
agreed to by the police -- but were pre-
vented from doing so, in the first in-
stance, by the crowd in front of the
square. When we attempted to get through
the police lines to tell the crowd to
proceed with the march as planned, we
were prevented from going forward by the
police.
"But having said that, we think it
is absolutely hypocritical for the press
and the Government to moan and whine
about the 'violence' of the demonstrators.
What can be expected when we are constant-
ly exposed -- in the press and television
-- to the daily crimes of the Americans
in Vietnam: napalm, torture, bombing,
etc.? As far as we are concerned, the mood
and temper of the demonstration on Sunday
was determined by the nature of the Amer-
ican aggression. It is impossible to re-
main calm and peaceful before the barbarism of American aggression in Vietnam. As our president Bertrand Russell has said: to remain quiet, to acquiesce in face of such barbarism is to condone it. Many of those who have been 'shocked' by events on Sunday have not made one word of protest about events in Vietnam.
"Frustration has increased because all efforts to turn the Americans from their course seem to have failed, and especially because the Labour Government has reneged on every promise it ever made on Vietnam. Its leader, Harold Wilson, just ignores his own party's annual conference decision on Vietnan.
"We are convinced that all those who are concerned about the war will seek to use whatever means are necessary to
influence the Government to change its
policy of slavishly following Johnson.
We do not think that there is anything
alien in this to British tradition. It
was not until the suffragettes used the
most militant means -- which resulted in
much violence and the smashing of windows
that their voices were listened to and
women won the vote. Perhaps the Vietnam
movement will have to do the same.
"For our part, we are not going
to let ourselves be intimidated by the
press or by Tory MPs. We plan to counter-
escalate and intensify our opposition to
the Government's support for the Ameri-
cans. Last Sunday's demonstration was
only a beginning of our campaign against
American aggression in Vietnam and in
solidarity with the people of Vietnam
against that aggression."
VALENTIN