VIETNAMESE FREEDOM FIGHTERS APPEAL TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
{The following appeal to the American people was issued February 7 by Superior Thich Thien Hao on behalf of the South Viet Nam People's Committee for Solidarity with the American People, of which he is vice-president. ]
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Dear friends,
The South Vietnamese people are living boiling moments of seething struggle. Patriotic people of all strata all over South Viet Nam have mounted strong attacks on the key organs of the U-S. government and the Saigon administration. Millions of people all over the countryside and in over 87 towns, cities, provincial and district capitals, including the cities of Saigon, Danang and Hue, which are regarded by the U.S. and the Saigon administration as their safest bases, have risen in one accord to achieve the right to be master of the nation, and to live in freedom, peace and
happiness. Many patriotic organizations
have been set up. People from all walks
of life, including patriotic personali-
ties, intellectuals, industrialists,
businessmen, religious believers, have
joined patriotic anti-US and antipuppet
organizations. What is most significant
is that many soldiers of the Saigon army
have left the army and set up insurgent
groups to fight the enemy beside the
People's Liberation Armed Forces.
The above events completely flout
[expose] the plea made by President John-
son that 470,000 American troops are in
South Viet Nam at the “request of the
South Vietnamese people." The "Thieu Ky
government" rigged up by the White House
which has tried to make it a "constitu-
tional" government through the recent
farcical "elections" has been exposed as
a gang of rotten henchmen of the U.S. At
the same time, General Westmoreland's
boastful claims about the "victories" of
the U.S. and allied troops in South Viet
Nam have been flouted [exposed].
What has triggered this uprising in almost all towns, cities and provincial and district capitals in South Viet Nam?
The present uprising is the inevitable result of so many sufferings caused to the South Vietnamese people by the domination throughout the past 13 years of a dictatorial and fascist rule set up by the U.S. government.
The hatred burning for a long time now in the South Vietnamese people's hearts has increased in face of the violation by the U.S. and Thieu Ky clique of the order on the suspension of military attacks on the recent occasion of Christmas, New Year's Day and the Lunar New Year Festival issued by the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation. Especially on the Lunar New Year Festival, while the NFL ordered a cease-fire for seven days the Thieu Ky junta shortened the period of truce set by them from 48 hours to 36 hours and finally cancelled their truce, and sent planes to raid heavily populated areas, massacring our compatriots right in the traditional festive days of our nation.
To save the honor of our Fatherland and to punish the murderers, the South Vietnamese people, with the strong support of the People's Liberation Armed Forces, are closing heir ranks and firmly heading forward to attain at all costs their legitimate goals: independence, sovereignty, freedom, democracy, peace, neutrality, food, clothes and land, and a healthy life. They are demanding that the U.S. government withdraw the American and satellite troops from South Viet Nam and let the South Vietnamese people set-— tle themselves their own affairs without foreign interference.
Dear American friends,
In face of the new development of the situation in South Viet Nam, on behalf of the South Viet Nam People's Conmmittee for Solidarity with the American people, I earnestly call on the Americans of all strata ~- prominent personalities, intellectuals, religious and social activists, mothers, wives, youths, students, laborers, businessmen, Americans of various nationalities and American residents abroad, to side with the South Vietnamese people, sympathize with them and support their struggle. We earnestly call on you, in the interests of the Vietnamese and American peoples, for the sake of the life and happiness of our children now being shattered in this war, for social justice and world peace, to take stronger actions: demand that the U.S. government stop at once its aggressive war in Viet Nam and the draft of American youths for that dirty war, withdraw all U.S. troops so as to end early that war, in
"DIFFICULT TO DISLODGE." The tenacity ot
the Vietnamese