that some sort of changes are on the way in East Asia. But for all the secret diplomacy going on, one thing equally obviously has not changed —and that is that Nixon has no intention of leaving Indochina to itself. The war goes on on all fronts. The elections in South Vietnam have put the military situation in the background, and it is true that the big newsworthy confrontations of earlier in the year have given way in the main to smaller clashes. And US troops are indeed leaving Vietnam. By December, if all goes according to plan, there will be no U.S. combat troops left there. But this is only half the truth. In December there will still be 184,000 troops in Vietnam, and the war is far from winding down. U.S. bombing of the countries of Indochina continues at an enormous level, and on the field the US is still trying to get the Vietnamese to do their dirty work for them.
ESCALATION IN CAMBODIA The U.S. also recently renewed its bombing raids on North Vietnam. About 200 strikes were made, up to 35 miles north of the DMZ. The U.S. claimed they were retaliating against a build-up of missile and anti-aircraft sites in the North.
It is in Cambodia that the picture can be seen most dramaticallythere the war is increasing not winding down. In October B52s dropped 900 tons of explosive over Indochina, half of it on Cambodia's border with South Vietnam. The number of U.S. experts in Phnom Penh rises steadily, and Nixon has requested even more money to run the war next year, $310 million dollars as opposed to the $235 million dollars granted for 1971 (this is only direct expenditure and does not include the bombing or support for South Vietnamese troops). A high proportion of the Cambodian countryside is in the hand hands of the liberation forces, and fierce fighting continues. A big battle is going on on the Cambodian-South Vietnamese border, the outer defences of the approach to Saigon. It was during this battle that US soldiers refused to go on duty, and the US was forced to abandon the Pace base. The South Vietnamese troops remaining are also in trouble.
US ARMY DEMORALISATION The U.S. Army, of course, is well known to be in a bad way, Yet another proof of this is that General Westmoreland has seen fit to circulate a 62-page booklet on how to improve the army. The Washington Post carried out its own investigation, which showed that drugs, violence, boredom, rebellion and racial tension were all rife in the army.
In South Vietnam, attacks, such as those on US bases or against pacification programmes occur all the time, but the scale of the fighting seems to have changed. J.C. Pomonti, a correspondent who knows the area well, has suggested that the struggle has entered a new phase. The NLF, having forced the PRG has been developing small units for precise tasks. Local guerillas are being strengthened, and political cadres reconstructed so that units will emerge that can be adapted to any task. Meanwhile on the political front, the puppets have been entrenching themselves.
THE SITUATION IN CAMBODIA In Cambodia in October, Lon Nol declared a state of emergency. He suspended the normal working of the assembly and announced that he would rule by decree. These measures were necessary, he said, because of the operations of a fifth column. Over 4000 Buddhists demonstrated against Lon Nol's new powers. The US is once again supporting dictators, and can be none too happy with the situation, especially at a time when the foreign aid programme which keeps the war going, has been rejected.
They were none tolhappy either with the one-man election of Tieu. Even US officials admitted the irregularities, and popular violence during the election was only stopped by massive precautions and intimidation.
INTEGRATION FOR SOUTH VIETNAM?
Not content with keeping his supporters in political power, Nixon is busy planning how to keep South Vietnam within the "free world" once the fighting is over. In the last few months a number of studies of the Vietnamese economy have been made. These have been to find out how a new economy, closely enmeshed with the "free world", could be built. One of these studies was carried out for the Institute of Defense Analysis (Pentagon-financed) by Arthur Smithies, whose links with the CIA are well-known.
Columbia University has made another study, and there is also one for the Asian Development Bank. The premise of all these reports is that South Vietnam will remain a state separate from the North, and will be integrated into the economy of the "free world"
The Smithies report announces that the best planning assumption seems to be the withering away of the war, "a process that can last for a decade or more" Smithies finds it easy to forget the millions of refugees and hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, as he gazes happily on the roads and ports, the basis for the new economy, that the war has brought to Vietnam.
From all the reports emerges South Vietnam's dependence on the US. US aid between 1970 and 1975 will probably amount to 13,000 million dollars, of which 9,000 million will be military.
At the same time as ensuring that Vietnam will be available to foreign capitalists, Nixon is still in need of some solution that the withdrawal of US troops, insist that Thieu must go or else there will be no negotiations. For Thieu and the policy of Vietnamisation mean war nor peace.
SUPPORT THE LIBERATION FORCES!
Nixon is expected to make a major speech on Indochina in the next few weeks. Certainly he needs something to take to Peking if the visit is not to be a failure. In Vietnam, there is deadlock; in Laos there are signs of bargaining, but it would not be the first time bargaining has led to nothing. In Cambodia the war expands with US help and no one every talks of "Khmerisation".
We must expect some new pronouncement from Nixon, some new talk of peace. But for Nixon, talk of peace is a smokescreen for more war. We must make sure the smoke is blown away. Don't let Indochina be forgotten. The war is far from over. Nixon still has not answered the PRG's 7 point peace plan. Don't let him forget it. Support the NLF and PRG's legitimate proposals! Support the liberation forces of Laos, Cambodia -Members of Indochina editorial board