Bombing N. Vietnam
Sir: Having worked for the past three and a half years in Vietnam with an Anglo-American Quaker medical team in one of the most devastered north-eastern provinces of South Vietnam, I feel, as a British citizen, I must protest the recent statement made by the British government that is tantamount to agreeing with the American resumption of the bombing of North Vietnam.
The whole history of the Indochina war has shown that such bombings, both in North and South Vietnam, which I have personally witnessed in the South, have never met with either military or political success. They have merely created thousands of civilian casualties and inflamed the people of Vietnam with a renewed fervour to continue the revolution through military force.
The British government is certainly in no position to act as peace negotiators with the Russians to help bring an end to this barbaric war, having already trained South Vietnamese troops, and even American Green Berets, in our Jungle Warfare School in Johore Baru, Malaya, and then making such a statement as this.
The political and military presence of the British, French and Americans in Indochina has only led to the propping up of one military dictator after another, all of them corrupt and with no love for the people of their country. As long as there is one vestige of American military presence in Vietnam there never will be peace.
My Vietnamese friends, whom I came to love and respect, ask for nothing more than to be left alone to solve their own problems amongst themselves, and look forward to the day when their country will be reunited as one, and liberated from the devastating affects of Western intervention and influence.
Roger D. Marshall c/o American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), 160 North 15th Street, Philadelphia, USA
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