GENERAL STRIKE IN SAIGON
It is almost a year since Washington decided to topple the Diem regime, [See World Outlook November 8, 1963, ] The hope was that a new puppet government would win popular support and prove more capable of conducting the dirty war against the FNL [Front National de Libération]. It turned. out to be a fatal move, Neither the generals nor the civilians favored by the U.S, State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency have shown the slightest capacity to form any kind of stable power, The generals have displayed the greatest
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political stupidity, engaging in repeated coups d'état in light opera style. For some days the only civilian at the disposal of the U.S, “Nadvisors" was one Nguyen Xuan Oanh, who spent his adult life in Japan and the United States and who is said to hold an American passport issued in the name of "Jack Owen,"
The fragility of the regime was dramatically demonstrated when students, demonstrating in the streets, knocked General Khanh out. of the capital for several weeks, the "strong man" reportedly suffering a “mental collapse" that was nonetheless not a "nervous breakdown," Buddhists and Catholics, fighting in the streets, further paralyzed — the power structure set up by the American military, diplomatic and spy services,
The situation has been developing toward a climax, Inoreas-< ing military successes have been registered by the FNL, widening the territories under its control, The battleground is moving closer to Saigon. Demonstrations have flared up in various areas against the puppet government. <A noteworthy one was the uprising September 20 of a mountain tribe especially trained by the Americans to fight the FNL, The tribesmen were reported to have arrested their American advisors and, armed with bows and arrows, to have seized the Ban Me Thuot radio station. — a .
Now a most significant development has occurred, For the first time in the years of civil strife and American intervention, the working-class masses of Saigon have moved onto the political stage, : a cs
A 48-hour general strike was called for September 2l and 22, It involved the workers in transportation, water supply, electricity, railways and many plants. On September 21, tens of thousands of workers demonstrated in the streets. The strike was all the more significant since it was completely illegal ,
The leaders of the Cv? [Confédération Vietnamienne du Travail], which has some 300,000 members, denied that the strike had any political aims. The primary objective was to compel Vimtex, a textile plant employing 2,000 workers, to take back 1,500 workers locked out by management following the government proclamation of a state of emergency August 7,
But. although the general strike was proclaimed to have only a limited aim, it must be considered in the context of the present situation. It should be noted, moreover, that the strikers began. adding other: demands -- recognition of the right to strike and to hold trade-union meetings despite the state of emergency proclaimed by the government, They also demanded an end to military consoription and an end to the state of emergency. The strike obviously implies a great deal politically.
Before World War II, Saigon was the center of a strong revolu-
tionary movement, It even had a considerable Trotskyist tradition. The present top trade-union leaders were installed, it is true, by the Diem regime. But there is no lack of cadres in the trade-union movement who have a socialist orientation,
During the years of terror under the Diem regime and the military dictatorship, workers under special surveillance could not budge. They had to wait patiently until the situation eventually reached such ripeness that the downfall of the system was obviously near.
That is the point now reached, According to Max Clos, special Saigon correspondent of the Paris daily Le Figaro, the strike was launched. following "pressure from the rank and file. . . actually brought to bear for only eight days." He reports that there were ‘heated discussions among the trade-union leaders," that "some of them were against a strike under any circumstances, fearing that the government would accuse them of playing into the hands of the Vietcong. They did not succeed in imposing their position," Le Figaro, September 22.] a
The same: correspondent provides, evidence, perhaps unconsciously, of the self=assurance of the workers, He asked one of the strike leaders if he did not fear the intervention of the army. "The army is tired," he was told, "I am sure that it will not march against the workers,"
The 48shour strike testifies to the political understanding of the workers. After so many years under the yoke of the oppressor, they do not intend to move blindly. They have begun with a limited movement in order to test the ground, to feel out the resistance,
The workers of Saigon are sizing up their own strength, They are initiating a course that can bring: an end to the war and assure a solution for South Vietnam and at the same time Vietnam as a whole,
Through their strike action, the Saigon workers have given the lie to the imperialists who claim that the struggle in South Vietnam is led by the Communists of North Vietnam and by Peking, The struggle of the FNL guerrillas is based primarily on the peasants of the delta region, With the strike of the Saigon workers, the overwhelming bulk of the population of South Vietnam has now lined up actively against the generals in the service of U.S. imperialism,
The entire world should rally to the side of the Vietnamese people. Everywhere the demand should be raised to withdraw the American troops, Their continued presence in this part of the world, as still another mysterious incident in the Gulf of Tonkin demon~ strates, constitutes a standing threat to widen the armed conflict under the lying pretext of defending the freedom of a people who above all want to free themselves from the presence of these intruders.
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