Vietnamese Charge American Ill Will

Two activists in the Vietnamese anti-war movement last night accused the United States of continuous hostility towards Vietnam since World War II at an Institute of Politics seminar on Indochina.

Ngo Vinh Long, of the Vietnam Resource Center of Cambridge, traced the history of American involvement in Vietnam to U.S. commitments to French rule made during World War II.

American leaders overlooked French "exploitation of the Vietnamese peasantry," and left "no way out for the peasant but revolution," Long said.

Bloody Pacification

He said that after the French left, the U.S. took over Vietnam by installing the Diem regime and starting an "obnoxious and bloody pacification program," that drove the peasantry into villages resembling concentration camps.

This repressive program continued throughout the war, Long said.

America intervened in Vietnam solely for economic reasons, he said, rather than for her professed democratic motives.

Loose Attitude

David Trong, of the Vietnamese-American Reconciliation Center in Washington, said the United States has contined its deliberate policy of hostility toward Vietnam since the fall of the Thieu regime last spring.

He said leaders of American foreign policy like Secretary of State Henry Kissinger '50, had feelings of "bitterness and resentment" toward Vietnam, resulting in an attempted "policy of balkanization" in Indochina.

Infiltration

Balkanization, Trong said, tries to disrupt the unity of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam by aggravating border disputes and infiltrating those countries with Thai agents.

"The U.S. policy of hostility, balkanization and internal problems remaining from the Thieu regime have led Vietnam to move faster toward reunification," he said.

Impression

This, and the failure of balkanization, will force the United States to recognize political realities in Indochina, Trong said.

He said it will also put pressure on the United States to make reparations, which the Ford administration now refuses to talk about.