Foreign Volunteers Pledge Readiness to Fight (FBIS, 6 Apr 1965)

=== [PDF page 1] === FOREIGN VOLUNTEERS PLEDGE READINESS TO FIGHT Hanoi VNA Domestic Service in Vietnamese 0833 GMT 6 April 1965--B (Text) Tens of thousands of Korean, Indonesian, Venezuelan, Indian, and Japanese people have volunteered to go and fight in South Vietnam. In Korea, comrade Kim Wal-yong, chairman of the Central Committee of the General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea declared on 4 April: "The Korean working class is fully ready to go and help the fighting South Vietnamese people any time it is needed." A large number of Korean workers is earnestly (hoping?) to be able to participate in the volunteer army to go and fight directly in South Vietnam. In factories, agricultural cooperatives, and schools, workers, cooperative members, and students are actively signing up as volunteers to go to South Vietnam. On 2 April, all the workers at the Pyongyang electric locomotive factory, professors and students of the Kim Il-song University in Pyongyang, and members of the Korean- Vietnamese friendship cooperative in south Pyongyang enlisted in the volunteer army to go and fight in South Vietnam. Among those who signed up as volunteers for Vietnam are two combat heroes: (Choe Sang-chae--phonetic), who had shot down 13 U.S. planes, and (Cha Song-yun-- phonetic), who had killed or wounded 146 of the enemy in the anti-U.S. national salvation war. Among the members of the Korean-Vietnamese cooperative who had signed up as volunteers to go and fight in Vietnam is (Kim Ho-kun--phonetic), an-old peasant who volunteered to let both his sons join the volunteer army. With a voice full of emotion, he said: "I am now 50 years old and thus cannot go and help our Vietnamese brothers. However, I am ready to let my two sons participate in the volunteer army. As for me, in order to help the fighting Vietnamese brothers, I shall produce more food, including the quota scheduled for my two sons after they have left to fight in Vietnam." In Indonesia, the secretariat of the Indonesian Peasants Organization issued a statement saying: "The Indonesian peasants are ready to become volunteers to join the Vietnamese people in their fight against U.S. imperialism." The Indonesian Youth Front and Students Federation have issued statements pointing out that all their members are ready to go at any time as volunteers to fight against U.S. imperialism in South Vietnam. On 1 April, many members of the Indonesian Railroad Trade Union went to the DRV Embassy and office of the NFLSV delegation in the capital of Djakarta to express their wish to go to South Vietnam to fight and annihilate the U.S. imperialists. There were people who came from afar such as Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Bali. === [PDF page 2] === In the afternoon of 4 April, a group of about 100 women volunteers led by Mrs. Umi Sardjono, president of the Indonesian Women's Movement, went to our embassy and the office of the NFLSV delegation. Most of the volunteer sisters had taken part in the armed struggle for Indonesia's national independence or had had military training. Among them are wives of Gomrades Lukman and Sudisman, leaders of the Indonesian Communist Party, and Mme. (Rukiat--phonetic), a famed Indonesian writer. In India, 100 Indian students of the Punjab University sent a letter asking President Ho's permission to go and fight in Vietnam. The letter reads: "We, students of the Punjab University, wish to sign up for the volunteer army to go and fight against the eriminal imperialist hoodlums and bandits so as to put an end to the U.S. intervention in the Vietnamese people's internal affairs." In the afternoon of 2 April, a delegation of Venezuelan students who are studying in Czechoslovakia met the repvresentative organ of the NFLSV in Prague to express their aspiration to go and fight in the ranks of the South Vietnam Liberation Army in response to the 22 March call of the NFLSV, Fourteen Venezuelan cadres and students of both sexes working and studying in Czechoslovakia have volunteered to go and fight in South Vietnam. These Venezuelan friends revealed that all Venezuelan citizens in Czechoslovakia have saved and contributed an amount of money to buy arms as gifts for the South Vietnam Liberation Army. They all voiced their earnest desire to soon go and fight in South Vietnam. In the evening of 5 April, a delegation of Japanese working and studying in Peking led by Satonji, Japanese peace partisan went to the Vietnam Embassy to express the approval and support of the Japanese in Peking for the Vietnamese people's struggle against U.S. imperialist aggression. Saionji revealed that on 4 April, the Japanese working and studying in Peking held an urgont meeting condemning the " yapanese Government for colluding with U.S. imperialisn, lettins it use its base in Okinawa to carry out aggression against South Vietnam and provruative attacks on the DRV. The meeting set up an action committee to realisticall ly supp rt the Vietnamese people's struggle until final victory. Saionji handed Comrade Hoang Bac a resolution of the meeting aduressed to the central committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front to which was attached 1,000 yuan contributed by the Japanese friends to support the Vietnamese people. In the evening of 1 April, ail the cadres and working youth (among?) the Vietnamese overseas students in Moscow held a meeting at which they decided to launch among the (Vietnamese?) overseas students in the USSR a "three ready" movement calling. for: Readiness to return to their fatherland to join the army and to fight and annihilate U.S. imperialism at their fatherland's first call; readiness to go anywhere and accept any task requested by their fatherland; readiness to surmount all difficulties to fulfill well all the overseas students! tasks. So far, over 100 Vietnamese students who are studying in the USSR have written applications volunteering to return to their fatherland to fight against the U.S. aggressors.