Johnsons message was no different from the previous statements of the U.S. ruling circles. that is. in spite of its varied form. it remains a statement full of contradictions and smells stronglyof colonialism and war. Facts have proved that each time the U.S. aggressors launched a noisy campaign about peaceful negotiations on the settlement of the Vietnam problem. they took a further step in the intensification of the war. The analysts waxed hopeful again when the Vietcong announced they would observe a 4day truce in the fighting over the religious and festive Vietnamese holiday of Tet. the lunar new year. 23 hours before this truce was to go into effect. a platoon of Vietcong guerillas massacred 33 civilians. wounded 54. and kidnaped 9 men in an attack on a South Vietnamese refugee camp. 350 miles north of Saigon. Men. women. and children were killed. the only explanation for this vicious and wanton murder seems to be that the Vietcong were taking revenge on refugees from a village that had been overrun by the Vietcong in November. Many of the villagers had fled to the refugee camp at Tu Hiep. where the massacre occurred. In addition to this mass murder. after the ceasefire was supposedly in effect. the Vietcong made four attacks on outposts near Saigon and an assault on a village near Hue. What the analysts who now speculate so hopefully on an eventual favorable response from Hanoi will make of this is hard to say.
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refugee refugees