People's Democracy

DESPITE veiled threats of administrative action and intimidation of neo-fascists and professional rowdies, the mass march to mobilise the conscience of the nation took place, according to schedule, on November 27 in Washington. The previous week a demonstration of ten thousand people had marched to the army embarkation point in Oakland, Berkeley.

The marchers in Washington, numbering more than twenty thousand, came from all age groups — parents, children, working youth and students— demanding the end of the war in Vietnam. Their slogans were ceasefire, cessation of bombings, negotiations for peace and withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. A number of demonstrators carried flags of the South Vietnam National Liberation Front.

The day was observed also as an international day of protest against the American war in Vietnam. According to Reuter and the Associated Press, demonstrations were held also in Rome, Milan, Paris, Berlin and London.

In ROME, about 2,000 demonstrators marched to a city theatre where they kept an all-night vigil with songs and speeches.

In MILAN, a march was staged, ending in a rally addressed by Communist and left-wing socialist deputies.

In PARIS, US students held a protest demonstration before the US embassy.

Solidarity marches were held in several West German cities.

In BERLIN, more than a hundred West German authors, university professors and lecturers issued a statement, accusing the US government of risking a third world war. They called for freedom and self-determination for the Vietnamese people and asked the West German government to withdraw its financial and moral support for US military actions in Vietnam.

Protest marches in support of the Washington peace movement were staged in London and other cities of the United Kingdom. These marches were staged at the end of a week of protest meetings and Parliamentary lobbying by the British Council for peace in Vietnam. More than 2,000 men and women marched with torches and candles across London to St Paul’s Cathedral. In Manchester, the police arrested eleven young people who tried to stage a loudspeaker rally in the middle of a street.

The protest movement against the US imperialist aggression in Vietnam is getting bigger and drawing larger sections of people than at any time in the history of an anti-imperialist struggle. The US government now faces the antagonism of the people all over the world, including the American people.

The fight for world peace is a fight against US imperialism, the most aggressive of all imperialism, past and present, and the arch-enemy of freedom loving peoples and nations all over the world. With each day that US imperialism prolongs its beastly war in Vietnam, the hatred of the people everywhere against it grows fiercer, its crisis deepens and nearer approaches its doom.

The isolation of US imperialism is growing rapidly. The worldwide protests on November 27, following the marches and demonstrations held in mid-October, are a prelude to bigger and more resolute actions to come.

Vietnam has become the focal point of the worldwide struggle against imperialism and for international peace. No weapons, nuclear or otherwise, can alter the outcome of this struggle.

--- People’s Democracy, December 12, 1965