7 Days 24 November 1971 FOREIGN

VIETNAM: The story of Cornelius Hawkridge

"They'll be running for the plane"

Tom Picton/7 Days

Cornelius Hawkridge talks to 7 DAYS, listen to his complaints. “I would have A convinced anti-communist, he tried got more attention from Stalins for years to get the US authorities to security forces”, he told us.

“When the US army arrives in an area, that place is flooded with stolen goods within 24 hours”. This in a nutshell is the message of Cornelius Hawkridge, 44, a man who organised a one-man investi­gation into corruption in Vietnam and who is now in Britain for the publication o f a book about his crusade’. Last week he talked to 7 DAYS.

Hawkridge comes from a family of Yorkshire policemen who emigrated to Hungary in the last century to work for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He is a fierce anti-communist who fought with the Nazis against the Russians in 1944-45, was imprisoned in Hungary in 1949 and escaped to the west in 1956.

“I am not going to go soft on communism”, he told 7 DAYS.

But after years of working with the US army Hawkridge is almost equally hostile to the US. He was taken to the US after the Hungarian uprising and worked in US bases before being sent to the Dominican Republic during the 1965 invasion as a civilian aide to the US army. In 1966 he was sent to Vietnam.

Even on the plane his vision of an anti-communist crusade began to fall apart: married men were gleefully throwing away their wedding rings and rubbing their hands. When he got there he was appalled at what he saw: in the town of Qui Nhon where he was posted, the monthly turnover in the market of stolen US goods was $11m. Everywhere he went he saw stolen clothes, beer, cigarettes, guns, personnel carriers, re­frigerators, trucks, medicine. The only time the speculators went wrong was when they hijacked a truck with a $2.5m. artillery computer on it: they couldn’t find anyone to buy it.

Hawkridge originally worked in a refugee camp, but from February to December 1966 the number of fell from 1,400,000 to 268,000. Officially they had been “resettled”. In fact they had just been thrown out of the camps. This was the solution to the refugee pro­blems.

He gave up in Qui Nhon and went to Saigon to work for private contractors doing transportation jobs for the US army. Hawkridge described to us how owing to the inadequate docks in Vietnam ships had to wait for months to unload — and arrived half empty or

even empty when they finally arrived. They had been pillaged.

Flogging their GearUS officers, private contractors,

South Vietnamese armymen — all were selling off their equipment and weapons as soon as they got them. Hawkridge accuses the US of never revealing the amount of military equipment they have put into Indo-China: if they did they would have to account for what happened to it. The NLF get many of their supplies from US stores. M-16 rifles given to South Vietnam soldiers — ARVN — have turned up within months in Chad and Algeria. He insisted that there was often more equipment going up the Ho Chi Minh trail than coming down it. In particular, shopping lists for antibiotics and other medicines came from the north and were sent up by the NLF.

In Saigon Hawkridge got to know two aspects of the scene well: hijacking trucks, and currency speculation.

He himself killed a group of Viet­namese thieves who were attempting to hijack some of his trucks. He ran them over.

Much of the speculation was done by US citizens who have followed the US army round the world since World War II. “James Doule started here in the London docks during the Second World War”. Hawkridge told us. Doyle has been in Saigon since 1961 and is probably a billionaire. Other specu­lators, Chinese, Filipino and Korean, have been picked up in the various wars since then.

Currency speculation is run out of Cholon, the Chinese suburn of Saigon. The key means is through MPCs, Mili­tary Procurement Certificates, which are military scrip allegedly negotiable only by accredited personnel. Millions of dollars of this scrip are stolen each week: they are then sold at a discount by Vietnamese and Chinese moneymen to US soldiers who then cash them in at their face value for dollars. They then use these dollars to buy more MPCs and so on. One afternoon in Saigon Hawk­ridge himself made $4,000 dollars in this way.

A CesspoolHe is full of venom about the

Vietnam war. “There is only one solution. Leave the blasted place and forget about it. It is one of the least important places in the world. I hate to

see a great big country committing suicide in a cesspool.”

Hawkridge did try to warn the US authorities. He wrote letters to generals and Congressmen, and hired his own team of sleuths to photograph and track down speculators. But no one wanted to listen. “The ultimate crime in the USA is having an inquisitive mind”, he says.

In 1969, when he was back in the US with his newly wed wife, his car was run over by three trucks. He was crippled for months, his wife was killed. The evidence about the crash was falsified, his documents were stolen, it took three hours for his unconscious body to be got to the nearby hospital. Hawkridge refuses to say there was an assination attempt — only that something “very fishy” happened.

Later that year he was allowed to testify before a ' Congressional Com­mittee, but he insists that he was told not to criticise the US army, only

civilians dealing in “non-appropriated funds”. “Let’s investigate the US army”, he says.

Hawkridge is quite clear what he thinks will happen in Vietnam “The Viet Cong are coming. Everybody knows it”, he says. “The Vietnamese hate our guts”.

NLF disciplineHe had been stopped by the NLF and

had even received what he claimed was a special NLF road-pass in return for paying road-taxes to them. “Did I meet Viet Cong? — It’s impossible not to meet them. 90% of the screened Viet­namese personnel at US bases are Viet Cong”.

“Thet have survived the greatest aerial bombardment in history. They are fighters. Not a demoralised mob,” He was particularly scathing about the Saigon government’s claims about de­serters. “There are very few genuine

deserters,” he said. Most of the guerrilas who come over for “Rest and Recrea­tion” and then go back. NLF discipline operates in the camps for “deserters”. If they are sick or need a rest they come over and then go back. The US army began to fingerprint “deserters” and discovered that some of them turned up three and four times.

He hates the ARVN: “They never went where the VC were. They had good intelligence. They spoke Viet­namese. It was the Americans who bumped into the VC.” If the US leaves a residual force large sections of the ARVN will desert. “The desertion rate has never dropped below 11,000 a month”. In the end there will be a final shootout. “The last US troops are going to make a hard run for the aircraft. The North Vietnamese and the VC are going to win”.

A Very Personal War, by James Hamilton Paterson.Hodder and Stoughton.

mountains o f US beer in Saigon, with taken away. US beer is officially on sale East Asia. Markets in Phnom Penh are many of the cases already ripped open to US military personnel only: in fact it fully stocked with stolen beer moved up and cans lying around waiting to be is freely available throughout South- from Saigon.

FIRST PUBLIC MEETING of the INDISTRIAL COMMON OWNERSHIP MOVEMENT

Grand Ctte. Rm. House of Commons.Dec. 1st 7.30. p.m.

Ch. Cllr. E. COLLINSON (Nat. Org. N.U.A.W.)Spkrs: Robert Edwards M.P. David Spreckley; John Anagnostelis. Eng. from Org. Sec., I.C.O.M., 8 Churton St. S.W.1. Tel: 8282321.

Adamson's is the newsagent in Hampstead who carries

7 DAYS and anything else you need. ADAMSON'S 3 Holly Walk,

NW3

From MARX to MARCUSELondon's biggest selection of left-wing and progressive books and literature.

ColletsLondon Bookshop64 66, Charring Cross Rd., W.C.1.Open 9.30—6 Mon-Wed & Sat.9.30-7 Thurs & Fri.

THE STUDENT CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT

The Student Christian Movement SCM is a diverse Christian body. It is involved in challenging Christian thinking, in 3rd World Research, radical community projects, assisting groups like Agitprop, whilst relating these to deep Christian commitment.We need a non-elitist general secretary to work in a committed team to keep communications alive between all these concerns and with the

world and church outside, and to take part in the donkey work involved in keeping a liberal moving to radical movement alive. Must cope with bureaucracy but not be dehumanised by it.

If you are he/she and willing to live in London for some time, write to:

Assistant General Secretary SCMAnnandale North End Road London NW11

8

FOREIGN7 Days 24 November 1971

TRINIDAD A N D TOBAGO: Williams locks up the leftThe s ta te of emergency proclaimed in Trinidad and Tobago on October 19 was due to rim out last week, but was extended at the final moment until February 29 next year. The Minister o f National Security who piloted the motion through the House of Representatives said that his ministry had top secret information which “it would be imprudent” to make public.

He need not have worried too much about getting the extension through the House since all its members are from the ruling People’s National Movement. In

the May legislative elections this year the opposition refused to stand: they objected to the introduction of ballot boxes and to other government practices. In the event, only 32.9 per cent of the voters turned out — the lowest poll ever.

So Who’s Talking?The 1 million population of Trinidad

and Tobago have been ruled since independence by Dr. Eric Williams and his PNM. Williams has explicitly disavowed Cuban policies “because they are totalitarian”. But his own policies have led to an unemployment rate of over a third among those under 35 and to a constant fall in oil production, the country’s main asset.

In April last year Williams declared a

state of emergency to crush a growing black power movement led by the National Joint Action Committee. Their spokesman, Geddes Granger, had called for an end to the country’s colonial status. Demonstrations of up to 20,000 followed and a mass rally and general strike were called for April 22. On April 20 Williams declared a state of emergency, but half of Trinidad’s 750-man army revolted and were only put down by Coast Guards armed with $80,000 worth of US equipment. Over 100 soldiers and civilian militants have now been sentenced for treason and sedition.

Fetishism DenouncedThe present emergency was called to

crush industrial militancy, which Williams claims is “strangling” the country. NJAC leaders have been arrested as has George Weekes, the president of the oilfield workers’ union. Williams appears to have moved to crush labour after pressure from two British construction firms building a $160 million plant for Texaco — Badger Pan American Inc. and Wimpey Carribean Ltd.

A few days later, at the 13th annual PNM convention, Williams warned his audience of what happened in Ghana and Indonesia. “We have been extremely careful not to sacrifice the wellbeing of one million people in Trinidad and Tobago on the altar of some intellectual fetish”, he said.

One of a long line o f Uruguayan Mini­sters of the Interior, 62-year-old General Antonio Francese. He refused to negotiate with the Tupamaros, was sacked late last year. When summoned to appear before a parliamentary com­mittee during his period o f office he announced: “I come here not as a minister, but as a general”.

The Frente Amplio is a more cautious version of the Popular Unity government that was elected to power in Chile last year. It is formed of a coalition of Christian Democrats, Socialists and Communists. Its attempt to break through the traditional political system comes at a time when the economic and social basis for the old regime has broken down.

$800m debtUruguay used to be known as the

Switzerland of Latin America. Its economy rests on the export of agricultural products, with meat and wool making up 95 per cent of the total exports.

Yet while most of the foreign exchange comes from these rural products 83 per cent of the 3 million population live in towns — 46 per cent of them in the capital Montevideo. The service sector is the major economic sector within the country as a whole — it makes up 62 per cent of the national income.

This economy is now collapsing. The foreign debt stands at a record $800 million. Real wages have fallen by 47 per cent in the past decade. Prices rose

by 136 per cent in 1967 alone. And the peso has been devalued from 11 to $1 in 1962 to 250 to $1 in 1968. The causes of this decline are clear: Uruguay depends on its agricultural exports and its bourgeoisie is too weak to industrialise; foreign trade and banking are in the hands of the US; domestic power is in the hands of traditional parties — made up of landowners and businessmen running the services sector.

Reds and WhitesThe two big parties in Uruguay used

to be the Reds (colorados) and the Whites (blancos). There are no political differences between them and for decades they have competed on the basis of personal loyalties. Most Uruguayan voters used to vote on the basis of their family loyalties, but the two parties made sure of their hold by a special law, El Leg de Lemas; each party runs several candidates for a single post, but in the end the leading candidate in each category takes the votes of all the candidates who had competed under his party’s banner.

In this coming election there are only three labels — Reds, Whites and the FA. But there are nine candidates — one for the FA and the other eight divided between the two old parties.

Urban GuerrillasThe challenge from the left began in

the early 1960s: Socialist Party militants among the suger workers on the big estates in the north organised strikes calling for agrarian reform. Then in the mid-1960s they broke away to form their own Movement for National Liberation, with its armed wing, the Tupamaros.

The Tupamaros argue that as Uruguay has no mountains or jungles, and 83 per cent live in towns guerrilla war must be centred in the urban areas. This has led to the tactics which the Tupamaros have perfected: carefully planned kidnappings, expropriations and stunts which expose the corruption and weakness of the regime without losing popular support through militant actions unrelated to the immediate consciousness of the masses. The one person they have executed was Dan Mitrione, a US police expert sent in to help the regime in counter-insurgency operations.

This policy has led to the formation of the present Frente Amplio. Formed to compete in the present election, it has as its head General Liber Seregni, a somewhat apolitical figure who resigned as head of the Montivideo garrison in 1968 after being ordered to crush a workers’ demonstration.

The FA’s programme calls for: agrarian reform — about 30 per cent of the cultivable land is held in the form of estates of over 2,500 hectares;

nationalisation of banks and foreign trade; industrialisation; release of all political prisoners; diplomatic relations with Cuba and China; and a free 1/2 litre of milk per day.

The People’s JailDuring the extended election

campaign this year the Tupamaros have been prominent for their own separate actions: the kidnapping of UKAmbassador Jackson and his detention for eight months in the People’s Jail. The Tupamaros stated: “For years England has drained our economy” — i.e. Jackson was the envoy of an imperialist country.

But he was held to ensure the release of the 150 political prisoners in Punto Carretas and other security jails. Despite British pressure, President Pacheco refused to concede. Then, suddenly, in September, 105 political prisoners escaped from Punto Carretas through a 40-yard tunnel. Jackson was released three days later.

MI6The escape of the 105 came at such

an opportune time that there are strong suspicions that it was carried out with official help. Prison and army officials knew about it. But another agency was also almost certainly involved: British intelligence. Having failed to get their ambassador out through pressure on

Pacheco, the British went about things in the other obvious way. There is no direct evidence for this, but CIA sources have stated that the British did it.

When Jackson was released, the Tupamaros issued a statement calling for support of the Frente Amplio. “We do not believe they (the elections) will offer the solution to the nation’s problems. Nonetheless, we believe the elections should be held, but with guarantees which are non-existent to-day”.Brazilian Invasion

The Tupamaros warn that if Pacheco uses his ultra-right thugs to crush the people, the Tupamaros will fight back. Last week members of the ultra-right JUP (Upright Uruguayan Youth) made three attempts to kill Seregni. There are also rumours of a Brazilian invasion. If the FA win, it will confirm a certain shift within Latin America. But as in Chile the electoral victory will represent only one step forward.

One thing it will show is that armed propaganda actions of the Tupamaros kind can succeed in certain specific conditions. In next-door Brazil urban guerrilla actions have been savagely crushed; Brazil is a totally different country, has a more savage military than Uruguay, and has a growing economy. Yet armed propaganda is possible in very definite contexts. Uruguay may be one.

This is Mr. Ahmad Mohammad al- Shamy, the first Ambassador of the Yemeni Arabi Republic to this country. On November 18th he went to present his credentials to the Queen, after he and his three compansions had warmed their hired top hats on the fireplace of their Embassy in South Street.

Mr. al-Shamy is no stranger to London. He has been here, on and off, for over a decade. He came originally as

the envoy of the Imam of the Yemen and remained in London when the Imamate was overthrown in 1962 and the Yemeni Arab Republic was pro­claimed. For eight years there was civil war in Yemen between pro-Imamate royalists and the forces of the Republic and Mr. al-Shamy was the London envoy of the royalists. He acted as a key linkman for the British Saudi and Israeli intelligence men who sent guns, money

and military advisers into royalist Yemen to fight the Nasser-backed re­publicans.

In 1970 the Yemeni civil war came to an end. Tribal chiefs and political leaders who had grown rich by swapping sides and taking money and guns from both Egyptians and from the Saudis and the west came together and agreed to

back the republic. Many trades unionists and junior officers who opposed this were shot. In line with this Mr. al- Shami, the diehard foe o f the republic, became its ambassador in London when Britain recognised the YAR. The Yemeni Arab Republic is now a base for attacks against the People’ Democratic Republic o f Yemen in the south. No doubt Mr. al-Shamy is more welcome here than ever.

URUGUAY:Have the Tupamarosbroughtit off?

Uruguay will go to the polls next Sunday, 28 November. For the past three years the urban guerrilla Tupamaros have been fighting a highly intelligent campaign against the traditional regime in Uruguay, and there is now a real possibility that the anti-imperialist Frente Amplio (Broad Front) founded this March will succeed in winning the vote. If the F.A. does win, it will mean that armed propaganda actions by the Tupamaros have led to an electoral victory for the left. Last week Fidel Castro stated that he would vote for the Frente if he were in Uruguay.

Camera Press

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