Saturday, March 16, 1969 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Five Saturday, March 16, 1968 THE MiCHIGAN DAILY Page Five 'CITY HAD TO BE DESTROYED': Ben Tre Displays Vietnam Inertia DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN . .. . . . . .-. ~. .;:::::t+$i::'nvx.o."}. X.h; :tlf. 4:. . . :tt11:Y'J'1A :":S i: EDITOR'S NOTE - Amid the ruins of a Mekong Delta commun- ity early in February a U.S. major said sadly: "It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it." He mean't that allied bombers, * rockets and napalm had to be used to rout Viet Cong from the city of Ben Tre even though civilians suffered and buildings crumbled to dust. This is an up to date report on Ben Tre. By PETER ARNETT BEN TRE, Vietnam (A - Ben Tre bleeds in the hot tropic sun, its wounds still bare. A U.S. officer said Ben Tre had to be destroyed to be saved from a horde of Viet Cong. It took 45 hours of fighting to destroy 45 per cent of Ben Tre, a city of 34,000. Now, 46 days later, the govern- * ment has not provided one brick to rebuild the Mekong Delta com- munity. "Ben Tre is a microcosm of Vietnam now, of the inertia that still lies over most of the country in the wake of the Tet offensive," a senior U.S. civilian observed in Saigon. In Ben Tre, an American civil- ian official commented: "In six weeks here we have seen that the government cannot protect the people, or control them, or admin- ister them or help them recover. "We may well have lost the political war for Ben Tre." The bleak picture is brightened by one factor, a pioneer do-it- yourself attitude. Some of the pop- ulation are patching their bat- tered homes together brick by brick. The high school student body has organizedda refugee re- lief force that digs bunkers, washes children and distributes food. An American official said, "The local people are way ahead of the local government in getting things moving here. The people are our brightest hope." Another official echoed, "The people are our only hope." Americans see glimmerings of a bolder approach. The problems are many. Ben Tre is clogged with refu- gees. U.S. officials estimate that about 2,500 of the town's 8,000 families are homeless and living in bad conditions. The first pri- ority of the refugees is getting their homes rebuilt. The allotment of cement per family is 15 bags, when it arrives. Fear Attack Viet Cong still abound in the area. U.S. officials fear another attack, and the province chief each night draws a ring of armored cars around his headquarters. Military patrols outside the city itself are finally being started again. The U.S. advisers continue thickening their bunkers against renewed attacks. Should the Viet Cong enter Ben Tre again, the same tactics would be used -,artillery and airpower against the town. The one ad- vantage for the population would be that they now have bunkers. The chairman of the high school relief force, Le Trung Hau, 18, said the people initially re- jected the student volunteers,I thinking they were governmentj workers: Suspect Revenge "They were suspicious of us, and frightened that the Viet Cong would seek revenge if we worked amongst them. When we explain- ed we were volunteers, and peo- ple like them, they accepted us as brothers." Hau said that when he started working with the refugees late in February many of them blamed the government and the Ameri- cans for destroying their homes. "We tried to tell them why, that the Viet Cong had entered the town to destroy it, and that the allies had no choice," Hau said. "I think they understand now. I' hope they do." The Daily Official Bulletin is an HOMfca publication of the Univer- sity of Michigan for which The Michigan daily assumes no editor- ial responsibility. Notices should be sent in TYPEWRITTEN form to Room 3564 Administration Bldg. be- fore 2 p.m. of the day preceding publication and by 2 p.m. Friday for Saturday and Sunday. General Notices may be published a maxi- mum of two times on request; Day Calendar items appear once only, Student organization notices are not accepted for publication. For more information call 764-9270. SATURDAY, MARCH 16 Day Calendar Graduate School of Business Ad- ministration -- Colloquium for Grad- uate Counselor, Room 376, Business Administration Building, 9 a.m. to 12 noon. School of Music Degree Recital - Charles Lehrer, Oboe: School of Music Recial Hall, 2:30 p.m. Cinema Guild - John Ford's "The Long Voyage Home", Architecture Aud., 7:00 and 9:05 p.m. Department of Speech University Players - Richard Reichman's "Jude", Trueblood Theater, 8:00 p.m. School of Music Degree Recital - Martin Zyskowski, Percussion: School of Music Recital Hall, 8:30 p.m. General Notices TV Center Programs: On Sun., March 17 the following programs produced by the TV Center will have their initial telecast in Detroit: 11:00 a.m., WJBK TV, Channel 2 "Changing Classroom Behavior." A documentary describing new ways of maintaining classroom discipline in large city schools to establish an at- mosphere for teaching and learning. 12:00 Noon, WWJ-TV, Channel 4. The Quiet Furies. "I Told You I Was Sick." The case study of a hypochon- driac, his symptom aned treatment. The approval of the following stu- dent sponsored events becomes effect- ive after the publication of this notice. All publicity for these events must be withheld until the approval has become effective. Approval request forms for student sponsored events are available in Rooms 1001 and 1546 of the Student Activities Building. (Continued on Page 6) ATID and S.Z.O. of H ILLEL presentj NAOMI FRANKLIN A Negro Who Has Been a Jew All Her Life A LOOK AT THE BLACK JEWS SATURDAY, MARCH 16 at 1:00 P.M. 1429 Hill St. All Welcome The RESISTANCE sponsors a WORKSHOP ON PRISONS State Senate I I I