SAIGON SCAPEGOATS

vesterday named two rout of his armies around He sacked Lt-Gen Hoang Xuan Lam, commander of the First Military Region iust south of the Demilitarized Zone, and Brig-Gen Vu Van Giai, commander of the Third Division which ran from Quang Tri.

An investigation has been opened into Brig-Gen Giai's actions. The sackings, however, will fool nobody about the real cause of the liberation forces' victory at Quang Tri-the complete bankruptcy of the South Vietnamese puppet regime.

Thieu's armies simply melted away under the impact of the liberation offensive. Now the town of Hue, the old Vietnamese imperial capital, is wide open to the next stage of the attack.

American officers attached to the South Vietnamese • forces have virtually abandoned hope of salvaging anything from the unequal struggle. Their worst expectations about the course of Nixon's Vietnamization policy have been realized.

"This cannot be papered over as a strategic withdrawal or anything else, one senior US officer said. In addition to the defeats on the ground, the liberation troops are also undermining the morale of the US flyers.

Yesterday they shot down two helicopters over Quang Tri province with a new heatseeking missile fired from a hand-held weapon.

Farther down the coast of Vietnam, American advisers and 2,500 South Vietnamese troops were forced to beat a precipitate retreat from bases in Binh Dinh province. They left by sea after more than 30 per cent of the South Vietnamese troops had deserted. Binh Dinh has long been a stronghold of the National Liberation Front.

Three large districts in Binh Dinh, with a combined population of about 200,000 have fallen to the NLF in the last two weeks without any real resistance from the South Vietnamese.

The main Saigon unit in the area, the 40th Regiment, has 'failed every test it has faced in the last fortnight', according to US reports.

• MORE than 300,000 homeless and frightened refugees are pourning down the roads of South Vietnam to get away from fighting in the nothern provinces.

Choking the roads around the threatened provincial capital of Hue, they are severely impeding South Vietnamese efforts to bring up reinforcements.

Many of the refugees have been driven from their homes by the massive American bombardment of liberated areas in the North. Many are heading for Da Nang, where there is a big US military base. president Nguyen Van Thieu scapegoats for the disastrous McGovern Mad-chopper rush to escape NLF advance PRELIMINARY results the Indiana and Ohio primary elections yesterday gave further evidence of the polarization and divisions within the US Democratic In heavily industrialized Indiana, Governor George Wallace of Alabama was narrowly hesten into second by former bormen nice president lace Humphrey-but Wallace won the 'POOR FUND' PROPOSAL IS SQUASHED PROPOSALS at the UNCTAD conference in Santiago, Chile, for a central fund to distribute financial aid on liberal terms to the 25 least-developed countries were turned down yesterday by the most powerful capitalist countries. Splits show need for US Labour Party argest number of votes he has ever gained in a northern state.

In Ohio, the elections were confused by allegations of voterigging, but it appeared from early returns that the two top contenders - Humphrey and Senator George McGovern-were running neck and neck.

Wallace and McGovern represent opposite ends of the Democratic Party-Wallace is a deepsouth racialist while McGovern is a liberal who has opposed the The Democrats' crisis symptom of sharpening class The plan was opposed by, among others, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Britain, Switzerland, Japan, France, the United States and the Netherlands.

The Group of 77 poor coun tries are particularly annoyed about reports of a secret conference on the monetary crisis COR struggle in the United States. It poses the urgent requirement for a break with the big • business representatives who dominate the Democratic and Republican parties and the formation of a genuine Labour Party based on the trade unions.

Union leaders have worked might and main to tie their members to the coat-tails of the Democrats, but there are clear signs that this corrupt relationship cannot endure.

The recent court decision to penalize mineworkers' leader Tony Boyle for using union funds attended by top US and European representatives in an Oxfordshire country house.

This decided to form a small steering group representing the main capitalist countries to draft proposals which could then be submitted to the International Monetary Fund Board. Wallace for political purposes shows the ruling class fears the development of a Labour Party.

The trade union chiefs are now engaged in a chauvinistic campaign for protectionist legislation to keep foreign goods out of the US. .

George Meany, president of the AFI-CIO, the largest union confederation, yesterday announced the formation of a taskforce to support the erection of tariff barriers around the US.

He said the unions would try to educate Americans on the virtues of the proposed Trade Bill on the grounds that it would create more jobs at home. He said the Bill 'can , provide both immediate remedies and long-term answers to the inrush of imports and the outflow of capital and technology.

Meany's support for this reactionary legislation indicates how closely the union leaders are involved with big business and their efforts to subordinate the working class to US capitalism's requirements.

Thursday