SAIGON CALL-UP FOR 18 YEAR OLDS

Workers Press no. 763, 12 May 1972 · scan pages 2, 3

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SAIGON sent out call-up orders to all 18-year-olds as panic martial law measures went into force in South Vietnam yesterday.

President Thieu's crisis regime also announced to conscript 17-year-olds.

Saigon's mayor ordered residents to dig trenches and prepare for artillery attacks against the capital.

A government spokesman said martial law would mean that 'all kinds of liberties must be restricted'.

The decree, outlawing strikes, demonstrations, seditious literature and unlicensed weapons, is clear evidence that Thieu fears uprisings in the cities following the reverse suffered by South Vietnamese forces at the battlefronts.

The government's military position is deteriorating rapidly on all three fronts.

AT AN LOC, the besieged provincial capital north of Saigon. there was fierce hand-to-hand fighting inside the town as the liberation forces mounted a new attack.

FURTHER NORTH, in the Central Highlands, a senior US adviser predicted a devastating attack on Kontum within week. He said Kontum City would be heavily damaged by a massive assault from two North Vietnamese divisions in the next South Vietnamese forces in the town are heavily outnumbered and have already • been defeated in battles west of the town. MEANWHILE, in the far North around Hue, the South Vietnamese are still anticipating a major onslaught on the city by liberation forces currently mopping up the town's outlying defences.

OMORROW

Press, NO, MADAM. I'M AFRAID THE PRIME MINISTER CAN'T SPARE THE TIME TO APPEAR AT YOUR CONCERT12, HE'S FAR TOO BUSY CONDUCTING HIS OWN!

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