WHAT GAME IS CHINA PLAYINGOVER VIETNAM? Purge talk as Czech writers

CHINESE obstruction appears to be hampering the passage of urgently. needed supplies from the Soviet Union to North Vietnam.

Soviet and Chinese negotiators are still in dispute over provision of port facilities on the Chinese coast for supplies diverted from North Vietnam by the US blockade.

East European sources in Peking say some Polish and East German vessels are being allowed to dock at Chinese ports, but soviet vessels are not.

The Chinese are repurted to be considering each ship individually, probably. taking into account the suitability of its cargo for transport by road or rail to the North Vietnamese border.

Soviet ships are at present returning to Vladivostok-a voyage which could delay the cargo by as much as a month or more.

The Chinese apparently told the Soviet envoy in Peking that Moscow should use its minesweepers to clear the North Vietnamese harbours rather than use Chinese ports.

Supplies by rail from the Soviet Union across China have been steppeu up following the blockade, but logistics problems inside China have delayed their arrival in North Vietnam.

There has been speculation in the American press that the liberation armies fighting in South Vietnam may be running short of supplies-particularly of heavy ammunition.

The national disputes of the two major Stalinist powers can only cause additional problems for the Vietnamese struggle.

'Terrorist'

leader held in Germany FRANKFURT police yesterday arrested Andreas Baader, one of the leaders of the so-called Baader-Mienhof group of urban Together with three other alleged terrorists, Baader was arrested at dawn after a gun battle with police in a Frankfurt apartment.

The arrests followed a massive press witch-hunt against the group, said to have been responsible for bombings, arson and berg earlier this month. FRIC FRICA 'There's a place for us, Somewhere a place for us, Hold my hand and I'll take you there, -West BY IAN YEATS THE CZECH and Slovak Writers' Unions opened their congresses in Prague Wednesday with scathing attacks on those who had supported Alexander Dubeek in 1968.

The attacks, four years after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, are without doubt a measure of continuing unrest at the regime's policies as well as an indication that a new round of purges and repression may be on the way.

No hard facts in Angela frame-up trial CHIEF prosecutor Albert Harris tried again yesterday to convince the all-white jury at San Jose county court that Angela Davis knew about the plot to take hostages from Marin County courthouse two years ago.

Summing up the prosecution case in the murder and conspiracy frame-up trial, Harris laid heavy stress on the fact that Angela Davis was present when the guns used in the Marin County escape attempt were bought.

He claimed it was impossible for her not to have known that the guns were to be used to kidnap hostages in an attempt to free the Soledad Brothers detained in San Quentin.

The prosecution evidence is entirely circumstantial, and Harris has produced no hard facts to show conspiracy. If convicted, however, Angela Davis could be imprisoned for life without possibility of parole. SMITH FASCISM SMITH Hold my hand and • we're halfway there, meet The Czech government newspaper 'Rude Pravo' said on the eve of the conferences that they would 'put a definite end to their recent past'.

The paper condemned the 1967 Congress of the old Czechoslovak Writers' Union which it said did not hesitate 'to spit the insults of a period of "new darkness" in our faces?

Although it was never formally disbanded, the union ceased to exist after refusing to support the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and it was replaced by a new body split into Czech and Slovak parts lasi November.

Slovak Writers' Union chairman Andrej Plavka told its meeting on Wednesday that the 1967 Congress had not concerned itself with literature 'but with a public attack against the party, against the basic principles of Marxist theory and the policy of the party.

He added that since 1968 the union had been 'cleansed' to separate the 'healthy Marxist core' from 'supporters of anti-socialist opinions'.

Plavka warned: It is an illusion to think that in today's divided world a writer can i be neutral'.

His remarks coincided with the disclosure in 'Rude Pravo' that measures were being prepared to discourage writers from publishing in the West.

Meanwhile vice-chairman of the Czech Writers' Union Jan Kozak accused the 1968 union leaders of breaking off contacts with writers' organizations in other socialist countries and 'organizing mass excursions to the West, mostly to West Germany and Israel.

Kozak said they did this in the 'middle of the anti-socialist, nationalist, anti-Soviet campaign waged by proved means of psychological warfare'.

SMITH