Sunday, June 4, 1972
S. Viet Senate Rejects Thieu Rule By Decree
SAIGON (AP & UPI) --The South Vietnamese Senate has rejected a proposal to give President Nguyen Van Thieu authority to rule by decree for six months.By a 27-21 vote Friday, the senators turned down the bill which Thieu claims would give him "full powers" to deal effectively with the crisis stemming from North Vietnam's general offensive.Rival (Catholic and Buddhist) political factions joined forces to defeat the measure, which Thieu's critics have said would enable him to become a dictator and would reduce the National Assembly to a rubber stamp body.The Senate's action returns the bill to the lower house, which earlier approved it 81-49. To be revived, the bill must have a two-thirds vote of the 159-member House.The bill would give Thieu power to make laws by decree on almost any subject for six months except for treaties, declarations of war and negotiations for peace, and in effect give legislative sanction to a series of drastic measures, including martial law, that he has already invoked.These include bans on strikes, demonstrations and hoarding, police searches of premises at any time and a crackdown on publications and persons deemed dangerous to national security and public order.Despite the opposition to the bill, Thieu has declared martial law, introduced new taxes and instituted the right of police to search or seize any property at any time.It was understood that one reform Thieu wished to introduce was censorship of the press, now banned by law.The Senate chamber was packed during Friday's heated five-hour debate with plain-clothes police and pro-Thieu members of the National Assembly.One of the most impassioned speeches against the bill was given by Sen. Truong Tien Dat, a Catholic refugee from North Vietnam, who called for Thieu's ouster."We think it is time for Thieu to resign so that Vietnam can have peace soon," he said, as opponents shouted at him. "The sooner he goes the quicker we have peace. We demand his resignation so that Vietnam can have peace."Another opposition member, Vu Van Mau, who is aligned with the militant An Quang Buddhist sect, said passage of the bill would lead to "dictatorship in disguise."Sen. Pham Dang Sung, a Thieu backer and publisher of Saigon's most respected Vietnam-language daily newspaper, criticized Mau and Dat for their "irresponsible attitude.""S. Viet Senate Rejects Thieu Rule by Decree", by (AP & UPI), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes Sunday, June 4, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.