Friday, May 12, 1972
2 French Priests Reported Crucified by Communists
John Paul Vann told a news
conference the reports said the Communists had committed atrocities in areas of
Kontum Province which they occupied during their 42-day offensive.He said that according
to the reports, two French priests who stayed with their congregations in the
tiny village of Kon Horing, 26 miles northwest of Kontum City, were crucified in
the past week. He gave no further details. He did not identify the sources of
his reports or the French priests.At least 78 civilians
were killed and 100 wounded at Kon Horing on Feb. 23, 1969, when Communist-led
forces shelled and launched a ground assault on the village, burning down 125
homes.Vann
said that in another atrocity, the family of one of his Vietnamese interpreters
was murdered and a sign put over the door of their house asking what the
interpreter, an [sic] employe of the allies, could do for his family now. The senior U.S. adviser
was asked about reports that pilots of South Vietnamese Air Force helicopters
carrying small numbers of refugees from Kontum to Pleiku had charged amounts
equal to that of airline fares. "Some have obviously
done it but the majority have not done it," Vann said. "There are
always some unscrupulous people who are going to benefit in a situation like
this. We have had numerous reports and we have handed them over to the
appropriate authorities to investigate." Vann said that about
21,000 civilians still remain in the threatened provincial capital of Kontum
City, but that evacuation would continue "to the maximum of our ability."
All civilians must be evacuated by air since Highway 14 between Kontum and
Pleiku has been closed by fighting during the past week. Vann said he expects that
the long awaited attack on Kontum City will begin by shelling which will
gradually increase. "Sometime in the
middle of the night, he (the enemy) will have his tanks come out from wherever
they are and with his infantry go crashing into some vital part (of the city),"
he said. Vann
also said that no major change in the Communist command's battlefield plan can
be expected in the next six months because of President Nixon's orders to mine
North Vietnamese ports. He said his long
experience in Vietnam leads him to believe that the Communists "will adhere
to plans developed months and months in advance." Vann told the news
conference the mining could affect enemy supplies on the northern front below
the Demilitarized Zone within a month, but in areas farther south there probably
would be no marked effect for a considerably longer time, because of the length
of the overland supply lines. "To cut his water off
like this might be more effective than anything else to cut off his supply
lines," Vann declared. "If this had been done in the past, there
would not be any tanks rumbling southward now.""2 French Priests Reported Crucified by Communists", PLEIKU, Vietnam (AP), published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes on Friday, May 12, 1972 and reprinted with permission from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.