PM Transcripts

VISIT TO SOUTH EAST ASIA 1968
Li B SAIGON
WELCOME BY VIETNAMESE PRIME MINISTER,
TRAN VAN HUONG, AT AIRPORT 7 JUNE 1968
Mr. Prime Minister, it is a very great pleasure and a very
great honour for the Vietnamese people, for the Government of the Republic
of Vietnam, and for myself to welcome on our soil today the representative
of a people to whom we are bound by so many ties.
Since Vietnam regained its independence and liberty, it has
had to defend that independence and that liberty against an enemy who is
set on destroying them in order to impose on the Vietnamese people a
system of government ard a way of life that they rejected as -not corresponding
with their interests or their best traditions, In this struggle, the Vietnamese
people have benefited from the sympathy and support without reservation
from the Australian Government and people in all fields political, military,
economic and humanitarian. We are therefore happy to have the opportunity
to express through you our gratitude to the Government and people of Australia.
Mr. Prime Minister, you arrive in Vietnam at a time when
our common enemy, international communism, is intensifying its efforts
with a view to obtaining a seeming military success in order to support
his political demands in Paris as elsewhere.
We have decided not to fall into the communist trap. We love
and hope for peace, but we will not accept a peace dictated by an enemy who
himself knows that hie cannot gain victory. We are convinced that the
Australian Government and people will continue to work closely with the
Vietnamese Government and people, as with the other nations which are
friends and allies of Vietnam, in order to prevent communism spreading
south of the 17th parallel.
Mr. Prime Minister, in the name of the Vietnamese people
and Government, I bid you welcome and a pleasant and fruitful time in
Vietnam.