The Honolulu Advertiser from Honolulu, Hawaii • 70

E-14 Wednesday, December 5, 1873 HONOLULU ADVERTISER r' i woman activist wages ceaseless political war with TMeni Mrs. Ngo Ba Thanh, her fair fixed in two long non-Vietnamese -looking braids, picked up a copy of a speech she made to friends recently on a downtown sidewalk in Saigon. "I have answered the government by words," she said. "Now I'll answer it by action." ST 1 as a result of the war and economic necessity. We've learned a lot from the Americans.

Our tradition is independence and maturity." Mrs. Ngo Ba Thanh is clearly the driving personality in her own family. Of her quiet husband, she said: "We should respect anyone's political position whether i passive or. active." Her attractive daughter is no political firebrand either, but the girl's brief pullover sometimes rises carelessly and reveals, in the best tradition of emancipation, a finely etched belly button. -V- completely on our terms." Implementation: "The Paris Agreement calls for the government, the Viet Cong and the Third Force to settle the war.

Thieu is responsible for not allowing this process to emerge. The first priority for peace American troop withdrawal has occurred. But the second priority, self-determination of the South Vietnamese people, still is being blocked." North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam: "After a political agreement, we feel the North Vietnamese troops would withdraw. They are here to support the Viet Cong's demands. It is nonsense to say the North Vietnamese would take the South by force." Women's Lib: "One of our goals is to fight for full equality.

But I think that our women already are -more emancipated than the Americans and others Some observers see Mrs. Ngo Ba Thanh as a symbol of the forces necessary for solving this complex no-war, no-peace period of the Vietnam problem. Some of her views: On ending the war: "There must be a political solution so that the military can demobilize. Both sides still are trying a military balance of strength-" The student uprising in Thailand: "I think it was very interesting as a demonstration of the people's strength or, if you wish, the necessity of democracy. But the United States repeatedly makes the mistake of comparing Vietnam with other countries.

It is a good rule to remember that nothing can be compared with Vietnam." The Paris Agreement: "The agreement, calling for foreign troop withdrawal and democratic liberties for all political groups, was i I 1 i RINGS THE HRISTMAS BRIDE i THANH nists. Mrs. Ngo Ba Thanh sharply disagrees. Her father, who opposed the government, was deported to North Vietnam in 1960 but now lives exiled in France. IN IAMOND RADIANCE By ERICCAVAI1ERO Advertiser Special i Correspondent SAIGON Mrs.

Ngo Ba Thanh is one of South Vietnam's most emancipated women. Besides being an accomplished lawyer, author in jurisprudence, and fiery antigovernment political activist, this 42-year-old mother of four has been liberated from prison seven times in the past 10 years. Her most recent release in September, after she served two years in six different jails for allegedly insulting and assaulting a magistrate was made possible, it is believed, by President Nixon's personal intervention. This came after U.S. Rep.

Bella Ab-zug stormed into Saigon in August and gave the U.S. Embassy one month to act. "Then I heard she made a direct approach to President Nixon on my case and brought in the question of U.S. aid to South Vietnam," Mrs. Thanh said.

IT MIGHT be unfair to call Mrs. Ngo Ba Thanh the Bella Abzug of South Vietnam, but she is chairman of the Vietnamese Women's Movement for the Right to Life and a relentless advocate of the "Third Political Force," claiming that many thousands of political prisoners remain jailed here. This does not endear her to President Thieu's government. The latter does not even recognize a "Third Force." The government says you either are for Thieu or the Communists. But Mrs.

Ngo Ba Thanh said the "self-elected president" is dead wrong. The Third Force is alive and would be doing very well for peace in Vietnam if government repression ceased, she said. She said that most South Vietnamese fear the Communists but do not really support Thieu. "By themselves, the government and the other side cannot escape the vicious circle of war," she said. "The Third Force is needed to open new directions.

If the government observed Article 11 of the Paris cease-fire agreement providing for basic Oil CHRISTMAS BELLS mm mm PTL-wrt mars mm ni iv for (IN CHRISTMAS Ann mmt a NGO A scissors and adds to her. mother's scrapbook. Contrary to some reports, she said she wasn't beaten in jail. Attempts to break her spirit and stop her hunger strike were indirect. "They'd let water run in my cell, saying they forgot to turn it off.

This made my asthma worse. They also would confiscate my medicine, with the excuse that the medicine could be used for suicide." FOR THE government her behavior in prison was almost as disturbing as her freedom outside. "Every day I was making announcements for improving prison conditions, and also comments on the Paris Agreement," she recalled. "We stole a water sprinkler and used it for a loudspeaker. With my secretary I issued daily bulletins and gave copies to the prison director.

Later they put me in (Saigon's) Chi Hoa jail with 30 men, all common criminals and killers. But I became friends with these men. They made me queen of the gang and bought me a new pan. So the authorities split us up." She began her hunger strike in March this year "when Thieu went to the United States and said there are no political prisoners here." For more than five months, until her September release, she took nothing except soya milk, orange juice and a daily one-liter serum injection. Her weight went from 132 to 88 pounds.

The authorities put her in solitary confinement. "That experience was terrible. I had no notion of time or day. But I took the initiative and made trouble to save my morale. For five months I made announcements from my hospital bed." THE GOVERNMENTS view is that strongly anti-government prisoners, when released, should be turned over to the Commu AS uhEETIIMu I'M') 1 1 Christmastime a joyous time -matched only by a radiant wedding.

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Most people would opt for the Third Force." The government's reply is that a Third Force, in an open political market, eventually would succumb to the wily Communists. So Mrs. Ngo Ba Thanh mains, officially, anathema. EVEN without her "Third Force Commandos," she herself is a considerable force. Mrs.

Thanh has studied in Europe and the United States; she has a doctorate in law from the University of Paris and Barcelona, and a M.C.L. degree from Columbia University. It was at Barcelona that she wrote and published her doctoral thesis in Spanish in 1960. Yale Law School has invited her to receive an award this year. The Dean of Columbia's Law School has asked her to be a visiting professor.

"I'd be happy to go," she said, "but I wrote to Bella Abzug that my presence in Vietnam is indispensable right now." Nowadays her home in downtown Saigon functions as an open house with the telephone ringing and visi-. tors calling all day. She still is weak from her last hunger strike, but her conversation and laughter flow freely. She said she is determined to work openly and nonsecretly now despite government pressure. THAT PRESSURE, she said, has included attempted murder.

According to her story, she visited a Saigon home on Oct. 16 to pay respects to a dead colleague. As she left, her car was attacked by two unknown men Thieu's secret police, she charged. Mrs. Thanh called it a deliberate attempt on her life.

She receives visitors in her living room which is decorated with cushioned cane-back chairs, souvenirs from Spain, dolls from Moscow, a tank of her oceanographer husband's tropical fish, law books, Vietnamese paintings and her attractive 21-year-old daughter who sits with JjONS 'FINE CANDIES FROM HAWAII Ata Moana, Mall Level J) -4 1 A i-! Tv (f sj ALA "i.