Sin of Omission

For two labyrinthine years, the U.N. held out at Panmunjom for the right of prisoners of war to refuse to go back behind the Iron Curtain. That question finally became the central issue of the truce talks. The truce agreement conceded the U.N. view: it specifically ruled that no P.W. should be forced to return home.

To get this agreement, however, the U.N. did agree that P.W.s should spend 90 days in neutral custody while representatives of their governments "explained" their positions. Furthermore, the U.N. omitted to negotiate the details of this procedure. That was left to the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission, comprising Red Poland and Czechoslovakia, neutral Sweden and Switzerland, and India, the chairman. Last week the U.N. was shocked to learn that its sin of omission might imperil the basic principle of non-repatriation, for which, in effect, the closing months of the war had been fought.

The Rules. First, the Neutral Commission sent a letter to the 14,800 Chinese and the 7,800 North Korean prisoners at Indian Village in Korea's demilitarized zone. "We have come here," the commission said, "to protect you from any form of coercion ... to assure you of your freedom to exercise your right to be repatriated." The P.W.s must listen "absolutely, by necessity," to the explainers, who would "inform you of your peaceful life and complete freedom upon your returning home."

This letter indicated that the commission and its Indian chairman, Lieut. General K. S. Thimayya, had accepted the Communist argument that "certain interested parties," and not the love of freedom, were keeping the prisoners on this side of the Iron Curtain. At once, the U.N. protested that the letter's "wording, method of presentation and the strong implications have been slanted towards unduly 'influencing prisoners of war...to repatriation, rather than making a free, independent choice."

Two days later, the commission issued the long-awaited ground rules for the go-day explanations. After one quick look at them, one U.N. officer gasped: "They've bought just about everything the Communists wanted." The commission ruled that each P.W. must undergo individual explanation, eight hours a day, six days a week, before an audience "not exceeding 35" officials of his own and neutral countries. After the explanations, P.W.s would be relocated in different compounds, so that their waiting friends would not know whether they had decided to go home, or what had happened to them. Again the U.N. protested.

The Riots. Confusion and uncertainty lay heavily upon the P.W.s in Indian Village. The fact was that the U.N., despite many promises to watch over them, no longer had control over what happened to them; it had given up its control in the armistice. While loudspeakers blared Indian marches and love songs ("Neutral music," the Indians called it), Chinese and North Korean P.W.s banged tin cans and shouted, "We will face death rather than the Red explainers." Several other prisoners, possibly left behind as Communist plants, cried out that they were being intimidated by Nationalist Chinese (see cut) and were handed over to Red custody. The 5,600 Indian guards, appalled and bewildered by the commotion, stared blankly through the barbed wire or stayed in their quarters.

The first real clash came when Polish and Czech members of the commission entered a compound to inspect a hospital. P.W.s stoned the party, and Indian guards fought back with heavy sticks. From two other compounds, P.W.s scratched bloody paths across 10-ft. barbed-wire fences. Faced with a mass breakout, the Indians fired twelve shots. One North Korean was killed, five wounded.

Next day an Indian doctor snatched a razor from a Chinese P.W. who had slit his own throat and ordered the man taken to the hospital. Before Indian guards could take him away, however, some P.W.s -called to another compound for help. Once more P.W.s rushed the wire, and this time charged the Indians. The Indians fired. Two Chinese were killed and five wounded. That afternoon, the Indian commander broadcast to the P.W.s: "We have consistently avoided opening fire, but if you force us to do so, the responsibility is entirely yours."

Breaking Faith. The shots the Indians fired were heard round the world. From Taipeh. Formosa, the Chinese Nationalist government denounced "the unneutral, unjust, inhuman action." In Seoul, South Korea's Acting Foreign Minister threatened to "drive out the irresponsible Indian troops." The unnerved Indians blamed Chinese Nationalists and South Korean leaders in the compounds for their troubles.

At week's end Commission Chairman Thimayya (who casts the commission's deciding vote) rejected the U.N. protests against the commission's ground rules for the explanation period; he also requested that the 90 days be extended beyond the accepted 24th of December. The U.N. refused: the jittery P.W.s, already feeling abandoned by their friends, might well decide, "Ten days could stretch into ten years. Let's throw in the towel." Said outgoing U.N. Supreme Commander General Mark Clark: "We cannot be a party to breaking faith."

But until Dec. 24 it would be the commission and Thimayya, not the U.N. and Clark, that would decide whether the Communists explain or coerce, thanks to that error of omission at Panmunjom.

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