Evening star., 1953-05-14
How Good Their Good Faith?

Although the enemy has rejected it as
something that threatens the prospects of the
whole armistice negotiations in Korea, the
United Nations plan for repatriating prisoners
of war makes good deal of sense-more sense
certainly, than the one proposed by the Com
munists.
Broadly summarized, the main provisions of
the enemy's plan would operate as follows: D
Prisoners resisting repatriation would be placed
in the custody of neutral" hve-nation COM
mission made up of Switzerland, Sweden
Poland, Czechoslovakia and India; (2) these
powers would each bring to Korea an equal
number of troops to carry out the custodial
task; 60 after the effectuation of this ar
rangement, the Communists would have four
months in which to explain" to the balky
POWs why they should agree to be returned
home; and a. the projected postarmistice
political conference would determine the fate
of those still refusing to agree after the four
month explanation" period.
But the flaws in this plan are as big as they
are obvious. For example, despite persistent
U. N effort at Panmunjom to get some clarifying
answers on the subject the Communists have
failed to elaborate on how the five neutral"
nations and their armed forces would func-
tion-whether independently of each other
with the POW camps divided among them, or
under single overall command, with the
camps centrally controlled. Further, they have
failed to show why four months should be re-
quired to try to persuade the recalcitrant
prisoners to accept repatriation, and they have
offered no justification whatever for the in
definite captivity that could result from having
a postarmistice conference debate and decide
the future Of those refusing to be persuaded.
Accordingly, in an effort to cut down on the
duration of captivity and to simplify the ex-
tremely cumbersome and probably unavoidable
setup advocated by the enemy, the United
Nations has counterproposed the following pro-
cedure: Cd After agreement on truce, all
North Korean POWs unwilling to return to Red
rule-about "a 4,000-would be released to civilian
life, presumably in South Korea; (2) the re-
naming recalcitrant prsoners-some 14,50O
Chinese-would be handed over to the neutral"
f1ve-nation commission; 60 but only India, not
the other member countries, would furnish the
troops needed for custodial work, and the
commissions operations would be controlled
under top Indian direction; "a the Communists
would have just 60 days, not four months in
which to try non-coercive persuasion on the
anti-repatriation captives; and (5) the future
of such men would be decided within that
period instead Of being subjected to possibly
interminable debate at a postarmistice con-
ference.
Through the Peping radio, the Communists
accusing the United States of "stalling" to block
a Korean truce, have been quick to declare that
this reasonable plan is Unacceptable" Ap-
parently they intend to hold fast to their own
PROPOSAL proposal full of potential BOBBY
traps Thus another deadlock seems to be in
the making at Panmunjom, with the enemy's
good faith looking less and less good as time
wears on and the negotiations continue dreariy
fruitleSS