Hanoi's Proxy War in Cambodia

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80T01719R000400230002-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: November 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 1998
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: May 9, 1973
• Content Type: MEMO

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SUBJECT: Hanoi's Proxy War in Cambodia
9 May 1973
SUMMARY
As the cease-fire period enters its fourth month
in South Vietnam, the level of military activity is
low throughout that country. In Laos, the fighting
has almost entirely died out. But in Cambodia, the
war is winding on into its fourth year without any
hope for a quick or easy cease-fire. Most of the
fighting on the enemy side in Cambodia is now being
shouldered by increasingly aggressive Khmer Communist
forces. But this situation tends to obscure the
fact that if it were not for Hanoi's direct involve-
ment and support, the Khmer Communists would not
exist as a viable military and political force.
Hanoi created the Khmer Communist Party, trained
and equipped the Khmer Communist military machine,
and launched the effort to build an extensive Com-
munist infrastructure throughout the Cambodian country-
side. Hanoi's troops did the bulk of the fighting
in the first two years of the war, and indeed it was
the numerous defeats that the North Vietnamese in-
flicted on the Cambodian Army in those early days
that are largely responsible for its present low state
of morale and effectiveness.
;bile the North Vietnamese have reduced con-
siderably the level of their direct participation
on the battlefield, they still play a number of vital
roles in the war. They are the Khmer Communists'
logistical lifeline; they furnish advisors who guide
Khmer Communist military units; they provide artil-
lery and occasionally infantry support for their
Cambodian clients.
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The North Vietnamese also provide strong direc-
tion to the Khmer Communists' military strategy,
which is determined at least in part by Hanoi's ob-
jectives in South Vietnam. For the present, Hanoi
is seeing to it that the war in Cambodia continues.
The North Vietnamese have yet to show any interest
in influencing the Khmer Communists to reduce or
stop the struggle. On the contrary, they appear
determined to maintain steady military pressure on
Phnom Penh. Hanoi's preference for a continuation
of the fighting and their uncompromising stand on
negotiations are reflected in the activities and
policies of the Khmer Communist leadership.
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The Viet Minh Era: Laying the Groundwork
Hanoi's interest in establishing its sway over
Cambodia is long-standing. In the mid-1940's, Com-
munist Viet Minh elements from South Vietnam estab-
lished contact with Cambodians seeking independence
from France and subsequently organized a "Khmer Viet
Minh" faction within the independence movement. This
faction was controlled by the Indochina Communist
Party under Ho Chi Minh's direction. When that party
was scrapped in 1950 and replaced by the Vietnamese
Lao Dong Party the following year, indigenous Com-
munist parties were supposed to be set up in both
Cambodia and Laos, but the Viet Minh had considerable
trouble organizing the Cambodian party. (There is
some evidence that the Khmer Communist Party was
finally formed in Hanoi in 1961.)
The Viet Minh had a hard time gaining acceptance
in Cambodia. They were handicapped by traditional
Khmer antipathy toward the Vietnamese and were up-
staged by Prince Sihanouk's "crusade" for independence.
Still, the Viet Minh persisted and by early 1953
reportedly had assembled a 7,000-man "Cambodian Lib-
eration Army" composed of Cambodian and Viet Minh
"volunteers." The political arm of the Viet Minh
effort was the "Cadre Affairs Committee," organized
at the provincial level.
In late 1953, the Viet Minh were dealt a telling
blow when Cambodia gained its virtual independence
from France. The following year, at the Geneva Con-
ference, they obtained no concessions on Cambodia,
and the Geneva Agreement called on the Viet Minh to
withdraw all its military forces from Cambodia. Most
of them did withdraw, although some cadre remained
behind to engage in limited covert political activi-
ties in the countryside.
While the Vietnamese departed openly, the "Khmer
Viet Minh"--including a group of montagnard tribes-
men from northeastern Cambodia--left in secret for
North Vietnam. This force has been estimated to
number some three thousand. Additional Cambodians
were recruited and dispatched to North Vietnam for
intensive political indoctrination and military
training in the years that followed, and these
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Shy
trainees are the hard-core of the current "resis-
tance" movement in Cambodia. Some of them began
to return to Cambodia in the late 1960's, while
Sihanouk was still in power, and the flow steadily
increased after his ouster in 1970. The total num-
ber now returned to Cambodia could be as high as
8,000.
The recent interrogation of a young Khmer Com-
munist rallier provides a good example of the time
and attention Hanoi devoted to its Cambodian charges.
Along with approximately 200 other Khmer from Cam-
bodia and South Vietnam, the rallier left for North
Vietnam in late 1964. The group arrived at the
"Vietnamese-Khmer Friendship School" in the Hanoi
area in the fall of 1965. The school, which served
as a reception and administration center, was staffed
and run by Cambodians. Most of the trainees at the
school were also Cambodians.
After six months of Vietnamese language train-
ing, the rallier and his 400 classmates underwent
political and ideological indoctrination for a year.
This was followed by two years of military training,
including the use of all types of weapons and the
mastery of sabotage operations. When his formal
training ended, the rallier spent a year as a truck
driver in China near the North Vietnam border.
Before his departure from Cambodia in October 1970,
he was kept busy performing onerous "socialist labor
tasks" in North Vietnam. His infiltration group
consisted of 800 returnees, but because of sickness
and death only about 500 arrived in Camk)odia's Kratie
Province in March 1971.
Peaceful Coexistence With Sihanouk
Hanoi's clandestine training of large numbers
of Cambodians was a clear sign that the North Viet-
namese were planning well ahead for the day when
they could no longer count on an accommodating gov-
ernment in Phnom Penh to permit the military use
of Cambodian territory in support of aggression in
South Vietnam. From 1954 until the late 1960's,
Hanoi refrained from any excessive interference in
the internal situation in Cambodia. In the late
1950's, the Vietnamese did lend propaganda and
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financial support to the pro-Communist Pracheachon
(People's) Party in Phnom Penh. This proved to be
a bad investment, however, because that small front
group never attained a wide popular following. Its
above-ground apparatus was effectively destroyed in
1962, when Sihanouk jailed most of its leaders.
Sihanouk's power and popularity are part of the
reason the Vietnamse Communists maintained a low
political profile. During most of his reign they
concentrated on enlisting his support, and for several
years in the 1960's they were quite successful in this
important undertaking. With a strong assist from
Peking, for example, Hanoi saw to it that Sihanouk
agreed to and abetted the movement of substantial
quantities of arms and ammunition across Cambodia
to Communist forces in South Vietnam. This major
smuggling operation, which involved the use of the
port of Sihanoukville (now renamed Kom;)ong Som),
lasted from 1966 to 1969. Sihanouk's willingness
to support this operation stemmed in part from his
conviction that the US would not stay the course
in Indochina.
The Honeymoon Ends
But Hanoi eventually overreached itself in
exploiting Cambodia. As the presence and activities
of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in Cambodia became
more and more blatant, Sihanouk came under heavy
pressure from the US--and to a far lesser extent
from some of his more prominent countrymen--to take
a tougher line with the Communists. By early 1969,
Sihanouk was ready to do so, in large part because
of his growing concern over Vietnamese Communist
involvement in tribal dissidence in the northeast.
The unrest in that remote area actually began
in 1967, when montagnard elements staged several
demonstrations protesting local grievances against
the government. Throughout the next year, the
situation in the northeast became more volatile as
the North Vietnamese began arming and training
disaffected tribesmen. The Communists directed the
montagnards to carry out harassing attacks against
Cambodian Army units in Ratanakiri and neighboring
provinces to keep them preoccupied and well away
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from North Vietnamese base areas and supply and
infiltration lines.
Sihanouk also contended that
Hanoi had a hand
in promoting insurgency
in
several western
prov-
inces. Like the trouble
in
the northeast,
the
unrest in the west began
in
1967. It was
fueled
by peasant dissatisfaction over government
economic
policies and resulted in a series of small
attacks
on Cambodian Army outposts. Sihanouk attributed
the dissidence to "Khmer Viet Minh" cadre who
settled in the west in 1954. He also claimed that
these cadre had "foreign support."
Whatever the case, the insurgency spread slowly
over the following three years. At no time before
Sihanouk's ouster did it pose an unmanageable threat
to the government's stability, but it did contribute
to a significant cooling in relations between Phnom
Penh and Hanoi. In the spring of 1969, a disgruntled
Sihanouk clamped an embargo on the smuggling of arms
through Cambodia to South Vietnam. The embargo re-
mained in effect until September, when Sihanouk was
reassured by Hanoi that Vietnamese Communist forces
in Cambodia would be more circumspect. The arms
shipments to South Vietnam were resumed, but only
on a limited basis to test North Vietnamese inten-
tions.
The Vietnamese Communists also irritated
Sihanouk through their practice of using Cambodian
territory close to the South Vietnam border to shell
allied positions in South Vietnam. These attacks
were often launched near Cambodian villages in an
effort to deter allied forces from retaliating.
This "human shield" tactic was not'always a success-
ful deterent, however, and a number of Cambodians
were killed by allied counterfire.
Sihanouk's failure to react more vigorously to
the presence and activities of Vietnamese Communist
forces in Cambodia contributed significantly to his
downfall. When Sihanouk abruptly left Phnom Penh
for France in January 1970, he left the government
in the care of Sirik Matak, whose tolerance of the
Vietnamese Communists--and of Sihanouk himself--had
already worn very thin. To signal their concern
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about the problems posed by Vietnamese Communist
troops, Matak and those around him who shared his
views organized destructive demonstrations in early
March in Phnom Penh against the diplomatic installa-
tion of North Vietnam and the Provisional Revolu-
tionary Government. When Sihanouk subsequently
vowed to punish those responsible for the demon-
strations, the political die was cast. On 18 March,
Lon Nol and Sirik Matak presided over Sihanouk's
ouster as chief of state. Their accession to power
resulted in Cambodia's becoming directly involved
in the war, and gave Hanoi the opportunity to
launch the development of a strong Khmer Communist
movement in Cambodia.
Building Up the Khmer Communists
At the time of Sihanouk's deposition, Khmer
Communist forces operating throughout the country
probably numbered no more than several thousand.
By themselves, they clearly had no capabilities for
challenging Phnom Penh militarily. This task fell
to the Vietnamese Communists, and they responded
rapidly. By early April 1970, their troops had
begun to move deeper into Cambodia. At the same
time that they were carrying the war to the weak
and inexperienced Cambodian Army, the Viet Cong
started to put out the line that they would "back
Cambodian revolutionary forces in the same manner
that the Democratic Republic of Vietnam has been
backing the Pathet Lao." Orders soon went out to
Viet Cong border provinces to prepare to administer
adjacent areas in Cambodia and to send advisory
groups to their Khmer counterparts in Cambodia. In
places where "relations with friends" were lacking,
the Viet Cong were ordered "to infiltrate the people
and local government to guide them'in a struggle
against the reactionary gang."
Viet Cong cadre came in small teams of propa-
gandists, security personnel, and Khmer. linguists.
After entering a Cambodian hamlet or village, they
would set up a pro-Sihanouk front committee to govern
locally and to form guerrilla and militia units.
This type of activity initially was limited to the
more readily accessible eastern and southeastern
border areas, which already were under de facto
Viet Cong influence. This activity was gradually
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extended into other sections of the country. By
the summer of 1970, for example, some Vietnamese
Communist forces had moved as far north as Siem
Reap Province, where they occupied the Angkor Wat
temple complex. (To this day, the historic ruins
are still occupied by a Communist regiment whose
troops are predominantly North Vietnamese.)
As their drive into Cambodia proceeded, the
Vietnamese Communists' need for Khmer-speaking cadre
to help establish a Khmer Communist organization
became more pressing. To meet this demand, "Cambodian
Proselyting Sections" were sent to enlist ethnic
Khmers in South Vietnam's delta area. In addition,
cadre from North Vietnam infiltrated into Cambodia
in late 1970 and early 1971 to serve as advisors
and instructors to fledgling Khmer Communist military
and political organizations.
At the outset, the Vietnamese Communists' efforts
to develop the Khmer Communists stressed speed over
quality. Besides the shortage of seasoned cadre,
the Vietnamese had to cope with Cambodian peasants
who lacked "political awareness." They also had to
contend with deep-seated Khmer racial animosity,
which has resulted in some physical confrontations
between "teachers" and "pupils." Despite the com-
plications, the persistent Vietnamese plugged away.
Over the past two years, with the help of their
Hanoi-trained Khmer cadre, they have turned out a
sizable and aggressive Khmer Communist regular
combat force which is now estimated to total between
40,000 and 50,000 troops.
The Military Apparatus
The development of Khmer Communist military
forces deviates from the pyramidal pattern used in
South Vietnam. There the Communists first estab-
lished guerrilla forces at the hamlet and village
level, then local force units at the district and
province level, and finally units of up to regi-
mental size at the military region level. In
Cambodia, because of the pressure of time, all three
echelons of the Khmer Communist force structure
were created simultaneously. The North Vietnamese
Army and the Viet Cong model served as the principal
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elements around which the indigenous Communist forces
were established.
Tactical command and control functions in Cam-
bodia were originally handled by Vietnamese Communist
officers, but a separate chain of command for the
Khmer Communists was gradually developed. It is
staffed primarily by Hanoi-trained Khmer. This
arrangement not only has helped reduce racial con-
flict, but also has enabled many Vietnamese Communist
cadre to return to South Vietnam. But even more
importantly, it left the Khmer Communist fairly well
prepared to operate more on their own militarily
when most Vietnamese Communist infantry units in
Cambodia were committed to the enemy's all-out offen-
sive in South Vietnam last spring.
At present, the identified Khmer Communist com-
mand structure consists of the Standing Committee of
the "Party Central Committee" (reportedly located
near COSVN headquarters in enemy-controlled eastern
Cambodia) and six regional organizations in the major
geographic areas, which reputedly are responsible
for the administration of all military and political
affairs within their boundaries. Each region is
subdivided into sectors (also known as subregions
or zones), districts, and subdistricts. Special
military commands have been formed at the local
level to conduct specific military operations.
Logistical Support
The Khmer Communists continue to depend on their
Vietnamese mentors for weapons and ammunition. Ex-
cept for relatively small amounts'of captured ordnance,
Hanoi is the Khmer Communists' only direct source
of military supplies. Since early October 1972,.
the North Vietnamese have moved massive amounts of
weapons, ammunition, and armor southward through
their logistical networks in southern Laos and
eastern Cambodia. Some of these supplies reportedly
were earmarked specifically for the Khmer Communists.
Sihanouk himself acknowledged the importance of
Vietnamese logistical support to the Khmer Communists
when he stated publicly last month that his "army"
had received enough military hardware via Hanoi and
Peking to enable it "to keep fighting until 1975."
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oREIGN DISSEM
Although Sihanouk also stated that the Khmer
Communists would not receive any more outside mili-
tary assistance because such aid is banned by the
Paris agreement, aerial observers and low-level
sources report that Communist traffic along estab-
lished water and land supply routes in several
sections of Cambodia has not diminished. These
supply lines are being maintained by North Vietnamese
military rear service units. other intelligence
sources describe the existence of separate Khmer
Communist supply lines from major Vietnamese depots
in Kratie and Kompong Cham Provinces, areas of
considerable enemy logistical activity, There is
also fragmentary information which suggests that the
Khmer Communists still maintain joint ordnance stock-
piles with the North Vietnamese in areas west of the
Mekong. (Given the current estimated level of such
stockpiles and assuming a continuation of their
present rate of expenditures, the Khmer Communists
could probably continue fighting for an extended
period--even if supply shipments from North Vietnam
over the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos were halted.)
The Political Base
At the same time that the Vietnamese Communists
were working to field a viable Khmer Communist mili-
tary force, they were also building a political
organization. This was a relatively simple task in
the northeast and in the other areas bordering South
Vietnam where a Vietnamese Communist presence had
long existed. As the war spread, the Vietnamese
and their Hanoi-trained Khmer cadres extended their
political influence and administration into the
Cambodian interior. This process vas--'and still
is--facilitated by Phnom Penh's failure to use its
own military and political resources on a systematic
or sustained basis to try to check or reverse the
Communists' inroads in the countryside.,
Primarily because of the early shortage of
trained cadre, the Khmer Communist political appara-
tus had to be constructed from the top down. Regions
were organized and staffed first, and then the
sector, district, and lower level agencies. The
process has by now reached the hamlet level. Like
their military forces, the various components of
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the Khmer Communists' administrative structure are
modeled on Vietnamese communist lines. At the region
and sector echelons, for example, there are usually
sections for finance and economy, propaganda and
training, civil health, military and civilian prose-
lyting, and security affairs. In addition to these
civilian offices, there are military affairs commit-
tees which oversee the region or sector military
forces, procure local supplies, and recruit and
indoctrinate troops. Over the past year Khmer Com-
munist cadre have begun increasingly to assume
control of these offices from their Vietnamese tutors.
Khmer Communist expansion has met little resis-
tance. Standard Vietnamese Communist population
control measures, such as strict travel restrictions
and local security committees, are used to keep
villagers in line. If need be, the Khmer Communists
do not hesitate to apply coercive measures on recal-
citrant peasants. Uncooperative local officials
have been executed, homes have been burned, and
entire villages have been forcibly relocated to
Khmer Communist-controlled areas.
The Party and Its Leaders
As indicated earlier, the Khmer Communist Party
apparently was set up by the North Vietnamese in
1961. Although little hard information is available
on the party, certain conclusions about it can be
made with some confidence. It is still subservient
to Hanoi and its interests on major policy matters.
Furthermore, its leadership undoubtedly consists
chiefly of those Cambodians who have been and still
are being trained in North Vietnam.
In Cambodia, the party leadership is in the
hands of three of the key "ministers" in Sihanouk's
Peking-based "government." The trio consists of
"defense minister" Khieu Samphan, "interior minister"
Hou Yuon, and "information minister" Hu Nim. They
were first surfaced by the North Vietnamese as the
intended leaders of the Cambodian "resistance" on
10 April 1970. On that date, Radio Hanoi issued
a statement attributed to the three in which they
gave their support to Sihanouk's "five-point pro-
gram" of 23 March 1970.
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The three are all relatively young intellectuals,
initially exposed to communism during their student
days in France. Throughout much of the 1960's, they
were the leaders of the anti-Sihanouk political fac-
tions in Phnom Penh. They dropped out of sight in
1967, amid widespread rumors that Sihanouk had had
them killed in secret. Because of these rumors,
they are frequently alluded to in Phnom Penh and
elsewhere as "the three ghosts."
Sihanouk recently has gone to some lengths pub-
licly to refute such rumors. He claims to have met
with his three "ministers" during his trip to Cam-
bodia in March. Moreover, he claims that his dis-
cussions with them have resulted in their full
acceptance
of
him as both the political and military
leader of
the
"resistance." Although Sihanouk has
indicated
that
the three have also empowered him to
speak and
act
for them on the international plane,
he has subsequently stated in a press interview in
Peking in late April that any decisions regarding
possible peace negotiations involving the US would
not be made by him but by Khieu Samphan and other
members of the "resistance." This would seem to be
an oblique acknowledgement that the North Vietnamese
will do the real decision-making on any negotiations
concerning Cambodia.
Khmer Communist interests in Peking are repre-
sented by Ieng Sary. This shadowy individual arrived
in the Chinese capital from Hanoi in the summer of
1971 bearing the title of "special envoy of the
interior." Like the "three ghosts," he first came
under Communist influence while studying in France.
He, too, drew Sihanouk's fire for his leftist activi-
ties and, in 1963, went into a long period of hiding--
most likely in North Vietnam--that ended only with
his emergence in Peking. He has stayed close by
Sihanouk's side ever since, and the attention he has
received from the North Vietnamese and the Chinese
suggests that he is being groomed for future political
stardom in Cambodia. Ieng Sary, for instance, has
accompanied Sihanouk on all his travels--including
the recent trip to Cambodia. This past February,
he had a private audience in Hanoi with North Viet-
namese Premier Pham Van Dong, an honor previously
reserved only for Sihanouk.
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Fitting in Sihanouk
Hanoi's interest in Khieu Samphan, Hou Yuon, Hu
Nim, and Ieng Sary raised the question of Sihanouk's
political future. The North Vietnamese surely appre-
ciate Sihanouk's skills as a propagandist, his ability
to attract some international support for his "govern-
ment" and for the "resistance," and his residual
following among the Cambodian peasantry. But, because
of his strong nationalism and because of their past
uneasy relations with Sihanouk, the North Vietnamese
undoubtedly would be most reluctant to allow him to
return to Cambodia in any real position of authority.
For the time being, they have indicated a willingness
to emphasize their backing of Sihanouk as Cambodia's
"legitimate chief of state."
To be sure, Hanoi has always issued the required
endorsements of Sihanouk's exile "government" and its
demands for the ouster of the Lon Nol regime. But
it always stopped short of using its leverage to
impose Sihanouk on a Khmer Communist leadership hos-
tile to him. This temporizing continued until the
Prince's visit to Hanoi in early February. Before
leaving Peking, Sihanouk publicly suggested that he
was going to Hanoi armed with Chinese advice that
he should reassess the situation in Cambodia, especially
in view of Phnom Penh's declaration of a unilateral
cease-fire. Although the communique issued at the
end of Sihanouk's visit did not produce any insights
into his relations with the North Vietnamese, it now
seems obvious that the visit was used to make the
necessary arrangements for Sihanouk's trip in March
to the "liberated zone" of Cambodia.
Chinese prodding and Sihanouk's apparent will-
ingness to agree to a circumscribed, if not ultimately
expendable, role probably encouraged Hanoi to embrace
Sihanouk more ardently. But the catalytic factor
may have been Hanoi's own optimistic assessment of
the situation in Cambodia. The North Vietnamese saw
events in Cambodia developing in their favor far
more rapidly than they had anticipated, and probably
came to believe that it was possible that the Lon
Nol government might collapse from within. With
these conditions in mind, Hanoi evidently decided
that a timely propaganda and political offensive,
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combined with continuing military pressure, might
be enough to topple Lon Nol and force negotiations
on Communist terms. For Hanoi, this meant setting
forth a more fully-shaped "negotiation" position with
Sihanouk as a focal point and also putting the arm
on those elements within the Khmer Communist move-
ment opposed to him.
Khmer Communist opposition to Sihanouk is
well-documented, and Hanoi's ability to keep it
under control is another indication of the degree of
North Vietnamese leverage over the "resistance."
The testimony of a local Khmer Communist official
from southeastern Cambodia who rallied in mid-March
illustrates this. According to the rallier, the
Khmer Communist Regional Committee directed in
early March that propaganda in the region should
switch to a pro-Sihanouk position--emphasizing that
he would be returning to Cambodia as an ordinary
citizen, not as a prince. The fact that the direc-
tive was issued at the regional level suggests that
the pro-Sihanouk line is being peddled throughout
the country. The directive's timing also supports
the thesis that Hanoi had begun to implement a more
positive policy on Sihanouk, shortly after his
visit to North Vietnam in February.
Sihanouk's Future
There is no guarantee that Sihanouk can enjoy
his present political pre-eminence indefinitely.
The Chinese, whom Sihanouk has long regarded as
Cambodia's primary benefactor and protector, prob-
ably would prefer a future political role for him.
Both Hanoi and the Khmer Communists, however, prob-
ably would be much more inclined to deal him off
if necessary in subsequent negotiations with a
government in Phnom Penh. But if he should not
prove to be expendable, what kind of role would
the Communists allocate to Sihanouk? The Prince
himself naturally has given considerable thought to
his likely future position--assuming he does even-
tually return to Cambodia.
In his most recent book, Sihanouk writes that--
after long discussions in Peking with Ieng Sary and
other "young progressives"--he has agreed to stay
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on as "chief of state" of Cambodia. He goes on to
say that he will be a "working symbol" of the unity
that has been forged between Communist and non-
Communist elements of the "resistance struggle."
At the same time, he insists that he will "never
again take over the reins of government" nor will
he "ever wield administrative power as head of
state." Sihanouk's speeches since his trip to
Cambodia echo these sentiments. In a speech in
Pyongyang in mid-April, for example, he pointed to
Khieu Samphan, Hou Yuon, and Hu Nim as "the in-
evitable leaders of Cambodia." This is in line with
an earlier public-statement that the Khmer Commu-
nists--and by inference, Hanoi--will dominate Cambo-
dia's political future.
Despite such seemingly sincere remarks, however,
Sihanouk is still Sihanouk. The Communists may fear--
with good reason--that the irrepressible and poli-
tically astute Prince would try to gain a paramount
position in a coalition government regardless of
prior assurances that he'would play second fiddle
to the Khmer Communists. Thus, Sihanouk's precise
role in an eventual Cambodian settlement is sure to
be an issue requiring additional pulling and hauling
between Hanoi and Peking, and with the Khmer Commu-
nists.
Hanoi's Short-Term Strategy
From all indications, Hanoi intends to continue
to maintain military pressure against the Lon Nol
government during the next few months by campaigns
against Phnom Penh's lines of communication and by
shellings and sapper attacks against the capital
itself. These actions will be carried out pri-
marily by Khmer Communist forces because the bulk
of the Vietnamese Communist combat units still in
Cambodia most likely will remain deployed along
the border with South Vietnam's Military Region IV.
Vietnamese Communist combat strength in Cambo-
dia is now at its lowest level--about 5,000 troops--
since Communist operations there were initiated in
1970. There are also about 28,400`, Vietnamese
Communist administrative services personnel in
Cambodia primarily engaged in defending and manning
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the logistic network which supports Communist
forces in South Vietnam. This logistic activity
is centered in northeast Cambodia and in the areas
bordering South Vietnam. The presence and activities
of all these forces in Cambodia are in violation of
the Paris Agreement.
On the political side, Hanoi--and the Khmer
Communists--can be expected to keep up their present
propaganda and psychological offensive against the
government in Phnom Penh. Sihanouk's trips to Africa
and East Europe this month and next will help fuel
this offensive, as will Sihanouk's planned atten-
dance at the non-aligned conference in Algiers later
in the summer. In addition, another round of lobbying
for the seating of Sihanouk's "government" at the
United Nations this fall is probable, with Peking
taking the lead.
In the unlikely event that there is some sudden
and dramatic improvement in Phnom Penh's political
and military fortunes, Hanoi could adjust its
current high-pressure strategy on Cambodia. The
North Vietnamese have the ability to bring the
Khmer Communists to the conference table. They also
have the ability to restrain the Khmer Communists
militarily, through the withdrawal of logistics and
other forms of support. Hanoi's decision to adopt
either or both of these options would depend in part
on the strength of the opposition in Phnom Penh.
But such a decision hinges far more heavily on the
degree of big power interest and ability in fashion-
ing a compromise settlement. For the next few
months Hanoi probably estimates that it has much to
gain and comparatively little to lose by subjecting
Phnom Penh's shaky political and military stability
to an exacting test.
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