REVIEW & OUTLOOK: CAMBODIA: YEAR 10

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87S00734R000100110008-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2010
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: January 14, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/05/18: CIA-RDP87SO0734R000100110008-5
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IREEVIIIEW & OUTLOOK
%..amnoaia: x ear to
Some people would prefer to for-
get, but the war in Indochina didn't
end with the U.S. retreat from Viet-
'' liam 10 years ago thisApril. The kill-
ing has continued right along, most
recently in Cambodia, where this past
week Vietnamese troops routed the
Mast of the refugee and anti-Vietnam
guerrilla camps as part of their an-
'mial dry-season offensive. Vietnamese
troops even charged in hot pursuit
' into neighboring Thailand, though
'J:?.`they later retreated. The episode re-
minds us that the world's troubles
;'don't vanish simply because U.S. pol-
,`i6y'ignores them.
it's clear by now that the real
ag-ony of Cambodia began in 1975, with
.-10- U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.
First, the murderous Khmer Rouge
killed a million or more Cambodians
their "peasant revolution." Then in
1978 Vietnam invaded, installing a
Puppet government and taking a large
step toward realizing its historical
dream of dominating all of Indochina.
Several hundred thousand Cambo-
dians have since fled to border camps
near- Thailand, preferring even that
.makeshift life to the rule of Vietna-
mese-backed Heng Samrin. They
share the camps with the various anti-
Vietnamese insurgent groups that
have been harassing Vietnam's 160,000
.invading troops for more than six
:"years. That's why the Vietnamese use
..,--the dry weather each winter to at-
thck the guerrillas' base camps near
thebloodiest in years, but that doesn't
-mean the Vietnamese are winning. In-
deed, if anything, the Cambodian re-
sistance has grown stronger year by
year so that most analysts now figure
the war is a' stalemate. The Cambo-
dian resistance gets arms from China
and small amounts from Singapore.
Vietnam follows the typical pattern of
Soviet clients, accepting some $2 bil-
lion a year of Moscow's cash to subsi-
dize its 1.1-million-man army, the
world's third largest (after Russia's
and China's). Even with that aid, the
war's cost has kept Vietnam the eco-
nomic pauper of fast-growing Asia.
So the ferocity of this year's at-
This year's attacks are reportedly
tacks may signal renewed worry in
Hanoi that its occupation may not be
so easy after all. In particular, Viet-
nam seems to be aiming its attacks at
the Khmer People's National Libera-
tion Front, an anti-communist resis-
tance group that with .15,000 or so
fighters is the largest and fastest-
growing guerrilla alternative to the
Khmer Rouge (which has about 30,-
000). Hanoi knows that so long as the
murderous Khmer Rouge remains the
strongest' resistance group, much of
the world will figure things are a Hob-
son's choice and try to forget Indo-
china.
The mystery in all this is U.S. pol-
icy.America provides "humanitar-
ian" aid to the refugees along the
Thai border, but no weapons to the
guerrillas. The mystery is why not.
Son Sann, the anti-communist resis-
tance group's leader, makes frequent'
trips to the U.S. to drum up aid; he
says he'll be happy with anything. The
neighboring Thais, who fear a Viet-
nam with a secure hold on Indochina,
also support the guerrillas. Morally,
too, aid to Son Sann's group makes
sense because it helps reduce the in-
fluence of the Khmer Rouge, which
has China as a patron. Indeed, we
wonder why the U.S. hasn't used its
new friendship withChina to persuade
Peking to drop the Khmer Rouge.
America's non-policy in Southeast
Asia hasn't yet cost the U.S. much,
because the Indochinese fighting re-
mains a draw and the rest of Asia is
stable and growing. But a Vietnam
that has comfortably turned Indochina
into a Soviet satellite would present a
much larger threat-as suggested by
the expanding Soviet presence at Cam
Ranh Bay, the one-time U.S. naval
base in Vietnam.
The non-communist Khmer insur-
gents aren't much different from the
Afghan guerrillas or Nicaragua's con-
tras. They are people willing to risk
their lives to fight for freedom against
Soviet or Soviet-armed opponents.
They don't want the U.S. to commit
its own troops. They only want the
wherewithal to fight for themselves.
As Vietnamese tanks and helicopters
fire away, it seems almost perverse
that the U.S., denies their request.
Approved For Release 2010/05/18: CIA-RDP87SO0734R000100110008-5
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