DEVELOPMENTS IN INDOCHINA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00875R001000090006-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 3, 2008
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: January 7, 1973
• Content Type: REPORT

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Top Secret
DIIt EC TO It ATE, OF
IN'TELLIGE'NCE
Developments in Indochina
State Dept. review completed
L 04N Copr`,
Top Secret
1?J
7 January 1973
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(Information as of 1500)
LAOS
The Communists are again increasing the
pressure on the provincial capital at Saravane
in south Laos.
SOUTH VIETNAM
South Vietnam's Catholics are trying to
organize a new party to compete politically
with President Thieu's new Democracy Party.
The government has made some changes in judicial
procedures in anticipation of a cease-fire.
CAMBODIA
Khmer Communist forces are continuing
to harass scattered government positions along
Routes 2 and 3 and in the Phnom Penh area.
-/ January 1973
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Communist forces in south Laos are again
increasing pressure on Saravane.
In their sharpest attacks in several weeks,
North Vietnamese gunners carried out a series
of heavy shellings against irregular positions
south and southeast of the town. Although ground
action has remained generally light, several
Communist tanks were sighted on Saravane's western
edge on 7 January. Irregular troops appear to be
standing up well, and their combat effectiveness
reportedly is still high. They have been receiving
effective air support despite enemy antiaircraft
fire. Elements of the North Vietnamese 968th
Division's three regiments are now in the vicinity
of Saravane.
In the north, no significant military activity
was reported over the weekend. Irregular forces
north of the Plaine des Jarres at Bouam Long are
taking advantage of a lull in Communist military
action to strengthen their defenses and to increase
their patrolling around the government base. Re-
cent air strikes on an important supply line west
of Bouam Long apparently have helped to slow the
pace of the North Vietnamese offensive.
To the west, government forces assigned to
retake the town of Sala Phou Khoun at the junction
of Routes 7 and 13--which was overrun by Pathet
Lao and "Patriotic Neutralist" troops on 30
December--are still trying to get organized. US
and Lao air strikes are being conducted on sus-
pected enemy positions near the town. Prime
Minister Souvanna Phouma, who has been embarrassed
politically and militarily by the Lao Army's poor
7 January 1913
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showing in this sector, has named a single overall
commander for the area to eliminate previous com-
mand and control problems.
7 January 1973
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SOUTH VIETNAM
Some of South Vietn.tt."s Catholics are pre-
paring to form a new political party. Several
Catholic factions presently allied informally
in the People's Forward Together Bloc will try
to merge soon and seek validation as a legal
party under the tough new decree promulgated
by President Thieu late last month.
Under the new law, parties must have
chapters containing a minimum of five percent
of the registered voters in at least half of
South Vietnam's provinces and cities, and they
must win a certain minimum percentage of either
the vote or the seats at stake in elections
for the National Assembly. Existing parties
have three months to meet the new conditions;
new parties have to comply within a year after
they begin operating.
Indications that the new Catholic party,
whose name is expected to be the "Freedom
Party," was being formed were revealed publicly
this weekend in tM_ semi-official newopaper
Tin Song. A "provisional executive committee,"
consisting of 15 members and led by three co-
chairmen representing various Catholic factions,
already has been formed, according to the news
reports. Earlier in the week, some of the new
party officials told the US Embassy that while
an organization had not been fully set, a firm
decision had been made to try to form a party
under the requirements of the new decree.
The officials acknowledged to the embassy
that an al].-Catholic party would not be broad-
based enough to last very long, but that for
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the immedi;rte future they "must work with what
::hey have now." Efforts apparently will be made
at some future date to form an alliance with
such other religious factions as the Hoa I3ao
in the delta and the Cao Dai in Tay Ninh Province.
The officials also revealed that while they
technically would have 12 months to get the
new party in shape, the real test of their ability
to organize a viable party would come in Juno
when the political parties must present their
slates of candidates for the Senate elections in
August. Immediate efforts to get the party
constituted in the required number of locations
will be made in the smaller provinces and cities
away from Saigon where there already is sufficient
Catholic strength. Organization in such places
as the capital, and other cities where the
Catholics are not as strong, the officials stated,
would come later.
The announcement of the Catholics' plans
to organize a political party under the new
decree is the first public indication of such an
attempt by an organization other than that
controlled by President Thieu, whose Democracy
Party already is well on the road. The recent
history of South Vietnam's Catholic movement,
which has largely been factionalized and unable
to line up behind any single leader or group of
leaders, does not bode well for the new party's
chances of survival. Attempts to get a solid
"Catholic vote" have largely proved fruitless,
the last known attempt at such a consolidation
being the effort to form the People's Forward
Together Bloc.
South Vietnam's two major religious sects-
the Catholics and the Buddhists--would seem logical
candidates for new political parties under the
law, although there presently are no indications
7 January 1973
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that the Buddhists plan such a move. Despite
unsuccessful efforts in the past by both groups
to organize politically, the "do or die" effect
of the new decree law may furnish the necessary
stimulus for success. Both sects have the neces-
sary strength in terms of numbers--provided they
can get some agreed upon position broad enough
to satisfy a majority of their membership--to
muster the required number of votes and provincial
chapters. Money also should be no problem under
those conditions. If, however, President Thieu
decides to put the full weight of the government's
bureaucracy against any new political organization,
it will be doomed from the start. But with a
minimum of government interference and consider-
able effort toward compromise on the part of
the Catholics, the new "Freedom Party" could
beco
me a reality.
Some Chafes in South Vietnamese Judicial Procedures
The South Vietnamese Government, anticipating
a halt in the fighting and a possible cease-fire,
has ordered that present arrest and detention
procedures remain in effect under peacetime
conditions. In a heretofore unannounced decree,
President Thieu in late November broadened the
government's detention law to include people
considered dangerous to "public order." Pre-
viously, persons could be detained or their
place of residence restricted only if they were
considered "dangerous to national defense and
security" during wartime conditions. The new
and expanded provision now gives security
officials the authority to arrest people after
the war ends when threats to national defense
and public security might be more difficult to
prove.
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The new decree also orders that the offenders
be arrested on criminal instead of political
charges. Some earlier decrees already had ordered
such changes for crimes covered by other laws in
an effort to prevent the release of "political
prisoners" after a cease-fire. The addition
of such a provision in the detention law means
that virtually any person arrested in South
Vietnam can now he held on criminal instead of
political. charges.
In another move designed to strengthen
the government's judicial hand, the prime m-inister
recently ordered the end of an accei.erated
campaign to arrest Communist suspects under the
government's anti - Viet Cong "Phuong Hoang"
(Phoenix) program. Begun last spring shortly
after the start of the enemy's offensive, the
program permitted the arrest of persons suspected
of working for the Viet Cong if only one source
of evidence was presented against them; pre-
viously, three such sources were needed. Many
of the several thousand people arrested under the
new provision are still in jail because of the
government's inability or unwillingness to
prosecute the cases.
When it went into effect, the provision
was criticized strongly by some groups, especially
the An Quang Buddhists, who charged that the
government was indiscriminately arresting their
members. During the height of the fighting, these
protests largely fell on deaf ears as the govern-
ment took the position that such extreme measures
were justified to reduce the internal threat
posed by these people. As the fighting suhs_ded
and the threat to the government declined, this
justification became less credible. Furthermore,
local security officials began to complain that
detention centers were becoming overcrowded.
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CAMBODIA
One of the three government battalions
assigned to reinforce Tram Khnar on Route 3
managed to loin the defenders of that town on
6 January. The other two battalions were forced
back by Communist action, and one of ;:hem has
moved east toward Route 2. Khmer Communist
elements operating along that highway are con-
tinuing to harass government positions north of
Takeo at Thnal Totung and Sva.y Prey. Some US
air support is being provided to the two
threatened positions.
Several scattered Communist attacks
occurred in the Phnom Penh area over the week-
end. A total of 46 Cambodian troops were wounded
in one clash west of the capital, and the govern-
ment has sent three infantry battalions and an
armored personnel carrier squadron to reinforce
its units in that area. East of the city, four
government soldiers were killed and another 20
were wounded during a Communist att'ck on a
Cambodian battalion operating near Vihear Suor.
7 January 1973
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