Danger and Opportunity in Indochina

Through the anguished years of the Viet Nam War, Cambodia and Laos have been strictly sideshows. Cambodia has almost entirely escaped the storm of steel that so far has cost the lives of an estimated 610,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops, 175,000 South Vietnamese troops, and more than 42,000 Americans--not to mention some 300,000 Vietnamese civilians. The conflict in Laos, though bloody enough, has not approached the scale of the war in Viet Nam. Now the situation is suddenly changing. Events in Laos and Cambodia last week may well prove to be a watershed in the protracted Viet Nam War. Indeed, they could change the whole thrust of the war.

For the first time since the Geneva accords of 1962 brought an equivocal peace to Laos, Communist troops moved south in force from the Plain of Jars. They seized one key base that had been held by the Laotians with U.S. support and menaced another that serves as the center of CIA operations in the country. The onslaught made it clear that the North Vietnamese could overrun all of Laos at will; what was agonizingly unclear was just how far they intended to go.

Developments in neighboring Cambodia were equally unsettling. In Phnom-Penh, anti-Communists led by Premier General Lon Nol and Deputy Premier Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak deposed Prince Norodom Sihanouk as chief of state and ordered North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops out of Cambodia. In a number of border clashes with Communist troops, the Cambodian army called for -- and got -- help from U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. With the war continuing in South Viet Nam and with the North wrestling with the grave problems that have grown out of the conflict, all four states of Indochina were on the boil at the same time (see map).

Privileged Sanctuaries

For some time, Laos and Cambodia have served as massive conduits for the flow of men and supplies from North Viet Nam to the southern battlegrounds. There is, of course, the spidery Ho Chi Minh Trail, threading into South Viet Nam from more than half a dozen points in Laos and Cambodia. There is also the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville, through which, according to some estimates, the Communists get fully 80% of their supplies for the war in the lower half of South Viet Nam. Much of the materiel is brought in aboard Chinese and Soviet freighters and moved north over first-class roads (including one built with U.S. aid) by a fleet of some 500 canvas-covered lorries operated by the Chinese firm of Hak Ly.

Even more important is the use of Cambodia and Laos as privileged base areas for Communist troops. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong hospitals, supply dumps, rest camps and training areas are scattered throughout eastern Cambodia. A 2,300-man headquarters for the joint North Vietnamese-Viet Cong effort in the South lies in a complex of huts beneath a triple canopy of jungle. Some of the sanctuaries bear picturesque names, chosen mostly because of their geographic contours. In southeastern Cambodia are the "Parrot's Beak" and the "Angel's Wing," where five Communist regiments operating in the Mekong Delta "float in and out," as a U.S. source puts it. Farther north in Cambodia is the "Fishhook," only 70 miles from Saigon, which is the haven for two full divisions as well as Viet Cong headquarters. It is no exaggeration to say that the existence of these sanctuaries has virtually precluded a military solution to the Viet Nam War. In fact, General Creighton Abrams, the U.S. commander in South Viet Nam, has said that if they were eliminated the war would be over within a year.

In recent months, increasing allied successes in South Viet Nam have forced the Communists to lean more than ever on the Cambodian and Laotian sanctuaries. Cambodia in particular noted an upsurge in activity as the allies pressed toward the western frontiers of South Viet Nam. Phnom-Penh, for example, reported 200 attacks by Communist troops on Cambodian outposts in the past few months. In Laos, U.S. intelligence sources note that Hanoi has sent in one fresh 9,000-man division and fully reinforced another in recent months for its current offensive.

Promise and Peril

To policymakers in the U.S., the Cambodian and Laotian crises present a tantalizing mixture of promise and peril. Should the U.S. go to Cambodia's aid if asked, providing supplies or men in the hope of wiping out the sanctuaries once and for all? If the U.S. were to do so, Hanoi might reply by pouring in more troops and opening yet another front, or by intensifying its thrust in Laos. This, coming at a point when the U.S. is attempting to disengage from the Indochinese quagmire, could prove politically as well as militarily disastrous. The U.S. effort to disengage, in fact, may well have contributed to much of the current turmoil.

If Washington faces difficult decisions over the next several weeks, however, so does Hanoi. Can North Viet Nam stand calmly by and see its supply lines to the South endangered? Should the Communists seize all of Laos, and risk massive U.S. bombing as well as attack by a Thai army that is unlikely to feel comfortable with Communist forces just across the Mekong River? With problems of these dimensions suddenly looming, the next few months are bound to be crucial for Southeast Asia.

The common denominator in the current turmoil is the North Vietnamese infantryman, and his presence in sizable numbers in supposedly neutral lands. Hanoi's forces long ago took on the burden of the Laos campaign from the ineffectual, home-grown Pathet Lao. Neither the frangible Laotian regulars nor the lightly armed, CIA-backed Meo guerrillas of Laotian General Vang Pao have been able to withstand them. In Cambodia, it was North Viet Nam's freewheeling use of Cambodian territory that finally precipitated Sihanouk's ouster. With the U.S. withdrawal under way, Sihanouk grew increasingly alarmed that the presence of so many North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers would encourage Cambodia's own Communists, the Khmer Rouge, to act more boldly. For all his diplomatic dexterity, however, the ebullient prince had found it impossible to persuade his unwelcome guests to leave, and power was seized by men who may try harder. Of course, many observers familiar with the Byzantine workings of Sihanouk's mind suspect that he may have engineered the whole thing as a way of pressuring Moscow and Peking to talk the intruders into leaving. But most analysts suspect that this time no dissembling was involved.

In the Spotlight

Dissatisfaction with Sihanouk has sprung from several sources. Foreign policy intrigues the mercurial prince and so does education, but economic policy, which is vital to Cambodia's welfare, simply bores him. There were rumors that the prince's relatives had profited enormously from government contacts. After Sihanouk was deposed, his wife, attractive Princess Monique, was attacked for alleged profiteering. Even Queen Kossomak, Sihanouk's mother, was the subject of ugly speculation on the same count. "The pretext was that Sihanouk was not doing enough against the Vietnamese," said a young Cambodian businessman. "The real reason was that we were all tired of him."

It was Sihanouk's foreign policy that kept him in the spotlight both at home and abroad. In the early '60s, the prince concluded that the U.S. would never be able to defeat the Vietnamese Communists. Accordingly, he began disengaging from the U.S. and ingratiating himself with the Soviet Union and, more important, China. In late 1963, Sihanouk ordered U.S. aid officials out of the country, and 18 months later he broke off relations completely.

After Lyndon Johnson's decision to halt the bombing of North Viet Nam, Sihanouk began swinging back toward the U.S. "The American presence helps Cambodia indirectly by maintaining the balance of power in the area," he said. "If the U.S. pulls out of the region, the weight of China will be too great for the small countries of Southeast Asia to bear. They will all become Maoized." A year ago, during a tour of Cambodia's northeast provinces, Sihanouk saw for himself the extent of Communist occupation. Subsequently, the prince said that he had had enough of the Communist intruders. So had many of his countrymen.

Inevitably, American and South Vietnamese troops were guilty of incursions as well, though not for protracted periods. Last December, Cambodia's United Nations Ambassador, Huot Sampoth, appealed for an end to "this war of extermination" in which, he said, more than 300 Cambodians had been killed and 700 wounded by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. There was little, however, that Cambodia could do except complain: its scantily equipped 40,000-man armed forces could not adequately patrol Cambodia's ill-defined, 575-mile frontier with Viet Nam. A typical technique was to send a single Cambodian trooper, mounted on a motorcycle, to the site of a border violation. The soldier would race up to the invading troops, wave a Cambodian flag at them and try to persuade them to leave. It is a tribute to Cambodian bravado that the tactic sometimes worked.

Energizing the Economy

Last summer Sihanouk made the two men who eventually overthrew him the principal figures in a "movement of salvation" designed to energize Cambodia's stagnant economy. Both had been key officials for some time. Lon Nol is a quiet, pragmatic 56-year-old general who has been Cambodia's best-known anti-Communist for many years. He became head of the national police in 1951 and entered the army in 1952, taking part in operations against the Viet Minh invaders until the end of the French war in Indochina. Three years after joining the army, he became its chief of staff, and in 1966 was elected Premier. He resigned the following year after suffering injuries in an auto accident, but returned to the government in 1968 as Defense Minister. In mid-'69, when Lon Nol was again elected Premier, he demanded -- and got -- substantial powers from Sihanouk.

Prince Sirik Matak, 56, who helped Lon Nol depose Sihanouk, is the scion of the Sisowath branch of the royal family (Sihanouk is of the Norodom branch). A more colorful figure than Lon Nol, he could emerge as Cambodia's real new leader. Though he has practically made a career out of publicly opposing Sihanouk on major issues, his unquestioned ability has all but guaranteed him a succession of important government posts. With Lon Nol, he has long fought Sihanouk's policy of tolerating the Communist border presence, but he has struggled hardest to free the economy of oppressive government controls and corruption.

Familiar Gambit

Last January, with domestic conflicts developing over economic reforms and the issue of the Vietnamese troops, Sihanouk decided to depart for France. It was a familiar gambit -- leave at a time when trouble is brewing, come back after the situation has worsened, point out how inefficient the temporary chieftains have been and then create a flurry of activity that resembles a solution. This time, however, Sihanouk's absence simply gave Lon Nol and Sirik Matak time to plot.

In February, the governors of Cambodia's 19 provinces met in Phnom-Penh. As they reported, one by one, on their problems, it slowly became apparent that unrest extended over most of the nation -- and that the chief source of the trouble was the North Vietnamese presence. Lon Nol and Sirik Matak decided that something had to be done to drive home the seriousness of the situation to both the wandering Sihanouk and the North Vietnamese.

To this end, they organized mass demonstrations, first in Svay Rieng province, site of the Fishhook sanctuary, then three days later in the capital. Thousands of civil servants, students and soldiers in civilian clothes joined in. Many of the placards they carried had been printed on government presses. The North Vietnamese and N.L.F. embassies were sacked. Though the demonstrations were sparked by the army, there was enough spontaneous participation to indicate a high level of popular hatred for the North Vietnamese. It was then that the anti-Sihanouk forces seriously began to consider ousting the prince.

Object Lesson

Other factors helped crystallize their feelings. The continuing disintegration in Laos, for instance, was an object lesson in the perils of a large North Vietnamese troop presence. In addition, exploratory post-riot talks with the affronted North Vietnamese in Phnom-Penh got nowhere. The Communist diplomats brushed aside the rights or wrongs of their military presence; they were only interested in reparations and a public apology for their ruined embassies. At that point Sihanouk weighed in with a cable warning of Soviet unhappiness with the demonstrations and indicating that he had no plans to get tough with Hanoi's representatives. Lon Nol and Sirik Matak decided that the time had come to shut the door on the returning prince. The National Assembly and the Council of the Kingdom removed Sihanouk as head of state and named Assembly Speaker Cheng Heng as his acting successor.

The first sign that Sihanouk might have lost control came when air controllers at Phnom-Penh's Pochentong Airport began to turn away incoming airliners. A Burma Airways plane, whose passengers included a U.S. Coast Guard officer en route to Cambodia to negotiate the return of the hijacked Columbia Eagle (see THE NATION), was in its approach pattern when it was waved off. A few hours later, a government communique announced: "In view of the political crisis created in recent days by the chief of state, Prince Sihanouk, and in conformity with the constitution, the National Assembly and the Council of the Kingdom have unanimously agreed to withdraw confidence in Prince Sihanouk." The coup had a distinctive Cambodian flavor. Some of the tanks drawn up around public buildings in the capital had white kerchiefs over their gun muzzles, and scores of soldiers were seen snoozing on the grass, many without shoes.

Impossible Ultimatum

Sihanouk heard of his overthrow from Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin in Moscow. At first he took the news calmly. A few hours later, just before flying off to Peking for talks with Premier Chou Enlai, he told Cambodian students at Vnukovo II Airport that he might establish an exile government in Moscow or Peking. Earlier, he had sent off a cable to his mother quoting Kosygin as having said: "If the extreme right continues to strike foul blows on our allies, war is inevitable between Cambodia and Viet Nam."

Back in Phnom-Penh, Lon Nol and Sirik Matak had been doing their best to make Kosygin's allies uncomfortable. They sent pro forma notes of apology to the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong for the damage to their embassies but at the same time handed the Communists an ultimatum: all of their troops must be out within three days.

It was an impossible demand, and Cambodia's new leaders made no move to enforce it. In fact, they made a point of announcing that Cambodia would maintain its traditional policy of neutrality and nonalignment. U.S. sources in Saigon reported some increase in the number of enemy troops crossing into South Viet Nam about the time the ultimatum expired, but the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese are still estimated to have close to 40,000 men in Cambodia.

Coming Unstuck

While Cambodia's new leadership moved to consolidate its hold, the military situation in Laos continued to disintegrate. That was not altogether startling; ever since the establishment of a neutralist tripartite government in Laos as a result of the Geneva accords of 1962, news from there had generally been gloomy. Under the accords, the country's three major parties--the Neo Lao Hak Xat (Communist), the Neutralists under Souvanna Phouma, and the right wing under General Phoumi Nosavan--were to work together in a single government. Souvanna held the balance of power as Premier, and Cabinet posts were shared by all three groups.

This solution began to come unstuck almost as soon as it was pieced together. Souvanna's Neutralist army immediately split in two, half staying with the Premier and the balance joining the Pathet Lao. Pathet Lao ministers in Vientiane, rightfully fearing assassination, fled to the Plain of Jars in 1963 and formed a rump government. The right wing made a bid to seize full power in 1964. At that time, the U.S. dropped its backing of the rightists and swung its support to Souvanna. The idea of tripartite rule was dead.

Unsettling Element

For the next five years, the strategically located Plain of Jars remained in Communist hands; most of the fighting in that period occurred around the periphery of the plain, and the Communists went no farther south. Last fall Vang Pao's CIA-backed army, aided by heavy U.S. air support, succeeded in driving the Communist forces from the plain. Five weeks ago, reinforced North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao troops reoccupied the plain--and this time they decided to go farther. After pausing to resupply, the Communists moved southeast. Late last week government forces abandoned Sam Thong to the Communists, and North Vietnamese troops were reported on the verge of attacking the CIA center at Long Cheng.

With the government forces in serious trouble, Vientiane sent in reinforcements, including a number of extremely young conscripts. Unexpectedly, several hundred Thai mercenaries were airlifted into Long Cheng by Air America, the CIA's Asian airline. This marked the first time that Thai participation in the Laos war had been officially acknowledged by the U.S.--though Thai artillery units and pilots are known to have fought in Laos on several previous occasions. It was a turn of events that intensely displeased doves in Washington. "It's too bad," said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J.W. Fulbright. "It's a very unsettling element."

As the Communist pressure mounted, a Pathet Lao emissary flew into Vientiane, bearing a message for Souvanna Phouma. It was assumed that the message included a proposal calling for a conference of Laotian political factions on the question of a settlement, and for an end to U.S. bombing in Laos. In the past, Souvanna has countered such proposals by insisting that North Vietnamese troops first be withdrawn from his country; this time, in the face of the North Vietnamese advance toward Long Cheng, there was a faint chance that Souvanna might agree to talks with the Pathet Lao (which is led by his half brother Prince Souphanouvong). Despite the increased pressure, Vientiane remained characteristically tranquil. Even the news of Sihanouk's overthrow failed to stir much of a reaction. Most attention was focused on the flamboyant wedding of Souvanna Phouma's son to a Thai model, an event attended by smiling representatives of Western and Communist powers.

A Smile from Thieu

The parallel crises in Indochina evoked strikingly cautious comments. Where Cambodia was concerned, officials were wary of pronouncements because no one could firmly count Sihanouk out for good. Given his popular support and his penchant for the surprise initiative, Sihanouk may well remain an important factor in Cambodian politics for some time to come. To be sure, he was not giving up without a fight. In Peking, he charged that his removal had been "absolutely illegal" and demanded a referendum under neutral supervision. Both Moscow and Peking emphasized that they still considered Sihanouk to be Cambodia's chief of state. In Washington, Cambodia's stability is considered essential to peace in Southeast Asia.

For that reason, a ranking White House official said: "We're not going to take any action that could foul us up. We're playing it cool." In Saigon, where Sihanouk has long been considered a Communist dupe, there was undisguised pleasure. South Viet Nam's President Nguyen Van Thieu had just finished telling a group of Asian newsmen, "We can be friendly with a neutral country, but 'neutral' does not mean being in complicity with the enemy," when an aide handed him the news of Sihanouk's downfall. Thieu broke into a broad grin.

Hanoi's response was, naturally, less enthusiastic. North Vietnamese successes in Laos seemed to be offset by the uncertain situation in Cambodia. Without a guaranteed border sanctuary, Communist forces could expect severe difficulties, particularly if Cambodian forces started acting in conjunction with allied troops. Would North Viet Nam fight to keep the sanctuary? That may not be necessary. In any case, for the time being Hanoi appears to be keeping the fighting in South Viet Nam at a low level. Ho Chi Minh's death last September may well be the reason. Sir Robert Scott, former British Commissioner General for Southeast Asia, notes in Foreign Affairs that the new leaders in Hanoi "do not now feel the same urgency to translate Ho's vision into reality in his lifetime." Adds Scott: "There is no purpose to be served by shedding too much blood to win what they expect to win anyway."

Plus and Minus

In terms of the Viet Nam conflict, last week's developments appear to leave Washington with one questionable plus --Cambodia--and one probable minus --Laos. Whatever may happen in Laos, the U.S. is extremely unlikely to use ground troops--as Senator Fulbright informed the world last week by releasing secret testimony by Secretary of State William Rogers. Rogers said that the Nixon Administration had "no present plans" to send G.I.s to Laos even if Communist troops threatened to overrun it. Nonetheless, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird indicated that the U.S. would probably continue to bomb the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Cambodia could be a plus --over the short run, at least--provided the situation does not degenerate into anarchy and prompt a panicky Hanoi to mount a full-scale invasion. (Sihanouk was useful in that he kept Cambodia stable. If the new regime swings violently antiCommunist, there could be serious trouble.) Hanoi, too, had a mixed week, with a definite plus in Laos all but outweighed by a possible minus in Cambodia. The survival of the sanctuary in Cambodia is now in question; supplies coming through Sihanoukville reportedly have been slowed, and some Communist troops may soon begin to feel the pinch of hunger.

One positive factor for everybody would be a multinational peace conference whose aim would be a settlement embracing all of Indochina. The Soviets have opposed reconvening the 14 nation Geneva parley until the U.S. stops its bombing in Laos; the dangers posed by Sihanouk's departure from the scene could persuade them to drop their opposition. Hanoi, with its lifeline in Cambodia endangered, now has more reason to come to the bargaining table. A more remote possibility is that the Communist Chinese, whose foreign policy is no longer distorted by the lunatic frenzies of the Cultural Revolution, might be persuaded to join. Last week's demonstration of Indochina's chronic instability may eventually prove persuasive enough to bring all the nations concerned to the bargaining table. Nothing, in all likelihood, could do more to please Norodom Sihanouk, or Souvanna Phouma, or Richard Nixon.

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