Inching Toward Peace

LAOS & CAMBODIA

If peace comes to South Viet Nam, can it be far behind in Laos and Cambodia? The Paris agreement stipulated that all foreign troops would withdraw from the territory of the two countries, but it did not say when. They must first negotiate their own differences before they can extricate themselves from a war in which they were involuntarily involved. Last week government and Communist forces in both countries appeared to be inching toward a cease-fire and perhaps even peace.

> In Cambodia, Premier Lon Nol declared a unilateral halt to offensive operations against the Communists. Exiled Prince Norodom Sihanouk, during a visit to Hanoi, pledged that the forces he nominally heads would not start major actions either. The North Vietnamese have only tenuous control of the native Khmer Rouge, and would have a hard time making an agreement stick. But a defacto cease-fire would give the Cambodians a chance to work out their own arrangement.

> In Laos, secret talks began between the government and the Communist-led Pathet Lao. The North Vietnamese, who have more than 67,000 troops in the country, had assured Henry Kissinger in Paris that negotiations in Laos would lead to a ceasefire.

The Communists did in fact show a new flexibility. They abruptly reversed their longstanding refusal to deal with military and political matters separately. Communist spokesmen suggested that Premier Prince Souvanna Phouma was overoptimistic in his prediction that a cease-fire in Laos would come within 15 days of one in South Viet Nam, but they agreed that a truce would come soon. Lending a helping hand, the Soviet Union offered to fly negotiators between the capital of Vientiane and the Communist stronghold of Samneua, about 200 miles away.

Paradoxically, Laos has the best chance of an early peace--largely because the North Vietnamese have virtually complete control over the Pathet Lao, and can keep them in line for whatever deal is worked out. Nonetheless, the war was hottest there last week. Thailand-based B-52 bombers, relieved of their duties in Viet Nam, concentrated their power on Communist forces in Laos. The strikes were aimed at suspected concentrations of North Vietnamese troops. For their part, the North Vietnamese pulled troops off the Ho Chi Minh Trail and arranged them in offensive positions against the Royal Laotian Army. The most serious threat was to the junction of Thakhek, which was encircled by nine battalions of Communist troops.

Cambodia's situation is even more intricate. The 40,000-strong Khmer insurgents, according to U.S. State Department officials, control more than 50% of the land and 40% of the population (Prince Sihanouk claims a far higher figure of 70% of the population). The insurgents are a disparate coalition of Communists, nationalists, dissidents and pro-Sihanouk loyalists. Originally armed by Hanoi, the Khmer Rouge is now largely independent of the North Vietnamese. In the more than two years since Cambodia was invaded by Saigon's forces and brought into the war. the rebels have proved themselves at least an even match for the 180,000-man Cambodian army.

Mute. The conventional wisdom in Phnom-Penh is, as a Cambodian businessman puts it, that "Khmers do not like to fight Khmers. Once the Vietnamese leave we will have peace." Perhaps, but if the rebels disprove this axiom, says a Western military attache, Cambodia will have "an insurgency problem that will go on for years and could match the Viet Nam situation."

One unpredictable factor is Prince Sihanouk, who has lived in exile in Peking since he was overthrown in 1970. Until last week, he was asserting that the rebellion would continue "until the traitorous Lon Nol regime in Phnom-Penh is wiped out." The Prince changed his tune during a visit to Hanoi and emphasized instead that "we are going to temporize, mute our operations and not launch offensive actions."

What had happened? Apparently the North Vietnamese had applied pressure to Sihanouk, and probably so had the Chinese. The question is whether even the combination of Hanoi and Sihanouk will persuade the independent-minded Khmer Rouge rebels--many of whom have little use for the Prince--to put down their arms. A possible, if unstable solution might be the creation of a tripartite settlement with Lon Nol on the right, Sihanouk in the middle and the Khmer Rouge on the left.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.