Southeast Asia Clean Sweep

By Jamie Murphy

"The shelling started at midnight. It was so heavy that I could hardly raise my head to fire at the men climbing toward us," said Squad Leader Ngun Chin, 29, describing the Vietnamese artillery rounds that rained last week on Green Hill, the last major Khmer resistance stronghold on the Thai-Kampuchean border. All night long, Chin and his 32 guerrilla fighters were pinned down in a trench at the edge of a steep escarpment that the defenders had hoped would protect them against being overrun. But shortly before dawn, Chin's squad received orders to withdraw, and the camp's entire complement of 3,000 guerrilla fighters pulled back into Thailand. Green Hill had fallen to the Vietnamese attackers.

The assault on the base, which had been held by forces loyal to Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the former Cambodian head of state, capped a triumphant Vietnamese dry-season offensive that has forced the Khmer resistance to reassess its six-year-old insurgency. In a series of strikes against strongholds of non-Communist and Communist resistance groups, the Vietnamese had pushed the guerrillas out of one border sanctuary after another. As the fighting raged, 230,000 Kampuchean refugees sought shelter across the frontier in Thailand. In ousting the resistance from its redoubts, the Vietnamese also cut supply lines that link Thailand with guerrilla groups operating deep within Kampuchea.

During similar offensives in past years, the Vietnamese always shelled the camps, driving tens of thousands of refugees into Thailand, but then retreated from the border posts relatively quickly. The guerrillas always managed to rebuild their bases during the rainy season, beginning in May. When they did, as many as 100,000 Khmer refugees would flood back over to the Kampuchean side. This year, however, Hanoi seems bent on the elimination of the resistance altogether. With the Vietnamese firmly entrenched close to the frontier, the refugees may have to remain in Thailand, a situation that puts considerable political and financial pressures on the Thais and on United Nations relief organizations as well.

The Vietnamese push, which got under way last November, gained additional muscle after two key resistance camps fell in January and February. Hanoi had moved in two additional divisions for the border operation, bringing the number of Vietnamese troops in the area to almost 60,000. The Vietnamese also conscripted tens of thousands of Kampucheans to build roads and lengthen airstrips in the region.

Two days after the fall of Green Hill, Sihanouk, who nominally heads a tripartite coalition of guerrilla groups including the Communist Khmer Rouge, arrived at the Nong Bua (Lotus Pond) Temple in the Thai town of Surin for the cremation of one of his generals killed during the campaign. The Prince greeted his followers and conferred quietly with the general's widow. "The Vietnamese victory appears to be very impressive," he later conceded. "They have attacked all of the resistance bases. But the truth is that the coalition forces are far from dead. We have lost our biggest stronghold, but we have villages that we control." Western observers estimate that nearly 50,000 Khmer guerrillas have been driven deeper into the interior of Kampuchea. Said Sihanouk: "We will see if the Vietnamese can maintain themselves at our stronghold."

Nonetheless, the character of the conflict clearly has changed. For several months now, Thailand, China and the U.S. have been advising the resistance to regroup in small, mobile units that can strike swiftly, rather than relying on static defenses. Said one U.S. official: "The resistance can't fight and win this war from fixed camps. They must become real guerrillas."

With reporting by Narunart Prapanya/Tatum and James Willwerth/ Bangkok