‘Enter Cambodia If Necessary’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31238, 9 December 1966, Page 17

‘Enter Cambodia If Necessary’

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) SAIGON, December 8. Viet Cong guerrillas should be pursued across the borders of Cambodia if they take refuge there, the Chief of State of South Vietnam, General Nguyen Van Thieu, said yesterday.

In an interview with a group of New Zealand journalists, General Thieu said: “The Communists have one policy—they are all Communists. They have one objective—to conquer the whole of South-east Asia and per-

haps the world—and one way of attaining their objective—by invasion. “And meanwhile, we make a difference between the politics of Laos and the politics of Vietnam. “The Communists make no importance between the boundary of this country and that, but we do not consider the objective of the free world, and the Communists exploit that weakness,” he said. “What is the difference between bombing in Hanoi, and pursuing Communist troops in Cambodian territory?”

The war in Vietnam was unlikely to end by negotiation. General Thieu said.

“I suppose,” said the general, “that in 1968 the United States will elect a Government which supports the American war effort in Vietnam. I suppose that from now until then there will be political stability in Saigon. “So, in two years, the Viet Cong will have no more hope. So they will fade away.

“Then I will ask the same thing of friendly troops, and the Vietnamese will be left to solve their own problems. There will still be a war for four or five years—a war of pacification. “This is the most probable way the war will end.”