Cambodia Grants U.S. ‘Hot Pursuit’ Rights

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31568, 4 January 1968, Page 10

Cambodia Grants U.S. ‘Hot Pursuit’ Rights

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)

PHNOM PENH (Cambodia), January 3.

Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia today issued a statement giving American troops the freedom to chase Communist forces fleeing from Vietnam into Cambodia’s border jungles.

Repeating in his statement today the remarks he made in a provincial speech on Sunday, the Chief of State said he would not send his Army of 35,000 against American troops engaged in such “hot pursuit.”

Prince Sihanouk attacked Cambodian and foreign critics of his decision to allow the Americans freedom of border action.

Prince Sihanouk said his refusal to oppose any American “hot pursuit” was in no way an invitation for bordercrossing by United States forces in neighbouring South Vietnam, and he would use his troops against the Americans if United States forces seized Cambodian territory and refeused to surrender it. For the first time, the 42-year-old Prince revealed that this policy decision had apparently drawn opposition from both North Vietnam and Communist China. He said “some Left-oriented

I foreign friends” had advised him to fight the American ! troops. i In Melbourne, the Laotian i Charge d’Affaires (Mr Tianethone Chantharasy), said that unless a peace were negotiated in Vietnam, the war in Laos would continue indefinitely. However, Laos could not survive Communist infiltration without “moral” support from the United States and her allies, he said.

Addressing a meeting of the Assembly for Asian-Paci-fic Action at Monash University, he said Laotian military capacity was stretched to a “critical” point because of North Vietnamese “aggression,” supported by the Pathet Lao rebels. “There are not enough men to go to the front to fight, and not enough men to work ion the soil,” Mr Chantharasy said.

“The military situation is serious, especially in the north. We must not forget war is raging in my country. Laos is losing 10 men every day in action—not counting

the wounded. Hospitals are crowded with military and civilian wounded and ill. “Our territory is used as a passage for troop support from North Vietnam to South Vietnam.

“Three North Vietnamese battalions are threatening the south. All we can do is to appeal to the major signatories of the 1962 Geneva Accord forbidding the entry of foreign troops into Laos,” he said.