FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 1970. Cambodia Returns To The Vietnam War

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32251, 20 March 1970, Page 14

FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 1970. Cambodia Returns To The Vietnam War

Cambodia has returned suddenly to the arena of South-East Asian politics this week in a series of anti-Communist moves which culminated in the deposing of the neutralist Head of State (Prince Sihanouk). Ironically, the Prince was in Moscow asking the Russians to help preserve the neutrality of Cambodia against the threat of Communist advances in Laos and the building up of Communist forces inside his own country at the very moment when his political and military associates took the law into their own hands. They demanded that the Communist troops leave the country, sacked the North Vietnamese Embassy, and finally deposed the Head of State.

Cambodia has attempted to keep clear of the fighting inside the territory of its three neighbours— South Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand—since the 1954 Geneva settlement which gave Cambodia independence from France. Cambodia was the part of Indo-China least affected by the years of war against France; earlier, its colonial status had protected it against the territorial claims of the Thais and Vietnamese. More recently, Prince Sihanouk has attempted to appease North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front by turning a blind eye to their use of his country as a base for operations in South Vietnam, and by condemning American incursions in pursuit of the Communists. But his neutrality was sorely tested when the Communist army in his eastern provinces grew larger than Cambodia’s armed forces, and when Communist successes in Laos made it clear that still more North Vietnamese could be expected to intrude down the widened Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Events in Cambodia and Laos demonstrate the impossibility of confining the Vietnam war within that country’s long frontiers. The successes of the United States and South Vietnam in the last twoyears have forced more and more Communists to seek sanctuary in Cambodia and increased the importance of the supply roads through Laos and Cambodia. The present Communist offensive in Laos is probably an attempt to shift the war out of South Vietnam into an area where American power to intervene is severely limited by political pressures inside the United States. It remains to be seen whether a Right-wing junta in Phnom Penh will have any more success in driving out a Communist army than the Laotians have had. The fate of Prince Sihanouk remains uncertain. He is off to Peking, perhaps to repeat his pleas for help in securing a North Vietnamese withdrawal from his country; perhaps to lament his own fate. But the Prince is a shrewd politician and a popular figure in Cambodia. He might even have stage-managed the whole chain of events in Cambodia during his absence, including his own overthrow. At least he may escape blame for turning on Cambodia’s unwelcome Communist intruders while he preserves an offended front of neutrality. As the “ Economist ” said in an article reprinted in “ The Press ” yesterday: “ Everything the Prince says, or does, has “about three meanings”. The coup leaders have hinted at elections before too long. The Prince might yet reappear in Cambodia and have himself returned to power by popular ballot—something he has done before. In the meantime the coup leaders face the prospect of open warfare with a North Vietnamese army. Only by thia can they justify the step they have taken—and there is no guarantee that Cambodia is strong enough to win.