PHNOM PENH SUPPLIES One Power Source Cut By Commandos

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32391, 2 September 1970, Page 17

PHNOM PENH SUPPLIES One Power Source Cut By Commandos

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PHNOM PENH, September 1. Communist commandos cut one of Phnom Penh’s important electric power sources and today continued to hold the village of Srang which sits astride a major Communist infiltration route 28 miles south of the capital. A Military High Command spokesman said that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong yesterday destroyed a number of towers holding high-voltage lines serving the capital.

He said that the cuts were made about 45 miles south-west of the capital.

j The major portion of the : capital’s power now comes from petrol-powered gener- ! ators and the loss of the power line from the Kirirom area to

Phnom Penh was not considered serious at this moment However, all petroleum products in the capital must come from Kompongsom, Cambodia’s only deep-water port The Kompongsom supplies must come via Route Four past the major Communist strongpoint on Kiri Rom mountain. 55 miles southwest of tne capital, and military experts have said the Communists can cut that lifeline almost at will. The spokesman said the destruction of the powerline towers was economic sabotage and not part of conventional warfare.

He linked the powerline destruction with the fact that large Communist units were now holding all the nation’s major rubber plantations, which has stopped all rubber operations and deprived Cambodia of its second most important source of foreign exchange. Rice export is first. Heavy fighting was reported still underway near Srang this morning as Government troops prepared for a second time to recapture the village and Government military post lost on Sunday.