Vietnamese seize islands from Cambodians

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33870, 16 June 1975, Page 17

Vietnamese seize islands from Cambodians

f.Vcw Zealand Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON. June 15. Vietnamese Communist forces have seized the islands near which Cambodia captured the U.S. freighter Mayaguez a month ago, U.S. officials said today.

The Vietnamese were also understood to have bombed areas along their border with Cambodia in an escalation of clashes with Khmer Rouge forces that have broken out in recent weeks.

The Wai Islands, about 60 miles south of Cambodia, were overrun by Vietnamese; forces after six days of fierce fighting, one U.S. official said., The islands gave Cambodia grounds for claiming that the Mayaguez had sailed |through its water when the (ship was seized on May 12. j They had been contested by the former non-Communist j governments of South Vietnam and Cambodia. 10 islands The group consists of 10 islands, some no more than rock outcroppings in the Gulf iof Siam.

The Washington officials noted that Vietnamese Communists and the Khmer Rouge had clashed sporadically over the last five years, chiefly about rice and ammunition supplies.

“The latest das'* in the Gulf of Siam would appear to represent an escalation,” one official said.

But it was impossible to determine the present state of relatio is between the new leaders of the two countries, who are still believed to have strong ideological bonds, the officials said. Earlier clashes Fighting began between the Vietnamese Communists and the Communist-led Khmer Rouge in the autumn and winter of 1970, the officials said. The Khmer Rouge complained that North Vietnam was supplying it with second-rate weapons and giving more rice to the South Vietnamese Communists.

In addition, the Khmer Rouge resented Vietnamese excursions from agreed-on sanctuaries inside Cambodia, the U.S. officials said. Cambodians also harbour racial and cultural antagonisms towards the Vietnamese, the officials said, and the new Communist governments in the two countries have apparently not eliminated them.

Before the fall of Phnom Penh and Saigon to insurgents last April and May, a South Vietnamese Government naval vessel forced a Cambodian ship away from the Wai Islands and dismantled part of an oil rig there.

The area’s oil potential was a major factor in the previous South VietnamCambodian differences over the islands.

Vietnam also claims owner-; ship of the Paracel Islands. ! another prospective source of oil. in the South China; Sea. China and the Philippines also claim the Paracels Prospects of oil, added to 1 the traditional mutual distrust. between Cambodians and Vietnamese, could easily have cancelled out the brotherly links of two sides now in the same Communist camp, experienced observers of Indo-China said. But thev stressed it might be dangerous to interpret what American officials have' described as a six-day battlej for the islands—which have virtually no value in them-i selves —as evidence of a wide, rift. (HI anti opportunism They said that it was more likely to be a specific case in which oil and opportunism! 'combined without serious, risk of dramatic con-; sequences. The Vietnamese presum-| ably see their oil prospects! in the broad terms of export! potential, and some of the world’s biggest oil firms have expressed interest in resuming a search which had already yielded some promising results in the area of the South China Sea. For Cambodia, its own oil;

supplies present a more immediate problem. Before the change in Government, the fuel supply to Phnom Penh was all bv American airlift, and Phn m Penh radio said recentlv that the Government was seeking real horses to make up for the lack of more conventional horsepower.