Cambodian explains country’s actions

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33944, 10 September 1975, Page 17

Cambodian explains country’s actions

(By

PAUL HOFMANN

of the "New York Times," through N.Z.P.A.)

NEW YORK. September 9. Cambodian gunboats seized the American container ship Mayaguez on May 12 without the knowledge of the Communist Government in Phnom Penh, according to Mr leng Sary, the Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister. He said that the authorities in Phnom Penh learned of the seizing “through American broadcasts, because the American technology is able to convey information much faster than our Armed Forces can.” He maintained that “a bloodbath” had been unnecessary, saying that the Phnom Penh Government had ordered the release of the ship and its crew but that American forces attacked while the release was being arranged. Mr leng Sary, who left

the United States yesterday after a week’s visit to the United Nations, gave this account op Saturday at a reception arranged at the Union Theological Seminary by a small group of Cambodians living in the United States.

According to a transcript of his remarks made available by Gary Porter, director of the Indo-China research centre in Washington, D.C., and George Hildebrand, an associate, Mr leng Sary also explained that the forced evacuation of large numbers of people from Phnom Penh, after the Communist takeover of April 17, was dictated by a lack of food. The deputy Prime Minister noted that the population of Phnom Penh had swollen in the last stage of the former Government to three million from two million. The new authorities, he said, carried out an evacuation “without bloodshed in a week” because the countryside! offered some possibilities of i feeding the evacuees. I

This version contrasted with reports, soon after the Communist take-over, that the new rulers had begun a peasant revolution, forcing as many as three million or four million people out of Cambodia’s cities to the countryside, to til! the soil. The deputy Prime Minister, who spoke in Cambodian, with an English translation provided by a leader of the Cambodian community, Sok Hom Hing, an economist, gave his versions of the Mayaguez case and of the evacuation of Phnom Penh in reply to questions from the audience at the seminary. The reception was attended by more than 100 members of groups that opposed the war in Indo-China.

According to the transcript, Mr leng Sary said of the Mayaguez crisis: “I handled that affair with my own hands.” “The leaders in Phnom Penh didn’t know” of the seizing, Mr leng Sary went on, praising the “vigilance”

of the Cambodian soldiers, whom he described as “workers.” He asserted that the Armed Forces knew .that the Mayaguez was being “operated for informationgathering.” The deputy Prime Minister said that on learning of the incident, the authorities got in touch with the forces on the island and their commander in Sihanoukville on the mainland, ordering him to report to Phnom Penh. The commander, according to Mr leng Sary, arrived in the capital at 2 p.m. on an unspecified day' “and at 5 p.m. we ordered him back under instructions to release the Mayaguez immediately.” The day after her capture off the Thai Islands, the Mayaguez was moved to Tang Island, and the crew was put on fishing boats and eventually taken to Sihanoukville before being released. While the release of the vessel was being arranged, the Deputy Prime Minister said, the Americans bombed

Tang Island — “bombed so hard that they thought everyone who had stayed on the island had been killed.” However, according to Mr leng Sary, Cambodian units held out and attacked the United States forces when they landed.

He asserted that orders had been given to release all captured Americans but that the U.S. forces bombed the island, Sihanoukville, and the nearby mainland harbour of Ream, causing many casualties.

The Deputy Prime Minister charged that “the C.I.A. will continue to interfere in our problems” and that such activities by the Central Intelligence Agency were the reason why “we must continue to raise our vigilance." Speaking of conditions in Phnom Penh, Mr leng Sary said that before the capital’s capture by the revolutionary forces the “imperialists,” meaning the United States, had supplied 30,000 to 40,000 tons of food to the city every month. He asserted

that, in the revolution’s spirit of self-reliance, the authorities did not want to depend on any help from abroad, and so decided to “disperse” the capital’s population.

Mr leng Sary said that today, the evacuees were at work in the countryside, participating in a collective effort to produce enough food.

The Deputy Prime Minister asserted that the evacuation of Phnom Penh “preempted” the plans of counter-revolutionary groups that had been counting on a “rebellion” in the city because of starvation. As for the situation in the capital now, Mr leng Sary said, “Phnom Penh isn’t as it was before.” The popu-i lation is smaller, he said,! but factories, hospitals and! schools are gradually being , reopened. What had been! a wastefu 1, con-sumption-oriented place, he said, had become a “producitive city.”