Cambodia says Cubans directing Hanoi push

Press, 7 December 1978, Page 8

Cambodia says Cubans directing Hanoi push

iNZPA-Reuter Bangkok ; C a mb o d i a yesterday; ;broadcast charges that So-; i viet and Cuban soldiers were, ;directing Vietnamese forces' jin incursions into its territ-i ory as the border and propa-j ganda war between the two. j South-East Asian communist; ' neighbours entered a new ’ ! phase. The official Radio Phnom ; Penh quoted a captured l ; Vietnamese prisoner as say-j iing that Soviet and Cuban! soldiers were in' the south-! iern Vietnamese province ofj An Giang, controlled and commanded Hanoi’s army. ' This appeared to be' Phnom Penh’s first accusa- ! tion of Cuban involvement, j though both Cambodia and (China have alleged that Soi viet advisers are training the' i Vietnamese armed forces. | I The Soviet Ambassador in I I Bangkok (Mr louri Kuznet-I

: zov) flatly denied last week. ‘ that Moscow had any mili-i ■ lary presence in Vietnam. ■| Cambodia also alleged that :I Vietnamese people opposed; ‘lto the Government of the ■I Prime minister (Mr Pham ■’Van Dong) had formed resis- > tance movements. Analysts say this could be a first 1 propaganda response to last week-end’s loudly-proclaimed i formation of an anti-Phnom I Penh Government Cambodian insurgent movement. i The formation of the Hanoi-backed Kampuchean I United Front for national II Salvation. announced by Radio Hanoi on Sunday ■■marked a new stage in the ‘border war that erupted into ‘heavy fighting a year ago. I) Western diplomats in] Bangkok believe that perlsistent Vietnamese reports; |of uprisings in Cambodia,; ilfollowed by the creation of] lan insurgent movement, sug-’

Jgest Vietnam is committed! Ito a drawn-out campaign! (rather than any spectacular] I military strike. I However, informed sources say that Vietnamese troops, already holding size- i able chunks of territory in ( Cambodia’s so-called Fish Hook salient, have been 1 moving beyond these areas. The sources say the troops, ’ backed by intensive air sup- i ■ port and bombing, are expanding beyond the towns of ’ ■ Snuol and Mimot in the Fish Hook, which juts into south- , ern Vietnam. i According to Thai in- i telligence sources, quoted in I the “Bangkok Post” news- ’ paper, the number of Viet- ‘ namese troops inside the 1 ‘Cambodian border is believed to have grown to, I 180,000 or 90,000. The sources ' say the troops have ad-'I jvanced up to 35km from theit eastern border.

I Radio Phnom Penh's allegation about Cuban in-: volvement came in an alI leged confession by a Viet-’ ■ namese corpora), Han Trung! Viet, captured in the southeastern province of Takeo in October. A report from Peking said China yesterday referred for the first time to the new Cambodia guerrilla movement by quoting foreign press reports indicating it was a front for Vietnam. The New China News Agency said the reports described the front as formed under Vietnamese direction to “provide a Cambodian ‘cover’ for Vietnam’s mili-j tary aggression against) Kampuchea.” The agency quoted Bang-, kok reports by the “New York Times.” Reuter, Agence 'France-Presse, and Associ-i lated Press, but did not make any comment of its own. ;