Khmer Rouge aim to get 900 enemy a day

Press, 14 March 1979, Page 8

Khmer Rouge aim to get 900 enemy a day

NZPA Reuter Bangkok Khmer Rouge forces in Kampuchea loyal to the ousted Prime Minister Pol Pot, have set a target of killing or wounding 900 of their Vietnamese-led enemies a day. The Khmer Rouge radio, believed to be broadcasting from southern China, claimed they had been able to cause about 300 casualties a day so far and vowed to increase this figure threefold.

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese Ambassador to Thailand (Mr Hoang Bao Son) said in an interview published in Bangkok that the Hanoibacked Kampuchean armed forces and people had launched sweeping action against what he called the remnants of the Pol Pot forces.

“They will certainly be annihilated by the Kampuchean people,” he told the "Bangkok Post” newspaper. The Khmer Rouge have

been waging a guerrilla war ever since the pro-Peking Government was ousted from Phnom Penh by a lightning Vietnamese-led offensive last January and replaced by a new Administration favourable to Hanoi.

Vietnam denies having any troops inside Kampuchea, but diplomatic sources in Bangkok estimate the Vietnamese military presence at well over 100,000.

The sources say that at least one Vietnamese division has been moved from Kampuchea since China attacked northern Vietnam last February 17. But they say this may have been unconnected with the Sino Vietnamese war.

While the Vietnamese-led forces appear to have effective control of most of eastern Kampuchea, on both sides of the Mekong River, they are facing harassment in other areas, the sources say.