Mercy flight opens bid to stop Kampuchea famine

Press, 29 September 1979, Page 8

Mercy flight opens bid to stop Kampuchea famine

NZPA«Reuter

Bangkok

A mercy flight has left Bangkok for Phnom Penh carrying another trickle of urgently needed food and medicines for famine-stricken Kampuchea.

The aircraft, chartered by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Children’s Fund, carried some 40 tonnes of supplies. It was the fifth flight into | Phnom Penh by the two organisations in the last six weeks, and brought the tamount of aid supplied to about 145 tonnes. I Relief experts in Bangkok predict that Kampuchea ;would need about 700 tonnes i of food a day over the next few months to avert catastrophe in the country, where [ hundreds of people are believed to be dying every day from starvation and malaria l land other diseases. j The two organisations [have announced that the. Vietnamese-backed Government in Phnom Penh has; agreed to their plan for a; huge relief effort, described by Geneva-based officials as one of the biggest ever. The announcement also said that the ousted Government of Mr Pol Pot, ejected from the Kampuchean capital by Vietnamese-led forces in January, had agreed to the same terms for areas under its control. There has so far been no announcement of any agreement from Phnom Penh or by the clandestine Pol Pot radio, which is believed to be broadcasting from southern China. Relief agency sources said

.that they believed the agreeIment would satisfy demands : of donor countries that effective monitoring of the distribution of the aid would be permitted to ensure that it reached sick and hungry civilians, not troops of the warring factions. They said full details of the agreement were expected to be brought out by an I.C.R.C. representative who for more than a month -lias i been negotiating with the Phnom Penh authorities I 'along with a Unicef col-' [league.

The representative was expected to return to Bangkok on the relief plane, they I said. The Pol Pot radio, monitored in Bangkok, accused Vietnam of trying to obstruct the planned relief effort, and of letting “the Kampuchean people die by starvation in order to achieve its plan for the extinction of the Kampuchean people.” A Foreign Ministry statement issued in Phnom Penh three days ago rejected accusations from the West that it was holding up the planned operation. It denounced the “fallacious allegations” as part of a plot between the West and China to insist on aid going to both sides in the war, so setting the scene for a political solution to the conflict.

Radio Hanoi yesterday said the supply of aid to both sides would be followed by demands for a cease-fire and attempts to impose such a political solution, which would include the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from the country. China yesterday accused Vietnam of preparing a big new offensive in Kampuchea before turning its attention to the whole of SouthEast Asia. It also accused the Soviet Union of increasing the use [of proxies and mercenaries to launch “unscrupulous armed invasions and military coups” in other countries.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, the Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister (Mr Han Nianlong) said the crux of the IndoChina crisis lay in the “brutal aggression imposed on Kampuchea” by Vietnam last year.

“Now, the best part of the year has past, but instead of stopping its aggression against Kampuchea, Vietnam is sending more troops there and stepping up its deployment in preparation for a new massive dry-season offensive to. wipe ouU'thfi patriotic Kampuchean armed forces at one blow and ’then bear on the whole of SouthEast Asia," he said.