Vietnamese ‘settling in Kampuchea’

Press, 27 June 1983, Page 10

Vietnamese ‘settling in Kampuchea’

NZPA-Reuter Bangkok Five non-communist countries of South-East Asia say that they are seriously concerned about the movement of Vietnamese settlers to Kampuchea. A communique issued at the end of the annual conferenece of Foreign Ministers from the Association of South-East Asian Nations alleged that Hanoi was trying to change the demographic make-up of a neighbouring country which Vietnamese troops had occupied since December, 1978. The Thai Foreign Minister, Air Chief Marshal Siddhi Savetsila, chairman of the conference, told reporters that over five years Vietnam planned to settle hundreds • of thousands of Vietnamese in Kampuchea. Quoting military intelligence reports he said that last year 150,000 Vietnamese had migrated to Kampuchea and now more than 400,000 were living in provinces along the Mekong River and the Tonle Sap lake in the centre of the country. The Foreign Ministers from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and

the Philippines made it clear that there had been no positive response from Hanoi in their four-year bid to bring about a Vietnamese military withdrawal and a political settlement in Kampuchea. The Ministers said that they endorsed a Thai proposal for a withdrawal of Vietnamese troops 30km from the Thai-Kampuchean border as the first step towards a total pull-out, and hoped this would lead to an international conference on Kampuchea and a political settlement. There was scant evidence from the two-day conference that progress towards a political settlement was likely. Last week a United Nations under-secretary, Rafeeuddin Ahmed, of Pakistan, who is dealing with the Kampuchea dispute, was told by Vietnam’s Foreign Minsiter, Mr Nguyen Co Thach, that the Thai proposal was unacceptable. Vietnam has said that it will pull out its estimated 180,000-man force from Kampuchea only when the threat it perceives from China has been removed.