Hanoi emwy was stirring —Thais

Press, 9 May 1984, Page 10

Hanoi emwy was stirring —Thais

By

JIM WOLF,

of Agence

France-Presse (through NZPA) Bangkok Thai officials have concluded that Vietnam is using the same “talk-talk fight-fight” tactics in Kampuchea that brought Hanoi victory over the United States in 1975. Foreign Ministry officials also have concluded that the Vietnamese Foreign Minister, Mr Nguyen Co Thach, who spoke last month of having adopted a “more realistic approach” towards problem-solving, was trying to sow discord among opponents of Hanoi’s troops in Kampuchea. Hanoi’s ultimate goal, in the Thai view, is to buy time to consolidate its grip on Kampuchea, a one-time neutral buffer between Thailand and Vietnam. These perceptions had been reinforced by the shallow Vietnamese punch across the Thai-Kampuchean border that had begun about March 25, officials said in interviews. .. The authoritative -*Thai

sources depicted Mr Thach as having skewed his rhetoric during recent visits to Indonesia and Australia to match the separate prejudices of his hosts. Thus in Indonesia, which suspects China of complicity in an abortive 1965 coup, Mr Thach had sought to exploit a deep-seated fear of Peking’s long-term ambitions, one senior official said. Noting that Australia on the other hand had good relations with China but abhorred the ousted Khmer Rouge, the official said that Mr Thach had therefore zeroed in on the former Premier, Pol Pot, at a carefully chosen time. In Canberra Mr Thach told a news conference on March 16 that Vietnam henceforth considered the elimination of Pol Pot its “top priority” for a Kampuchean settlement. That, he said, was felt to be more “realistic” than awaiting the end of a perceived threat to the region from China — Vietnam’s previously stated condition for removing its

150,000-170,000 troops ’ from Kampuchea. Hanoi’s forces entered Kampuchea on December 25, 1978, to topple the pro-Peking Khmer Rouge Government, which had launched repeated incursions into Vietnam. But far from seeking a settlement Mr Thach, according to the Thais, has concentrated on trying to drive a wedge between the Khmer Rouge and their two non-Communist resistance partners in the coalition government of Democratic Kampuchea. He is also seen here as having sought to play on different perceptions among Thailand’s partners in the Association of South-East Asian Nations, as well as on differences between China and A.S.E.A.N. as a whole, and even in Thailand. “The Vietnamese won the war in 1975 by exploiting differences in U.S. public opinion,” a Thai official said. “They are trying to do the same thing here: win a political victory without conceding anything at all.” MflThach cancelled at 24

hours notice a meeting scheduled for March 22 with his Thai counterpart, Air Chief Marshal Siddhi Savetsila, officially because of a sore throat. Air Marshal Siddhi had planned to follow up on Mr Thach’s rhetorical shift and probe for any substantive changes in Vietnamese thinking.

Now the Thais have discounted Mr Thach’s declared willingness to discuss Kampuchea as the “priority” issue in some form of regional negotiations. The senior officials suggested that Mr Thach had hedged his position on this, first announced in Canberra, in subsequent statements, notably in an interview with the Vietnam News Agency published on March 27. Specifically, Mr Thach listed what Thailand considers to be purely bilateral issues having nothing to do with Kampuchea as conditions for a settlement. This included security on the common borders between Thailand and Laos, as well as between China and Vietnam.

“How can Hanoi presume to speak for Laos, an independent country and sovereign State with which we have good relations,” a Foreign Ministry official said. Another official equated Vietnam’s policy on Kampuchea with a “bean-bag chair,” the type that conforms to the shape of the person sitting in it. “Their policy remains the same. But like the chair it

may bulge here or there at any given moment,” he said. The Thais hold that the ageing members of the. Hanoi Politburo still cling to an old, officially repudiated dream of setting up a Hanoi-led Indo-Chinese federation including Kampuchea and Laos. Likewise the Thais fear that growing numbers of Vietnamese settlers in Kampuchea may be part of a colonisation process that would bias any future free elections. On the battlefield Vietnam’s pounding of Thai borderlands recently was described by the officials as a premeditated attempt to test Thai defences, not just pursuit of Khmer Rouge guerrillas based in the area. One senior official declined to rule out the possibility that Thailand might give material aid to the Kampuchean resistance if Vietnam failed to respect Thailand’s territorial integrity in the future. The same official said that Thailand was “keeping the door ope£' to Vietnam for any

serious talks. Vietnam has officially denied intruding into Thai territory. Thailand officially denies having given any material backing to the guerrillas so far. In the Thai view Vietnamese leaders have already demonstrated a clear intent to subvert and infiltrate Thailand. Senior officials referred to Hanoi’s former role in training and arming guerrillas of the banned Communist Party of Thailand, a largely proPeking grouping which is now seriously weakened. In a historical aside, one source quoted the Khmer Rouge leaders, Khieu Samphan and leng Sary, as having said that the Vietnamese had consulted them on plans for subverting Thailand after the Communist victories in 1975. The Khmer Rouge had been unwilling to work with the Vietnamese and had preferred to stir up problems for Thailand on their own, the source said with irony in a reference to Khmer Rouge incursions in 1977. ,