Hanoi troops begin attack

Press, 6 March 1985, Page 10

Hanoi troops begin attack

NZPA-AFP Bangkok The Vietnamese Army attacked the last standing guerrilla base of the Khmer resistance in northern Kampuchea before dawn yesterday, a spokesman for the Sihanoukist faction of the resistance said in Bangkok. He said that the Vietnamese had hit the Tatum base, headquarters of guerillas loyal to Prince Norodom Sihanouk, in a fourpronged attack with artillery, mortar-fire, and ground forces. The Thai Army’s northeastern border force command in Surin province confirmed that an attack was under way, and that heavy artillery shells were falling on the camp. Prince Norodom Sihanouk leads Kampuchea’s tripartite resistance — the United Nations-recognised Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. The base is about 500 km east of Bangkok, opposite Thailand’s Surin province. The area has been sealed off to journalists. Situated atop a high escarpment on the Thai border overlooking a broad expanse of Kampuchean flatland, Tatum’s logistics have thus far kept it from a full-scale attack by the Vietnamese, although it has been a target of sporadic shelling. The Vietnamese, in their seventh dry-season offensive against the resistance, have since November 18 wiped out most bases of the communist Khmer Rouge and the non-Communist Khmer People’s National Liberation Front.

Sihanouk sources in Bangkok said 3000 to 4000 guerrillas were inside the Tatum base, and another 5000 were in Kampuchea.