Thai border battle erupts

Press, 13 March 1985, Page 10

Thai border battle erupts

NZPA-Reuter Surin Fighting erupted yesterday between Thai forces and Vietnamese troops dugin well inside Thai territory, Thai military sources said. Hanoi’s forces had tightened their hold on the captured Green Hill guerrilla base across the border in Kampuchea.

They gave no other details and journalists were banned from approaching the trouble zone.

With their capture of Green Hill, also known as Tatum, Hanoi’s soldiers for the first time have overrun

all the main border bases of the anti-Vietnamese Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. Vietnam invaded Kampuchea in December, 1978, thrusting out the Khmer Rouge. Western diplomats estimate that Hanoi has 160,000 to 180,000 troops in Kampuchea backing the Phnom Penh Government.

Thailand has said that about 3000 Vietnamese troops penetrated Thai territory last week in their drive for Green Hill. Green Hill’s fall also eliminated a Kampuchean

guerrilla buffer between Thai and Vietnamese soldiers. Diplomats and senior Thai officers said they did not expect a quick end to Thai-Vietnamese clashes. The Thai Government has said it is fighting one of the most serious Vietnamese incursions since 1978. Thai officers in Bangkok

said several battalions of Vietnamese troops backed by artillery were pressing for control of three Thai hills to help consolidate their hold on Green Hill, a few kilometres away.