Hanoi Engulfs Its Neighbor

A case of "an abhorrent regime overthrown by an abhorrent aggression"

Not since the disintegration of South Viet Nam and the fall of Saigon four years ago had Southeast Asia witnessed such a swift and stunning shift in political power. Faced with the invasion of Cambodia by twelve Vietnamese divisions totaling 100,000 men, the Democratic Kampuchean government of Premier Pol Pot hunkered down in Phnom-Penh and pledged itself to annihilate the oncoming "Vietnamese clique." Within hours after that brave statement, Phnom-Penh had fallen, the Pol Pot government and many of its soldiers were in flight, and foreign diplomats together with nearly 700 Chinese and North Korean advisers were beating a hasty exodus from the deserted city toward the Thailand border town of Aranyaprathet.

The winners and losers in Cambodia's sudden change of hands:

Pol Pot, 53, the ruthless leader of Kampuchea's Communist Party. Under his genocidal rule in the past four years, Cambodia's major cities have been abruptly emptied and, by some estimates, up to a quarter of the country's 8 million people may have been slaughtered. He apparently escaped the fast-moving Vietnamese divisions, which were accompanied by 18,000 dissident Cambodian Communists, and was reported to be leading his army's last division near Siem Reap and the ancient temples of Angkor Wat.

Ieng Sary, 48, Pol Pot's Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister. Instead of righting, he sent a distress call to Bangkok by way of the Khmer Rouge and was scooped up by a Thai helicopter. One day later, he arrived in Peking pledging that he would fight on.

Heng Samrin, 45, a onetime Khmer Rouge military leader who rose to political power under Pol Pot and then defected to form the Vietnamese-backed Kampuchean National United Front for National Salvation (KNUFNS). Entering Phnom-Penh at the head of his KNUFNS forces last week, Heng Samrin announced the formation of a ruling eight-member People's Revolutionary Council and called on beleaguered Cambodians to return to the villages from which Pol Pot had driven them. "From Mimot to Korat to Molu and Strung," the new Radio Phnom-Penh soon announced jubilantly, "thousands of buffalo carts are on the road." Prince Norodom Sihanouk, 56. In perhaps the strangest episode of the week, the ebullient "god-prince" who once ruled Cambodia suddenly' emerged from the house arrest in, which he had been kept for three years by Pol Pot. Following a bizarre six-hour press conference in Peking, Sihanouk flew to New York City to plead the Kampuchean cause before the U.N. Security Council. His 41-minute speech turned out to be one of his best ever. Without straining his credibility by defending the Pol Pot regime, Sihanouk made a strong case for imperiled Kampuchean nationalism and likened the invading Vietnamese to "a starving boa constrictor leaping on an innocent animal."

The decisive onslaught against Phnom-Penh was in sharp contrast to a round of skirmishing centered in the Parrot's Beak border area a year ago. In that fighting, Vietnamese forces attempted to halt Khmer Rouge raids across the border. But the Vietnamese were battered by the tough Khmer. Vietnamese armor, which was sent to harass the Khmer, ran out of gas and had to be rescued by Vietnamese airmen flying captured American planes.

Viet Nam then changed its strategy. Hanoi decided to end the Khmer incursions once and for all when the next dry season rolled around. Green Vietnamese soldiers were replaced with seasoned troops. Dissident Khmer were welded into a fighting force that would take part in "spontaneous people's uprisings." Most-important, the operation was assigned to Army Chief of Staff General Van Tien Dung, the tactician who directed the lightning conquest of Saigon in 1975.

Writing about the Saigon battle in his memoirs, Dung revealed that the opening attack on the highlands town of Ban Me Thuot was originally intended as no more than a probing operation. But the South Vietnamese army proved so weak that the test turned into a full-scale assault, which finally resulted in Saigon's fall.

In much the same way, some military analysts suspect, Dung's initial advance into Cambodia last month was intended as a limited operation to secure the eastern bank of the Mekong River. But fierce fighting between September and December so decimated the 40,000 Khmer Rouge forces stationed along the border that Dung decided to repeat his 1975 triumph and launch an all-out attack. The Vietnamese, using in some cases captured U.S. equipment, were overwhelming in both numbers and skill. In a single day, aided by Soviet pontoon bridges, an entire mechanized division of 10,000 men crossed the Mekong. Within a week Dung had conquered a third of Cambodia. By last week there remained only Pol Pot's last Khmer Rouge divisions to face the advancing enemy.

In Bangkok, Thai Premier Kriangsak Chamanand compared the heavy fighting beyond his border to "a fire in a neighbor's house." This blaze, however, cast menacing shadows throughout all Southeast Asia. The most intense heat was generated by the fact that the principal combatants are both wards of the region's two Socialist superpowers. China has long supported Cambodia with arms and guerrilla training. Peking's technicians have been providing expertise in telecommunications and irrigation, while 49 North Koreans attempted (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) to teach the Kampucheans to fly MiG aircraft.

The Soviet Union, meanwhile, has long been Viet Nam's principal supplier of arms and aid. Only two months ago, Moscow and Hanoi signed a 25-year treaty of friendship that linked them even closer. Moscow last week speedily recognized the new regime in Phnom-Penh and hailed the overthrow of Pol Pot.

Peking was plainly embarrassed by the events, particularly since the capture of Cambodia's three major airports and lone seaport at Kompong Som ruled out any possibility of resupplying the tattered Kampuchean fighters. The Chinese contented themselves with beefing up their own forces along the Vietnamese border and hurling insults, mainly at the Soviets for supporting the invasion. "An aggressor's day of ascendancy," proclaimed an enigmatic statement released in Peking, "is the beginning of his defeat."

The successful invasion had been carried out so swiftly that it was a fait accompli before most parties were prepared to respond to it or to propose effective retaliation. Only the Japanese government acted decisively. Tokyo announced that it would delay promised grants and loans of $70 million to Hanoi until the situation became clearer.

Elsewhere, the affair left foreign offices puzzled about which way to lean. The Rumanian government, once again at odds with Moscow, took Cambodia's side and declared that the ouster of Pol Pot was "a heavy blow for the prestige of socialism." Washington was almost bemused by the spectacle of one ferocious Communist nation pulverizing another. It was, said one senior Administration official, a case of "an abhorrent regime being overthrown by an abhorrent aggression."

Nevertheless, the U.S. came down on the side of Cambodia, despite its distaste for the Pol Pot government. The Vietnamese invasion, protested Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, "threatens regional peace and stability and violates the fundamental principle of the integrity of international borders." Washington's policy was to play the role of "a discreet referee," said Administration officials; the object was to keep Moscow and Peking from becoming involved in a direct confrontation.

Nations in Southeast Asia appeared more worried over the next step than the last. In occupying Cambodia and installing a friendly puppet government, the Vietnamese Communists had taken yet another stride toward control of the Indochinese peninsula. Having conquered South Viet Nam in a long and bloody war, Hanoi had gone on to rule a puppet regime in Laos with the aid of 30,000 Vietnamese soldiers. Cambodia was the obvious third target.

With that objective achieved, next on Hanoi's list could be the pro-Western government in Bangkok. "The big question now," says a State Department official, "is whether Viet Nam will be tempted in the future to push farther, perhaps into Thailand." Thai military leaders last week were spending long "crisis hours" at their desks, and one general even dusted off an old contingency plan that calls for a pre-emptive Thai invasion of the Cambodian centers of Sisophon and Battambang as a buffer against any Vietnamese advance. Publicly, however, Bangkok authorities preferred to appear unconcerned. At his press briefings, Premier Kriangsak insisted last week that "Thailand loves everybody. There is nothing to worry about as long as we Thai people are united."

More to the point, in Washington's view, at least, was that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) remained united. Most of the member states--Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines--received soothing visits and pledges of "good neighborliness" last year from smiling Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh. After the fall of Cambodia, the ASEAN leaders had good reason to assess the guile behind the smile.

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