CIA COVERTLY AIDING PRO-WEST CAMBODIANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580044-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 15, 2012
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: July 8, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

(Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580044-9
ARTICL
ON PAGE
WASHINGTON POST
8 July 1985
CIA Covertly Aiding
Pro-West (arnlwdians
By Charles R. Babcock
and Bob Woodward
Waa r gton ran stiff Winne
Secrete of State George P.
Shultz is scheduled to visit a Cam-_
bodian insurgent camp on
the Thai-
Cambodian border Tuesday. a sign
of rowin U.S. support or non-
communist rebels ,lung the com-
munist regime iminsta in Caamboo-
dia by Vietnam. But ac to in-
orme sources, is s pu is ges-
ture is actually a complement to a
program of covert CIA aid to the
same moor ,Ents.
According these sources the
Central Intelligence n
,,has
beencovertly providing of
dol arsl a year since 1982 for non-
military purposes to two noncom-
munist Cambodian ' resistance
groups, including more than 5 -
lion t
is year.
h
The CIA's aid is funneled
_ -- _ -
Thailan , the sources sM. The
Reagan administration's goal is to
strengthen the two noncommunist
resistance groups' position in their
loose coalition-with the communist
Khmer Rouge.
The Khmer Rouge, under Pol
Pot, were responsible for killing as
many as 3 million Cambodians while
they ruled the country from 1975
to 1979. Vietnam invaded Cambo-
dia, removed Pol Pot and installed a
puppet regime in Phnom ' Penh in
1979.
There is a congressional ban on
aiding the Khmer Rouge, but liberal
Democrats in the House have en-
couraged an effort to give aid open-
ly to the noncommunist insurgents,
proposing a grant of $5 million in
military assistance this year. Sev-
eral intelligence sources insist that
CIA officers in Thailand work close-
ly with the Thai military to ensure
than none of the covert aid gets to
the Khmer Rouge, and that the
Thaid themselves have set up strin-
nt contro s.
This modest covert-aid program
is 'one sign of the Reagan adminis-
tidlion's increasing willingness to
offeirhupport to groups fighting left-
Whig,and communist governments
ii the Third World. Although the
Aiaistration is still proceeding
csutusly, many of its officials have
begun to speak out about the need
to help such insurgencies.
,CIA Director William J. Cas ,
who made an unoublicized visit to
the Thai-Cambodian border two
months ago, told U.S. News &
or port in a recent interview,
very t since Frank-
lm ooseve t has authorized sup-
port rebels opposing an oppres-
sive or illegitimate regime." He not-
ed that Cambodia was being occuu-
p1 Y Vietnamese
troop.
In March, the Cambodian insur-
gents suffered a major defeat when
Vietnamese forces overran their
camps in Cambodia and forced them
into Thailand. Thai and insurgent
forces fought battles more than a
mile inside Thailand when the Viet-
namese spilled over the border.
Shultz is scheduled to visit a non-
communist resistance camp just in-
side Thailand "as a statement of
support," a State Department offi-
cial said. Shultz is on his way to the
annual meeting of foreign ministers
of the Association of Southeast As-
ian Nations (ASEAN), who have
been asking the United States to
gdt more directly involved in aiding
the ills rgents.
The United States has already
become more involved in Thailand,
where American military aid has
tripled since the Vietnamese inva-
si4 of Cambodia, to nearly $100
n a year.
This year, Congress has moved
to. provide overt military support to
the 'noncommunist opposition in
Cambodia. Rep. Stephen J. Solarz
(D-N.Y.) is pushing for $5 million in
such aid, although the House has
yet to act.
Reagan administration officials at
first opposed overt military aid, but
recently shifted and are supporting
a version of the Solarz provision, al-
ready passed by the Senate, that
lets the administration decide
whether to supply economic or mil-
itary aid. At.this point, administra-
tion officials say, they see no reason
to provide military aid.
After Vietnam invaded Cambodia
in late 1978, sources said, the Car-
ter' administration began a small
program to support Thailand's ef-
forts to counter Vietnamese and So-
viet influence. The funds were used
for noncommunist insurgent lead-
ers' travel expenses and for upkeep
of resistance camps near the Thai-
Cambodian border.
The Reagan program began as
the United States and ASEAN were
pressuring the noncommunist
groups to make a coalition with the
Khmer Rouge.
China-which openly backs the
Khmer Rouge-and ASEAN both
supply the insurgent groups with
guns and ammunition. U.S. funds go
only for "nonlethal" aid, sources
said.
Some sources say this claim is
misleading because the U.S. aid
frees up other money that can be
used to buy military equipment.
They also say that the Khmer
Rouge benefit indirectly because
the U.S. money for the other two
resistance groups makes the whole
coalition stronger.
Despite the "nonlethal" label on
the secret U.S. laid, one know leed able source said that a CIA logistics
e rt had traveled to Thailand to
discuss the ammunition needs of the
noncommunists, and officers
work c ose vnth the Thai military
men who advise the insurgents.
The only current overt U.S. aid is
about $15 million a year in human-
itarian aid to Cambodian refugees
living at the Thai border.
Continued
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580044-9
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580044-9
Many officials acknowledge that
the effort to strengthen the non.
communist resistance is a long shot.
One informed source said that "of
course, if the coalition wins, the
Khmer Rouge will 'eat the others
alive."
The Khmer Rouge are the
strongest of the three factions
fighting the Heng Samrin regime
the Vietnamese installed in Phnom
Penh. Pol Pot has about 35,000
fighters, according to State Depart-
ment estimates. The noncommunist
group headed by former prime min-
ister Son Sarin has about 15,000
troops, and the one led by former
head of state Prince Norodom Si-
hanouk has perhaps 9,000.
Support in Congress for anticom-
munist insurgent groups every-
where has been growing, as recent
votes indicate. The House approved
sending "humanitarian" aid to the
contras, or counterrevolutionaries,
in Nicaragua. The Senate repealed
a ban on aid to rebels in o a.
And Congress consistently has
voted more covert aid to Afghan in-
surgents- w oabout 0 mi ion
a year-than the administration has
ruest.
A -number of experienced U.S. in-
tell ence officials who have wor c
in Southeast Asia are wa of new
CIA involvements ere ey say
that maintaining meaningful control
of both money and and covert op-
erations is ~cu t not im ss e
in a region where oca intrigues
magnify t e dangers an uncertain-
ties o a clandestine acti ties. i
The most recent Reagan admin-
istration statement on overt aid
came in a letter to the House For-
eign Affairs Committee. It said the
administration "welcomes the
Solarz provision as an important
signal to Hanoi regarding congres-
sional and public attitudes toward
Vietnam's illegal occupation of
Cambodia and the threat it poses to
its other neighbors."
Staff researcher Barbara Feinman
contributed to this report.
al.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/11/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807580044-9