U.S. MAY HELP 2 REBEL GROUPS OF CAMBODIANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302630069-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 69
• Publication Date: April 10, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302630069-6
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Sti P
U.S. May Help
2 Rebel Groups
Of Cambodians
By BERNARD GWERTZMAN
Speael to The New Yoric Times
WASHINGTON, April 9? The Rea-
. ,
gan Administration, in a policy shift,
said today that it would no longer rule
out supplying United States military
NEW YORK TIMES
10 April, 1985. '
. am J.t. " .---,,?=firect of C entra th
i A third factor, officials said, was at
Intiihgen-Ee. rs?dai ? he would support Congress was deemed unlikely to want
the military aid, and-Mr. Shultz has re- to resume military aid to Indochina,
portedlv not objected- to it. given the refusal of Congress to provide
There are three Cambodian groups additional aid to the American-backee
in opposition to the Vietnamese occu- i Vietnamese and Cambodians in 1975,
pation of Cambodia and to the Govern- , which hastened their fall to Commu-
ment in Phnotn Penh set up by the Viet- nists.
namese after their invasion in 1978. ,
The most prominent and best trained I, The aid has been opposed by Repre-
is the Khmer Rouge, led by the former II sentative Sam Gejdenson, Democrat of
Communist leader of Cambodia, Pol Connecticut, who said he feared it
Pot. Mr. Pol Pot has been accused of would reintroduce the United States
being responsible for the deaths of into a conflict in Indochina, and by
more than two million Cambodians Representative Jim Leach, Republican
from 1975, when his group seized power of Iowa, who said, "I personally be-
from the American-backed Lou Nol neve that there is no stomach in this
assistance to the two non-Communist

Government, until the Khmer Rouge
country for a renewed military involve-
meat in Indochina, and what we may
Cambodian guerrilla groups. were forced into guerrilla warfare in
have here is a Democratically pro-
The new policy, which is expected to 1978. The Khmer Rouge, said to num- polled resort to force." -t
be discussed by Secretary of State her 35,000 men, receives its military --
Geor e P Shultz with leaders of the aid from China.
, groups on Wednesday, marks a depar-
ture from the Administration's hands-
off military policy toward Indochina.
But State Department officials said the
United States still believed primary aid
for the insurgents should come from
others. tionalist Army, which has 8,000 rebel
soldiers. ,
Previous Appeals Rejected The Son SEMI and Sihanouk groups i
Since President Reagan took office in I have both received aid from China, ,
1 the Administration has repeat- Thailand and Singapore, but less than
that 'yen the Khmer Rouge. Amer-
The second-largest group is the
Khmer People's National LiberationFront,
Front, led by Mr. Son Sann, which has
17,000 guerrillas. The third, led by the
former Cambodian thief of state,
? N rodom Sihanouk, is the Na-
edl
and
leade
guerrilla groups, for military aid. '
But last Wednesday, the House For-
eign Affairs Committee, by a vote of 24
to 9, approved a $5 million authoriza-
tion to the two groups, as part of the
overall $14.5 billion foreign-aid bill for
the 1986 fiscal year. The money would
be funneled to the Cambodian groups
by Thailand. The bill still has to pass
the full House and Senate and have a
matching appropriations grant.
In response to what Administration
officials called a new mood in Congress
in favor of military aid to the non-Com-
munist insurgents, and its own de-
clared policy of aid to insurgents in
Nicaragua and Afghanistan, the Ad-
ministration altered its policy.
A State Department official, in an au-
thorized statement, said today that al-
though the Administration felt the
Cambodian insurgents now had suffi-
cient arms, "we do not think it is wise
to forgo having flexibility on this point
should circumstances change ",
"We are not ruling military aid out, if
it would be the difference in enabling
the resistance to sustain itself," an-
other State Department official said.
"But there is no indication that we are
rince Norodom Sihanouk, the ican officials said the amount of aid
jected appeals from Son Sam'
given the non-Communists had re-
of the two non-Communist cently increased.
All three groups have been dealt seri-
ous military blows by Vietnamese
forces in the recent offensive near the
Thailand border. Now, they are re-
grouping, receiving new training and
?
the Association of Southeast AsPaTuW)1.1.
appealing, by themselves and
tions, for military and economic help.
The members of Asean are Indonesia,
- the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia,
Thailand and Brunei.
Mr. Son Sam' and Prince Sihanouk's
son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, ar-
rived in Washington on Monday and
held talks at the State Department to-
day before the meeting with Mr. Shultz I
on Wednesday.
The- Jkdminiitration had previously
close to that point now." ,
opPosecl giving military, aid to the Son
Sans and Sihanouk forces on several
grounds, State Department officiah
said. _
One was a belief that neither of thosc
groups was able to fight well and, II
given arms, would likely be destroyec
by the Vietnamese.
Another factor, officials said, win
that the Mean nations were taking tit(
lead in Indochina and that it would Ix
wrong for the United States to becorm
directly involved in military aid, since
it could weaken support for the Cambo
than resistance in third-world coun
tries and make it into a Vietnamese-
AMeriCan issue, rather than a Viet-
namese-Asean one.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302630069-6