99. Briefing Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (Holbrooke) to Secretary of State Muskie1
SUBJECT
- Indochina: The Endless Dilemma
Returning from my fifth trip to Thailand in the last two years, I have the following impressions and conclusions to report. They are personal views, not necessarily shared by all of my colleagues. I shall be incorporating my own views into a more formal policy paper within the next few days.2
[Page 352]1. The relief and refugee efforts—spearheaded, pushed, pulled and cajoled by the U.S. Government—have been an astounding success. Despite many obvious problems with the international organizations, within our own bureaucracy, and with the Thai government, the efforts have saved at a minimum the population of Western Cambodia. Even today, as the danger of imminent starvation recedes and the Cambodian peasantry awaits its first significant rice crop in years—while fearing too much rain, and confiscation by the Vietnamese—the cross-border feeding operations remain vital to our effort to save part of a civilization.
I saw the November 1 feeding operation at Nong Chan. It was one of the most dramatic sights I have ever witnessed. About 3,000 ox-carts had made the trek from Cambodia to the border to get rice from the feeding station. The oxen and caribaos who had made the trip, through the mud and the Vietnamese front lines, lay exhausted on the ground and in mud-holes. The men and women who had made the trek (about half of them for at least the second time) had spent up to a week getting to Nong Chan; they knew, through the peasant grapevine, of the exact date of the bi-weekly feeding program. They squatted patiently in the sun for hours in neat rows, waiting for their turn to cross the dirt road, pick up a sack of rice, and return, staggering under the 100-kilogram weight, to their ox-carts, which lay scattered across a wide area. By nightfall they would begin to slip back into Cambodia, taking back trails if possible to avoid being stopped by the Vietnamese and forced to give up some of their rice. They would leave behind a small refugee concentration, and the inspiring group of international relief workers who run this remarkable effort.
That day, enough food went back into Cambodia to feed at least 30,000 people for the next two weeks. Other feedings have been much larger; four weeks ago 13,000 ox-carts came out for one distribution—perhaps the largest such assemblage of ox-carts the world ever will see.
The agencies behind this program intend to “suspend” it when the harvest comes in. I discussed it with Sir Robert Jackson, Waldheim’s representative in Bangkok, making clear my concern at this action. Jackson was adamant, but somewhat reduced my (and Mort Abramowitz’s) concerns by assuring us that if and when the need arises again (as I am convinced it will within a few weeks because the coming rice harvest will not be adequate) they will resume the feeding. Jackson also said that to assure symmetrical treatment of both the Heng Samrin/Vietnamese-controlled interior and western Cambodia, which Hanoi and Phnom Penh would just as soon let starve, they will also “suspend” the food shipments into Phnom Penh and Kompong Som.
We will monitor this suspension carefully, and if necessary push hard for its rapid resumption.
[Page 353]2. The resettlement program continues to be a vital part of the effort, and of our policy in Southeast Asia. The region expects us to keep our word and take 168,000 refugees in FY 81; we should do so. I believe, however, that the time has come to end the explicit discrimination that now exists against Cambodians in the lower categories. While hill people from Laos can move quickly through our processing system, I met well-educated, English speaking Cambodians with brothers in places like Austin and New York who do not qualify under the present guidelines. This is a bureaucratic and historical anomaly which I have discussed with Frank Loy and Victor Palmieri; and I hope it will soon be corrected. No increase in refugees coming to the U.S. is involved; merely a better distribution of them from the present camps.
3. Impressions of what is happening inside Cambodia and Vietnam have the quality of the shadows in Plato’s famous cave; everyone sees something different. My very superficial assessment:
A. The Vietnamese are gradually gaining control of Cambodia. Their puppet regime is slowly getting stronger and more effective, although I doubt it will last in its present form indefinitely.
B. The guerrilla groups, including the Khmer Rouge (DK), operating against the Vietnamese pose no serious threat to Hanoi’s military control. But they do require Hanoi to leave far greater numbers of troops in Cambodia than would otherwise be the case. I do not believe that much fighting is going on; casualties on both sides are probably quite low.
C. The Khmer Rouge (still referred to much of the time simply as “Pol Pot”) have had no success in gaining support among the people, either in Cambodia or in the refugee camps, in the last year. They remain universally hated and feared. The day before I got to the border, they had once again opened fire in a refugee camp north of their own area, wounding about 40 refugees.
D. Because the Khmer Rouge is so hated, and the other resistance groups so fractious and weak, no united front strategy will succeed. This conclusion, shared fully by Mort Abramowitz, runs directly counter to the continuing Chinese hope, shared by some ASEAN countries, that a viable united front resistance can be created.
E. Yet the Vietnamese cannot eliminate that resistance, and they probably know it. I believe their present strategy is to keep their opponents isolated and bottled up along the border and in small interior pockets, and gradually consolidate control of the villages. Cambodia could well become a kind of Burma, or Laos, with long-running but relatively ineffectual guerrilla movements that can neither win nor be destroyed. It has been said that when guerrillas do not lose, they win. But this Vietnam-era cliche was never true of Burma, and may not be true of Cambodia either.
[Page 354]F. Hanoi may have already almost won the war in Cambodia, if my gloomy assessment above is correct. But I believe that the internal situation in Vietnam itself is quite different.
Never in their 35-year quest for domination of all of Indochina has Hanoi’s leadership faced such massive difficulties. Whether, or when, these will lead Hanoi to change its policies I cannot predict. But we should recognize the pressures they now face:
—The implacable opposition and pressure of China, which has just moved another PLA Army south. Half-a-million Vietnamese troops are tied down north of Hanoi.
—The collapse of Hanoi’s dreams of economic progress; huge rice shortfalls, little foreign investment, etc.
—The unprecedented international isolation Hanoi faces, after decades of international sympathy and support for their struggles against the French and us. Examples: Sweden and Yugoslavia.
—The resulting dependency on Moscow, which they do not like. Over time, as the Chinese keep predicting, they may find the cost of Russian help too high.
—The obvious difficulty Hanoi has had integrating the South into their society.
It is my view that our policies vis-a-vis Hanoi should concentrate on keeping these costs as high as possible as long as Hanoi refuses to discuss changes in its policies in Cambodia, in regard to boat people and other refugees, and in regard to the Soviet military presence along their coast. At the same time, we should be utterly realistic about the chimera of united fronts and other forms of resistance in Cambodia. They have no chance of success, and while we cannot stop nations with a higher stake in the region from pursuing their own policies, we should be very clear cut about disassociating ourselves from them. It is not in our national interest to associate ourselves with a hopeless, losing cause. Support ASEAN, yes. Encourage losing strategies, no. Pressure on Moscow and Hanoi, yes. Identification of the U.S. with the guerrillas on the border, no.
4. And what of the future? Can there be a negotiated settlement, or an international conference?
In 1981 there will be efforts to hold a conference on Indochina. ASEAN will again be strained, along the Moslem (Indonesia, Malaysia)-non-Moslem (Thailand, Singapore, Philippines) fault line which has always existed in that organization.
Hanoi is unlikely to agree to any conference in 1981, unless it believes such a conference will merely ratify their conquest. Moscow is unlikely to want to use its leverage on Hanoi, for it needs Vietnam badly to shore up its other weaknesses in the Far East. China will not [Page 355] want to see a conference, but will not openly oppose an ASEAN initiative.
In this circumstance, our present posture can be maintained for a while longer. We should support any initiative for a dialogue between ASEAN and Hanoi, even though success is unlikely. We can live, after all, with any outcome in Phnom Penh; our interests lie much more in protecting our Thai ally, and in getting the Russians out of Vietnam. We have succeeded so far on the first objective, but more will need to be done. And we have been losing ground on the second. We should continue to put heavy pressure on Vietnam itself, but stay completely clear of the efforts in Cambodia.
Whatever tactical course we choose, we will still have to be mindful of the implications of our actions on both ASEAN and China. It is around that promising new regional grouping and that emerging giant, along with an unbreakable Japanese tie, that we have been rebuilding our post-Vietnam strategic position in Asia. We cannot afford to jeopardize it, and it is for that reason that the Indochina problem remains, in 1980, one of our toughest policy dilemmas.