Princely Sum-Ups

Two nations directly border on the battlefields of South Viet Nam, Cambo dia and Laos. Both are nominally neutral, both are headed by princes, both are inevitably caught up in the struggle of Southeast Asia. Last week each of the princes offered rare public observations on the ambiguities of neutrality so close to the shooting. > Cambodian Prince Norodom Siha nouk's neutrality for his nation is self-styled in faintly Peking tints. His Royal Khmer army is Communist-armed and equipped. Though he has broken off diplomatic relations with the U.S. for alleged border violations, Sihanouk conveniently ignores the use of Cambodia for transit, resupply and sanctuary by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. It was thus all the more odd when the prince, in a rambling speech last week, complained that Communist bands were shooting up villages in Battambang Province in northwest Cambodia, far from the Viet Nam border.

"Because we have aided the Viet

Minh [North Vietnamese] and the Viet Cong," said Sihanouk, "the Americans have condemned us. But now the Khmer Viet Minh [Cambodian Communists] have returned their gratitude by saying that I am a traitor and a country seller." He mournfully announced that Cambodia must prepare to fight the ungrateful Reds in the north, added that the country might have to close its embassies abroad to buy arms. After all, he said, "how can we ask China and Russia for ammunition to fight the Khmer Reds?" As for the U.S., "with the Americans we absolutely do not want a reconciliation." None was likely to be offered soon, since Sihanouk, as usual, said nothing about the two North Vietnamese divisions and countless Viet Cong in his eastern provinces. At week's end, though, he announced that 48 Communists had been captured in Battambang Province.

-- Laotian Prince Souvanna Phouma's neutrality was imposed by the U.S., Russia and the twelve other signers of the Geneva Accord of 1962, leaving Laos a tenuously tripartite land that is part Communist, Royalist and neutral. Premier by the grace of all three factions, Souvanna Phouma was far more candid than Sihanouk last week in touring his own troubled horizon.

The Communist portion of Laos borders on both North and South Viet Nam, and is ruled by the local Red Pathet Lao. aided by an estimated 30,000 North Vietnamese combat troops who man the Ho Chi Minh trail's Lao tian sections. In a conversation with a reporter for the New York Times, Prince Souvanna admitted that the Lao tian armed forces (composed of Royalists and neutralists) are too small and weak to interfere with this massive Red force. Even so, Laos does not want U.S. or any other Western help in the matter, "because this would mean more war for Laos, which has known little else since 1939." He said that all that Laos could do was already being done: daily bombing runs by the Laotian air force against traffic using the trail. What concerned the Premier more was the Pathet Lao threat to the rest of Laos. "The 15,000 Pathet Lao are a well-disciplined political party, the only political party in this country," he said. Still, much of their strength would evaporate, as would most of Laos' problems, "if only we could get rid of the Vietnamese."

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