Another Week of Survival

On March 18 five years ago, President Lon Nol led the coup in Phnom-Penh that forced neutralist Prince Norodom Sihanouk into exile. Last week rockets fired by the Khmer Rouge insurgents kept raining down on the besieged capital, more embassies closed, students demonstrated and a unit of loyalist troops went on strike, but somehow the government survived for another week despite a growing awareness that the U.S. Congress was not about to authorize any more military aid. Meanwhile, there were speculations that Lon Nol may be quitting as President within the next two weeks.

If Lon Nol does step down, he would most probably be replaced by Sauk-ham Soy, a retired lieutenant general who is now president of the Senate. The key question would then be whether or not the Khmer Rouge would be willing to try to negotiate a settlement with Sauk-ham Soy, something they were unwilling to do with Lon Nol.

Airport Attacks. Weary government troops continued to fight for survival against the relentless Khmer Rouge (see following story). The Cambodians struggled to retake the village of Tuol Leap, six miles to the northwest of Phnom-Penh, which the enemy had been using as a site for launching rockets against Pochentong Airport. As the fighting swayed back and forth, Khmer Rouge attacks on the airport lessened, and as many as 49 cargo planes flew in daily from Thailand and Saigon with tons of food, oil, medicines and arms.

U.S. officials reported that they had scraped together $20 million to keep the airlift going for another month regardless of whether Congress approves more aid. The flights also concerned Thailand's new coalition government, which said that it was considering a ban on arms shipments from the country. The announcement was an apparent attempt by the government to win the support of strong leftist groups.

The heaviest fighting of the week took place in Neak luong, 32 miles southeast of the capital on the Mekong River. Pushing forward inexorably, the insurgents lowered the tubes of their artillery pieces and sent shell after shell screaming through the city on flat trajectories. Hundreds of civilians were killed or wounded every day, and many bodies were left to decompose in the streets. The attacks destroyed a naval ammunition dump, a fuel depot and a floating naval base. Helicopters to Phnom-Penh were the only means of escape; they were reserved for wounded soldiers and wealthy Cambodians who could afford the price of a ticket--$75 to $100.

As the Khmer Rouge kept up their determined attacks, Israel, Poland and Singapore joined Australia and Britain in closing their embassies in Phnom-Penh. The French downgraded their embassy to a consulate and began to evacuate their staff and any French citizens who wanted to leave. Last Monday morning, reported TIME Correspondent Roy Rowan, a large group of French and Metis (French Cambodians) gathered in front of the old embassy and stared at the bright travel posters picturing the Eiffel Tower, Mont Blanc and the stained glass windows of the Chartres Cathedral. Many of the evacuees had never been to France, nor did they have relatives or friends there. As the buses pulled away, heading for the airport, the nurses and chauffeurs got back into their cars and drove home to wait for the day, they said hopefully, when their masters and mistresses would return from Paris.

At the U.S. embassy, the rocket-alarm siren wailed every day. Ambassador John Gunther Dean waited out the attacks in the lobby, behind heavy cement walls and two-inch-thick bulletproof windows. During two days last week, five people were killed and 22 were wounded by rockets that landed in the embassy block. Dean did his best to keep up everyone's spirits, even offering a buffet supper to newsmen and showing a movie (Peter Sellers in The Optimists), as though the war were a thousand miles away. But even the ambassador's humor turned grim at times. "Who was the guy who wrote the book on death row?" he asked, fumbling for the name of Rapist Caryl Chessman, who was executed in California in 1960.

Last week the helicopter carrier Okinawa was still patrolling the Gulf of Siam, and Washington had worked out plans to evacuate the 400 U.S. citizens still in Phnom-Penh; a short-wave radio network had been set up to reach Americans in an emergency. Presumably the rescue efforts would also involve some top Cambodian leaders who are believed to be on the Khmer Rouge wanted list. Meanwhile, there was a growing fear that even pro-government Cambodians might turn on the American community in a reaction born of frustration and defeat. There were anti-U.S. editorials in Phnom-Penh newspapers last week, and university students held demonstrations to protest the fact that the U.S. had given the aid that kept Lon Nol in power. At a rally, one spokesman said that the students would back "any government--Communist or not--as long as it brings peace."

Low Morale. In the end, Phnom-Penh's survival may depend as much on the government soldiers' morale as upon their materiel, and their morale is not always high. About 300 members of the 7th Brigade, who had recovered from wounds, refused for a while to go back to duty because they had not been paid since January.

One small incident last week reflected the confusing, shifting fight for Phnom-Penh, in which the battle lines often seem to blur together. A wedge of 100 Khmer Rouge soldiers drove to the east bank of the Mekong, captured a government 105-mm. howitzer and turned it on the city for a few hours. The government retaliated with repeated bombing raids. In the end, those who suffered most were the civilians caught in the crossfire. They finally had to abandon their burning villages.

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