A Rescue Plan at Last

But in the jungles the fighting continues

Moved by an overwhelming sense of pity and concern, representatives of 50 nations met last week in Geneva for a two-day United Nations conference on Indochina's refugees. To underline the importance that Washington gives to this ever growing tragedy, the U.S. delegation was led by Vice President Walter Mondale. He condemned Viet Nam as the sole cause of the Indochina exodus, and reinforced President Carter's promise that the U.S. would begin naval and air operations to pick up thousands of "boat people" who have fled Viet Nam in overcrowded, unseaworthy vessels. One ranking U.S. official estimates that since last May 30,000 to 50,000 people have drowned each month in their attempts to escape. Mondale also said that the Administration would ask Congress for additional funds for refugee relief for this year, bringing the total to $917 million.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Denmark's Poul Hartling, received a pledge from the participating nations that they would take in 250,000 refugees this year. The promises of help, in fact, got under way before the conference. Canada announced earlier in the week that it would accept 50,000 refugees by the end of 1980, Britain that it would absorb 10,000 from overcrowded Hong Kong. The U.S. had already increased its quota from 7,000 to 14,000 a month.

To guarantee the conference's success, there was a prior agreement that it would concentrate on humanitarian solutions and avoid, as much as possible, political recriminations. This was done primarily to ensure the presence of Viet Nam, whose policies of brutal repression and wholesale expulsions have been responsible for the flood of refugees. Arriving in Geneva, Viet Nam's unctuous Deputy Foreign Minister Phan Hien pledged his country's "full cooperation" at the conference, provided that "our national sovereignty will be respected and financial help extended."

Violating the no-politics rule of the conference, China's Deputy Foreign Minister Zhang Wenjin accused Hanoi of "militarism, genocide, creating and exporting refugees, causing human disasters and spreading anti-Chinese sentiment in Southeast Asia." Although China claims to have accepted 230,000 refugees, Zhang offered to take an additional 10,000 "if they choose to come." He also pledged $1 million for U.N. refugee relief.

Malaysia and Thailand were surprisingly subdued in their criticism of Viet Nam, though as the principal countries of "first asylum," they have already absorbed more than half of the 380,000 refugees now scattered throughout Southeast Asia. But U.S. diplomats estimate that at least 1 million more people may soon be joining the exodus, principally from Viet Nam. That massive an outpouring would completely swamp the already overtaxed resources of the two countries. It was Thailand's forced repatriation of refugees from Cambodia last month and Malaysia's refusal to accept any more boat people that prompted the Geneva conference.

The refugee crisis is only the most dramatic in a sequence of events that has reshaped the politics of Southeast Asia since the fall of South Viet Nam to Hanoi and of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge in 1975. Led by a group of aging revolutionaries who have been almost continuously at war since 1945, Hanoi has been pursuing Ho Chi Minh's goal of an Indochinese federation under Vietnamese domination. Backed by the Soviet Union, Viet Nam last December invaded Cambodia (Kampuchea), its former ally. Though an international pariah because of the brutal policies of the ousted Pol Pot regime, Cambodia received some verbal support from other Southeast Asian nations that fear Hanoi's expansionism, while China reacted in February by invading Viet Nam, its own former ally. As a result, hundreds of thousands of additional refugees were created.

The history of Southeast Asia, in fact, is a story of peoples on the move, with often disastrous consequences as one group has triumphed over another. As a migratory heritage and changing military fortunes offered scant geographic stability, ethnic purity became highly important as a means of national survival. Defeat could mean cultural obliteration and slavery for a generation or more--a debt to be repaid in kind.

Some of these peoples have all but disappeared: the Chams of central Viet Nam, for example, or the Mons of Burma. The prime survivors of the murky wars of attrition were the Vietnamese and the Thais. In the 19th century, Viet Nam and Thailand were on the verge of dividing a hapless Cambodia when the French intervened; 100 years of colonial rule postponed a historic process of ethnic competition. That process was redefined in cold war terms by John Foster Dulles. In what became known as the "domino theory," Dulles in 1953 noted, "If Indochina should be lost, there would be a chain reaction through the Far East and South Asia." The next year, President Dwight Eisenhower predicted, "The loss of Indochina would lead to the loss of Burma, Thailand, in fact all of the great peninsula on which they are situated."

So far, that has not happened. Nor, in the opinion of experts in the area, is it likely to happen soon, even though Viet Nam's smaller neighbors would be hopelessly outmanned and outgunned in a major war without China's intervention (see following story). Nonetheless, the possibility of an unintentional incident's ballooning into a regional or international crisis is alarmingly present. As a result, the U.S. has revived the almost moribund Manila Pact (whose now defunct military organization was called SEATO), which pledges Southeast Asian and Western countries to mutual security consultations in case of attack on any of its signatories. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance told a meeting of ASEAN* Foreign Ministers in Bali in early July, "We are committed morally and by treaty to support the ASEAN states. We have made this clear to all concerned--and directly to the Soviet Union and Viet Nam. The U.S. is a Pacific power. We will defend our interests and stand by our commitments in the region."

Viet Nam is the focal point of these regional tensions. Its foreign ventures have cost Hanoi dearly. Contrary to their expectations, Vietnamese military commanders have seen their Cambodian campaign extend well into the rainy season, and there is no end in sight. Viet Nam's own economy is in bad shape, in part because of the Cambodia war, but also because of several bad crop years compounded by gross mismanagement. Viet Nam suffered enormous damage to its northern provinces during its fierce one-month war with China. Factories, schools, office buildings and other structures were demolished. Though the war has been over for several months, normal life has yet to return to the devastated areas.

Hanoi's biggest headache is in Cambodia, where elements of four Khmer Rouge divisions loyal to deposed Premier Pol Pot are still able to terrorize civilians and harass Vietnamese units immobilized by the monsoons. Last month Khmers thought to be loyal to Hanoi's new regime in Phnom-Penh expelled the Vietnamese garrison from the river port of Kratie. Though the town was quickly recaptured, the startled Vietnamese began to transfer Pathet Lao troops from Laos as a means of guaranteeing village security.

Hanoi, in effect, is trying to fill one pocket by emptying another. The Pathet Lao troops are needed in northern Laos, where Chinese-supplied tribesmen are smuggling rifles to anti-Communist Meo guerrillas. According to Western and Thai intelligence, the insurgents last month killed 200 Pathet Lao troops assigned to guard a new highway.

Meanwhile, Cambodia continues to hemorrhage, in what some observers believe may be the death throes of the Khmers as a people. A nation that once numbered between 7 million and 8 million people is now believed to total only 4 million to 5 million. Much of the country's farm land has been devastated by war, and refugees report that the Vietnamese forces are shipping to their own country what little rice is now being grown in Cambodia. French doctors who recently visited the country fear that it could be swept by bubonic plague.

"Pressure on Viet Nam is the only way we can improve the situation," says one Western ambassador in Bangkok. But who can apply that pressure? The U.S. does not have diplomatic relations with Hanoi--a fact that some observers believe pushed Viet Nam even further into Moscow's orbit. China, of course, has just fought a war with Viet Nam, while Moscow openly supports Hanoi's attempt to subdue Cambodia, The worldwide outcry over the refugees has only just begun to have an effect on Hanoi--but as for getting out of Cambodia, the Vietnamese so far have been adamant. Ironically, it is Politburo Member Le Due Tho, the winner along with Henry Kissinger of the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, who is said to be directing Viet Nam's civil operations in Cambodia.

If there is a vulnerable domino in Southeast Asia, it is Thailand. Except for a friendly southern border with Malaysia, Thailand is surrounded by enemies, new and old: Cambodia, Laos and Burma. Above all, the Thais fear the Vietnamese. Hanoi has repeatedly warned Bangkok to stay neutral in the Cambodia war, and complained that Pol Pot forces are being harbored in the crowded refugee camps. Well aware that the Vietnamese have ten divisions arrayed along the Thailand-Cambodia frontier, China has made both public and private gestures of support for Bangkok, including the offer of troops in case of invasion. Such proposals only embarrass the Thais, who are determined to maintain their traditional independence.

The 45 million people of this France-size land call their country Muang-Thai, which means land of the free. Thailand, in fact, is the only country in Southeast Asia that was never colonized by a Western power. For centuries the country has managed to survive the ambitions of would-be occupiers through a combination of diplomatic guile, compromise, opportunism and sheer luck.

More than 90% of Thais are practicing Buddhists, and the symbols of religion are omnipresent: young men in saffron robes practicing the 227 rules of tripitaka (the summation of Hinayana Doctrine), temples that dominate the jumbled skyline of humid, traffic-jammed Bangkok. Another symbol of Thai unity is the country's constitutional monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 51, whose official title is King Rama IX. A talented jazz saxophonist who was born in Cambridge, Mass. (where his father was a medical student), the shy monarch travels constantly throughout the country. He personally hands out diplomas to all graduates of state universities and military colleges. That is no mean chore: 20,000 got their degrees in Bangkok alone last year.

The King is considered above politics. The task of governing his peculiar land of serenity and violence, of beauty and disorder, is in the hands of Premier Kriangsak Chomanan, 61. A retired army general who came to power in a 1977 army coup, Kriangsak has found it hard to manage a largely agricultural economy that is plagued by bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption. He has also had to give a great deal of his attention to the threat posed by war at Thailand's doorstep, and the persistence of Communist insurgency, especially in the south.

Because of its even, tropical climate and predictable rainfall, Thailand has become one of the world's leading agricultural nations. It is the world's fourth largest producer of sugar and the third biggest rubber exporter. This year Thailand expects to become the world's leading rice exporter. Ironically, the country's farmers remain among the poorest in Asia, a factor that Kriangsak recognizes as a serious threat to internal security. The most oppressive exploiter of the farmer is Bangkok itself, which by government decree keeps the rice price paid to the farmer well below world levels. The "rice premium" has been a favorite tool of Thailand's military rulers. By lowering the urban consumer's cost of living, the Premier has ensured political stability in Bangkok.

Keeping the countryside poor, however, is no longer an option for Bangkok. Kriangsak declared 1979 as the "year of the farmer" and launched an ambitious $2 billion rural reform program to be renewed annually. Said Kriangsak: "Thai farmers will eventually be standing proud and tall in the coming decade."

Nevertheless, security is the Premier's main concern, as he explained last week in an interview with TIME'S Hong Kong bureau chief Marsh Clark and correspondent David DeVoss: "Close to our borders there is a full-scale war. We have Communist subversion within the country. Added to that there is the refugee problem that undermines our stability. We need arms to preserve peace. Tell the U.S. Congress to come to Thailand to see the situation. Giving us a foreign military sales credit of $24 million is not enough. Thailand faces a war situation. It deserves a higher priority. We need antiaircraft weapons, tanks, TOW missiles. We are a little impatient."

Within the past year, Kriangsak has responded to invitations from Washington, Moscow and Peking by making official visits to all three capitals. The interest in Thailand shown by the superpowers goes well beyond their concern to have amicable diplomatic relations with Bangkok. It is a tacit admission that turmoil in Southeast Asia could be as great a threat to the peace and stability of the world as a crisis in the Middle East.

* Association of Southeast Asian Nations: Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.

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