SECRET/NOFORN
(Classification)
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
INR BRIEFING NOTE
CIST:
CAMBODIA: Sihanouk Again Blasts Pathet Lao Chief Soupha-nouvong; Foreign Minister Complains to DRV/NLF Reps.
TO:
The Director, INR
DATE:
June 6, 1968
SOURCE(S)
TIME:
Morning
CLASS./CONTROL(S)
COMMENTS CONTAINED IN INR BRIEFING NOTES ARE INITIAL AND TENTATIVE.
---
Pt S Book, 6/4/68
pp. H2 and 3
(Phnom Penh Radio, 5/30/68)
Uncl.
Sihanouk Blasts Souphanouvong: Executes 9 PL
On May 29, Prince Sihanouk accused Pathet Lao Chief, Prince Souphanouvong of wanting "to seize Khmer territory." He announced that "we have already executed nine partisans of Souphanouvong. That is our answer to that Laotian red prince, a lackey of the Viet Minh..."
---
COMMENT: This is the second time that Sihanouk has publicly denounced Souphanouvong. (On May 23, he called Souphanouvong "a baleful prince of Laos...who is more dangerous than Souvanna Phouma because he is pushed from behind by the Viet Minh.) However, this is the first time that he has mentioned the execution of "nine partisans of Souphanouvong."
---
CS 314/09181-68
Secret/Noform
(Generally reliable source, from the Cambodian Embass)
Foreign Minister Complains to DRV/NLF Reps.
In late May, the First Secretary of the Cambodian Embassy in Tokyo said that Cambodian Foreign Minister Phrissara had recently called in the DRV Ambassador (Nguyen Thuong) and the NLF Representative (Nguyen Van Hieu) to bring to their attention evidence of Vietnamese Communist involvement in the Khmer Rouge insurgency in northeastern Cambodia and other parts of the country. (Source comment: the First Secretary did not elaborate.)
---
COMMENT: This is the first report we have seen re a Cambodian complaint to the Vietnamese Communists concerning their part in the insurgency. Sihanouk alluded to a possible confrontation of this nature on May 18 when he revealed that "the Viet Minh and Viet Cong" denied they were behind the "Laotian" activities. The Vietnamese Communists argued that it was "the pro-US Vietnamese who did it"—i.e. Vietnamese ordered by the US to disguise themselves as Viet Minh, Viet Cong, and Pathet Lao. Sihanouk claimed he replied to them: "If you say so, I am glad it was the pro-US Vietnamese whom we fought with so fiercely." "If we liquidated the VC and VM that would be terrible. I had many of them roasted."
---
INR OFFICE
BRIEFER
EXTENSION
REA
Kobayashi/Keogh
4909
SECRET/NOFORN
(Classification)
Form DS-1118
MW 31097 DocId:33061196 Page 132