Correspondents' Correspondence

...Cambodian soldiers and civilians universally deplore the presence of ARVN forces, whom they accuse of rape and pillage, but the government knows it must suffer such calamities or confront the probability of complete destruction at the hands of the North Vietnamese...

...My family was eating breakfast...

...But the nights still are not safe at Songmy...

...One of Sirik Matak's advisers, a member of Parliament who requested anonymity, criticized the Premier in these terms: "His is not a regime of 'salvation' but of stagnation...

...The North Vietnamese might install him as a puppet, but he is finished...

...This is not a secure haven...

...Saigon's troops, now sweeping the Chup rubber planation some 50 miles to the northeast, are engaging elements of at least three Communist divisions...

...Our families are buried there...

...This, in turn, might lead to ruthless suppression by military leaders, or to the seizure of power by elements favoring a return to pro-Communist "neutrality...

...Similarly, the combination of American military assistance and South Vietnamese troops should sufficiently divert the North Vietnamese and Vietcong to prevent a major attack on Pnompenh...

...In fact, some sources believe the North Vietnamese, far from trying to reinstate the Prince, would prefer a compromise that retained some of Cambodia's present leaders in power--as long as the government authorized the Communists to use their old base areas and supply routes...

...Then he drew a circle: "This was my hut...

...True, it is not so easy to buy smoked herring and ham imported from Paris, but rice, the staple for most of the population, sells for little more than it did a year ago...

...Next he poked a group of dots into the dirt surrounding the circle: "These were the American soldiers...

...Arnold Abrams Uneasy Tranquility Pnompenh -- The boulevards and cafes of this old French-colonial river port still reflect a tranquility that masks the suffering inflicted on Cambodia since the March 18, 1970 overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk...

...Few here know the accused officer's name and still fewer have followed his case...

...The official did not say what would happen if the National Bank runs out of money, the United States fails to rush to the rescue with sufficient aid, and mutterings against Lon Nol reach dangerous proportions...

...I and my other four children weren't hit...

...But now, above the engineers' outpost overlooking the gutted ruins of Mylai 4, a peace flag--white peace symbol with black background--flutters below the stars and stripes...

...Deputy Premier Sink Matak, who has taken over as acting chief of state while Lon Nol recuperates from his recent heart attack, is believed to favor a tougher policy toward the enemy...

...The North Vietnamese appear to have based their strategy to some extent on the latter possibility...

...Such signs of discord have been relatively muted, and they are unlikely to threaten seriously the stability of the post-Sihanouk government...

...The village's pacification rating is C; Tucung hamlet's is D. Those grades mean what they did when you were in school...

...But we never will...

...His voice growing anguished, Chuc took a stick and traced an outline of his old hamlet in the dirt, scratching a line of Xs on the perimeter: "Here is where artillery rounds began falling...

...We have no choice for now" is the typical response to questions about the alliance with South Vietnam and the United States, and about the efforts to mobilize the country for what will obviously be protracted guerrilla warfare...

...Refugees from war-torn towns in the outlying provinces have doubled the city's population--now estimated at over a million--but one can move easily along the spacious, tree-shaded avenues in a pedicab or sip cafe noir in sidewalk restaurants...

...Sometimes they are cheered, more often they arc simply ignored...

...At the moment, an arrangement of this kind appears impossible...

...At least 8 per cent of this figure will pay for the importation of oil up the Mekong River from South Vietnam...

...Finally, a straight line nearby: "This was the ditch where the soldiers took us...

...Among the few signs that the nation is at war are the little piles of military clothing and equipment at new stalls around the central market place, and the sandbagged bunkers and coils of barbed wire outside key government buildings...

...Further improvement in living conditions at Songmy will come from additional soil, soon to be made available by American Army Engineers engaged in a land-clearing project...

...They killed three of my children and wounded my wife," he said...

...The Vietnamese Communists conduct all their political and military activities in Cambodia in the name of Sihanouk's "Liberation Army" and "National United Front," but no one here doubts they are employing his name simply for propaganda purposes and have no further use for him...

...Even Hanoi must be aware, though, that such a denouement would not bring back Prince Sihanouk, who languishes in Peking as head of his own government-in-exile...

...If Pnompenh appears uninvolved in Cambodia's struggle for survival, it is not only because of its present military security...

...There is criticism here and there, but no real threat from within...

...How can we...

...But March 16 was the third anniversary of the massacre at Mylai 4 (one of Songmy's six hamlets), and everybody remembered the date...

...He doesn't want men who are willing to say what they really think...

...Despite the slow delivery and the inadequacy of this assistance, it has created an atmosphere of hope in a village where once there was nothing but horror...

...Mylai 4 Anniversary Songmy--The village where the blood ran was largely unmoved by Lieutenant William Calley's court-martial...

...Their leaders are presumed to believe that if they manage to surround Pnompenh, cutting off its flow not only of oil and gasoline but of rice and other foodstuffs, the government would indeed topple...

...Sihanouk could never show himself publicly in Pnompenh after all he's done to support the enemy," a Cambodian student declared...

...And the capital has enough gasoline and oil for immediate needs despite the closing of the country's only oil refinery after an enemy mortar attack on Kompong Som (formerly Sihanoukville) on March 2. Ironically, on the same day the Communists attacked the refinery, Cambodian and American officials signed an agreement for delivery of the first $10 million of this year's $70 million aid allocation...

...Lon Nol wants only yes-men...

...hardcore enemy elements still operate here in Quang Ngai province, 350 miles northeast of Saigon...

...American soldiers sometimes tell us their country wants to forget Mylai," said Do Chuc, a 50-year-old fanner...

...23rd Division--better known as the Americal Division--whose personnel perpetrated the Mylai massacre...

...Reduced to an uninhabited patch of rubble and jungle foliage, it is so laced with land mines and booby traps that even former residents dare not venture there...

...They have also been providing the grateful inhabitants with building materials, food supplies and relief payments...

...Government officials have promised increased protection...

...The engineers belong to the 39th battalion of the U.S...

...American troops no longer operate in the district, and South Vietnamese territorial forces have stepped up their security efforts...

...There is some disagreement about tactics, however...

...Like the war itself, these possibilities still seem unreal or irrelevant to the petite-patisserie dreamworld of Pnompenh...

...Indeed, today Mylai 4 is only a name on military maps and a memory...

...The government is completely united and committed to its anti-Communist policies," said one Pnompenh official...

...Occasionally, too, busloads of soldiers roar through town en route to or from a distant skirmish...

...A year after Sihanouk's ouster, few critics here seriously doubt the wisdom of basic government policy...

...Standing up, Chuc told how two Americans straddled the edge of that ditch and fired into the terrified inhabitants...

...Most of them live in Tucung, a resettlement hamlet half a mile to the west, where the acrid smell of burning incense permeated the air throughout the anniversary week, as those who survived the massacre paid homage to those who did not...

...Yet they could become intensified in the event of serious deterioration in either the overall economic situation or the military security around Pnompenh...

...Donald Kirk...

...The economic problems usually brought on by war have so far hardly made themselves felt in the daily life of the city and its environs, thanks to the broad-ranging American aid program...