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supplies were pouring.
Its location had made it more difficult for
hard core Pol Pot supporters to slip back over the frontier into Cambodia, as had previously been the case.
4.
Three hundred thousand people were located near the border on the Cambodian side and were waiting to cross into Thailand. North
of Aranyaprathet they were mainly Khmer Serei sympathisers, south of it mainly Pol Pot supporters. Thirty thousand people could come over into Thailand in a single day, and if all the 300,000 moved, it was difficult to say what would happen. Mr Holbrooke criticised the lack of action by United Nations agencies and said that no one from the United Nations had been to Bangkok during the past three critical
weeks.
5. Given the activity of Thai spotter planes, the number of refugees wandering to and fro, the deployment of the Thai army up to the frontier and the cross-border artillery exchanges, the frontier region might become the Sarajevo of 1980, although Mr Holbrooke did not think it would come to that. There was a need for co-ordinated
diplomatic pressure, particularly by countries outside the region (Mr Holbrooke mentioned the UK, France, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Japan) to internationalise the frontier situation. Kriangsak's call for a UN observer or an observer force was a step
in the right direction, as was Perez de Cuellar's fact-finding mission (a visit by Waldheim would, however, be of greater benefit). There was a need for the presence of more international relief workers in the border area. UNICEF, the ICRC and OXFAM had all reconciled themselves
to working with the Heng Samrin regime and were ready to ignore the 20% of the population who were starving in the frontier region.
The
role of the UK, which had not been compromised by past history, might be important here.
SUGGESTION FOR A PEACE-KEEPING FORCE
6.
An international peace-keeping force might be deployed along the border. Singapore had suggested that there should be an ASEAN
observer force but Indonesia, ASEAN's odd man out when it came to
formulating policies regarding Vietnam, was not in favour.
Professor Mochtar had told the US Ambassador in Jakarta that
Indonesia was inhibited by the Timor question and had refused to
subscribe to the ASEAN resolution in the UN until after discussion on
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/Timor
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