Vietnam Readies New Assault : Thai Officials Say Move Is Aimed at Communist Rebels

Vietnamese forces in Cambodia, after battering non-communist guerrillas near the Thai border, are moving tanks, artillery and soldiers in preparation for an assault on Communist Khmer Rouge rebels farther south, Thai military officers said Friday.

Officers at Aranyaprathet, a town on the Thai-Cambodia border near the Rithisen and Nong Chan camps of the non-communist Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, also reported fighting as rebels tried to retake those camps from the Vietnamese. They described the fighting at Nong Chan as sporadic and provided no reports of casualties.

International aid workers began moving 62,000 Cambodian civilians to safer areas inside Thailand. The move to the U.N.-run Khao-I-Dang camp, about five miles from the border, is the second relocation of refugees from the Nong Samet base of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front. Aid officials said the move will take two or three days.

Thai intelligence officers reported that about 1,000 Vietnamese soldiers equipped with Soviet-built T-54 tanks were heading toward the main base of the Khmer Rouge, the largest Cambodian guerrilla group operating near the Thai-Cambodian border.

The Communist Khmer Rouge stronghold is in the rugged Phnom Malai mountain area south of Aranyaprathet, a Thai town 120 miles east of Bangkok.

Vietnamese occupation troops began an offensive in November to try to wipe out three major rebel groups--about 50,000 guerrillas--who are trying to topple the Hanoi-backed government in Cambodia.

Cambodian Proposal The premier of that government, Hun Sen, called Friday on non-communist resistance groups to join with his administration to eliminate their pro-Chinese partners, the Khmer Rouge.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Hun Sen, 33, said that Phnom Penh is prepared to talk to groups led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk and Son Sann “if they dissociate themselves from Pol Pot.”

Pol Pot is the military chief of the Khmer Rouge, which is linked with Sihanouk’s followers and Son Sann’s Khmer People’s National Liberation Front in a U.N.-recognized coalition government formed in 1982.

The Khmer Rouge, blamed for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians during their four-year rule in Phnom Penh, were ousted by Hanoi-led forces in January, 1979.

Hun Sen, who is also Cambodia’s foreign minister, was giving his first interview to a Western journalist since he succeeded Premier Chan Sy, who died last month of heart trouble. He was in Ho Chi Minh City to attend a conference of Indochinese foreign ministers.

Hun Sen told the French news agency that if the nationalist resistance factions dissociate themselves from Pol Pot and join with the Phnom Penh government in helping to eliminate the Khmer Rouge, they might play a “certain role” in Cambodia. A “change of attitude” by Sihanouk, former Cambodian head of state, and Son Sann, a former premier, might help break the current impasse and pave the way for a political settlement, he said.

China and the Khmer Rouge have repeatedly said that Hanoi and its Cambodian proteges are trying to split the resistance coalition.

Troop Reduction Possible The Cambodian premier said that Vietnam might withdraw some of its troops from Cambodia this year. Hanoi has carried out three partial troop withdrawals since 1983, but these have been dismissed by its non-communist neighbors, by China and by the United States as mere troop rotations.

Asked how soon Hanoi might complete a full withdrawal of its estimated 150,000 to 170,000 troops in Cambodia, Hun Sen said it depends on whether a political settlement is reached, or whether the situation is allowed to run its course.

Meanwhile, Assistant Secretary of State Paul D. Wolfowitz said Friday that the United States will continue to provide political support and humanitarian aid to the Cambodian rebels but will not supply them with arms.

Wolfowitz predicted that the guerrillas--who have lost key bases to a Vietnamese offensive in the past two months--will recover and continue their fight against Vietnam’s six-year occupation of Cambodia.

“If the Vietnamese think they are going to impose a military solution, I would think experience ought to be pretty discouraging to them,” Wolfowitz told reporters here.

Wolfowitz, who oversees East Asian and Pacific affairs at the State Department, arrived in Bangkok on Thursday for two days of talks with Thai leaders.