U.S. Offers Aid to Cambodia Rebels : Non-Military Help OKd for 2 Non-Communist Groups

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, marking a shift in U.S. policy, told leaders of non-Communist Cambodian guerrilla groups Wednesday that the Reagan Administration is ready to give them military aid for their fight against Vietnam, if they need it.

However, Shultz also told the guerrillas that they already receive sufficient military aid from China, Thailand and other Asian countries and that the United States now plans to give them only economic aid, officials said.

“We are convinced that the resistance forces do not need U.S. weapons now, but we do not think it is wise to forgo having flexibility on this point, should circumstances change,” State Department spokesman Edward P. Djerejian said.

“U.S. economic assistance would be appropriate for the present as a means of complementing what others are doing in the military sphere. . . . We are studying how we might most appropriately assist further.”

Previously Ruled Out

Until last week, the Administration had publicly ruled out military aid to the rebels, although it provided them indirectly with non-military help.

However, the guerrillas appealed privately for a stronger show of U.S. support, officials said.

Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved a Democratic proposal for $5 million in military aid to the non-Communist forces as part of a $14.5-billion foreign aid bill that must still be passed by the House and Senate. In response, State Department officials said, Shultz agreed to a public declaration that the United States is considering military aid.

A department statement released after the meeting said that Shultz “reaffirmed strong U.S. support for the non-Communist resistance and said that we are prepared to consider how we might most appropriately assist further.”

One of the guerrilla leaders who met with Shultz said he was pleased with the U.S. position but indicated that he had hoped for U.S. military aid now.

Son Sann, head of the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front, said: “We believe the Administration has raised its political support for us to a new level. I have the promise of the State Department to consider military assistance for us. . . . This means that the pipeline is open. And, if the pipeline is open, the volume of water can increase over time.

“We want military aid right now. If they consider what we need, they will know what to give us, and that is military aid.”

Son Sann said his group has about 15,000 armed men and about 5,000 trained troops who have no weapons. “This shows that we need weapons,” he said.

His group is one of two non-Communist factions fighting the Vietnamese army in Cambodia. A second group, the 8,000-man force of former chief of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk, also receives indirect U.S. non-military aid. Prince Sihanouk’s son, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, represented his father at Wednesday’s meeting.

The largest faction fighting the Vietnamese, however, is the Khmer Rouge army of about 35,000 men--remnants of the brutal Communist regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975 until 1978, killing more than 2 million of its citizens through executions and forced labor. The Khmer Rouge is supplied by China and receives no U.S. aid.

“There are many differences between us, but we have a common will to fight the Vietnamese,” Son Sann said of his alliance of convenience with the Khmer Rouge, his former enemies. “The Cambodian people have been suffering for many years, but since 1978 their suffering has been going on not because of the Khmer Rouge, but because of the Vietnamese.”

The guerrillas lost a series of major battles last month, culminating in the Vietnamese capture of their main camps just inside Cambodia’s western border with Thailand.

“Their problem is not one of military assistance,” a State Department official said. “Their problem is of reorganizing after the Vietnamese offensive and changing their tactics so they can get back into Cambodia and harass the long Vietnamese supply lines instead of defending the camps.”

He said the State Department hopes that the primary role in supplying weapons to the non-Communist groups will remain with the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei.

“One factor that could change the equation is the growth in the resistance,” he said. “The non-Communist groups have grown to 25,000, and further growth could require more arms. We might have to take a look at the aid situation then.”