Cambodia Still an Issue as Shevardnadze Ends Southeast Asian Swing

Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze wound up a high-profile swing through Southeast Asia on Friday with no sign of movement on the Cambodian conflict, Moscow’s most troublesome issue in the region.

“There has been no indication of a shift in Soviet policy,” a Western diplomat said here after Shevardnadze left for home from Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital.

That policy supports the Vietnamese-installed government in Cambodia headed by Heng Samrin. In a one-day visit Tuesday to Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, Shevardnadze and leaders there saw “eye-to-eye,” the Cambodian news agency reported.

The Soviet Union gives Vietnam an estimated $1 billion a year to maintain 140,000 troops in Cambodia bolstering the Heng Samrin regime. Their presence is a major impediment to improved relations between Moscow and Beijing.

Breakthrough Hinted

A reported remark by Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach, at a banquet Wednesday night for Shevardnadze, hinted at a possible breakthrough on Cambodia, but on Friday it appeared to have been a mistranslation.

Initial reports, based on an English-language broadcast of Radio Hanoi, quoted Thach as saying that Vietnam and its Indochinese allies, Cambodia and Laos, “are planning to hold dialogues” on the issue with China and the non-Communist Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations.

Thai and Indonesian officials said they had heard of no such plans. Then, on Friday, embassies in Bangkok received transcripts of Thach’s remarks in the original Vietnamese, which said merely that Vietnam “advocated dialogues.”

Hanoi has called before for talks on Cambodia and on the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops, but always on its own terms, which include “elimination of the Pol Pot clique” as a potential participant. The Vietnamese mean the Khmer Rouge, the former ruthless rulers of Cambodia and now the most effective opposition group.

Compromise Unsighted

American diplomats watching Shevardnadze’s visits to Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and the Indochinese states say they have seen no signs of compromise on the part of the Soviets or their Vietnamese clients. J. Stapleton Roy, deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said in Bangkok earlier this week, after a visit to China with Secretary of State George P. Shultz:

“Neither of us saw any indications as yet that the Vietnamese are prepared to change their policies. Nor did we see any immediate evidence that the Soviet Union was prepared to be helpful in resolving the issue.”

Roy discounted a Shevardnadze statement, made here in Bangkok, his first stop, that Soviet proposals on Afghanistan could serve as a model for a solution in Cambodia.

“At the moment,” Roy said, “we would consider it a model by negative example. There has been no Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. The so-called announced withdrawal was in fact a sham.”

‘Continued Stalemate’

The next day U.S. Ambassador William Brown told reporters that he saw “only continued stalemate.”

The Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in late 1978, deposed the Khmer Rouge and set up the Heng Samrin government. Since then, with China backing the Khmer Rouge and the Soviets supporting Vietnam, the conflict has become a big power contest, and Vietnam has been adamant in rejecting international calls for withdrawal.

While the Shevardnadze trip led to no movement on Cambodia, it served the intentions of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to raise Moscow’s profile in Asia.

“The idea is to get the Soviets involved as a major player in Southeast Asia,” a Bangkok-based diplomat said. “It’s public diplomacy, publicity, and it’s done at no cost.”

‘Fishing for Possibilities’

Roy said: “You could argue that by traveling through this region and Australia en route to Hanoi, in a sense he (Shevardnadze) is fishing for possibilities that he would discuss with Hanoi while he is there.”

But ultimately, he said, Moscow would be reluctant to pressure Hanoi, whatever good will it might gain with China or the non-Communist governments of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations.

“The thing is that essentially the military advantages that they gain from access to Vietnamese facilities have been driving their policies,” he said, referring to the Soviet naval base at Cam Ranh Bay in southern Vietnam.