Southeast Asia: A Fishhook Hypothesis?

SOUTHEAST ASIA A Fishhook Hypothesis?Hardly anyone talks about the dom ino theory any more. Would you be lieve the fishhook hypothesis? On the geographical fishhook formed by North and South Viet Nam, the neighboring countries of Southeast Asia keenly feel each tug and convulsion of the Vietnamese war. Increasingly, many of them consider their future to be linked directly to the war. “The eventual fate of South and Southeast Asia,” Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said last week, “depends more and more on the decisions of America, China and Russia than on the decisions of the nations of the area.” Even as Lee spoke, new troubles plagued Viet Nam’s neighbors—and prompted their leaders to speak out in warning. >In Laos, the major staging area for Communist forces moving into South Viet Nam, at least 2,500 North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao troops have surrounded the southern provincial capital, Saravane. The city is important because it sits astride Route 23, a main feeder to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and commands the whole southern region. Last week an outnumbered royalist force of 1,000 managed to turn back attacks on two outposts defending it, but lost a third. “Some say the fighting in Laos is a forgotten war,” said Brigadier General Oudone Sananikone, the Royal Army chief of staff, “but how can we forget what’s going on? We have a foreign invasion of some 40,000 North Vietnamese.” Control of Saravane would give the Communists additional routes into South Viet Nam.

>In Cambodia, volatile Prince Norodom Sihanouk declared “civil war” on local Viet Minh and Communist infiltrators from Thailand, who are raising havoc in Battambang province, and accused the Communists of tying up with the subversive Thai Patriotic Front to cause trouble. Normally a soft-pedaler of anti-Communist alarm, Sihanouk finally seems to have, recognized the root of much of his trouble—at least until he changes his mind again. Already besieged by North Vietnamese troops who use his country as sanctuary, he now faces a second Communist threat. The Prince attacked the “global strategy of Asian Communism,” crying: “We are being driven into war.”

Ruefully admitting that his soldiers “are not doing so well” against the guerrillas, he ordered reinforcements sent to the besieged province. >In Thailand, where a Communist insurgency is raging in the northeast, new trouble came from rebel Meo tribes men in the remote hills of northwest ern Nan province. Though only 100 to 200 strong, the Communist-led tribesmen have consistently bushwacked government patrols, killing more than 30 men. Last week in nearby Chiang Rai province, another Meo band shot down a government helicopter. The increased guerrilla activity may provide the power holder in Thailand’s military regime, General Praphas Charusathien, with an excuse for postponing elections due this fall. Ordering Thai newspapers to print the grisliest photographs taken during the Tet offensive in Viet Nam, Praphas asked: “Is it not better for us to safe guard a normal situation than for these pictures to become facts in our own country?”

>In Malaysia and Singapore, which will lose 10,000 and 30,000 British troops respectively in Britain’s pull-out from the Far East by 1971, there was anxious casting about for protective new alliances. So far, the only things that unite the onetime federation partners are joint air defenses built by Britain and a common fear of Indonesia, despite its friendlier attitude under General Suharto. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman last week declared that the “Saigon situation” has made the question of mutual defense urgent, and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew has called elections to gain momentum for his ambitious defense plans. Soon, leaders of both nations will meet with Britain, Australia and New Zealand to discuss the drawing up of a broad—though limited—five-power treaty, which no doubt would be of interest to other nations in jittery Southeast Asia too.