eThailand and Malaysia are presently coordinating land andsea action along their mutual border in an effort tosuppress both Chin PengTs forces and Thai guerrillaactivity. Malaysia also reported an anti-guerrilla campaignin Sarawak in eastern Malaysia along the Indonesian5 border. MAP SHITSOUTHEAST ASIAN PEOPLE FIGHT |A. we go to press, the Nixon administration is stillputting out the official lie that the war is winding down.Careful investigation by the Bulkhead staff and on thescene reports confirm just the opposite. For example:@ Thousands of Gls are being transferred a short 200miles from Vietnam to nine US air bases in Thailand. Thenumber of troops there has gone from 32,000 to 49,000US troops in Thailand plus 42,000 sailors in the 7th FleetPhilippines remains under total US domination twenty-sixoff of Vietnam and Gls in Vietnam (43,000) bring theyears after its so-called independence in 1946. Betweentotal number of US troops, not including those in thePhilippines (Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base) andthose on Guam, to 133,000 US troops. No one in his rightmind can deny that they are carrying out one of the mostmurderous air and naval attacks ever. (See story on'~frontpage). :® Reports are beginning to reach the US that for the firsttime ever the Thai guerrilla movement, led by thelittle-known Thai Patriotic Front, launched a nationwideoffensive timed to coincide with the National LiberationFrontTs (so called Viet Cong) and North VietnameseArmyTs huge spring offensive. The nationwide wave ofguerrilla actions included attacks on US B-52 bases innortheast Thailand. US advisors are directingcounterguerrilla measures being carried out by theot and financed Royal Thai Army (See story page8).@ Seasoned guerrilla armies, enjoying widespreadpopular support in no less than seven countries, arefighting for control of Southeast Asia against aUS-dominated alliance of corrupt and inefficient militarydictatorships. Fighting has been reported in Vietnam,Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, and thePhilippines.Despite NixonTs claims, the real situation is more likethis: what was once called the Vietnam war, and later theSecond Indochina War after the US invaded Cambodia(1970) and Laos (1971) is now raging across all ofSoutheast Asia.The two key forces in the US-controlled Southeast AsiaTreaty Organization, which does not include Malaysia andBurma, are the huge US-financed military establishmentof Thailand and Vietnam. With the right-wing militaryforces of Laos and Cambodia almost completelyimmobilized by local guerrillas, the US has becomeincreasingly dependent on Vietnam and _ particularlyThailand for ground forces. Despite billions of US aiddollars and the efforts of thousands of US advisors, thesemilitary regimes have never been able to gain more thantoken popular support. Instead, they have becomeincreasingly dependent on the massive firepower of the USNavy and Air Force to keep them in power.In Vietnam, for instance, representatives of eightBuddhist organizations have called on their followers notto join the Saigon army. United Press International (July20) estimates that these organizations represent tenmillion Vietnamese. The Thieu regime has already draftedclose to five million young Vietnamese who face either theincredibly hard life of the NLF guerrillas, prison, or thepuppet army.For now US ground forces have been withdrawn after adisastrous attempt to contain the fighting with half amillion US troops. Nixon, instead, has turned to buildingip the 7th Fleet and sending thousands of Air Forcedersonnel to Thailand. But remember that the US spentalmost ten years (1955-1965) building up the Saigonduppet army only to be forced to send in US Gls to bailyut the Saigon regime. And even now the Saigon army isyeing slowly ground to pieces by the NLF and NVAdespite massive US air support while the Royal Thai Armyhas proved ineffective as a counter-guerrilla force.The question is at what point will the US again be~orced to commit ground troops in Southeast Asia. Withroop levels rapidly approaching 50,000 at nine major USyases in Thailand what will the US do as the Royal Thaiirmy fails to stop the guerrilla movement?To help you understand the growing crisis in Southeast\ 4I_: ,% :After the Cambodia invasion of 1970, more of the country was lost by the US backed government. The Mimot, a minoritygroup in Cambodia, exchange gifts with soldiers defending them from US/Saigon invasion.Asia we have prepared a map and a county-by-countrysummary of recent events.VIETNAM " The two large scale battles initiated by theNLF and NVA around An Loc and Quang Tri continued todominate the US version of what was happening inVietnam. The US-backed Thieu regime claimed a majorvictory after reoccupying the center of An Loc. The NLF,however, has pointed out all along that its primarymilitary task is to destroy the Saigon army, not to seizeand hold territory. All observers in Vietnam have pointedout that it would be suicidal for the Vietnamese toattempt to hold territory under US air attack. Many USadvisors have testified to the deadly effectiveness of whatthe Vietnamese call ~o~a high stage of development ofguerrilla warfare.�� From their perspective An Loc was acostly victory. if a victorv at all. According to US advisors,the. ARVN Sth Division suffered 2,500 casualties out of6,000 men while trapped in An Loc for over two monthsunder NLF mortar and artillery attack. A second division,rushed in from the Mekong Delta has still failed to reachAn Loc. The division suffered as high as 50% casaultieswhile bogged down on the road to An Loc.At Quang Tri the story is pretty much the same. TheNLF and NVA have remiained highly mobile vacatingareas under ARVN ground or US air attack while forcingARVN to pay an incredibly high price for offensive moves.In early May, for example, an entire Saigon division,11,000 men disintegrated overnight as the offensive swepttoward Quang Tri.By focusing attention on the air war and the two largescale battles at An Loc and Quang Tri, the US has managedto hide one of the most important military developmentsin South Vietnam, the systematic destruction of thepacification program, particularly around Saigon and inthe populous Mekong Delta to the south.New York Times reporter Fox Butterfield reportedfrom Saigon (June 20) that the NLF took advantage of themajor battles at An Loc and Quang Tri to quietly reassertcontrol oover many of their once powerful bases in theprovinces around Saigon.� Chuong Thien province, calledby the 7imes othe hub of the lower Delta,�T was virtually inNLF hands. One month later, on May 28, the 7imesacknowledged that 77 government outposts had beentaken over in Chuong Thien alone and the pacificationprogram was destroyed.With ARVN troops being cut off from the rear as theypress their attack on Quang Tri, SaigonTs defensesseriously weakened, and the VC promising more~surprises,T the US and their puppets were bracing for anew offensive " probably timed to coincide with this fallTselection campaigns.CAMBODIA " Cambodian guerrillas led by formerpremier Prince Norodom Sihanouk have gained control ofmost of the countryside except Pnom Penh, the capitalcity, which is controlled by a small clique of militaryofficers backed by the US. Sihanouk was deposed inMarch 1970, just before US and Vietnamese puppettroops invaded the country in search of the NLFTs secretheadquarters. The secret headquarters turned out to be afantasy, but the invasion sparked a war of resistance, ledby Sihanouk and assisted by experienced Vietnameseguerrilla leaders. Cambodia has been under constant airattack since then by the US and during the spring therewere frequent reports of fighting and anti-governmentdemonstrations in and around Pnom Penh. Sihanouk, longFOR FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCEVIETNAMLong Chen]Luang Prubang ¢ ,T Plaines des) JarresVientianeigNakhon PhanomTHAILANDCAMBODIA6 Sattahip@ Saigonng{/ Chuong ThienaMekong DeltaVYMALAYSIAat odds with the US, was deposed for refusing to side with "the US in its attempt to subjugate Vietnam.LAOS " Sgt. John Boychuk, one of the few active duty~Gls ever to meet officially with guerrillas led by the PathetLao, reported from Paris that the Laotians had told himthat three tons of bombs have been dropped since 1964for each of the one million civilians living in. guerrilla-controlled parts of Laos. LaosT total population isclose to three million. The US air war has forced about700,000 refugees into detention camps in the small areasheld by the US-backed Royal Lao government. From1968 until just before the present offensive in Vietnam,most of US air power was concentrated against thecountryside of Laos.The Pathet LaoTs spring offensive which was timed tocoincide with the VietnameseT, left the US with almost nooeWe ica WeLaotian people work when they can between bombings.e Quang Tri:Subic Naval BaseVUClark Air Baseb : QPHILIPPINES Be 7Laotian puppet troops capable of or willing to fight thePathet Lao. In place of the Royal Laotian army and theClA-controlled secret army of General Vang Pao, the UShas brought in an estimated 25 battalions of Thai troops(between 6,000 and 10,000 men) to replace the Laotiantroops. Thousands of other Thai troops plus their USadvisors commute regularly to Laos by helicopter frombases in neighboring Thailand in order to hide the fact oflast yearTs US sponsored Thai invasion of Laos.The collapse of the Royal Laotian army and Vang PaoTssecret mercenary force is an ominous sign for the US. TheRoyal Laotian army was built up secretly by the US after1955 to counter the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu theyear before. The US saw Laosas a ofinger thrust right intothe heart of Southeast Asia� and was anxious to controlthe country both as the best site for a major military baseon ChinaTs southern border and as a buffer zone betweenthe victorious Vietnamese revolutionary forces and therest of Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand. Even thoughLaos became one of the largest recipients of US aid in theworld, the army remained what Roger Hillsman,Undersecretary of State for Southeast Asia underPresident Johnson, described as ~~a focal point for graft,the principal lever for ambitious men plotting coups andasymbol of government repression in those villages towhich it did intermittently penetrate.�Today with government officials wary of straying morethan twenty miles from the two major cities of Vientianeand Luang Prubang, the Royal Laotian army remains amilitary joke dominated by five regional commanders whoare more concerned with internal power struggles andopium trafficking than fighting.When it became clear ten years ago that the RoyalLaotian Army would never develop any fighting ability,the US assembled part of the Meo hill tribes of Laos intoone of the most motley military forces in the long historyof US intervention in the affairs of other countries.The Meo, many of whom fight under another triballeader with the Pathet Lao, are an important opiumgrowing hill tribe found in the northern parts of SoutheastAsia from Thailand to North Vietnam. In the early 1960Ts,the US brought part of the tribe together with remnants ofan anti-communist Chinese army which has been in Laosraiding across ChinaTs southern border and awaiting a USinvasion of China since 1949. For good measure the USadded remnants of small mercenary forces from othercountries, including Cambodia, the Philippines andBurma.Based in the mountains surrounding the huge CIAcomplex at Long Chen, this 18,000 man army was giventhe job of conducting raids in Pathet Lao-held territoryand defending the strategic Plaines des Jarres " oncecoveted by the US for a major military base. For the pastthree years offensive forays by Vang PaoTs army intoPathet Lao held territory have been met with strongcounteroffensives. By 1971, US-backed Meo mercenarieshad suffered such high casualty rates that Vang Pao wasready to call it quits. But Vang PaoTs US superiorscynically warned him, ~o~No boom-boom, no rice.T�T Andsince the Meo had long ago given up farming in exchangefor US rice supplies, this year they once again took uparms to defend Long Chen.The results were disastrous. Long Chen was surroundedand then overrun by Pathet Lao. The Meo mercenariesresponded by looting the base of its supplies before fadinginto the mountains. With the collapse of its military forcein Laos, the US was forced to bring in Thai troops to endthe rout.The US has repeatedly defended its actions in Laos byclaiming that the North Vietnamese have invaded thecountry. Nixon claimed in his most recent defense of USintervention, for instance, that 50 to 60,000 NorthVietnamese are fighting in Laos. Fred Branfman, a writerwho has lived in Laos since 1963 reports, however, that aRoyal Laointelligenceofficer told him that there were only5 to 10,000 North Vietnamese in Laos, half of themengaged in maintaining supply routes between Pathet Laoterritory and North Vietnam.MALAYSIA British efforts to destroy the legendary ChinPengTs Malaysian guerrilla army right after World War IIprovided British Colonel Robert Thompson with acounter-insurgency strategy which he later sold to the USfor use in Vietnam. Twenty-five years later, withinsurgency spreading across Southeast Asia, Chin Peng stillleads guerrilla forces in Malaysia. The governments ofBecause of U.S. bombing raids, many Laotians live in caves. These children ra rely see the sun.1956 and 1965, the US milked the Filipino economy. for acool $380 million in profits, more than six times what theUS invested during the same period. US investmentpresently totals over $1 billion dollars. Six US bases,including Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base have beenused since World War II as important staging grounds forUS intervention in Korea and Indochina and a controlcenter for US-directed attacks on the Filipino nationalliberation movement. (See article on page XX).The Filipinos have a long tradition of revolutionarynationalism dating back to their war for independencefought first against the Spanish and then against theirAmerican o~liberators� (1896-1911). After World War IIthe Huks, former anti-Japanese resistance fighters whocontinued fighting after the US reoccupation in 1945,came close to winning real independence for theirhomeland. Three years ago the Philippines CommunistParty of the Philippines, leader of the nationalistmovement, reorganized the guerrilla forces into the NewPeoples Army. The New Peoples Army claims the supportof 400,000 people, mostly poor peasants, organized intolocal organizations in 800 villages in 4 different areas ofthe country. The Filipino government reported 30 clasheswith the NPA this year including a full-scale land-air-seaattack directed at a 1000-man guerrilla force in /sabelaprovince. .The Filipino armed forces like their counterparts inVietnam, Laos, and Thailand, are completely controlled atthe command level by a parallel structure of US militaryadvisors. In fact, the military set-up in the Philippines,where the US has trained, organized and financed thearmed forces since 1945 became a model for the laterex tension of US military power all over Southeast Asia.THAILAND " For the US, Thailand once seemed securerear area; a peaceful sanctuary from which waves of B-52scould attack Indochina without fear of reprisal; a stagingground from which Thai troops could be deployed to backdepending on the situation in other countries where theUS was intervening; and above all a receptive market forUS businessmen seeking cheap labor and raw materials inthe name of profit. Now as Peter Smith points out, all thathas changed. Thailand is quickly going the way ofVietnam. With $200 milljon invested already and millionsmore on its way plus a string of nine Air Force bases and amajor naval base (Sattahip), the US in a way is moreheavily involved in Thailand than it ever could be inVietnam.Recent attempts by the US-trained and financed Thaiarmy to contain the growing guerrilla movement led bythe Thai Patriotic Front have been almost completelyunsuccessful. By the end of 1971 the Thai-government wasreporting guerrilla activity in 150 districts in more thanone half of the countryTs provinces. In Nakhon Phanomprovince near the border of. Laos, for example, almost allof the provincesT 100 villages were giving full support to aguerrilla force made up of local people. No military vehicleor person in uniform was allowed in the area.In the spring offensive which was coordinated with theoffensive in Indochina, for the first time fighting brokeout all over the country with reports of attacks comingfrom areas as separate as the Northeast, theThai-Cambodian border, and the Thai-Malaysian border.Several Gls reported frequent attacks on US basesapparently aimed at B-52 activity against the people ofIndochina. The US base at Utapao reported two B-52sdamaged in J anuary. see next page