LON NOL'S REGIME IS BEING ROUTED

FINLAND The war between the Soviet Union and Finland in the winter of 19391940 need never have been fought according to a remark made by Fin. nish President, Urho Kekkonen, during Nikolai Podgorny's recent visit to Helsinki.

He suggested that a bilateral agreement could have been worked out making the war unnecessary. The Soviet Union did, indeed, offer Finland defence pact in April 1938 and Stalin renewed the offer in October 1939 By that time Stalin had entered into the notorious pact of August 1939 with Hitler Germany and had joined in the partition of Poland.

What Stalin wanted from the Finns in 1939 was the cession of a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland and the right to lease territory, including Petsamo, Finland's only ice free port in the Baltic, and the Hango peninsular.

Stalin feared an enemy attack on Leningrad through the Baltic and from Finnish He posed these tion the defence Soviet Union in purely military terms. He sought by diplomatic means, backed up by the threat of force, to impose cession of territory upon the Finns which aroused intense national feelings.

Stalin was unable to appeal to the working class to defend the Soviet Union by revolutionary means. His methods alienated millions of workers, beginning with those in Finland itself who might otherwise have defended the Soviet Union in the best possible way -by overthrowing their own reactionary rulers After weeks of negotiations the Finns refused to accept Stalin's conditions in their entirety, the Hango peninsula being the main stumbling block.

Stalin ordered the Red Army to invade Finland without warning on November 30, 1939, only a few days after the Finnish delegation had left Moscow to Stalin's 'Best of President Nixon has sent his aide General Alex. ander Haig to Indo-China with instructions to try and save the shaky Cambodian dictatorship of General Lon Nol.

Haig arrived in the Far East amid speculation that the United States would have to mount a big airlift of supplies to Lon Nol's capital, Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh has been cut off from the outside world, apart from the battered remnants of a river convoy which was ambushed on its way up the Mekong.

Petrol is rationed, basic staple foodstuffs are running out and the government has declared a state of national danger which allows the army to order the summary execution of opponents.

But nobody in Phnom Penh is convinced that these measures will save the president. Even his court astrologer is in prison because, like every other astrologer in the capital, he predicted Lon Nol's downfall.

US Defence Secretary Elliot Richardson and Admiral Thomas Moorer, head of the joint chiefs of staff, say they oresee no immediate military defeat of the Phnom Penh government.

But at the same time their subordinates in the Pentagon privately describe the situation in Cambodia as 'deteriorating' and are considering desperate measures.

Cambodia is not covered by the Vietnam ceasefire treaty and though there are no American ground troops — apart from the inevitable battalions of 'advisers' — the US Air Force is very active Officially, the air force operations are secret, because, sible advantage ... to the other side'.

Pentagon officials have said off the record that about 60 B52 bombers and 150 tactical fighter-bombers are operating over Cambodia every day. This is a considerable increase on the previous level of air The same bombers were once used primarily to attack North Vietnamese and National Liberation Front supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh trail in north-east Cambodia.

But, increasingly the bombers have been diverted to undertake saturation bombino of ramne and tronn enn115 ve vampo anu uvup vuucentrations of the supporters of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, leader of the liberation armies.

Sihanouk, a former god-king who resigned his throne and his divine status to become prime minister, was deposed in 1970 by Nol and Sirik Matak, both American agents.

Sihanouk's overthrow, carried out with funds supplied by the Central Intelligence Agency, was the prelude to the devastating-and unsuccessful - invasion of Cambodia in September 1970. The Shah of Iran with Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin on Kosygin's visit to Iran a couple of weeks ago, where he declared "friendship and good relations' with the Shah's blood-thirsty regime.

Not only did this invasion fail to destroy the bases in ramhadia nced hu the Viatvaluvlia USCU uy LIC VICL namese National Liberation Front, it also united the entire Cambodian peasantry against the US-backed regime.

Sihanouk's peasant armies are strangling Lon Nol by severing his supply lines and cutting off the capital. The Sihanoukists say they could have taken the city at any time in the past 12 months had they not feared the heavy air bombardment which would certainly have followed.

Now all seven roads as well as the Mekong River water route leading to Phnom Penh the positions of ine positions OI ine soviet 11. - C...:-s Union and Iran are close or coincide on many international problems, noting in particular that both believe the time is ripe for a world disarmament conference.

The Shah, who has just ordered $2,000m-worth of arms from the United States Lon Nol, the ClA's man in Cambodia. He was installed in power by a coup which ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk, leader of present liberation armies. are cut and the regime is taking desperate measures to defend itself. In a statement issued last week the Cambodian liberation forces said they had launched their final offensive.

"The arch - rotten Lon Nol regime is being routed,' said Chau Seng, a spokesman for Prince Sihanouk. 'Our forces have launched the decisive and ultimate offensive which will lead to a complete and early victory.' ana plans to buy other weapons from Britain and West Germany, must have signed this phrase with tongue in cheek.

But perhaps he's only buying all those weapons in order to secure a grandstand seat at the world disarmament conference!