CAMBODIA - NIXON'S FALLING DOMINO

Ever since assuming the Presidency of the United States of America, Richard Nixon has been bent upon selling himself to his nation, and to the world as the ultimate peace-maker. It is an image the world will buy at its peril, for his Guam doctrine with its concomitant 'Vietnamization' programme provides a sinister smokescreen behind which lurk the contradictions of US capital in crisis. - The Guam doctrine merely spells the temporary eclipse of the GI in Asia in favour of the B52. It is the logical outcome of a political doctrine which Nixon has espoused for 30 years. It was he, and not Eisenhower (as is generally believed), who coined the 'domino-theory' In April, 1954, when Dien Bien Phu was under siege, it was Nixon who claimed: 'It should be emphasized that if Indo China went communist, red pressures would increase on Malaya, Thailand and Indonesia, and other Asian nations. The main target of the communists in IndoChina, as it was in Korea, is Japan. Conquest of areas so vital to Japan's economy would reduce Japan to an economic satellite of the Soviet Union ...

It was the same Nixon who, as Vice-President, promoted the notica that the 'loss' of Vietnam would set in motion a falling row of dominoes. Eisenhower used the analogy some days later, on April 7, 1954. This cry of anti-communist hysteria, which was to be covered up by the sweet slogan of a 'fight for the free world' was based entirely on US aims of domination of Asian markets and resources.

During the American occupation of post-war Japan that policy began to be implemented. By May, 1946, the US occupiers had begun crack down on Tapanese working-class movement in a bid to re-launch Nippon industry. The successful Chinese Revolution of 1949 and the Korean War of 1950 accelerated this determined drive to establisn a bastion of capitalist development in Asia.

As Eisenhower put it: 'One of Japan's greatest opportunities fer increased trade lies in a free and developing SE Asia . . The great need in one country is for raw materials, in the other country for manufactured goods. The two regions complement each other markedly. By strengthening of Vietnam and helping insure the safety of the Pacific and SE Asia, we gradually develop the great trade potential between this region. and highly industrialized Japan 1o the benefit of both. In this way freedom in the W Pacific will be greatly strengthened. Having done everything in his power to impede the Geneva Conference of 1954, the US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, walked out on it completely and declared wat peace by categorically denouncing neutrality in Asia as 'dangerous and immoral'.

Laos, Cambodia and S Vietnam were, nevertheless, designated as neutral states • by the Geneva Accords. In direct opposition to these Accords, Dulles, the most fervent pioneer of reactionary strategic planning, proceeded to set up the SE Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in September 1954. SEATO was expressly designed as an aggressive weapon against people's war. Its only miscalculations which State Department foreign policy makers have indulged in. The ultra-right group of Lon Nol, Sirik Matak and Son Ngoc Thanh which now rules, represents only the interests of an élite number of supporters of foreign-dominated (i.e. US) comprador capitalism. They have ranged against them the minute but militant working class of Cambodia, largely represented by the rubber-plantation workers. These workers have a tradition of political resistance which goes back to 1947, when in the fight for independence, they set up armed units and organized under the very noses of the French. To this day, the Lon Nol government is unable to crush the fighting will of these men, the most bodia, did, indeed, until March 1970, remain outside the political arena. The reason for this lies in the feudal nature of the economy, with the dominance of subsistence agriculture. This was reflected culturally by a profound and undisturbed religiosity which dominated peasant life, and cemented a strong relationship with the king, who represents for the people the incarnation of Vishnu, Lord of the Universe.

EXILE power base among the people. As pagodas are demolished by air attack and desecrated by demoralized government soldiers, the influx of monks to the vast rebel-controlled zones grows daily.

The government has also added to its unpopularity by the enormous corruption within its own ranks and more especially within the ranks of the military leaders. While colonels in the capital, Phnom Penh, have acquired villas and cars in two years, their soldiers in battle find themselves unpaid for months. Recently a group of such soldiers set off from the battlefield to march on Phnom Penh, for their wages. They were arrested on arrival. ment, the military and the speculators, are cushioned from these harsh realities of economic catastrophe.

There is almost no section of Cambodian population which is not affected by the growing contempt for, and struggle against the American-supported Lon NolSirik Matak government. Students have been rioting for weeks. The Law Faculty-not known in the past tor a radical stance-has been occupied by armed students demanding the resignation of Sirik Matak. Many students have left the capital and are working in liberated zones.

598..2.: Decornoy and Serge Thion of 'Le Monde' seem to bear out these claims. Thion has just spent three weeks with the guerrillas who control an area just ten miles outside the capital. In that region, armed rebel guerrillas circulate freely during the day, for such is their support among the people that they have little to fear from espionage agents. The National Liberation Front of Vietnam is at this moment waging a massive offensive for the towns of S Vietnam, for a guerrilla war needs the people and their people have been bombed into the towns by the US.

In Cambodia, the Cambodian Liberation Front has an easier