Vietnam War Era Renegade Army Discovered In Mondulkiri

MONDULKIRI, Cambodia-Abandoned for years by their own leaders and former foreign

military backers, an anti-Hanoi Montagnard army based in northeast Cambodia has approached

the United Nations with a plea for protection.

The military combatants of FULRO-the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed

Races-have waged a lonely battle for a separate homeland in Vietnam for their hilltribe

people since 1964.

The recent discovery of the Montagnard army in Mondulkiri province prompted Phnom

Penh's Interior Ministry to inform U.N. peacekeeping forces that unless the group-formerly

given sanctuary by the Khmer Rouge-is disarmed they would attack them.

On Sept. 4 a joint mission of officials from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees

(UNHCR) and the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) met with the fighters

to discuss their request for sanctuary.

"We have to be very cautious because they may be in danger," said UNHCR

Press Officer Annick Roulet.

Previous discussions with UNTAC military officials at their remote jungle camp near

the Vietnamese border have resulted in conflicting impressions as to whether or not

FULRO troops want to give up their struggle and apply for refugee status or continue

to wage war against Vietnam.

Under threat from the Phnom Penh regime, expelled by the Khmer Rouge, and a thorn

in the side to Vietnam, FULRO is presenting an interesting if not painful dilemma

to U.N. officials in Phnom Penh.

UNTAC-mandated to verify the withdrawal of all foreign forces in Cambodia-may be

obligated to ensure the return of the group to Vietnamese soil if they insist on

continuing to wage war.

But UNHCR-responsible for protecting people with a "well founded fear of persecution"-may

have to offer asylum to the fighters if they are in danger of being sent back to

Vietnam, where they certainly would face imprisonment.

That, in turn, could open the floodgates to thousands of requests for political asylum

from Vietnamese living in Cambodia.

"We have enough problems in Cambodia dealing with the four factions, and now

this army we never even heard of turns up," said one UNTAC military official.

American diplomats in Phnom Penh and U.N. military officials in Cambodia are urging

that UNHCR grant the group refugee status to begin the process of third country asylum,

and give them temporary protection from military attack.

But FULRO Commander-in-Chief Y Peng Ayun and his forces are reluctant to accept giving

up their fight without first getting U.N. protection.

"If we give up our weapons, they will take us back to Vietnam or the Vietnamese

will come get us," Ayun said. "If I go to the U.S., I don't want to stay

a long time there, because I have responsibility to liberate my country."

Frozen in Time

When two correspondents from the Phnom Penh Post visited FULRO's remote guerrilla

headquarters last month, they found an army unaware of the world around them and

desperately seeking instructions and resupply from their leadership.

Col. Ayun and his lieutenants gathered around the Post reporters, hungrily seeking

information.

"Please, can you help us find our president, Y'Bham Enuol?" Colonel Ayun

asked. "We have been waiting for contact and orders from our president since

1975. Do you know where he is?"

Neither Ayun nor his troops, who gathered around to meet the first journalists to

find them since they fled to the jungles after the American defeat in Indochina in

1975, knew that their leader was executed 17 years before by the Khmer Rouge.

They fell silent when informed; some wept quietly.

Situated in a string of five villages carved out of dense forest along a raging river,

the group of 407 guerrillas and their families have no access to even the smallest

luxury items except from fighters returning from Vietnam.

There is no medicine or schools, and many of the soldiers and their families have

only the clothes they wear and rifles. Bamboo huts with roofs of leaves provide shelter.

"The food we get from the forest. The forest belongs to FULRO." said Lt.

Col. Y Hinnie. "We don't have food or medicine, so it is difficult. But with

food and medicine the jungle is a very nice place. We are used to it."

The rivers nearby abound with crocodiles, huge catfish, and fresh water porpoises

and the surrounding jungle-thick with mosquitos-is home to elephants and a host of

deadly snakes.

The combatants and their families are traditionally rice eating people, but they

are unable to farm rice here with the enemy constantly forcing movement.

A staple of corn, with jungle cucumbers, pumpkins, and hot green peppers are all

they have. For part of the year they survive on poisonous potatos that must be carefully

processed for five days to extract a deadly toxin.

"We must eat it slowly until our bodies get used to it or it will kill you,"

Hinnie said, "But the poison is also the medicine we use to cure snakebites."

Nearby a soldier lay paralyzed from a snakebite he received three months before.

"This tree has the medicine we use for malaria and this one here we can use

to treat diarrhea," Hinnie said, pointing.

The army has no maps or compasses. "But we can guide ourselves by stars and

winds of the seasons. We can tell by which side of the tree is wet during different

months exactly which direction we are going," he said.

Hinnie spoke credible English from his days as a young boy with Christian missionaries,

as well as Khmer, Vietnamese, and French, and several tribal dialects, and translated

for others who spoke in Rade. His skills have given him the title of "the FULRO

Military Delegation's Representative of Foreign Affairs."

But his knowledge of world events is spotty. "We would like you to take a message

to U Thant," he said, referring to the former U.N. Secretary-General. Asking

about the cold war, he said, "I hear that President George Bush now contacts

with the Russians."

He is charged with listening to the shortwave radio each morning, tuning in VOA,

BBC, Christian radio, and Radio Vietnam to keep the group abreast of foreign developments.

Hinnie told amazed fighters of the fax machine: "You take a letter and put it

in a telephone and it comes out in one minute in America," he explained.

The Forgotten Army

A number of soldiers appeared to introduce themselves in English as having fought

with the Americans.

"You are the first foreigner I have seen since 1975," said Bhong Rcam,

47, "The Americans usually call me Tiny."

Like many of the fighters of FULRO, he worked with the U.S. Special Forces during

the Vietnam War. After the U.S. withdrawal he was jailed by Hanoi, before joining

FULRO in the jungle in 1976.

During the Vietnam War FULRO was supplied with millions of dollars of U.S. equipment,

and before that, used as allies to further the objectives of the French and various

Vietnamese regimes.

When the North Vietnamese launched decisive offensives in March 1975, FULRO leaders

say that senior U.S. officials in Saigon promised continued support for the Montagnards

and pledged to covertly support their fight.

Well equipped with American weapons and promises of more as South Vietnam crumbled

in the spring of 1975, FULRO waited for the Americans who never returned, eventually

re-grouping in the jungle.

"The Montagnard people and the Americans are like one family," said Lt.

Col. Hinnie. "I am not angry, but very sad that the Americans forgot us. The

Americans are like our elder brother, so it is very sad when your brother forgets

you."

FULRO continued to launch attacks on Vietnam for four years after the U.S. withdrawal,

fielding a fierce army of 10,000 fighters. But by 1979 they were running low on ammunition

and had suffered huge casualties, with more than 8,000 of their fighters killed or

captured.

In 1979 FULRO abandoned their bases in Vietnam and moved to the jungles on the Cambodian

side of the Vietnamese frontier, switching to underground networks and small guerrilla

strikes in their four regions of operations in Vietnam-Quang Duc, Darlac, Pleiku,

and Kon Tum.

Previously given sanctuary by the Khmer Rouge in areas under their control, FULRO

was expelled from Khmer Rouge zones in January to a remote area of Mondulkiri province.

Khmer Rouge officials in Phnom Penh say they had given FULRO sanctuary since 1979,

despite having fallen out with their leadership in 1986.

"They had no political vision. Their fighters are very, very brave, but they

had no support from any leadership, no food, and they did not understand at all the

world around them," said one senior Khmer Rouge official.

Jungle Christians

Col. Ayun complained bitterly of the treatment of his people by the Hanoi government.

"My people suffer terribly under the Vietnamese communist regime," he recounted

from a thatched hut in the forest. "They came and took our land, and made it

theirs. They try to erase our language and force us to speak Vietnamese. They have

taken our fertile land and forced us to the bad land.

"They say they have come to build progress for my people, but they have come

to kill, arrest, and oppress my people."

For many at FULRO's scattered guerrilla bases, the ability to pray freely and practice

Christianity was a main motivation to flee Vietnam. Each of the five villages in

the FULRO area have an evangelical church, while there is a lone Catholic church

in the main guerrilla camp.

"The Communists will not let us pray," Col. Hinnie said. "They say

that Christianity is an American and French religion, so we came to live in the jungle."

Col. Ayun requested to meet with the American ambassador to seek advice on whether

his group would get the aid he said was long promised and to seek proof of the death

of their leader.

"We are the troops of President Y Bham Enuol," he said.

"If he has died, we want proof from the United Nations. The Americans had a

whole plan for Indochina. I want to meet face to face with the American ambassador.

I have a plan for the future, and they should know clearly our position for the revolutionary

struggle. We want to know whether they will help us or not."

But the chances of U.S. support for Ayun and his forces are dim, and FULRO faces

a whole new series of difficulties.

Montagnard leaders now living in the U.S. appealed to Col. Ayun to give up the fight.

"Due to unfavorable circumstances, I suggest it is time to stop fighting, to

find different ways to reach our ultimate goal," said Pierre K'briuh in a recent

message to the FULRO fighters.

K'briuh is a leader of the former FULRO troops now in the United States and he himself

was jailed by Hanoi until the early 1980s.

"President Y-Bham Enuol and his entourage were executed by the Khmer Rouge in

1975," he wrote.

"Therefore, based on common sense, lay down your weapons and appeal at once

to the U.N. for political asylum to join us here. We don't have any other choice."

Col. Ayun and his troops say that if they have proof that Y Bham Enuol is indeed

dead, they will consider going to the U.S.

"But even if we go to another country, our resistance will continue until we

get our own land, until we get back the land that belonged to us before," Ayun

said.

"I don't want to go to a free nation," he added. "I want to stay here

because this is my battlefield. It is my responsibility. But I have no supplies or

help from free countries."

- Michael Hayes contributed to this report.