strings.
the balance of forces is firmly set against imperialism.
The victory of the Indochinese Revolution is only the latest of a rapid series of setbacks for imperialism, following on from the failure to engineer a deal in the Middle East, the effects on the NATO alliance of the Greek-Turkish confrontation and the events in. Portugal, and the mass upsurge in southern Africa. All this is taking place within the framework of a world recess ion affecting all the major capitalist powers simultaneously; within the framework of the rise of a mass vanguard in the imperialist countries; and within the framework of a crisis of strategy and leadership within the imperialist world and in the USA itself. Of course, the imperialist powersand especially the USA-still have massive economic, technological and military resources. Their intention to use these resources in the service of plundering the world for profit has not been shaken one jot. But what is important is that the political balance of forces-both internationally and within the imperialist countries-no longer allows the USA and its allies to behave as they would prefer.
PERSUASION
It is within this context that the USA must persuade its client statesespecially those in South Asia, who are showing signs of a distinct uneasiness-that it intends to remain a powerful force which can be relied upon to support the despots.
Faced with a massive strategic defeat in Indochina, the USA was unable to save its puppets Thieu or Lon Nol. Nor can it prevent the victorious march of the Pathet Lao in Laos. What it can do however to demonstrate its determination is to launch the Seventh Fleet, several flights of jet bombers, and the US Marines against a group of dinghies arrested in Cambodian territorial waters by the Cambodian navy on 12 May. Two days later the Cambodian boats were attacked by US planes; three were sunk and four immobilised. Then on 15 May the Seventh Fleet bombarded the tiny Cambodian island of Koh Tang; a thousand Marines invaded the island and fought a 14-hour battle with units of the liberation forces there; US planes bombed the airport at Sihanouk ville across the straits; and the Mayaguez was recaptured.
SUSPICIOUS Except that it wasn't quite that simple. The Mayaguez was stopped by the Cambodians because they believed that it was a spyship. The facts that the crew consisted of 39 Americans (very unusual in that part of the world, was travelling from Hong Kong to Thailand (in which case it had no need to enter Cambodian policy of building up regimes with a facade of independence but tied hand and foot to its apron Behind them stood the USA, confident in its role of world policeman and guarantor of imperiain Thailand were all good reason to suspect that it was not quite as innocent as it seemed It is also rather difficult to imagine how the Cambodian gunboats'-which are 30-foot fibreglass dinghies armed only with light machine-guns (the entire "navy only consists of about about 20 such boats)-operating more than 40 miles from the shore, could have succeeded in arresting the cargo-ship unless There is therefore strong evidence to suggest that the whole incident was fabricated by the USA. The suspicion is strengthened by the knowledge that the 39 crewmenwhose liberty was allegedly so precious-were not taken into account when the Cambodian vessels were bombed, the island blitzed and Sihanouk ville raided.
UNAMBIGUOUS
The final piece of evidence is that the Cambodian Government sent a clear, unambiguous message to Ford telling him that they were prepared to release the ship and its crew which was received in the White House four hours before the attack was launched.
So what was it all about? As The Times (16 May) put it: 'By recovering the Mayaguez and her crew with speed and determination the USA was able to demonstrate to herself and others that she has not lost the will to fight or the ability to mount a quick and effective operation a long way from her shores. This needed to be demonstrated in order to establish.....that the USA is not to be trifled with in any part of the world merely because she is pulling out of Indochina?
In other words, the whole show was designed to improve the morale of the imperialist camp. It is a fitting reflection of the decline of imperialism that the grandest operation it can fabricate to resolve the crisis in its own confidence is to blitz a bit of rock and a few dinghies.
SLANDER CAMPAIGN The battle for the cargo-ship was prepared by a massive orchestrated slander campaign against the Red Khmers. The alleged statement of Dr Piquart describing the rape of French women, the mass ution of over 900 people, but US journalists who were in Oudongwhere many of the executions saw nothing.
Red Khmers was said to be the emptying of Phnom Penh. But it half-expected the USA to send its in 1968.
RESETTEEMENT
It was also assumed by the loose in the countryside to die or survive as best they could. While it proved to be a complete fabrication.
President Ford stated that there was 'irrefutable proof' of the execwere supposed to have taken placeThe final 'proof" of the genocidal and anti-humanitarian nature of the was quite clear that the Red Khmers B-52s to flatten Phnom Penh in the same way it had dealt with Hue after its capture by the liberation forces capitalist press that the people from the city were just going to be turned it is true that some did die, there is abundant evidence that the resettle(during the civil war the population 100,000 to 2 million due to forced period and had remained untouched Nevertheless uncle 1s a desperate Marines land on the Cambodian island of Koh Tang during the operation to recover the Mayaguez-a crude bluff intended to follow some sort of mythical 'third way' between socialism and capitalism based on the peasantry-a path doomed to failure, which can only lead to the re-emerg ence of capitalism in Cambodia.
Certainly this latter conception is being emphasised by some spokespersons, is allowed for in the programme of the FUNK (National LAOS United Front of Cambodia) and is consistent with the equally mythica positions of 'neutrality and non-alignment The huge weight of the national question in the revolution, the low levei of independent class struggle. and the empiricism of the leadership has led to many strategic and tactica mistakes in the past. The bureaucrat and militarist emphasis of the organ isation in the liberated areas is itself incorrect.
The situation still remains very unclear. Many questions cannot be answered yet-and many cannot even be posed. The revolutionary vanguard awaits the unfolding of the social revolution in Cambodia. Only the leadership of the Red Khmers can supply the answers -and they should do so soon.
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list profits. But the victories won by the liberation forces in Vietnam and Cambodia and currently being consolidated in Laos have left that entire strategy in ruins. On the scale of the whole world