BATTAMBANG, Cambodia -- Thousands of government troops were locked in a fierce battle with the Khmer Rouge Friday for control of the key gem mining town of Pailin as the last Vietnamese forces rolled out of western Cambodia, a top military officer said.
'There will be difficulties because of the Vietnamese withdrawal, but we are absolutely determined. We have to hold Pailin,' said Maj. Gen. Ke Kim Yan, deputy defense minister of the Vietnamese-backed government in Phnom Penh.
Ke Kim Yan said at least one troop division, or about 6,000 men, were involved in the defense of Pailin, the center of a rich ruby mining area in western Battambang Province, 12 miles from the Thai-Cambodian border.
It was the first major battlefield test of troops of the Hanoi-backed government in Phnom Penh without the support of experienced Vietnamese forces.
Attacking are thousands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas, the toughest of the three groups making up the resistance coalition that has been fighting since the Vietnamese invasion set up the pro-Hanoi government in January 1979.
The resistance is composed of followers of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, another non-communist party led by former Prime Minister Son Sann, and the communist Khmer Rouge, under whose brutal 1975-78 rule an estimated 1.5 million Cambodians died or were executed.
'If they get Pailin, it is not only a gain toward their military strategy, but is also a gain for their economic strategy,' he said. 'Already the Khmer Rouge are making money to support their battle from nearby mines rich in rubies and amethysts.'
He said the capture of Pailin would allow the Khmer Rouge to move troops and supplies more easily into the Cambodian interior.
The fall of the district capital, held by the government for the past 10 years, would be a major psychological victory for the resistance, he said.
'If we give up territory, it will show the enemy is superior to our side,' the officer said.
Khieu Kanarith, editor of the government newspaper, 'Kampuchea,' who just returned from the front lines at Pailin, said the bombardment was heavy -- from 800 to 2,000 rounds per day.
Ke Kim Yan said the siege of Pailin started in July and has escalated recently with major artillery duels. He charged that most of the long-range artillery used by the Khmer Rouge was firing from positions inside Thailand.
He said most of the casualties his troops had suffered were from malaria and landmines rather then from actual fighting, but declined to give any exact figures.
In the Battambang hospital, several wards were filled with men suffering from apparent battle injuries. Hospital officials said 25 percent of the wounded had suffered leg wounds from mine explosions.
Vietnamese troops waved flags and shook hands with Cambodian people lining the route of their convoy Friday as it headed east toward the Vietnamese border.
Reporters noted that many of the troops were the same men who had marched past television cameras and journalists in Siam Reap Province to the north a day earlier in a similar ceremony.
Vietnam said it was withdrawing its last 26,000 troops and all of its heavy equipment from Cambodia in an operation set to be completed Tuesday.
But in Battambang there was no sign of the Vietnamese tanks known to have operated on the western battlefield. Six old U.S.-made armored personnel carriers and 10 World War II-vintage 105mm howitzers marked as coming from the U.S. arsenal at Rock Island were the only pieces of heavy equipment to be seen.
Asked if he was glad to be leaving Cambodia, Vietnamese Pvt. Bo Teng Buc, 21, wrote on a reporter's notebook, 'Very, very, very glad.'
Buc said life had been hard during his three years in Cambodia. He said he had seen some military action, but the worst problems were malaria, lack of medicine and homesickness.
Local high school teacher Savoeuy Bun Roen said the townspeople had confidence that the government troops would be able to protect Battambang from the resistance without help from the Vietnamese. He said there had been attacks only 3 miles from the provincial capital.
The role of the Khmer Rouge -- if any -- in the future government of Cambodia is the key issue dividing the current Phnom Penh government, the resistance and backers of both sides in the conflict.
