From: "tuan tu" <tuan.tu@canrem.com>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Subject: [news] cam ranh bay
Date: 13 Aug 92 12:29:36 EST
Reply-To: "tuan tu" <tuan.tu@canrem.com>
Distribution: soc
Organization: Canada Remote Systems


Reut09:11 08-13
EX-SOVIETS SLOWLY LEAVING VIETNAM'S CAM RANH BAY
    By Kathleen Callo
    CAM RANH, Vietnam, Reuter - When the Russian military handed
back four buildings to the Vietnamese at its giant Cam Ranh Bay
naval base this year, the new custodians promptly stripped them
down and sold off every bit for construction material.
    ``Not even the foundations were left,'' said one former
Soviet, who has spent years in Vietnam and who declined to be
named.
    He said he had seen some of the recycled window and door
frames in new houses on Route One in Cam Ranh town, outside the
military base used by the French colonials, then the Americans
and most recently by the Soviet Union.
    Fewer than 400 servicemen from the former Soviet Union
remain at Cam Ranh, compared with a peak years ago of 4,000, one
Vietnamese military officer in the nearby resort town of Nha
Trang said.
    ``There used to be around 20 submarines, but now there are
only two or three,'' he said.
    The Russian embassy in Hanoi says it has no objections to
foreign journalists visiting the base, but the Vietnamese
military has flatly refused.
    Moscow began scaling down its presence at Cam Ranh Bay about
two years ago, saying it no longer made sense militarily,
politically or financially for it to keep so many navy ships and
aircraft far from home.
    The phased withdrawal coincided with a U.S. pullout from
Clark Air and Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines, prompting
fears among some Southeast Asian countries that China or Japan
could try to move in to fill the superpower vacuum.
    The Vietnamese military officer told Reuters the Cam Ranh
pullout was continuing, but that some Russian servicemen were
doing their best to stay on, despite sometimes difficult
circumstances.
    Many of them, for instance, received no pay between January
and September last year due to chaos back home, he said. Some
made do by selling diesel and other Moscow-supplied materials on
the local black market.
    Soviet military officers and diplomats lost privileges at
Cam Ranh with the disintegration of the Soviet empire and the
collapse of Moscow's Communist Party.
    Vietnamese guards at the front entrance of the base, located
on a sandy peninsula on the country's southeastern coast, used
to hurriedly raise the gate as the honking vehicles of senior
Soviet officers sped through.
    Now those officers need to stop at the gate and show written
permission from Cam Ranh's Vietnamese commander to get on and
off base.
    The former Soviets who used to make frequent trips from the
base into town or to Nha Trang now are brought off-base in buses
only on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
    Special excursions to town are arranged for those ending
their tours of duty so they can buy Japanese televisions,
Taiwanese cassette players and other items difficult to find
back home.
    Russian diplomats in Hanoi say opinion is divided in Moscow
over whether to completely pull out of the base or to maintain
at least a minimal presence there.
    ``It's expensive for us to stay. But the United States would
probably agree now that our presence could help maintain balance
in the region,'' one diplomat said recently.
    The Russians have suggested transforming the base, with the
Vietnamese, into a civilian-military facility that could service
foreign vessels.
    The authorities of Khanh Hoa province, where Cam Ranh is
located, want the Russians out so they can develop it into a
commercial port. But Hanoi, which owes Moscow about 10 billion
roubles ($62 million), seems hesitant to press openly for a
speedier departure.
    Shopkeepers in Cam Ranh town seem blase about the pullout.
    ``The Soviets are cheap. They're always bargaining hard,''
said one. ``They have no money,'' complained another.
    Some of the Russians seem bitter, but also fatalistic about
the turn of events. One predicted the Vietnamese would strip the
base clean once the former Soviets had left.
    ``After the French left, you found nothing. After the
Americans left, you saw little sign they had been here. And
after we leave, you won't know we were ever here,'' he said.
 REUTER
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