Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Fri, 14 Aug 1992 11:27:25 -0400
From:         Nhan Tran <tran@PEORA.SDC.CCUR.COM>
Subject:      NEWS/VN: Ex-Soviets slowly leaving VN's Cam Ranh bay
X-To:         FISHLM%SNYBUFVA@pucc.princeton.edu, scv@media.mit.edu,
              seasia-l@msu.BITNET, vietnam@cco.caltech.edu, vn-news@saigon.com

08/12

EX-SOVIETS SLOWLY LEAVING VIETNAM'S CAM RANH BAY

    By Kathleen Callo
    CAM RANH, Vietnam, Aug 13, 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.
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