BANMETHUOT, Vietnam (DNSI) - The forcible relocation of more than 45,000 Montagnards in the Central Highlands to large concentration centers is continuing as planned, despite sharp differences of opinion among the United States civil operations personnel in Vietnam.

The relocation campaign, called "Gathering the People" by Region II Commanding General Ngo Dzu, has been opposed from the start by some U. S. officials in Saigon and in the field who fear that concentrating thousands of Montagnards near main roads threatens the economic self-sufficiency of Montagnard communities.

The U. S. War Victims Directorate in Saigon has officially opposed such relocations as contrary to the interests of the people. But Ambassador William Colby, Chief of Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) in Vietnam, has given his approval to the move, and it is now being rushed to completion with U. S. logistical and relief assistance.

(Senator Edward 'Kennedy (D.-Mass.), Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Refugees, expressed deep concern at this report of the massive movement of Montagnards. In response to a Dispatch query in Washington, Kennedy said, "As I've said many times, policies aimed at the strategic movement of people in Vietnam has long been discredited and it distresses me to hear new reports of this bankrupt policy.")

The Deputy Senior Province Advisor in Darlac Province, O. Ammon Bartley, in an interview called one resettlement center, Buon Kli B, a "model relocation" and said the problem of land for relocating Motangnards had been solved.

General Dzu ordered all Province Chiefs in Region II late last summer to eliminate all Montagnard hamlets rated C and D (contested and Viet Cong controlled hamlets) by relocating them near lines of communication. Senior U. S. officials in the provinces defend the relocation on the grounds that it will deny the population and resources of Montagnard hamlets to the Viet Cong.

(In Washington a State Department spokesman verified that the Montagnards were "removed by the Vietnamese military for security reasons.")

But officials whose primary concern is the welfare of the Montagnards say their interests are not being taken into account. "The people carrying out this move talk about security as though it were only military security," says one official in social welfare work. "The Montagnards are more concerned about economic security."

U. S. officials in Saigon and in the provinces say that when General Dzu ordered the move last summer, he ignored established regulations requiring the submission of detailed plans both for the movement and for the economic and social welfare of the relocated population. Without prior planning, these sources say, Dzu began the move during the Autumn harvest season, leaving relocated hamlets without their rice supply for the remainder of the year. He stopped the relocation until the end of the harvest only in October after Deputy Director of CORDS for Region II, Edward T. Long, wrote a personal letter to Dzu requesting the postponement.

In Darlac Province, the lack of planning resulted in heavy losses of livestock, rice, and other valuable possessions in the process of moving to the relocation sites, according to one official who has interviewed the relocated Montagnards. Only a fraction of the water buffalo, cattle and other animals could be brought with the people, because of the hurried moves by truck and U. S. Chinook helicopters. Virtually all the hardwood furniture found in Montagnard long-houses had to be left behind. Cattle and ceremonial gongs were stolen by ARVN troops and later sold in a nearby Vietnamese market town.

Since arriving in Buon Kli B relocation site, the Montagnards have lost virtually all of the remaining livestock. Only one cow was visible during a walking tour of Buon Wing A. one of the four hamlets at the site, and it appeared to be sick. When asked where their livestock was, people answered that they had all died.

But the most urgent problem of the Montagnards relocation centers in Darlac is the shortage of land. Montagnards find themselves competing with Vietnamese as well as with each other for the limited supply of accessible land. In several areas in the province recently relocated Montagnard hamlets have found that Vietnamese farmers have moved in to cultivate much of the nearby land.

At the same time, Vietnamese are continuing to encroach on land previously abandoned by relocated Montagnards. U. S. officials here point out that the same developments occurred after previous Montagnard relocations in the province.

At Buon Drai Si, near Route 14 north of Banmethuot, 3,200 Montagnards relocated in May 1970 were promised by the District Chief that they would be able to farm all the land west of the Ea De River. But Vietnamese immediately began farming the land. At Buon Nie Ea Sah, where 2800 people were relocated in December 1969 and January 1970, farmers from the nearby Vietnamese village of Halan have continued to push west of the relocation sites to occupy the land promised to the Montagnards.

People in Buon Nie Ea Sah say that the Province Chief met with the village Chiefs of Halan and Nie Ea Sah last September and promised the Montagnards all the land on their side of Route 14, but the Vietnamese refused to leave the land, and nothing has been heard from the Province Chief since then.