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Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 8. April 23 1979

A History of Kampuchea

page 10

A History of Kampuchea

Introduction

April 17 was the day that in 1975 the troops of the National United Front of Kampuchea, known popularly as the Khmer Rouge, entered Phnom Penh, and proclaimed the Democratic State of Kampuchea. It was, or so most of its many supporters the world over thought, the end of years of armed struggle to create a truly independent, non-aligned, socialist state against French, American, traitor nationals, Russians and Vietnamese.

This article (in two parts) commemorates the 4th Anniversary of Democratic Kampuchea. It is the third in a series of three articles on South East Asia.

Sometime in the future the world will look back on the turbulent history of the now seemingly insignificant country of Kampuchea and realise that the events in that country during the sixties and seventies constitute one of the most amazing stories of world history. They continue today.

This article is not designed as a comprehensive history of Kampuchea, but tells the story of the Kampuchean people's recent struggle against a formidable array of imperialist and hegemonist enemies.

Within the story, there are a number of sub-plots which, for the sake of brevity have had to be substantially cut out. There is the treacherous agression, bombing and finally starvation tactics used by the US against the Kampuchean people; there is the humiliating defeat suffereed by the massive US military machine which only accelerated their already increasing powerlessness to deal with problems in their traditional spheres of influence; there is the continual hampering of the Kampuchean struggle by the new superpower trying to set up a new sphere of influence in the South East Asian region — the USSR; there is the cynical corruption of the elite of Kampuchea, especially the [unclear: puppet] government of Lon [unclear: Nol], brought to power in a CIA coup in 1970; and finally there is the story of how Vietnam tried to engineer the liberation of the South East Asian region in a way that would afford them control over the area.

The Period up to 1970

The history of what is now Kampuchea goes back thousands of years, the height of which was the ancient Khmer Kingdom of which the ruins of Angkor Wat (built around 1000 AD), the national emblem of Democratic Kampuchea, are the legacy. We needn't go any further into this period of history but it was here that a significant part of the culture and language of the Khmer people was developed.

Today, the Khmer people exhibit a significantly different culture, language add custom's from any of the neighbouring peoples, despite that fact that for years they [unclear: saffered] domination from what is now Thailand and what is now Vietnam. This seems a small point, hut as we shall see, Kampuchea's neighbours as well as some colonial powers have regarded Kampuchea as a non-nation, incapable of separate national status.

In 1854, Cambodia (a French alliteration of the native Kampuchea), became a French "protectorate". Although the French lost effective power there in 1953, the effects of French colonialism still burden Kampuchea today. This applies especially to the arbitrary borders drawn up by the colonialists in disregard of the history and peoples of the affected areas. These border divisions, including those en-compasing Laos, Vietnam and China are presently causing great difficulties in the area.

When the French left, Kampuchea was left with a part colonial, part monarchical, part parliamentary political system. At the same time, the United States had started extending their influence in the region very rapidly and were aiding a band of guerrillas (the Khmer Srei) who were working against the government headed by the crown prince Norodom Sihanouk. The Cambodian government took a policy of not allying itself with the US and accordingly started consciously to build up diplomatic relations with the old colonial masters France, and the neighbouring socialist countries of China and North Vietnam.

Growing Strains

Al though Sihanouk is often regarded as a progressive leaders, his time as head of state in Cambodia in the 60s, saw the impoverishment of the peasantry, the growth of an immensely wealthy Cambodian elite, and the building up of a headstrong military leadership which terrorised the rural people in bloody land grabs. A mass grave of 500 peasants was found in 1965; peasants who had resisted a local army garrison's attempt to take their land from them.

The development of popular movements in Cambodia in the 40s, 50s and 60s is full of twists and turns, but the greatest single influence on the local communist parties of that time came from neighbouring Vietnam where the resistance movement had been going longer and was much more developed.

A document from very early on in the Indochinese Communist Party's history puts, in a nutshell, the Vietnamese attitude to Kampuchean liberation. The ICP wrote in its "Letter to comrades in Cambodia and documents from the Macau Congress 1935", that '...there is no way we can envisage a separate Cambodian revolution. There can only be one Indochinese revolution'. The leadership of the ICP around that time also warned of Ho Chi Minh's "nationalist deviations". Ho Chi Minh went on to become President of North Vietnam and the deviation mentioned could possibly have been the insistence on separate national revolutions for all three South East Asian nations — Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

All this merely reinforces the fact that the Vietnamese communists had always harboured the dream of an "Indochinese Federation" which would be under their tutelage. The separation of the ICP into three communist parties came in 1951, but only on paper because the leadership of the other two were still dominated by Vietnam, partly because of the maturity of the party but also because of their blatant "Indochina" ideology.

The New Generation in Kampuchea

Despite this, genuine Kampuchean communism did arise. This was primarily because of two major developments in the fifties. The first was the Geneva Conference on Indochina in 1954. Here the Cambodian communists suffered a reversal as they were "left out in the cold" by the Vietnamese in the general struggle against the French. The Cambodian communists were forced either to retreat to Vietnam, or, the ones who wanted to continue the struggle, go underground.

The second factor was the new generation of left wing intellectuals, many of whom had been educated in France in the forties and fifties. These included Khieu Samphan, Head of State for Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot, Prime Minister, leng Sary and Son Sen, both Deputy Prime Ministers.

These men were to make up the core of the new Communist Party of Kampuchea which was formed on the 27 September 1960, and which from its beginnings adopted a very independent stance, especially in relation to the Vietnamese.

The US Move in

During the late sixties, the Sihanouk government came under severe stress, caused 60's. The US had been wooing the military US, and the internal conflicts between the new elite in Cambodia and the workers and peasantry.

The increasing urgency of the situation of the US in South East Asia, as they were becoming increasingly bogged down in Vietnam meant that the Sihanouk regime in Phnom Penh had to be toppled, not because it was necessarily a progressive country, but because to win a victory in Vietnam, the Americans had to gain control of Cambodia.

As well as this, the Americans were also getting jittery over Sihanouk's close relations with countries like China and the DPR of Korea.

The Lon Nol Coup

In 1970 they struck. The CIA engineered a coup in which Sihanouk's cabinet chief, Lon Nol came to power. It was not a particularly difficult coup to engineer. Sihanouk had been increasingly losing control of government which had been hopelessly split into factions in the crisis of the late 60s. The US had been wooing the military in preparation for the coup.

In October 1969, Lon Nol left for France for some medical treatment and at the American hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine, met CIA advisors to plan the operation. When the coup took place on March 18, Sihanouk was himself out of the country making visits to China and the USSR.

Following the CIA coup in Cambodia the whole situation developed rapidly.

1970-1975

The US offensive actually started on March 18 1969 when the first armed attack on Cambodia was launched by US armed forces in South Vietnam. But when on April 30, 1970, US tanks and troops rumbled across the Cambodian border, the war between the newly formed NUFK (National United Front of Kampuchea) and the United States with their local quislings headed by Lon Nol began in earnest.

The reason for the invasion is clear. The Lon Nol government was so shaky it needed the support of US troops to secure it, only five days after it was installed.

The Proclamation and Appeal for Resistance to the Cambodian people was drafted by Norodom Sihanouk the day he heard of his overthrow (he was in the USSR at the time). Although in the period of 1970-76, Sihanouk headed the Royal Government of the National United Front (the diplomatic arm of the NUFK), the incredible story of how in five years the NUFK armies took over the entire country despite the massive bombings they suffered and aggression from the US and treacherous Cambodian troops, is evidence of the work done by the CPK within the United Front.

Sihanouk briefly returned to Cambodia in 1973, but the leadership inside the country fell to those who became leaders of Democratic Kampuchea in 1975 — Pol Pot (then under the alias of Saloth Sar), Khieu Samphan, leng Sary and Son Sen.

Most New Zealanders active in the antiwar movement knew little about these developments. The existence of the CPK was not made public until 1976, and the Secretary-General of the party, Pol Pot does not get a mention in any material until 1976. But the incredible secrecy of the CPK did not reflect on its political work. The leadership had been tested under the rule of the French and under the repression in the 60s under the Sihanouk-led government. History now proves that they were the most independent minded of all the South East Asian communists, wholly devoted to an all Kampuchean programme.

The period up to 1973 saw the NUFK rapidly increase the size of its armed forces and the areas which it had liberated. With only 3,000 troops in 1970, it had grown to 50,000 in 1973 (CIA estimates) and had liberated 80% of the land area of Cambodia.

The Americans, having withdrawn their troops, resorted to mass bombings of liberated areas. A study at Cornell University, USA, revealed that in 1971 alone, 100,000 tons of bombs were dropped. However, following the 1972 Paris Peace Agreement with Vietnam, the US were able to throw all their available B52s into Cambodia with the result that from 7 March to 15 August 1973, 250,000 tons were dropped. It is estimated that 200,000 Kampucheans were killed during this period of the war. Most of the rural areas were destroyed during these bombings, and it was then that refugees began to move to Phnom Penh, unable to cultivate their crops.

The same year Kissinger, who with Nixon had ordered the terror bombings, in order not to lose face, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The ironies of history!

Also significant during this period was the NUFK's relations with both Vietnam and Russia, although the two shouldn't be confused at this stage. The leadership inside the NUFK, dominated by the CPK, had always been wary of the Vietnamese and about this time the differences started to appear. There were differences over the Paris Peace Agreements which the Kampucheans had, as in 1954, been frozen out of. The Vietnamese tried to enforce the Paris ceasefire on the NUFK by cutting off supplies and weapons, including weapons coming from China through Vietnam.

In 1971, parts of liberated Kampuchea had been attacked by Hanoi's troops and in 1972 the NUFK captured a Vietnamese spy whose confession bore the seal of the "Indochina Confederation" ideology still held by the Vietnamese.

The hatred of the Government of Democratic Kampuchea for the Russinas, came from, not simply as many Westerners have postulated, as a hand down from China, but grew from their experience of the treachery of the Soviet Union.

Photo of members of the Kampuchean People's Army

Members of the Kampuchean People's Army.

The USSR gave diplomatic recognition to the Lon Nol regimes and it was not until page 11 when the liberation was a foregone [unclear: firms] that they recognised the new government. In a UN debate as to [unclear: uld] assume the Cambodian seat in 74 the Soviets and their allies (with [unclear: ptJon] of Rumania and Yugoslavia) [unclear: ed] from the voting while urging [unclear: ltl] countries to abstain or be ab-[unclear: dom] the vote. A Russian official was at the debate as saying "...our [unclear: posble] that it is an affair between Khmers [unclear: t] we would like it to be settled by [unclear: il] means". This was also the US [unclear: n] at the time!

[unclear: cc] why the Soviets had deliberately [unclear: to] recognition of the Lon Nol regime [unclear: ild] look at the economic profit [unclear: v] was gaining from the puppet [unclear: recognised] The Soviet insurance company Goss-[unclear: ward] was, with other western insurance confirms, insuring US aid to Lon Nol brought in three times a month up the Mekong to Phnom Penh.

The Last Days of Lon Nol

In the last two years of the way, when Lon Nol's control of the country was being whittled down to the immediate area around Phnom Penh, the NUFK began to be aware of the massive problems they would encounter on the liberation of the capital.

Since 1970, it had grown from a population of half a million to approximately three million. So five of every six occupants were refugees from their homes in the bombed out countryside. The capital was not capable of supporting such a large population and serious health and hygiene problems had begun to develop.

Because the Lon Nol regime had lost control of the rural areas, no food was coming into the cities to feed the refugees. The United States was being forced to fly in 30-40,000 tons of food a month, much of that for the elite of Phnom Penh. The food shortage was also due to the black marketeering which was going on in the capital — merchants were storing up grain waiting for the price to rise while thousands of refugees starved to death.

In the last month of the war an estimated 8,000 people starved to death, primarily because the US were flying in military supplies instead of the usual supplies of food. According to the American agency that was handling the food (AID), the city needed 1,000 tons of rice a day to barely survive.. Near the close of the war only an average of 545 tons per day were sent in.

Deputy Director of AID, John Murphy, told Congress that Phnom Penh's population would have to "get along on something less than normal".

Liberation!

By March 1975 the NUFK had encircled the capital. Still Gerald Ford, then US President, was reported to have proposed sending in $125M worth of ammunition in a last ditch stand. The United States had suffered their most humiliating defeat ever — even more so than in Vietnam, because of the military skill and discipline of the NUFK.

Lon Nol escaped to Hawaii, taking with him an estimated $1.2M fortune. The Lon Nol troops gave in quickly and the NUFK walked into Phnom Penh.

David Murray

(to be continued in the next issue)