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| Khmer Rouge Soldiers enter Phnom Penh as Khmer Republic soldiers lay down their arms (Image RNBKK archives) |
ដោយខែ្មរវឌ្ឍនកម្ម
www.khmerwathanak.blogspot.com
After
a peaceful coup on March 18, 1970, Cambodia plunked into the most
bloody war in history followed by a killing field. The following day
after Sihanouk's plane landed in Beijing, Sihanouk told Premier Zhou
Enlai, " I'm going to return home and fight." Nonetheless, Zhou Enlai
did not impress with his words; instead he warned the prince that a war
would be long, hard, dangerous, and sometimes discouraging. Then a blue
print for the war was created in Beijing when Vietnamese Prime Minister
Phan Van Dong flew to Beijing to meet Zhou Enlai and Prince Sihanouk.
Pol Pot was secretly in Beijing but avoided to see Sihanouk. Now Phan
Van Dong and Zhou Enlai arranged Sihanouk to work with the Khmer Rouge,
creating the United Front of Kampuchea to appeal all Cambodian peoples
to launch a war campaign and civil disobedience against the new Khmer
Republic Government. Through Radio Beijing, Shihanouk denounced the
coup and called for the people to join him to fight for justice, by
which he meant revenge. Then the brutal war was enraged after Vietnam
had failed to strike a deal with Marshal Lon Nol's new government to
reopen a supplies line through Cambodia.
Sihanouk's
appeal from Beijing amounted to declaration of war; every Khmer now was
forced to take sides--the Khmer Republic or Sihanouk's
government-in-exile. To attract more international supports, a new
Cambodian Royal Government of National Union (CRGNU) was established
under a leadership of Sihanouk, composing of famous members from the
Khmer Rouge and the former Sihanouk's government. The following list
are some key cabinet posts in the CRGNU:
-Prime Minister: Mr. Pen Nouth
-Minister of Prime Minister Office: Mr. Keat Chhun (a current deputy prime minister)
-Foreign Minister: Mr. Sarin Chhack
-Defense Minister: Mr. Khiev Samphan (currently put on trial of genocide)
-Interior Minister: Mr. Hou Yuon
-Minister of Economy: Mr. Thioun Mumm
And
so on (source : Philip Short Anatomy of a Nightmare). The new
government proclaimed on May 5, 1970, and immediately recognized by
China, North Vietnam, Cuba, and many other communist countries around
the world. The new government fully funded by China at least $5
millions annually. Sihanouk was assigned to conduct diplomatic battle
for international recognition while Pol Pot elusively conducted policy
at home and executed a war plan.
This two- head
government covertly had different agenda: Sihanouk needed the Khmer
Rouge to seek immediate vengeance while Pol Pot needed Sihanouk's
popular name and reputation to gain strong support from the grass root
people and international community. However, such an alliance was not
apparently even a marriage of convenience since they shared different
bed in different dreams. Sihanouk desired to be reinstated as a head of
state while Pol Pot wanted to grab power, introducing communism that
totally contradicted to Sihanouk's feudalism and progressive economic
policy. The two groups had no alternative choices but to work together
as had arranged by Beijing and Hanoi in order to unseat the US-backed
government in Phnom Penh.
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| Khmer Republic soldiers fought fierce battle with Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese troops |
After Sihanouk's appeal, North Vietnam, which already
had stationed tens thousands of its troops in Cambodia, approached the
new government in Phnom Penh to negotiate reopening a supplies line
through Cambodia but strongly rejected by the Khmer Republic as it had
expected. However, the Vietnamese had completely drawn its own plan to
launch a military offensive against the new Lon Nol's government on a
pretext to restore Sihanouk's power. On March 27, all Vietnamese
diplomats were flown out to Hanoi, opening for the first and fierce
battle directly with the Khmer Republic army. The 40,000 Vietcong and
North Vietnamese troops in Cambodia reinforced by additional units
launched a fierce co-ordinate attack on the Lon Nol's small
inexperienced army in all fronts. On April 20, 1970, the Vietcong units
were within 15 miles away from Phnom Penh before being beaten back by
the Khmer republic resilient troops, supporting by the US and South
Vietnamese troop incursions on May 12. Nonetheless, by 1973, the
Vietnamese troops seized nearly 70 percent of the country and controlled
one-third of Cambodian population.
the fast capture
of territories by the Vietnamese troops had posed a real dilemma for
Pol Pot and his colleague since the Khmer Rouge did not have enough
troops and civilian administrators to run a wast liberated zone. As
result, the Vietnamese built their administrative offices, hospitals,
military and political training schools, bringing their own officers to
train people along their occupied forces; such actions became Hanoi's
official policy all over the liberated zone. Pol Pot privately accused
the Vietnamese of setting up a " parallel state power" inside Cambodian
territory without the Khmer Rouge's knowledge. Now the Khmer Rouge
leadership was torn apart, fearing that they did not have enough troops
to protect the large liberated zone and their most fearful thought is
the Vietnamese troops might not leave Cambodia. Such an ancestral dread
of Vietnamese domination was also strongly shared by the Khmer Republic
though they are the Khmer Rouge's bitter enemies.
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| Prince Sihanouk and his Khmer Rouge colleague |
Despite the Khmer Rouge had worried about Cambodian
sovereignty in the future, in a short term, the Vietnamese had done a
great job for them to win the war. In 1971, the Vietnamese commandos
from elite Dac Cong Brigade blew up the whole Khmer Republic air force,
according to Philip Short's account, at least 10 Mic-17s, 5 T-28, 8
helicopters, 10 transport air crafts, and two ammunition dumps were
completely destroyed along with 40 dead soldiers. This elite Dac Cong
Brigade later destroyed nearly 60 percent of Cambodia's fuel depots in
another raid in Sihanoukville. This is a severe blow to the young Khmer
Republic which had never had a chance to build its own military
strength since it came to power. Though Marshal Lon Nol launched the
twin-military offensives called Chenla I and II in 1970-71, to reopen a
national route 6 toward Kompong Thom province, those operations were
severely smashed by a joint battle between the Khmer Rouge fighters and
the Vietcong troops when they tricked the Khmer Republic columns driving
deep into their front line then opened fire from all directions forcing
the Khmer republic Soldiers fled in disarray and killing them all over
the road. Despite Lon Nol declared a limited success, later on the
Khmer Republic soldiers were forced back to the cities' walls until
their final day.
By 1973, the Khmer Rouge army grew up
to 35,000 combat troops backed by over 100,000 guerrillas, more than
enough to defeat the low morale Khmer Republic troops on their own when
the Vietnamese troops were forced to withdraw by Paris Peace Treaty in
1973 and the Khmer Rouge's enforcement. As the Vietnamese troops
started to leave, the Khmer Rouge gradually inserted its
power
across the liberated zone. Before, most local administrators were Hanoi
returnees and pro-Sihanouk group trained by the Vietnamese officials.
Lives in the liberated zone were remarkably normal as the previous
regime: people were allowed to own private properties, sold foods and
products on open markets; religious practices, basic education, and
marriage, family lives, travel from place to place,were not restricted.
Then the Khmer Rouge inserted their power all over the liberated zone,
appointing new local administrators, stripping all private properties,
banning all religious practices, marriages, markets, schools, and
forcing people dressed in black, worked and ate in cooperative farms.
Such a model of living was re-introduced throughout the country after
the Khmer Rouge came to power on April 17, 1975.
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| Khmer Rouge Troops enter the City Center |
As the Khmer Rouge power gradually re-asserted over
the liberated zone, all Vietnamese both civilians and military personnel
were told to leave Cambodia sometimes in forceful ways. All Vietnamese
troops left behind were forced to move away from the villages, and they
were required to carry ID or pass if they went through the villages.
All Hanoi returnees were demoted or stripped off power and sent to
re-education camps. Pol Pot viewed them as the Vietnamese spies or the "
Vietnamese-head and Khmer- body people; they lost national character as
the true Khmer." Fearing of persecution, some of them fled to the
Khmer Republic side, and the others made their way back to Hanoi. The
Khmer Rouge lost faith with Vietnam was echoed by the Soviet diplomat in
Hanoi that the Vietnamese leaders still spoke of their old dream of a
"Socialist Indochina Federation." The Vietnamese intentional plan that
most Khmer people had a reason to fear. Hanoi's narrowly nationalistic
approach and its attempts to subordinate the problems of Cambodia and
Laos to the interest of Vietnam risked alienating the communist
movements in those countries.
On the front lines, the
Khmer Rouge stepped up military campaigns in all directions--the river
convoys supplying Phnom Penh came under sustained attacks and all routes
in and out of the Capital City were insecure or cut. Phnom Penh
increasingly relied on US's air lifts for foods to feed over 2 millions
people who had fled from the countrysides living in a dire condition.
Along with supplies routes cuts, the Khmer Rouge rockets started to fall
in random targets in the crowded city killing and injuring countless
civilians. On February 25, 1975, the Northern Zone troops under Keo
Pauk's Command, captured a strategic town, Oudong, while the Southwest
troops under Ta Mok advanced along route 4. In a next few weeks, Pol
Pot moved his headquarter to Oudong to command the troops from the
maintain, watching his troops fiercely battled the entrenched Lon Nol's
troops on Phnom Penh vicinities.
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| A pile of weapons abandoned by the Khmer Republic Soldiers |
Along with a steady advance of their troops to Phnom
Penh Center, the Khmer Rouge radio announced that the seven arch
traitors would be executed: Lon Nol, Sarik Matak, Cheng Heng, Sosten
Fernandez, Lon Non, In Tam, and Long Boreth. On April 1, Lon Nol left
the country in tear for the US, transferring his power to Gen. Sokam Koy
to oversee the last two weeks of the Khmer Republic's life. By April
1, most foreign embassy staffs were evacuated, and on April 17, the
black uniformed troops marched into Phnom Penh from all directions
encountering with cheering crowds who had expected peace has come at the
end. People began kissing, hugging each other, and some singing and
dancing in the streets expressing physical sense of relief and hope--no
more rockets to fear, no more military conscription, and no more
bloodshed. After a five-year bloody war in which half a million people
had died, people felt so relieved that they would have done anything the
new government demanded. But they never thought that the new regime
would force them out of their homes in such a dreadful way.
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| A harsh colossal scale of evacuation from Phnom Penh |
By early afternoon, the Khmer Rouge soldiers went
from house to house, telling people that they must leave their homes
just for two or three days, on the pretext that Americans to bomb the
city. The evacuation of Phnom Penh was a real shamble; to move more
than two millions people at a few hour's notice with no government
transportation, food, and no choice of destinations-- wherever they went
no return. The entreaties of husbands and wives or parents and
children who happened to find themselves in different part of the city
were ignored: they must go the same direction as everyone else, and
searches were stepped up for those trying to stay behind if found they
were simply killed. At least 15,000 to 20,000 patients in the city were
forced to leave from hospital beds to die on the way or left to die in
place since all nurses and doctors were gone. An estimated number up to
20,000 deaths during an evacuation on the hot and dry weather of April;
most people died from heat exhaust and hunger: no food and water for
the people who had no transportation and separated from families.
However, this great suffering was just a beginning; when they reached
their destinations in rural and jungle areas, they faced a reality of
the killing field.
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| Daily work of people in the Khmer Rouge regime |
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The victory of the Khmer Rouge on April 17, 1975 did
not end suffering that Cambodian people had endured over the past
five-year bloody war but pushed the country further into the killing
fields where all people had lived in a labor camp or in the prison
without a wall. Nearly two millions people died from starvation,
overwork, sickness, and random executions. For Pol Pot and his
colleagues, a victory did not bring them to show up in front the
cheering crowds, instead they were still hiding until April 20 when Pol
Pot came in the city escorted by his powerful zone commanders and
colleagues. His present in Phnom Penh was secret; there was no
announcement, no ceremony, nothing to show he was there. Thus the
coerced evacuation of millions of people in a short period of time may
indicated Pol Pot's pre-plan; firstly, he feared the Vietnamese spies
and the CIA disguising with people; secondly, he may want to eliminate a
frontier between the city dwellers and the rural people who were the
grassroots of the revolution; and thirdly he may concern about food
shortage. Nonetheless, there is no justification for his actions since
there were no CIA or Vietnamese spies, US's bombing, and food shortage
would be less severe If he let people to move out of the city
voluntarily since most of them wanted to leave the crowded city anyway,
so there would be no such a human disaster.
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| The Vietnamese invaders |
In Vietnam and Laos, the communist victory did not
affect much of people's lives since they did not strip off people's
private properties and let the people moving out of the cities to do
farming voluntarily, so they had enough time to prepare for their
lives. In Laos, the US embassy still opened when the Communist Pathet
Laos marched on the streets in Vientiane. In contrast, all foreign
embassies in Phnom Penh were closed except the French embassy staffs
were later deported to Thailand. The brutal killing of the Khmer
Republic leadership, soldiers, government officials and the forceful
evacuation all the city dwellers on the first day of their victory had
previewed the Khmer Rouge's brutality in the next four years of their
rule. The killing fields had reigned all over the country until the
Vietnamese invasion in 1979. Though Hanoi had its own agenda to conquer
Cambodia rather than to save Khmer lives, its invasion stopped Pol
Pot's killing, but it installed another brutal communist puppet regime
to rule Cambodia until present day-- the situation that Cambodian people
called, " when you step down in the water you face crocodile while step
up to the ground you face the tiger." In this metaphor, the Khmer
Rouge is a tiger and the Vietnamese is a crocodile; no one is better
than the other.
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