Vietnam and the Cambodian Tragedy Vietnam and the Cambodian Tragedy Up to these present days, Cambodians still have been suffering from an indescribable tragedy in their contemporary history. For this reason, we wish to share our collection of articles, thanks to which our readers can revisit this tragic history. On behalf of information and knowledge spreading, we wish to ask the authorization from the authors and editors to include their articles in our collection, which is for free release. Kith Chamroeun and Chhum Daravudh Editors of the Cambodian Perspective Review © Cambodian Perspective Review– December 2013 1 Vietnam and the Cambodian Tragedy Vietnam and the Cambodian communism By Stephen J. Morris Friday, April 20, 2007 http://editorials.cambodia.org/2007/04/vietnam-and-cambodian-communism.html Communist Vietnamese-Lao-Khmer meeting (Photo: KR Trial Web Portal) Stephen J. MORRIS in Public Forum on Khmer Rouge History From stalin to Pol Pot-Towards a Description of the khmer Rouge Regime 25-26 january 2007 Sunway Hotel, Phnom Penh (Picture by: Prim Pilot) Source: The Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association Posted at Khmer Rouge Trial Web Portal INTRODUCTION In the official mythology of the Khmers Rouges, their military victory in 1975, and the maintenance of their rule over Cambodia from 1975 until 1978 (the rule of Angka Padevat in © Cambodian Perspective Review– December 2013 2 Vietnam and the Cambodian Tragedy the state of Democratic Kampuchea), was portrayed as a result of the efforts of Cambodians alone. This is the most ridiculous fantasy. Without the support of the Vietnamese and Chinese communists the regime known as Democratic Kampuchea would never have existed. Moreover, the leading Cambodian communists were deeply enmeshed in the activities of the communist world for most of their lives. I will show how Vietnam played a vital role in the rise of the Khmers Rouges to power, and how the Vietnamese communist leaders were happy to let the Khmers Rouges do as they wished in power, so long as the regime created - Democratic Kampuchea - did not threaten or embarrass Vietnam. However the irrational belligerence of Pol Pot and his entourage in foreign policy soon became a source of concern for Hanoi, and Democratic Kampuchea's violent behaviour towards its more powerful neighbour pushed Vietnam towards a policy of armed retaliation, invasion and occupation. VIETNAM AND THE RISE OF CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM The Vietnamese communists were deeply involved in the inception and formation of the Cambodian communist movement. In 1930 the agent of the Communist International (Comintem) known as Nguyen Ai Quoc -- who in 1943 changed his alias to Ho Chi Minh -- founded the Vietnamese Communist Party at a meeting held in the British colony of Hong Kong. But after filing the founding documents with his employers in Moscow, Quoc was instructed by the Comintem to change the name of the party to the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP). The Comintem argued that "Not only does Indochina have a geographic, economic and political unity, but above all we have a need for unity of struggle, for a unique direction of all of the Indochinese proletariat opposed to all the forces of reaction in Indochina, to the policy of division of French imperialism." The Comintern's intention was clear: Emancipation of the three different nations of French Indochina was to be carried out not by the independent efforts of each of the three peoples, but rather under Vietnamese Communist tutelage. As it happened there were no revolutionary movements in Cambodia at this time. And of the 211 founding members of the Indochinese Communist Party, not a single one was from Cambodia or Laos. One finds in the Comintem archives in Moscow, Quoc's actual correspondence about this with his leaders. In September 1930 Nguyen Ai Quoc claimed to have an ICP party membership of 124, of which 120 were Chinese and 4 were Annamites [Vietnamese]. The Party controlled labor union consisted of 300 ethnic Chinese. The French suppressed the communist structures throughout Indochina in 1935, and by March 1935 there were only 9 communists in all of Cambodia. But the ethnic situation in Cambodia remained much the same throughout the 1930s. In 1938 the Cambodian branch of the ICP had a mere 16 members, all of them ethnic Chinese. After World War II the Vietnamese communists, operating through their front organization popularly known as the Viet Minh, began their offensive against the French colonialists. However they sought to rely heavily upon ethnic Vietnamese for their efforts. Two of the most important Viet Minh leaders during the 1940s were Sieu Heng and Son Ngoc Minh, both © Cambodian Perspective Review– December 2013 3 Vietnam and the Cambodian Tragedy of mixed Vietnamese and Khmer ancestry. Armed units of the Viet Minh were stationed in Battambang, where all the units were ethnic Vietnamese, and in southeast Cambodia, where again ethnic Vietnamese were predominant in the revolutionary committees. In March 1950, at a meeting of Viet Minh and Khmer Issarak leaders held in Ha Tien, Vietnam, Nguyen Than Son, head of the Viet Minh's committee for foreign affairs in southern Vietnam, spoke of the Vietnamese emigre population in Cambodia as a "driving force destined to set off the Revolutionary Movement in Cambodia." Later he seemed to be complaining when he stated that the ICP, which controlled the Cambodian Movement, was composed of mostly Vietnamese and "did not have deep roots among the Khmer people." In 1951 the underground ICP resurfaced as the Vietnam Workers Party, and simultaneously announced the emergence of two "fraternal" parties for Laos and Cambodia. The latter was called the Revolutionary Cambodian People's Party. According to Bernard Fall the statutes of the Cambodian party had to be translated from Vietnamese into Cambodian, and ethnic Vietnamese dominated the leadership of the party. Over the next three years the Vietnamese tried to recruit ethnic Cambodians into the political and military structures of the party, but with limited success. For example, according to a French intelligence document of 1952, the Phnom Penh cell secretariat had a membership of 34, of whom 27 were Vietnamese, 3 were Chinese, and only four were Cambodians. In November 1953 Cambodia under the royal government of Sihanouk was given complete independence by the French. After the signing of the Geneva Agreements in 1954, the Viet Minh Sees retreated from Cambodia, taking with them half of the cadres of the Revolutionary Cambodian Party. These cadres were to be given further training in Hanoi, and kept in reserve until history provided an opportune moment for their return. During this period of the mid 1950s there was influx of younger communists back to Cambodia from a period of study France. Most notable of this group was Pol Pot (then known as Saloth Sar, Jeng Sary, Khieu Samohan, Hou Youn and Hu Nim. Some of these communists had come into contact with the ideas of Marx and Lenin before, they went to France. But they had all developed their communist ideology in France under the influence of the Stalinist French communist party. Some of them, like Pol Pot had fought in the last stages of the Viet Minh war against the French. But we should not make too much of the French experience of Pol Pot and long Sary. because other important members of the future Khmer Rouge inner circle -- notably Nuon Chea and Ta Mok -- never went to France. More important to note is that none of the younger communists exhibited any anti-Vietnamese sentiment at this time. The returnees from France were able to seize control of the Cambodian communist movement by the ena of the 1950s Yet in 1960 the party's name was changed to Kampuchean Workers Party, to conform with the Vietnamese name, and in 1966 it was changed again to Kampuchean Communist Party In 1963 Pol Pot became secretary general of the party. Throughout the 1960s the Kampuchean communists remained friendly and deferential towards the Vietnamese. In July 1965 Pol Pot traveled to Hanoi and discussed with the Vietnamese politburo the appropriate policy for Cambodia. © Cambodian Perspective Review– December 2013 4 Vietnam and the Cambodian Tragedy It is not exactly clear when the Cambodian communists developed their attachment to Maoism. The imbibing of Maoist ideology by the Khmer Rouge seems to have been quite gradual. And the Vietnamese communists themselves must have played some direct role in assisting that process since they themselves had been under Chinese communist influence during the years 1950-56 and 1963-64, years when Vietnamese communist influence over Cambodian communists was still significant. Pol Pot made his first trip to China in late 1965 and stayed into 1966. This was the beginning o the Maoist terror and ideological campaign known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Pol Pot visited China again in 1970. Pol Pot's visits to China probably did not initiate, but most likely intensified, Maoist ideological influence upon the Khmer Rouge. In January 1968 the Kampuchean Communist Party initiated an armed uprising against the royal government of Prince Sihanouk. This would seem to have been in contradiction with the Vietnamese communist policy of recognizing the royal Cambodian government, a government which had allowed the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong to use eastern Cambodia as a sanctuary and supply line in their war against the American-backed anticommunist government of South Vietnam. However this Khmers Rouges uprising was mostly confined to the hill dwellers (Khmer Loeu) of the mountainous of northeast Cambodia - Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri - and it did not pose any real threat to he survival of the government of Prince Sihanouk. Hence it did not really threaten the strategy of the North Vietnamese.