Dear All,
Of course, there are some truths in what Pr Gaffar Peang wrote but also a bunch
of false affirmations or falsification of events or history. As responsible
academic person, hence he considered as Khmer person yet, Professor Gaffar
Peang should do more search on each events he wrote or affirming than picked
some arbitral information invented or kindly offered by the winners or
perpetuators of crimes and co. If not, he will not only spite on the graves of
the victims and destroy Khmer but will also gratuity serve the causes of the
perpetuators of crimes whether it is deliberated act or not. And it’s
extremely inadmissible irresponsible act specially from a person like him.
Regards
Bopha Angkor
----- Original Message -----
From: S. Sophan
To: Cambodian Community of Canada
Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2011 9:52 PM
Subject: This is a must read article by Dr. Peang-Meth, a Khmer political
scientist
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Brief History of Vietnamese Expansionism vis-à-vis Cambodia
Brief History of Vietnamese Expansionism vis-à-vis Cambodia
In 1941, Ho created the Viet Minh, an abbreviation of "Vietnam Doc Lap Dong
Minh Hoi," or "League for the Independence of Vietnam," and spread its
anti-French activities to Laos and Cambodia, where the Viet Minh later
fragmentized the anti-French local Khmer Issarak front into a Khmer Viet Minh
front. In 1949, the Viet Minh instituted the "Ban Van Dong Thanh Lap Dang Nhan
Cach Mang Cao Mien" ("Canvassing Committee for the Creation of the
Revolutionary Kampuchean People's Party") and created the Kampuchean People's
Liberation Army in 1950.
By Gaffar Peang-Meth
Professor of Political Science (retired)
University of Guam
Originally posted at:
http://www.khmerinstitute.org/articles/art13vietnamization.html
On Christmas Eve 1978, more than 100,000 Vietnamese troops, backed by tanks
and aircraft, crossed the border into Cambodia. In 14 days of fighting, Hanoi's
army sent Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge fleeing. The Vietnamese captured Phnom
Penh Jan. 7, 1979, installed a puppet regime and stayed for the next 10 years.
For victims of Pol Pot's genocidal rule, which began April 17, 1975 and
resulted in the deaths of upwards of two million people, Jan.7, 1979 was the
day of deliverance by Vietnam. Surely, Vietnam was their "savior" and their
"liberator" at a time when the world watched and did nothing about the horrors
of the Killing Fields. However, for many Cambodians, Jan. 7th is also a day of
infamy. Pol Pot was replaced by those referred to as Cambodians with Khmer
bodies but Vietnamese heads, the Khmer Viet Minh. This cohort was created by
the Vietnamese Communist Lao Dong, trained at the Son Tay Military Academy and
the Nguyen Ai Quoc political school, and led by a disgruntled regional field
commander, Hun Sen, who became indebted to Hanoi for his return to power. Many
Cambodians felt that substituting the Khmer Viet Minh for the Khmer Rouge was
like replacing cholera with the plague.
A host of foreign governments also worried. The world was still governed by
the well-specified rule of law founded on the principle of absolute,
comprehensive, permanent and inviolable sovereignty and independence. As
Singapore argued before the international community at the United Nations, the
world is no longer safe, and peace and security are no longer assured, if a
more powerful state is allowed to invade a weaker one like Vietnam had done.
The Association of South East Asian Nations spearheaded calls for Vietnam to
withdraw its troops from Cambodia.
As a result, the United Nations and other international organizations became
a political-diplomatic battleground for many years between proponents and
opponents of Vietnam's invasion. And so it was that the anti-Vietnamese Khmer
Resistance was born, first as separate armed bands with similar goals, and
later as a loose coalition of Cambodians of the fallen Khmer Republic,
Cambodians of the monarchy, and the leftovers of the Khmer Rouge. Despite their
differences, they worked together toward pressuring Vietnam into withdrawal and
to seek Cambodian self-determination.
Cambodian nationalists assert that Vietnam attacked Pol Pot in 1979 because
he became too independent of Hanoi. The invasion was initiated to bring the
insolent back into line. Since 1979, they have asked: If Vietnam's goal was to
"save" and "liberate" the Cambodian people from Pol Pot, what prevented Vietnam
from surrendering a freed Cambodia and her people to work with the world
community to build a new government and social order? Would not Vietnam have
received profound gratitude by ceding to the United Nations the role of
assisting Cambodians' self-determination rather than imposing 10 years of
foreign occupation?
HANOI’S GRAND DESIGN
Hanoi, like the rest of the world, knew that Pol Pot's agents had perpetrated
brutalities against the Khmer people since April 17, 1975, when the Khmer Rouge
forced the evacuation of the entire Cambodian population from homes, villages,
towns and cities and took them to perform forced labor. Suffering, death and
destruction were the order of the day.
The widely reported burning of homes and massacres of civilians in Vietnam's
An Giang and Chau Doc provinces in 1977 by Pol Pot's guerrilla units offered an
incitement to Vietnam, which was then busy strategizing and plotting Ho Chi
Minh's grand design of a greater Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge’s belligerence gave
the Vietnamese even more reason to put in play a takeover plan that would
advance its goal of a federation of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
It is no coincidence that Vietnamese troops invaded Cambodia on the same day
Brezhnev's Soviet 40th Army entered Afghanistan, Dec. 24, 1979. The Soviet
Union was Vietnam's chief ally and financial supporter at the time. Following
the regime change in Moscow in May 1988, the Soviets began to exit Afghanistan
one month after Gorbachev announced they would. Meanwhile, Hanoi was working on
an exit strategy of its own.
Vietnam observed the rapid changes under way around the world: in the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe, communism was in retreat; rival China was on the
rise; and U.S.-China relations was warming and mutually supportive of the
anti-Vietnamese Khmer Resistance. While Vietnam began to hint at its eventual
withdrawal from Cambodia, it took offensive military action against the
Cambodian resistance. Hanoi maneuvered to weaken the anti-Vietnam U.S.-China
alliance by encouraging talks between the Vietnam-created regime in Cambodia
and the resistance factions. The talks were also designed to improve the puppet
government's legitimacy. By the time withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from
Cambodia began in December 1989 (11 years after the initial invasion), Vietnam
had ensured that its Cambodian subordinates, the Khmer Viet Minh, were
entrenched in Cambodia's administrative and governmental organizations.
BACKGROUND
As French critic Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr said, "Plus ça change, plus
c'est la même chose," or, "The more things change, the more they remain the
same." Look at the history of relations between Cambodia and Vietnam for
affirmation.
The Vietnamese southward expansion after Nam Viet freed itself in 939 from a
thousand-year Chinese bondage was described by Vietnamese scholar Nguyen The
Anh in "Le Nam Tien dans les textes Vietnamiens," as a centuries-long
phenomenon called "Nam Tien" (progression southwards), "one of Vietnam's
history's constants." Anh described the "sparsely populated and accessible land
available for [Vietnamese] rice growers" to the south as "favorable for
encroachment." Vietnamese "Confucian persuasion" was abandoned in favor of "an
action resolutely imperialistic" to grab land and impose Vietnamese
"administrative and cultural practice ... to better integrate [the new area]
into the Vietnamese space." The migration was ongoing, even as other kingdoms
were encountered. In 1406, the ancient kingdom of Champa's capital, Vijaya, was
seized and the kingdom was extinguished in 1471. Then, in 1630, Vietnamese
princess Ngoc Van, married to Khmer King Chey Chetha II, promoted Vietnamese
settlements in the low delta Khmer territory of Preah Suakea (Ba Ria) and Prey
Nokor (Saigon).
Historical records reveal that until the French protectorate was established
in 1863, Cambodia was a battlefield for Thai and Vietnamese armies that fought
on Khmer soil. Khmer dynastic quarrels led separate royal factions to seek
support from Bangkok and Hue. Cambodia was known as a "two-headed bird" – a
tributary state to both foreign capitals. In 1833, after Vietnam defeated the
Thais in Cambodia, the bird head pointed toward Hue, and Vietnamization of
Cambodia began in earnest: Vietnam installed teenager Ang Mey as queen,
Cambodia's capital was renamed "Nam Viang," Cambodia's reorganization followed
Vietnamese administrative lines, and authorities adopted Vietnamese names,
customs and dress. In 1840, the Cambodian government was seated in Saigon, and
Cambodia's name was changed to "Tran Tay" (western commandery).
REPEAT OF HISTORY
Opponents of Vietnam's 1978 invasion see Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian
People's Party as a force seeking integration of Cambodia into the late Ho Chin
Minh's dream of a federation of former French Indochinese states of Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos. As has been the case many times in history, Cambodians have
connived with the Vietnamese to accomplish Vietnam's goals: Khmer King Chey
Chettha II in 1620, King Ang Chan II in the 1800s, Prince Sihanouk in the
Vietnam War, Pol Pot and Paris-trained Khmer Marxists, Hun Sen and his ruling
Cambodian People's Party, supported by the King Father Sihanouk and his son
Sihamoni, the current king.
What started as Nam Viet’s search for security and growth became a strategy
for expansionism. The intention to expand its influence is illustrated even in
the name of the political party founded in 1930 by Ho Chi Minh – the "Communist
Party of Indochina." Ho did not just want to liberate Vietnam from the French;
he defined the task of the CPI "to make Indochina completely independent."
In 1941, Ho created the Viet Minh, an abbreviation of "Vietnam Doc Lap Dong
Minh Hoi," or "League for the Independence of Vietnam," and spread its
anti-French activities to Laos and Cambodia, where the Viet Minh later
fragmentized the anti-French local Khmer Issarak front into a Khmer Viet Minh
front. In 1949, the Viet Minh instituted the "Ban Van Dong Thanh Lap Dang Nhan
Cach Mang Cao Mien" ("Canvassing Committee for the Creation of the
Revolutionary Kampuchean People's Party") and created the Kampuchean People's
Liberation Army in 1950.
Although the CPI was dissolved to publicly demonstrate Vietnam did not harbor
expansionist intentions toward its neighbors, it resurfaced in February 1951 as
the Lao Dong (Vietnam Workers' Party) with the same agenda. The Lao Dong’s goal
of integrating Cambodia into a Greater Vietnam may be read in its political
report which stated: "We must strive to help our Cambodian and Laotian brothers
... and arrive at setting up a Vietnam-Cambodian-Laotian Front" against the
French. A month later the "Joint National United Front for Indochina" was
formed. In November of that year, the Revolutionary Kampuchean People's Party
was created with name and statute drafted in the Vietnamese language. It has
been said the RKPP and the Cambodian local Communist Pracheachon Party were one
and the same. As Prince Sihanouk wrote in February 1960, the Pracheachon Party
was "working indefatigably ... and specifically to bring Cambodia under the
heel of North Vietnam."
Brian Crozier, a former Reuters correspondent, quoted a captured November
1951 Viet Minh document exhibiting Vietnam's hegemonic attitude: "The
Vietnamese Party reserves the right to supervise the activities of its brother
parties in Cambodia and Laos." Crozier also quoted a Viet Minh radio broadcast
of April 1953: "The Lao Dong Party and the people of Vietnam have the mission
to make revolution in Cambodia and Laos. We, the Viet Minh elements, have been
sent to serve this revolution and to build the union of Vietnam, Cambodia, and
Laos." Viet Minh administrations with their own armed forces and system of tax
collection were established in Cambodia and Laos. A Hanoi-created "Kampuchean
Resistance Government" emerged in 1952 to rival Sihanouk's Royal Government.
When the July 1954 Geneva Accords ordered Viet Minh forces to leave Cambodia,
they took with them between 4,500 (a conservative figure) and 8,000 Cambodians
(reportedly claimed by Vo Nguyen Giap in 1971), mostly young children, to be
raised, cultured and given political and military training in Vietnam. These
Cambodians with "Khmer bodies but Vietnamese heads" returned to Cambodia after
1970 to fight Lon Nol, and to unsuccessfully wrest control of the Communist
Party of Kampuchea from Pol Pot. Some were arrested, others purged.
According to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party
of Kampuchea was born on Sept. 30, 1960, after the first party congress of 21
people met for three days and three nights. Pol Pot asserted that a Cambodian
revolutionary movement that "truly belonged to our people" existed prior to the
Geneva Convention, but its dissolution after the 1954 agreement was
acknowledged because "people lacked a correct and enlightened guideline." Pol
Pot described 1968 as the year when armed struggle – civil war – began.
Undoubtedly, Hanoi was aware that its publicly proclaimed "fraternal brothers
and sisters," the Khmer Rouge, were not so "fraternal" privately, and it knew
its relationship with the Khmer Rouge was unsatisfactory. But Hanoi let the
Khmer Rouge be while it looked to building its own Kampuchean puppets. Hanoi
was biding its time. And as it was fighting a war against the Americans in
Vietnam, Hanoi threw in its battle-tested troops to fight Lon Nol's republican
army, enemies of Prince Sihanouk who had allied himself with Hanoi. It was
Hanoi's troops that routed Lon Nol's army and put Pol Pot in power in Phnom
Penh.
Neither Hanoi nor the world governments intervened to stop the genocide that
followed. However, when the Khmer Rouge's fierce independence of Hanoi was more
than the latter would tolerate, Hanoi concluded it was time to teach its
insolent comrades a lesson. On Nov. 3, 1978, Hanoi signed a 25-year peace and
cooperation treaty with Moscow. A month later, on Dec. 3, Hanoi Radio announced
the birth of the "Kampuchean National United Front of National Salvation," led
by a 14-member Central Committee under Heng Samrin, a former commander of the
Khmer Rouge's 4th Division. Hun Sen was a former chief of staff and regimental
deputy commander in Sector 21. By the end of the month, Vietnamese troops would
lead 18,000 KNUFNS soldiers across the border into Cambodia. Phnom Penh was
soon captured and a subservient regime installed. On Feb. 18, 1979, master and
puppet comrades signed a 25-year treaty of peace, friendship and cooperation, a
treaty that effectively integrated Cambodia into a Greater Vietnam.
“FRIENDSHIP” TREATY
The 1979 friendship-cooperation treaty brings Hanoi's influence as far west
as the border with Thailand. The treaty binds Cambodia and Vietnam in what it
terms "militant solidarity and fraternal friendship." As people educated in the
culture of Confucianism, Vietnamese leaders' actions are generally carefully
thought-out and calculated to maximize Vietnam's interests. They know what they
want, what their national interests are, and they move methodically to attain
them. Unfortunately for Khmers and their country, King Sihamoni, son of King
Father Sihanouk, signed the supplements to the treaty, giving Vietnamese full
access to colonize and Vietnamize Cambodia. In the stroke of a pen, the
signatories extol a symbiosis of interests between Cambodia and Vietnam.
Retired Johns Hopkins professor Naranhkiri Tith observes on his Web site that
the 1979 treaty between Hanoi and its puppet in Phnom Penh "became official in
2005" when Cambodia's King Sihamoni, "with the support of his father Sihanouk,"
put his royal signature on "supplements" to the treaty, thereby making
Cambodians complicit in the Vietnamization of Cambodia.
In its preamble, the treaty cites the "closely interrelated" independence,
freedom, peace and security of Vietnam and Cambodia – what affects one affects
the other – and that both countries are "duty-bound to help each other
wholeheartedly and with all their might" safeguard and consolidate the products
of their "revolution." It cites both countries' "militant solidarity" and
"long-term and all-round cooperation and friendship" as representing their
"vital interests."
In the treaty's first three articles, the Cambodians hand Ho Chi Minh the
goal of an Indochinese alliance he had dreamed about.
In Article 1, the two countries pledge to "do all they can" to maintain their
"traditions of militant solidarity" and to develop "mutual trust and assistance
in all fields."
In Article 2, they pledge to "wholeheartedly support and assist each other in
all domains and in all necessary forms," as well as to take "effective measures
to implement this commitment whenever one of them requires." Cambodian leader
Hun Sen can "require" Vietnamese intervention and he will be assisted "in all
domains and in all necessary forms," and vice versa.
In Article 3, both countries pledge "mutual fraternal exchanges and
cooperation" and mutual assistance in the economic, cultural, educational,
public health, scientific, and technological fields, as well as the training of
cadres and the exchange of "specialists and experience in all fields of
national construction." This opens the door for Vietnam to operate in Cambodia.
For example, Vietnam has always been short of food, and Cambodia is
historically rich in fertile land and fish and natural resources.
Subsequent sections of the treaty further reinforce this dictate of
Cambodian-Vietnamese interdependence.
Article 4 stipulates a border agreement based on the "present border line."
Article 5 pledges a "long-standing tradition of militant solidarity and
fraternal friendship" to which both parties "attach great importance."
Article 6 requires that the parties "frequently exchange views" on all
questions concerning both countries' relationships and on "international
matters of mutual interest."
Articles 7, 8, 9, speak of the right and obligation of each party to any
bilateral and multilateral agreements.
In 1962, Prince Sihanouk wrote: "Whether he is called Gia Long, Ho Chi Minh,
or Ngo Dinh Diem, no [Vietnamese] will sleep soundly until he succeeds in
pushing the Khmer toward annihilation, after having made them go through the
stage of slavery." Pol Pot and his French-trained Marxists handed Cambodia to
Vietnam. Then Heng Samrin and company agreed to a Vietnamized Cambodia.
Important stipulations in the Paris Peace Accords on Cambodia signed in October
1991 were not implemented, allowing Vietnam's surrogate, Hun Sen, to elbow his
way into becoming a co-prime minister despite losing the 1993 general
elections. The co-premiership formula was devised by Sihanouk to benefit Hen
Sen at the expense of Sihanouk's own son, Ranariddh. It gave Ranariddh, winner
of the election, the title of 1st Prime Minister, and the loser of the
election, Hun Sen, the title of 2nd Prime Minister. Dissatisfied with his
subservient position in the dual premiership, Hun Sen unleashed a coup d'etat
in 1997 in which hundreds were killed and seized power.
MARCHING ONWARD
The journey toward a greater Vietnam has not ended. What began in 939 when
Nam Viet freed itself from Chinese bondage has in 2010 put the Vietnamese at
Thailand's border and in a position to have an impact on Thailand's political
stability. Cambodians are being manipulated by Hun Sen to respond to Thailand
based on historical animosities not relevant to today's political realities. It
would be preferable if lessons could be taken from history so that it is not
repeated.
The current Cambodian-Thai conflict has been inflamed by Hun Sen's continuing
provocations, intended to destabilize Thailand and provide opportunities for
Vietnam to influence events there. Hun Sen's success at diverting his
countrymen's attention from their own meager lots to the possibility of a
conflict with their historical adversary has had the side benefit of increasing
domestic support for his regime. The recently revealed "classified" contingency
plan by Thailand for military action against Cambodia, should the Thai-Khmer
dispute escalate, is seen by Professor Naranhkiri Tith as "exactly what Hun Sen
wanted." Logically, the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation between Hun
Sen's Cambodia and Vietnam is an important instrument for him to invite Hanoi's
troops – the "liberators" against Pol Pot – to help fight the Thais on Khmer
soil, another repeat of history.
Hun Sen has successfully used governmental administrative machinery to keep
Cambodians intimidated and ignorant of their civil rights and the principles of
good governance. He dangles showy projects and physical improvements to
infrastructure, while many scavenge the city's dumps and live on rodent meat.
Of late, he has taken to publicly cursing the Thai leadership seemingly daily.
His call to protect Cambodia's Preah Vihear Temple from the Thais brings many
Cambodians to his side, though they are mute over Vietnamese encroachment from
the east. Those who dare speak out against Vietnamese expansionism are silenced
through intimidation or imprisonment.
* * * * *
About the author:
Gaffar Peang-Meth of Russey-keo, Phnom Penh, holds a Ph.D. in political
science (comparative governments and politics, Southeast Asia) from the
University of Michigan in 1980, served in the Khmer People's National
Liberation Front at Banteay Ampil in 1980-1989, and taught at Johns Hopkins in
1990 and at the University of Guam in 1991-2004. He is retired, and now lives
in the United States. He can be contacted at [email protected]
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