Cambodia endured long years of turmoil and outright horror. A French colony from the late 1800s to the 1950s, occupied during World War II by Japan, and then bombed by American forces during the Vietnam War, Cambodia experienced its bloodiest years during the reign of the Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1978- the worst period in its history.

The civil war had existed in Cambodia since 1970, when Sihanouk was ousted by Lon Nol. Between 1970 and 1973, during the Vietnam War, the United States bombed much of the countryside of Cambodia like Northern Vietnam and manipulated Cambodian politics to support the rise of pro-West Lon Nol as the leader of Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge used the United States’ bombing to recruit followers and as an excuse for the brutal policies they exercised when in power. Lon Nol government fell after the US left. By April 1975, Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, seized control of Cambodia, renaming the country as Democratic Kampuchea.

The Khmer Rouge established ‘a reign of terror’ and their mass atrocities and mass brutalities were unparalleled. They persecuted the educated — such as doctors, lawyers, and current or former military and police. Christian, Buddhist and Muslim citizens also were specifically targeted. Pol Pot aimed at exterminating anything that was urban or modern in an attempt to establish utopian agrarian communist society. He forced the people to leave villages and cities, abandon their homes and move into countryside.  The Khmer Rouge’s polices were guided by its belief that the citizens of Cambodia had been tainted by exposure to outside ideas, especially by the capitalist West. In 1977, Pol Pot intensified the process to finish-off all dissident communists and other moderates. The purges spread to the mass of the peasantry as well as to the persecuted urban evacuees. They closed schools, destroyed libraries and temples, and banished religion. Personal property was banished. The Khmer Rouge adopted the policy of forced unpaid agricultural labour for all, and brutal persecution of Buddhist monks and ethnic minorities: Chinese, Vietnamese, Cham Muslim, and Thai.

In an effort to create ‘a society without competition’, in which people worked for ‘the common good’, the Khmer Rouge placed people in collective living arrangements — or communes — and enacted “re-education” programs to encourage the commune lifestyle. People were divided into categories that reflected the trust that the Khmer Rouge had for them; the most trustworthy were called “old citizens.” The pro-West and city dwellers began as “new citizens” and could move up to “deportees,” then “candidates” and finally “full rights citizens”; however, most citizens never moved up. Those who refused “re-education” were killed in the fields surrounding the commune or at the notorious prison camp Tuol Sleng Centre, known as S-21. The regime’s ideology and tactics were so extreme that it targeted almost all aspects and segments of Cambodian society for destruction, and was ultimately responsible for the deaths of an estimated two million of the country’s seven million people. The Pol Pot regime was isolated from the outside world with the exception of Chinese and North Korean advisors, who numbered around 10,000.

The food situation was very alarming. By the spring of 1978 nearly 1.70 million of Kampuchea’s population had succumbed to hunger, hunger-related diseases and extermination at the hands of Pol Pot’s clique. The policies of Khmer Rouge led to exodus of refugees to Vietnam, Laos and Thailand but Vietnam had the largest number. Vietnam absorbed hundreds of thousands of Kampuchean and ethnic Vietnamese refugees. The war and refugee influx disrupted Vietnam’s rice bowl region that caused a serious food problem in Vietnam.

The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot also aimed at extending their area by incorporating large chunk of Vietnam. Starting in 1977, the Khmer Rouge conducted cross border raids into Vietnam, killing thousands of Vietnamese civilians. The Khmer Rouge leaders spoke openly of wanting to annex Vietnam. Domestically, massive purges sparked an uprising in eastern zone of Cambodia in opposition to the Pol Pot regime. Rebels comprising defeated soldiers and others against the Pot Pol regrouped across the Vietnamese border and called for help from Hanoi in 1978.  Initially, the Vietnamese response was restrained as the Khmer Rouge had the support of China and Vietnam wanted to avoid a two-front war. In early 1978, Vietnam forces advanced and tried to negotiate with Pol Pot but the latter declined.

By the end of 1978, Vietnam was convinced that to protect the people of Cambodia and its borders, it was necessary to eliminate the Khmer Rouge. In addition, the large-scale exodus of refugees was causing heavy expenditure and the local rebel group desired support from Hanoi. Pol Pot aimed at acquiring the entire Mekong Delta. The border attacks increased in frequency and brutality. Nearly half a million people were made homeless and uprooted and over 100,000 hectares of farmland had to be abandoned because of the fighting.

Vietnam forces were also joined by the ‘United Front for the National Salvation of Kampuchea’ (UNFSK), a smaller contingent of Khmer troops made up mostly of disaffected Khmer Rouge who had survived by fleeing into Vietnam or Laos, survivors of the Pol Pot purges and some Khmer Revolutionaries who had fled to Vietnam in the 1950s during the struggle for independence from France. On January 7,1979, the combined Vietnamese and UNFSK forces took Phnom Penh and offered the Kampucheans the hope of an end to the nightmare.

Nearly all Cambodians despite their different political persuasions, welcomed the Vietnamese as liberators from the atrocities and horrors of the Pol Pot years. The People’s Republic of Kampuchea was proclaimed on January 10, 1979, with Heng Samrin as President. However, the problem of survival and reconstruction faced the new government. The Vietnamese helped to restore the transport systems and administrative infrastructure which enabled international aid to get through. Private property was restored; schools reopened, and some Buddhist practices were reintroduced; cities were repopulated; and, with freedom of movement, internal trade flourished. Vietnam also provided 180,000 tons of food and seed rice by June of 1980 despite their own problems. As the news of Khmer Rouge atrocities spread, donations started coming from the western countries too but the main assistance came from the Soviet Bloc.

Vietnam assisted Cambodia in reconstruction and managing governance of the country. It was not an easy task as the remanent Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge continued to operate from jungles at the Thai border. They also created problem for getting the UN seat to the new government. Vietnam forces withdrew in September 1989 but not before giving Cambodia a semblance of stability bringing an end to an era of mass brutalities and decimating the Khmer Rouge. Those responsible for S-21 were sentenced in between 2010-2018. Vietnam also paid a price for this move- China had attacked Vietnam in February 1979.

The moot question is why the Vietnamese forces moved into Cambodia. While this is considered as a forgotten war, it was imperative for Vietnam at that time to eliminate the Khmer Rouge on humanitarian grounds and also for the protection of its borders from the increasing attacks by the Khmer Rouge. The continuation of the Khmer Rouge’s regime could have caused irreparable damage to Cambodia and its border raids could escalate into a full war with Vietnam. Vietnam’s action was in the nature of ‘timely riposte’ and not an ‘invasion’.

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