Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
welcomed, their arrival saving countless Cambodian lives. The Vietnamese found the
country starving and devastated, the infrastructure shattered. Cambodia now became
the
People's Republic of Kampuchea
(
PRK
), as the Vietnamese formed an interim
government in Phnom Penh made up of members of the KNUFNS; the president was
Heng Samrin, an ex-Khmer Rouge divisional commander, and its foreign minister
another ex-Khmer Rouge member (and future Cambodian prime minister),
Hun Sen
,
who had fled to Vietnam in 1977.
Under the PRK, markets, schools, freedom of movement and private farming were
re-established immediately, and by the following year, the use of money and religious
practice on a limited scale were reintroduced. Nevertheless, the formation of the PRK
caused many educated Cambodians, who had no intention of suffering more
communist rule, to flee to Thailand, where they swelled the already bursting refugee
camps; by 1981, 630,000 refugees had descended on Thailand (many of them Khmer
Rouge) and a further 150,000 were living in Vietnam.
Although coverage of Cambodia's plight brought limited aid from the West, the
havoc wrought by the Khmer Rouge was in general disregarded by the major powers,
who deemed Cambodia to be occupied under the Vietnamese and consequently
ostracized
the PRK (the USSR and India were notable exceptions). Safe in Thailand,
Pol Pot was supported by the Thai, Chinese and US governments, all ardently
against the communist Vietnamese, as the prime minister of the legitimate
government. As news of the Khmer Rouge atrocities surfaced, his supporters
preferred to continue to punish Vietnam; bizarrely, the Thais and Chinese fed,
clothed, trained and even rearmed Khmer Rouge soldiers, while UN agencies
were allowed to look after Khmer Rouge in their camps, but were prevented from
helping the decimated population of Cambodia.
As a counterweight to the PRK, the
Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea
(
CGDK
) was created as a government-in-exile in Thailand in 1982. It comprised Prince
Sihanouk, persuaded to join by the Chinese, and his FUNCINPEC party; Son Sann, a
previous prime minister of Cambodia and leader of the Khmer People's National
Liberation Front (KPNLF); and members of the Khmer Rouge. Although the CGDK
shared a common aim to rid Cambodia of the Vietnamese, they had no mechanism for
achieving it. The Khmer Rouge had the superior military forces and sent frequent
sorties across the border into Cambodia where they were repelled by the Vietnamese
and PRK. After particularly harsh fighting in 1983-85, the PRK went on a mine-
laying spree along the border with Thailand in an attempt to prevent these forays - the
start of the
land-mine scourge
which still plagues Cambodia today.
The Vietnamese withdrawal and its aftermath
Vietnam had never considered the occupation of Cambodia to be a long-term goal,
and while in charge had trained the Cambodian army in preparation for its own
withdrawal. With the crisis in Eastern Europe building up, the USSR drastically
reduced aid to the PRK government, making the occupation too expensive for the
Vietnamese to sustain, and by the end of September 1989 they had withdrawn
completely; shortly afterwards, the PRK government renamed the country the
State of Cambodia (SOC)
. Meanwhile, the government had altered the constitution
to institute Buddhism as the state religion and allowed people the right to own, trade
1966
1969-73
Sihanouk signs secret agreement with
Viet Cong guerrillas in South Vietnam
allowing them access to Cambodian
territory
The US launches massive, covert bombing raids over Cambodia
in attempt to target Viet Cong, with huge civilian casualites. At
the same time, the emerging Khmer Rouge begins a campaign of
insurgency
