Wow, the US..... Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 24, 2008, at 4:25 PM, Ông-thu N <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In 1955, Sihanouk abdicated in favour of his father in order to be > elected Prime Minister. Upon his father's death in 1960, Sihanouk > again became head of state, taking the title of Prince. As the > Vietnam War progressed, Sihanouk adopted an official policy of > neutrality in the Cold War until Cambodians began to take sides, and > ousted in 1970 by a military coup led by Prime Minister General Lon > Nol and Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak, while on a trip abroad. From > Beijing, Sihanouk realigned himself with the communist Khmer Rouge > rebels who had been slowly gaining territory in the remote mountain > regions and urged his followers to help in overthrowing the pro- > United States government of Lon Nol, hastening the onset of civil war. > In the years since the Vietnam War, something of a consensus has > emerged on the extent of US involvement in Cambodia. The details are > controversial, but the narrative begins on March 18, 1969, when the > United States launched the Menu campaign. The joint US-South Vietnam > ground offensive followed. For the next three years, the United > States continued with air strikes under Nixon's orders, hitting deep > inside Cambodia's borders, first to root out the Viet Cong (VC)/ > North Vietnam Army (NVA) and later to protect the Lon Nol regime > from growing numbers of Cambodian Communist forces. Congress cut > funding for the war and imposed an end to the bombing on August 15, > 1973, amid calls for Nixon's impeachment for his deceit in > escalating the campaign. Operation Menu, a series of secret B-52 > bombing raids by the United States on alleged Viet Cong bases and > supply routes inside Cambodia, was acknowledged after Lon Nol > assumed power; U.S. forces briefly invaded Cambodia in a further > effort to disrupt the Viet Cong. The bombing continued and, as the > Cambodian communists began gaining ground, eventually included > strikes on suspected Khmer Rouge sites until halted in 1973. > Some two million Cambodians were made refugees by the bombing and > fighting and fled to Phnom Penh. Estimates of the number of > Cambodians killed during the bombing campaigns vary widely. Views of > the effects of the bombing also vary widely. The US Seventh Air > Force argued that the bombing prevented the fall of Phnom Penh in > 1973 by killing 16,000 of 25,500 Khmer Rouge fighters besieging the > city. Journalist William Shawcross and Cambodia specialists Milton > Osborne, David P. Chandler and Ben Kiernan argued that the bombing > drove peasants to join the Khmer Rouge. Chandler writes that the > bombing provided "the psychological ingredients of a violent, > vengeful and unrelenting social revolution." Cambodia specialist > Craig Etcheson argued that it is "untenable" to assert that the > Khmer Rouge would not have won but for US intervention, and that > while the bombing did help Khmer Rouge recruitment, they "would have > won anyway." > As the war ended, a draft US AID report observed that the country > faced famine in 1975, with 75% of its draft animals destroyed by the > war, and that rice planting for the next harvest would have to be > done "by the hard labor of seriously malnourished people." The > report predicted that without large-scale external food and > equipment assistance there will be widespread starvation between now > and next February... Slave labor and starvation rations for half the > nation's people (probably heaviest among those who supported the > republic) will be a cruel necessity for this year, and general > deprivation and suffering will stretch over the next two or three > years before Cambodia can get back to rice self-sufficiency. > The Khmer Rouge reached Phnom Penh and took power in 1975, changing > the official name of the country to Democratic Kampuchea, led by Pol > Pot. The Regime, heavily influenced and backed by China, immediately > evacuated the cities and sent the entire population on forced > marches to rural work projects. They attempted to rebuild the > country's agriculture on the model of the 11th century. They > discarded Western medicine, destroyed temples, libraries, and > anything considered western. Any person with trained skills, > doctors, lawyers, teachers, were especially targeted. With that > result, hundreds of thousands died from starvation and disease there > were almost no drugs in the country. > Estimates vary as to how many people were killed by the Khmer Rouge > regime, ranging from approximately one to three million. This era > has given rise to the term Killing Fields, and the prison Tuol Sleng > became as notorious as Auschwitz in the history of mass killing. > Hundreds of thousands more fled across the border into neighbouring > Thailand. > In November 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia to stop Khmer Rouge > incursions across the border and the genocide in Cambodia. Violent > occupation and warfare between the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge > holdouts continued throughout the 1980s. Peace efforts began in > Paris in 1989, culminating two years later in October 1991 in a > comprehensive peace settlement. The United Nations was given a > mandate to enforce a ceasefire, and deal with refugees and > disarmament. > After the brutality of the 1970s and the 1980s, and the destruction > of the cultural, economic, social and political life of Cambodia, it > is only in recent years that reconstruction efforts have begun and > some political stability has finally returned to Cambodia. The > stability established following the conflict was shaken in 1997 > during a coup d'état, but has otherwise remained in place. > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cambodia Discussion (CAMDISC) - www.cambodia.org" group. This is an unmoderated forum. Please refrain from using foul language. Thank you for your understanding. Peace among us and in Cambodia. 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