Wednesday, October 5, 2011 Brief History of Vietnamese Expansionism
vis-à-vis
Cambodia<http://vietcamlao.blogspot.com/2011/10/brief-history-of-vietnamese.html#more>
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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