Colonial Kampuchea

The French colonial period

In October 1887, France proclaims the Indochinese Union including/understanding Kampuchea and the three areas constitutive of the Vietnam: Tonkin, Year, and Cochinchine “Kampuchea Krom”. The Laos was added to the union after being separated from the Thailand in 1893. The colonial chief official, responsible near the general governor for the union and sharpened by the ministry for the navy and the colonies with Paris, was the Résident Superior . The local residents or governors were posted in all the center principal of the provinces. In 1897 the general resident complains in Paris that the king Norodom Ier could not assume any more and received the permission to emit the decrees, to collect the taxes and to appoint the royal officials. Norodom and its successors were nothing any more but marionette S and the Buddhist religious leader. The colonial bureaucracy increased quickly. The French held the stations highest placed but even in the stations less interesting the Kampuchean ones found little opening because the colonial government preferred to engage the Vietnameses.

When Norodom died in 1904 the French rather made the transfer of the throne than to his/her children, with his/her brother Sisowath Yuthevong (1904 - 1927). The branch of Sisowath was considered as more co-operative because the first was regarded as partly responsible for the revolt for the years 1880 and the favorite son of Norodom, the Prince Yukanthor, had complained publicly about the injustices of colonization. During their generally peaceful reign, Sisowath and its son Monivong (1927 - 1941) collaborated. A measurement of the statute of the monarchs was their pension in Opium. One of the actions most important of the reign of Sisowath was the success of France to make sign Thailand of the king Chulalongkorn a new treaty in 1907 to return the provinces of the North-West of Battambang and Siemreab to Kampuchea.

A weak protectorate

Kampuchea, or more precisely the Kampuchean State, owes its survival only with the conflict of the French and English imperialisms of last century. The Khmer empire of the period angkorienne (8-14th century) exerted a long time its hegemony on Indo-China, before yielding little by little in front of the attacks which people descended from the Chinese borders carried to him, Thais. The Khmer State, undoubtedly exhausted by its great work and its mode of exploitation of the grounds, entered a continuous decline which with profit its powerful neighbors, the Thais reflect, in the North-West, and the Vietnamese soldiers, in the South, who invaded the provinces khmères of Cochinchine, old hindouized ground, at the 18th century. The decline had been made lethargy. A king without being able and money could not be opposed to these two rival imperialisms without their making, with each crisis, of the irremediable concessions. To escape the threat which was specified of a condominium siamo-Vietnamese, it remained with the Kampuchean monarch only to be placed under the supervision of the French. The latter, which had unloaded in Cochinchine, reflect some time to answer in advance of the court khmère for, finally, establishing their protectorate on Kampuchea in French 1864.Les sought at the time a way of penetration towards southernmost China Mekong appeared to them a long time as the axis most favourable with their aimings, but the geography was soon to undeceive them. They then deferred their efforts on the Red River, in the North of Vietnam. The " protection" Frenchwoman was to hold the Thais (also called Siamois) in respect, in a way besides relative. The French colonial strategists saw in the Khmer kingdom an area plug between the rich person Mekong delta, where they were firmly installed, and Siamese expansionism, actively supported by Great Britain which saw with mood the French taking foot in the Far East.

The fault of Kampuchea was to be poor. After twenty years of indirect administration, the authorities of Protectorate wanted to rationalize the operating system and to extend it to the entire country. Under the threat of the drain-holes anchored to some encablures of the Palais Royal, the French obliged king Norodom to sign, in 1884, a convention by which it gave up the reality of his capacities to the hands of the French administrators. The country started to be agitated and six months later, at the beginning of 1885, an insurrection burst. Small bands held the countryside, badgered the French stations and the columns sent to release them. Not very sure of their local troops, the French soldiers made come from the reinforcements of riflemen “year”, i.e. Vietnamese, but of number limited because the emperor of Hooted, Ham Nghi, had just taken, him also, the maquis and led the hard life to the French columns which pursued it in the provinces of the Vietnam Center. The French held banks of Mekong firmly, thanks to their drain-holes, but the back-country had become dangerous. They even last, at one moment, to think of strengthening Phnom Penh.

The insurrectionists had at their head of notable and the mandarins, sometimes even of the princes, who, legally, seemed to revolt against the royal authority. This last provided them a discrete support. It knew that the least proof of this complicity would be enough for the French to send it in exile. The attentive study of the events, area by area, watch as it was about a true popular guerilla, supported by general complicity, to which took part besides as well of the Chinese and the Vietnameses, especially in the frontier provinces. After a lull during the time of the harvests, the insurrection began again of more beautiful in 1886. The French authorities, to money court (the peasants did not pay any more the taxes), having lost several thousands of men, especially because of the diseases, resorted to negotiate with king Norodom who awaited them there. It obtained the restitution of its capacities, invited the insurrectionists to deposit the weapons and to line up under its administration, which they did with more or less reserves. The agreement of 1886 was only one stage in the deaf fight which opposed the colonial authorities to monarchy and the population Kampuchean. It acted for monarchy only of one victory in Pyrrhus: it saved its authority vis-a-vis the colonizers while being based on the popular forces which it was to then repress to maintain this same authority as the French, twenty years later, were going to empty of its contents. Isolated from the people, captive of the colonial administration, monarchy khmère, consequently handled by the French proconsuls, was not going any more to be, for a long time that a form without capacity.

Years 1885-1886 are those of the last great popular insurrection in Kampuchea, directed against the Western invaders. Was this only for this reason, it parallel with the insurrection of 1970 would be essential: in both cases, in fact the same areas are raised initially; it is the west of the country, between Phnom Penh and Vietnam; the bases of guerilla are in the same zones: chains of Cardamomes and the Elephant, forest in the north of Kompong Cham, buttresses of the high plateaus, towards Tây Ninh and Kratié. In both cases, part of the local elites join the maquis while remaining nominally under the authority of the sovereign. The Westerners make the same errors, are pressed on the same local, corrupted collaborators and often suspects to play double game. The same arguments are exchanged with the Parliament of the metropolis between holding and the adversaries of the military intervention. The history when she repeats herself becomes, according to Marx, bouffonne. Not in Indo-China.

The disappointment of the French was soon obvious. They had hoped for richnesses which did not exist; they had certainly been made grant, as of the beginning, the farm of the plays and the monopoly of opium, but the Kampuchean ones seemed not very in a hurry to be devoted to it. The artisanal production remained stagnant, the agricultural resources seemed ridiculous compared with those of the Mekong delta whose exploitation was then in the course of rationalization under the French supervision. Thus, with use, the market appeared indolent. The Kampuchean ones, satisfied with their material fate, without much need, cultivated to live and very little to sell. What had made the poverty of monarchy was going to maintain indigence the colonial administration. One ignored Kampuchea. One sent to it the civils servant unable, lazy, badly noted; one associated to them Vietnamese subordinates, broken better with the practice of the offices. There were besides in the country a notable minority Vietnamese of merchants, farmers and fishermen. As a whole, this administration was especially occupied to drowse; one left the craft industry péricliter, one granted the " grounds rouges" with French companies of hévéaculture, which made come their labor from Tonkin by using methods particularly brutales4; the construction of roads, hospital or schools was neglected; the economy was colonial there inside the colonial unit: “The economic role of Kampuchea says a document of the higher Residence, in 1942 partly consists in supplying the market of Saigon-Cholon and secondarily of whole Indo-China, in agricultural produce as out of raw materials which are exported, or are sometimes turned over to him in the form of end products or half-finis."

At no time indeed the French administration could design Kampuchea like another thing that a back-country: the absence of port, the configuration of the roads testify some; certain areas of the country, as the current province of Ratanakiri were not accessible, at the time, than starting from Vietnam. And Phnom Penh, pretty provincial small town, sommeillait to 300 km, by a fort good road, of Saigon, the large colonial metropolis. The Kampuchean ones hardly seemed to conceive bitterness of it; they lived, for the greatest number, in the ignorance of the outside world, ignorance maintained by the bonzes whose teaching and knowledge seldom exceeded the chant of some old devoted texts. The national feeling existed, certainly, but it did not bubble. The great symbols identificatoires, the religion and the throne, remained apparently in place. The privileged field of the colonial interference was the administration. Taxes, that the monarchs formerly made raise by often covetous mandarins had weighed down themselves much as French control had been tightened on the country. This sudden pressure generated in the country a new need for currency symbols. The introduction of the colonial currency, which was " chère" , depreciated the old sapèques ones. The tax was excessive and could not always be discharged. Jacqueries burst. One made give the troop. Only refuge of desperate, insolvent and of pursued, the traditional banditism remained flourishing in spite of French peace. The mountains and the jungles provided impregnable shelters. Their thin held to ransom resources, the peasants always did not scorn of razzier some close village to be remade. Taken, the gangsters were decapitated. Thus went the things in a campaign moreover extremely peaceful.

In the Thirties however appeared an small group of intellectuals trained with Western at which the national idea started to make its way. Several were Khmers krom, i.e. Khmers of Cochinchine, who, benefitting from the sharp effervescence which characterized Saigon, were located perhaps better to soak there with the large currents of Asian nationalism than in Phnom Penh, provincial most eminent of them, Its Ngoc Thanh, Khmer Krom born in Tra Vinh in Vietnam, came to settle in Phnom Penh and worked at the Buddhist Institute, lately created. It launched a newspaper, Nagaravatta (" Our cité") whose success caused a rising concern among the French persons in charge. Agitation, latent as from this moment with Phnom Penh, culminated in 1943 after the arrest of a professor of the Buddhist Institute, Hem Hieu, with which the writings stigmatized the colonial mode. Great demonstrations took place: the bonzes were numerous there to hold up the knotty handle their sunshades. Hundreds of arrests were carried out. Hem Hieu was off-set with the bagne of Poulo Condore, where he died. Its Ngoc Thanh flees in Japan, where, during two years, it accepted at the School of Large Asia Orientale the formation which the Japaneses gave to their foreign devoted henchmen. In 1941, the French administration had to solve the problem of the succession to the throne. Of the two branches of the royal family, Norodom and Sisowath, the French, since the death of old king Norodom in 1904, always had supported Sisowath, regarded as more flexible and more devoted to the French interests. But, in 1941, the most probable successor, Sisowath Monireth, inclined a little too much towards the ideas of independence. The Admiral Decoux, general governor of Indo-China, then made choose a whole young man, kid at the same time of the two branches of the royal family, which, for the time being, was high-school pupil in Saigon, Norodom Sihanouk. Kampuchea did not have a secondary school, Noridom Shianouk was boarder with the College Chasseloup Laubat in Saigon. Judging influenceable and fast liver, one made it go up on the throne without another form of lawsuit. The Japanese occupation, installed with the agreement of Vichy then the takeover by force of March 1945 brought the complete ruin and the disappearance of the colonial administration in all French Indo-China 7. As elsewhere in Asia, the Japanese pushed the local nationalists to proclaim independence, which king Sihanouk did at once. But this proclamation did not solve anything. No political clout could claim to use this independence to mobilize the farming community, as in Vietnam, in Java or Luçon. Leader mediums, i.e. the aristocracy and some handles of senior officials, divided on the policy to follow. Sihanouk and Monireth were in favor to remain under the French, even if it means wing to obtain a gradual evolution towards independence. Another current, animated by Its Ngoc Thanh, was in favor of a complete rupture with the old colonial power. Aligning itself completely on the Japanese who governed the country via their gendarmerie, Kampetaï, and their secret societies, His Ngoc Thanh makes a success of with their assistance a coup d'etat which did it Prime Minister, a few days before the Japanese capitulation of August 1945. The moment was hardly selected. Sihanouk which, meanwhile, had restored the absolute monarchy and jalousait the great popularity of Its Ngoc Thanh, discreetly called upon the Anglo-French forces which had just re-occupied Saigon. In October 1945, they arrived at Phnom Penh, parachuted on order of the Leclerc general. They stopped Its Ngôc Thanh and exiled it in France; its popularity was to avoid the execution post to him. Various negotiations between the French authorities, the king and the new leaders of the nationalist current, like prince Sisowath Youtevong, led to the granting in Kampuchea of the statute of a “autonomous State within the French Union” (January 1946). But it was only one very thin smoke screen behind which the colonial authorities continued to draw the strings and to keep the upper hand on all the important decisions, in particular on all those which touched the law and order.

Colonial economy

To have established their protectorate into 1863 shortly after the French realized that the hidden richness of Kampuchea was an illusion and that Phnom Penh would be never the Singapore of Indo-China. Separately little to obtain the taxes more effectively they made to change the structure based on the village. The Kampuchean ones paid the highest rate of taxes per capita of Indo-China and in 1916 a nonviolent protest several thousands of peasants in the capital brought a petition to the king for a reduction. This incident shocked the colonial administration which had thought that the Kampuchean ones were too indolent and individualist to organize a collective protest. The rate of taxes continued to be regarded as abusive. In 1925 of the villagers killed a French resident who threatened to make stop the déliquants. For the poor peasants the service of the drudgery - a substitute with the taxes - obliged to take part up to three months per annum on public works.

According to Hou Yuon (veteran by movement communist which was assassinated by the Khmer Rouge after they seized the power in 1975), wear increased the load of the taxes appreciably. The doctoral thesis with the Université of Paris in 1955 was one of the first and the most complete studies on the living conditions in the rural areas for the colonial period. He argued that although the majority of the farms were small (from one to five hectares) the poor peasants and of the middle-classes were victims of usurious practices which included effective interest rates from 100 to 200 percent. The non-payment reduced them to the statute proletarians or of labor. Although the Slavery for debts and feudality were formally prohibited the old elites always controlled the countryside. According to Hou, the large feudal farms because of their character precapitalist were disguised in smaller units in the form of hiring and divisions making them impossible to distinguish from true. That yes or not the countryside was polarized in terms of social classes is opened with the debate but it is clear that there were a great tension and conflict in spite of the smiles and the manners relaxed of the villagers.

To develop the economic infrastructure the administration built a certain number of roads and railway lines in particular those connecting Phnom Penh through Batdambang to the border inhabitant of Thailand. The plantations of hévéa and corn were very important and the fertile provinces of Batdambang and Siemrab became attics with rice of Indo-China. Years 1920 were very prosperous with the external request but the great depression broke the expansion.

Industry remained rudimentary and only to treat the raw materials like the rubber. The immigration was important which created a company comparable with much country of the south-west of Asia with an important Vietnamese portion who was small entrepreneurs. The Chinese had lived for several centuries and dominated the local store and they étendèrent their networks of bank.

The emergence of nationalism

In Net contrasts with the close Cochinchine and the other populated Vietnamese territories, Kampuchea was rather calm politically during the first four decades of the 20th century. The prudently maintained fiction of the royal capacity was a big factor because legitimates . The low level of those which were informed politically, that the administration did not wish to increase, maintained them out of the nationalist currents which swept the remainder of the western south of Asia.

Nevertheless, the nationalist conscience emerged from the handle of those which were the elite . The restoration of the monuments with Angkor woke up the pride in their culture and their successes of the past. Much in this new elite was graduate Sisowath college in Phnom Penh, where there was a dissatisfaction for positive discrimination in favor of the Vietnamese students, and started to publish in 1936 the first newspaper in Khmer language Nagaravatta (Angkor Wat) by Its Ngoc Thanh and Pach Choeun which denounced the seizure of Vietnamese.

The Khmer were happy to avoid the sufferings of almost all the other people of the area during the Second world war. After the establishment of the Régime of Vichy in France in 1940 the Japanese forces entered to Vietnam and took the place of the French authorities. To semi-1941 they entered to Kampuchea but did not touch with the colonial administration. The mode pro-Japanese in Thailand, with at its head the Phibunsonggram marshal, required that in the event of stop of French sovereignty the territories which were formerly with its country would be returned to him. In front of the refusal a force inhabitant of Thailand invades Kampuchea. The war on ground was undecided but the French had a victory over the marine Thai in the gulf of Thailand. At this time Tokyo intervened and obliged the French authorities to sign a treaty yielding the province of Batdambang and part of that of Siemrad to Thailand for a compensation symbolic system. Kampuchea kept Angkor. The aggression inhabitant of Thailand have a minimal impact on the lives of the population apart from the provinces of the west.

King Monivong died in April 1941. Although his/her son, prince Monireth was his heir the colonial administration chooses Norodom Sihanouk rather, the back small son of king Norodom because it was young (it was nineteen years old) and seemed to them favorable.

The call of the Japanese for “Asia with Asian” found an audience receptive among the Kampuchean nationalists, although the policy of Tokyo in Indo-China was to leave the colonial authority nominally. When an active buddhist monk politically Hem Chieu, was stopped and stripped without ceremony by the administration in July 1942 the editors of Nagaravatta carried out a demonstration to ask its release. They, like the other nationalists, apparently had over-estimated the Japanese will to support them, which allowed the authorities of Vichy them stopped and to condemn Pach Choeun, one of the leader-writers at the life imprisonment. The other flees and it was found the following year in Tokyo.

In a desperate effort to recruit local support in the last months of the war the Japanese made dissolve the colonial administration on March 9th, 1945 and pressed Kampuchea to declare its independence in the Grande sphere of coprosperity of the East Asia. For four days king Sihanouk declared Kampuchea independent. Its Ngoc Thanh returned from Tokyo in May and was named Foreign Minister. August 15th, 1945 it was named Prime Minister. When a force of the Allies occupied Phnom Penh Thanh in October was stopped for collaboration with the Japanese and was sent in France to remain confined in its residence. Some of its supporters went in the western north of Kampuchea then always under control inhabitant of Thailand where they joined the Khmer movement Issarak.

The fight for independence

The situation of Kampuchea at the end of the war was chaotic. The French of the de Gaulle general were decided to recover Indo-China, although they offered to Kampuchea and other protectorates of Indo-China of measurements of limited autonomy. Convinced that they had a civilizing mission they considered the participation of Indo-China in a kind of union of the country sharing the same French culture. Neither the urban professionals nor the people were interested by this arrangement. For almost all Kampuchean the short period of independence was a puff of fresh air. Their resignation was a thing of the past.

At Phnom Penh Sihanouk acting as Head of the State was placed in a delicate position to negotiate with the French for a complete independence while it tried to neutralize the politicians and supporters of the Issarak Khmer and the Viet Minh which regarded it as a collaborator of the French. For the tumultuous period between 1946 and 1953 Sihanouk showed a remarkable aptitude for the political survival which it continued until its fall of the capacity in March 1970. The Issarak Khmer was an extremely heterogeneous movement of guerilla acting in the zones of the border. This movement included/understood anti-monarchical gauchists, nationalists and simple gangsters who took advantage of chaos to terrorize the villagers. Although their fortunes vary (they underwent an important loss with the loss of the support of Thailand in 1947) in 1954 operative with the Vietnamese soldier Minh it controlled almost half of the territory.

In 1946 the administration authorized the formation of political parties and to hold of the elections for a Consultative Assembly which would advise the monarch to write a constitution. The two principal parties had at their head a royal prince. The democratic party, carried out by the prince Sisowath Yuthevong, put independence ahead with democratic reforms and a parliamentary government. Its partisans were the teachers, the civils servant, those politically active in the Buddhist priests and those influenced by the nationalist calls of the Nagaravatta . They at least partially approved the violent methods of Issarak. The liberal party, with the prince Norodom Norindeth, represented the old rural elites which preferred a relation colonial with France and of the very gradual reforms. In the assembly resulting from the elections of September 1946 the democrats held fifty of the sixty seven seats.

With this solid majority the democrats established a constitution copied from that of the fourth republic of France with the capacity in the hands of the assembly. The king proclaimed with regret the new constitution on May 6th, 1947. Although he is recognized as the spiritual leader of the state it reduced it to being a constitutional monarch and left fuzzy the role which he could have. Sihanouk turned cetteambiguïté to its advantage the years following, however.

In December 1947 with the elections for the National Assembly the democrats gained a vast majority again. In spite of that the dissension in the party was crawling. Its founder had died and no obvious chief had emerged to succeed to him. In 1948 and the 1949 democrats are plain only in their opposition to the legislation supported by the king or those which it named in particular the union suggested by France which ensured 50% of independence.

Sihanouk in June 1952 took the total control of the capacity and even issued the martial law in January 1953. Independence was declared on November 9th, 1953.

Saigon and its " Far West"

At the end of April, an officer of Saigon, colonel Vo Huu Hành, ordering the special zone 44 on the Kampuchean border, gets off his helicopter to the airport of Pochentong-Phnom Penh. He is the first military of president Nguyên Van Thiêu in official visit, but secret representative, in Kampuchea. A civil delegation is indeed already on the spot to try, without much success, to regulate the problems arising from the repression of the civil community Vietnamese. Other teams of the intelligence services of Saigon are already with work in the capital khmère like in two provincial towns. Colonel Hành comes to contact the Khmer staff. The modern part of the Contentieux Khméro-Vietnamese is there, whereas the old part refers to the conquest of the Mekong delta by the Vietnameses with the costs of the Khmer kingdom at the last centuries.

Its interlocutors, which is astonished that president Thiêu did not dispatch a general officer to them, it reminds that the forces placed under its command are higher than those of all the kingdom. It has a complete division at eight hours of walk only of Phnom Penh and with which it is in permanent radio contact. Of colonel Hành, the general Lon Nol would have said later: " It is the ambassador vautour." As of the first contacts the officers of Saigon indeed found the tone with regard to their new Khmer allies. They do not intend to chew their words or to take account of susceptibilities. There will be no ambiguities: the gift of president Nixon is poisoned. The mode of the general Lon Nol wished the fast arrival of a guard. The army of Saigon initially will save it, then to defend it and finally to secure control of it.

At the beginning, Saigon hesitates in front of the American proposal. The Abrams general, commander-in-chief of the American troops in Vietnam, indeed suggests a forwarding combined with Kampuchea. President Thiêu is receptive but it is not the case of the staff saigonnais. He worries about the extent and the innovation of the task that one proposes to him. If the Americans must indeed limit their intervention to the north-eastern part of the country and carry the large one of their effort in the area of the Hook where they think of finding important installations Vietcong, the South Vietnamese soldiers are invited to make well more: to assemble operations all along the border, of the " Nozzle of Canard" with the gulf of Siam without knowing too much which limits one fixes to them in-depth. One promises the air support and the support of American flying artillery bases to them. But it is not, in any event a routine operation: it is a question, with the low word, of setting in motion the equivalent of 2 divisions, without counting the flotilla of some 200 boats of attack which must go up Mekong until Phnom Penh and even Kompong Cham to collect there the Vietnamese civilians parked in are concentration camps. One thus asks them to engage in this forwarding 4 times more troops than their American allies. It is well what rejects the operational staff.

Resistances will yield only in front of the gleaming of the spoils. The soldiers are invited to spare the civil population khmère and, in particular, not to kill out of the innocent peasants. On the other hand, plundering is tolerated, to say as much that it is frankly authorized. The South Vietnamese soldiers besides not only will violate but rafler what they find on their passage and to charge it on trucks which make to and from between the field of operations and the border. Private cars will be even transported to Vietnam by helicopter. It is an good occasion for the mode to calm, in period of inflation, the dissatisfaction with an army well badly paid. The plans of the generals of Saigon will appear, with use, much better than envisaged. Between the 3 operational staffs created along the border, those of Tây Ninh, Moc Hoa and Chau Doc., and a fourth, bench later with Hà Tiên, coordination is good. While the American troops, those of the general Tri C CAD (Tây-Ninh), of colonel Vo Huu Hành (Moc-Hoa) and of the general Ngô Dzu (Chau Doc.) sweep the zones of " sanctuaires" and the main roads reopen which cross them, the flotilla of Saigon unloads other troops on banks of Mekong before gaining Phnom Penh and Kompong Cham. It is a question of taking the insurrectionists with reverse. Meanwhile, of the combined operations are assembled by the LuLan general, in the area of the high plateaus and another division of Saigon occupies the South-east of the kingdom, on the gulf of Siam. Lastly, a fleet operates the blockade of the port of Sihanoukville.

In a first phase, starting from April 29th and until May 10th, the troops of Saigon thus intervene in the areas controlled by the FUNK. and FNL. In the second time, to face the guerilla who gains all the country, they will take directly the changing of the army khmère: occupation of the plantations of Chup, catch of Kompong Cham and Tonlé Study Bureau, on Mekong, several cities in South-east and Is in particular Kampot, Prey Veng and Kompong Speu. Takeo and Svay Riêng, two other cities of the area are released. May 10th, after having begun again Neak Leung, where road N• 1 which connects Saigon with Phnom Penh crosses Mekong by a vat, the South-Vietnameses decide to arrange an enough roomy base to accommodate in 24 hours only the equivalent of a division Neak Leung is to 60 km below Phnom Penh. The goal of the operation is to have an effective head of bridge if the Kampuchean capital would be directly threatened by an offensive of the men of the maquis. As also the unloading with Pochentong of the " underlines it; mike force" , the protection of Phnom Penh is, at the beginning of May, in the forefront of the concerns of the staffs saigonnais. The installation of Neak Leung does not come, in fact, that to reveal oe which had been woven for two months.

Before their invasion of force of Kampuchea on April 29th, 1970, the Americans and their allies South Vietnamese already made, as it is known, several incursions in Khmer territory: March 20th, South Vietnamese operation in the " Nozzle of Canard" , with air support on March 27th intervention of an armor-plated unit and air raids of the South-Vietnameses; April 5th, two battalions of Saigon S insert until 16km inside Kampuchea, from April 12th to 16th, penetration of several South Vietnamese units to 8 km, inside Kampuchea. April 14th, first operation combined between the staffs of Saigon and Phnom Penh (it is at that time, according to Mr. Laird, American secretary with the defense which the insurrectionists began the evacuation of the " Nozzle of canard" to move, according to its own declarations " for the first time in the other direction" and " reduces thus; much risks for the forces américaines"); April 20th, invasion of night of the " Nozzle of Canard" by battalions of armoured tanks and " rangers" South Vietnamese. April 21st, intervention of South Vietnamese forces in the province of Takeo. April 25th, beginning of the systematic bombardment of the North-East of the kingdom by the United States Air Force. April 26th, first American operation héliportée in the sector of Hameço.Entre-time, Washington and Phnom Penh respectively recognize the 15 and on April 21st, that the general Lon Nol requested from the US government initially weapons and military equipment, and then the sending of the " mike force" 3. The White House proceeds, for its part, with a " escalade" declarations and decisions which precedes the massive invasion: it " décourage" initially incursions South Vietnamese (Mr. Rogers, secretary of the State Department, on April 2nd) after having disapproved them; she announces later that in front of " the climbing of the enemy in Laos and Cambodge" , it " will not hesitate to take severe and effective measures to face the situation" (President Nixon, on April 20th); she recognizes that weapons captured in Vietnam are provided to Phnom Penh (April 22nd) and that a first batch was delivered by Saigon with the approval of Washington (April 23rd); she declares finally that several South Vietnamese incursions actually took place in Kampuchea, that they were " enough fructueuses" and that an inversion of the mode of Phnom Penh could call into question the withdrawals of American troops of Vietnam (Mr. Rogers, on April 27th).

In fact, the Americans carried out only one catch of relay. Their intervention in the Kampuchean crisis is at the beginning, when the things are set up, when the plot takes a final turning, that the general Lon Nol seeks guarantees and insurances, that Saigon needs to be hustled. It is the time of the boarding of Columbia Eagle4, that of the discrete encouragements and the first pledges, denials and the warnings. But once the launched intervention, Washington withdraws front of the scene. Saigon is posed more and more at the same time like an intermediary and a screen between Phnom Penh and the Americans. At June 30th, 1970, the American troops are withdrawn from Kampuchea, their continuous aviation to only intervene on the whole of the territory. The South-Vietnameses remain on the spot with variable manpower, but which generally turn around twenty to thirty thousand men. The Kampuchean ones are obliged to get along directly with eux5. They are far from being delighted some. With, of course, the agreement of the American staff and especially his material support and the support of its aviation, Saigon takes in hand the direction of the operations in Kampuchea. A staff is installed in Phnom Penh; it with the upper hand on the decisions of the Kampuchean staff since he gets the equipment, the weapons, the ammunition, the means of transport and of radio to him, logistics in general, without counting that he only decides with regard to the air support, the sending of South Vietnamese reinforcements, the release of appropriations and the drive of the Kampuchean troops. This staff depends directly on Saigon which reflects the decisions suggested on the various services or operational staffs charged with the exécuter6. Of course, these provisions are provisional. The army of Phnom Penh would have little by little, it is at least the initial intention, to take the changing of the South-Vietnameses, " khmériser" the war.

The political pressures of Saigon on Phnom Penh will be of as much less discrete than the South-Vienamiens can assert the law of the strongest and be cut off easily behind a pretext very found, the racist policy of the " government of sauvetage". The mode of Saigon, like the American services, has his/her own Kampuchean fellow travellers. One sees them reappearing on the front of the scene. The government of rescue is altered to make them a place. July 21st, 1970, prince Sirik Niatak, while remaining Deputy Prime Minister, gives up the load of five ministries to deal with the governmental businesses. It is known that president Thiêu prefers this man considered to be energetic with the general Lon Nol, that supports on the other hand the Ky vice-president. The entourage of the Thiêu general reproaches at the time with the chief of the " government of sauvetage" not to express enough " good volonté" in the co-operation with Saigon. In fact, it is a question of stopping an operation started by the general Ty and who would allow him to make use of Phnom Penh, as he does it certain politicians saigonnais, in his arguments with president Thiêu. Sirik Matak thus becomes Prime Minister by interim, which it was already more or less, but it controls less the government of which it assumes from now on, in the facts, the direction. The same day, Mr. Yem Sambaur, Foreign Minister who, for this reason, has gone to Saigon and has just exchanged with the South-Vietnameses of the rather sour remarks, gives up his important functions to deal of the relations with the Parliament and justice. It is replaced with the Foreign affairs by a more unobtrusive man in the person of Koun Wick.

The " government of sauvetage" , which tried during several weeks to face the situation, is at the same time confronted with a " révolte" of the National Assembly. The deputies ask for the resignation of several ministers and obtain that an executive committee indicated by the Parliament controls from now on the action of the government. This crisis, in fact, returns in the play of Saigon. Douc Rasy, one of the most intelligent representatives of the extreme-right-hand side, and especially faithful of Sirik Matak, is elected to the head of this committee. The Parliament, on another side, furious of the course of the voyage of Yem Sambaur in Saigon, also claims her démission7. As Yem Sambaur is known for its bonds with the Americans, prince Sirik Matak finds blow practically alone with the direction of the businesses but in a very precarious position. On a side the general Lon Nol, for diplomatic reasons, remained nominal the Prime Minister. Of another, it can count only on the support of president Thiêu, who will support it only as long as that will be appropriate to him. Lastly, it is doubled in the person of Its Ngoc Thanh, of an agent of the the CIA which, while being only to advise government, has the rank of vice-president of the council. In the three months space, Phnom Penh became the reflection of Saigon. One finds there same cleavages and the factions run up same manner against it.

The answer khmère was the massacre per thousands of the Vietnamese civil residents in Kampuchea since generations. Buried with CAD Lanh, in border region with Kampuchea, the father of Ho Chi Minh made his first nationalist agitations near this population Vietnamese of Kampuchea, just like Garibaldi started in Argentina near the Italian immigrants. This video testifies to this massacre. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzIVQeecEW8

To visualize the video files of massacres anti-Vietnamese: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrTPQIHxfMs&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgFuEu4gZSE&mode=related&search=

- Executions, death in prison: from 500.000 to 1 million.

- Died of hunger or disease (resulting from the sending in unhealthy zone without medicamentous protection: from 700.000 to 900.000.

- Died during the deportation or by exhaustion with work: from 100.000 to 400.000.

- Total: 1,3 to 2,3 million (on a population of approximately 7,5 million people in 1975)

Massacre Ba Chuc and lay Phi

In April 1978, the Khmer Rouges passed the border and massacred the population of the frontier Vietnamese villages. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h5vJRuK_rA&mode=related&search=

http://khmercanada.site.voila.fr/atrocites.htm

http://khmercanada.site.voila.fr/cambodge64.htm
of the Vietnamese massacres under Lon Nol and Pol Pot:
http://khmercanada.site.voila.fr/atrocites.htm

Video of the return to the life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hBlHN-wtzY&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3UzzQ-9uu0&mode=related&search=

1970 “Coup d'etat” of Lon Nol and massacre of the minorities Vietnameses of Kampuchea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrTPQIHxfMs&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgFuEu4gZSE&mode=related&search=

See too

History of Kampuchea

Random links: