Wed, 07 Jan 2009
DPA
Phnom Penh - Cambodia on Wednesday marked 30 years since the downfall of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime with a carefully choreographed stadium ceremony organized and dominated by the country's powerful ruling party. A crowd of more than 40,000 at Phnom Penh's Olympic Stadium cheered throughout the ceremony, which marked the 30th anniversary of the day Vietnamese-led forces invaded Cambodia and ended the Khmer Rouge's bloody four-year reign.
The president of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), Chea Sim, said during his speech the invasion "saved the nation, fatherland and people from the harsh regime of genocide."
"It is based on this victory that the Cambodian territory continues to exist and to last while the Cambodian people have survived and made progress up to the present as well for the future," he said.
The speech was followed by traditional Cambodian dancing and a parade featuring elaborate floats, school children, farmers and military marching bands.
Chey Som Bok, a farmer who lived under the Khmer Rouge and marched in the parade, described the anniversary as a great day for Cambodia.
"I remember what it was like living under the Khmer Rouge regime," he said. "They forced us all to work in the fields very hard and eat no food for days. That's why it makes me so happy to be here today."
King Norodom Sihamoni did not attend the event and none of the opposition political parties - some of which view January 7, 1979 as the beginning of Vietnam's 10-year occupation - participated in the proceedings.
Human Rights Party president Kem Sokha said he was "not interested" in the ceremony because the CPP did not want to fully represent what occurred after the 1979 invasion.
"The CPP sees the invasion as a liberation, but I want the European Community to realize that 7 January 1979 was a Vietnamese invasion. What happened today was purely political," he said
The CPP's insignia was prominent throughout the ceremony, appearing alongside the Cambodian flag on banners, on flags carried by marchers and even on balloons released by children at the ceremony's conclusion.
Up to two million people died through execution, starvation and exhaustion during the Khmer Rouge's rule between 1975 and 1979, as the ultra-communist group sought to transform Cambodian society into an agrarian socialist utopia.
Five former Khmer Rouge are currently facing trial for crimes against humanity before a UN-backed tribunal, but Chea Sim made no mention of the tribunal during his speech.
International human rights groups have criticized the Cambodian government for delays in bringing the leaders to trial and early this week the US-based Human Rights Watch accused Prime Minister Hun Sen of deliberately obstructing the tribunal process and thwarting efforts to have more former Khmer Rouge leaders arrested.
"No serious observer believes there is any threat to Cambodia's stability if additional cases are filed against alleged Khmer Rouge killers," Human Rights Watch Asia director Brad Adams said in a statement.
"On the 30th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge's fall from power, the Cambodian government is playing games. This is a transparently political attempt to stop the court from doing its work," Adams said.
A number of CPP leaders are former Khmer Rouge members who defected before joining the Vietnamese-led invasion.
The president of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP), Chea Sim, said during his speech the invasion "saved the nation, fatherland and people from the harsh regime of genocide."
"It is based on this victory that the Cambodian territory continues to exist and to last while the Cambodian people have survived and made progress up to the present as well for the future," he said.
The speech was followed by traditional Cambodian dancing and a parade featuring elaborate floats, school children, farmers and military marching bands.
Chey Som Bok, a farmer who lived under the Khmer Rouge and marched in the parade, described the anniversary as a great day for Cambodia.
"I remember what it was like living under the Khmer Rouge regime," he said. "They forced us all to work in the fields very hard and eat no food for days. That's why it makes me so happy to be here today."
King Norodom Sihamoni did not attend the event and none of the opposition political parties - some of which view January 7, 1979 as the beginning of Vietnam's 10-year occupation - participated in the proceedings.
Human Rights Party president Kem Sokha said he was "not interested" in the ceremony because the CPP did not want to fully represent what occurred after the 1979 invasion.
"The CPP sees the invasion as a liberation, but I want the European Community to realize that 7 January 1979 was a Vietnamese invasion. What happened today was purely political," he said
The CPP's insignia was prominent throughout the ceremony, appearing alongside the Cambodian flag on banners, on flags carried by marchers and even on balloons released by children at the ceremony's conclusion.
Up to two million people died through execution, starvation and exhaustion during the Khmer Rouge's rule between 1975 and 1979, as the ultra-communist group sought to transform Cambodian society into an agrarian socialist utopia.
Five former Khmer Rouge are currently facing trial for crimes against humanity before a UN-backed tribunal, but Chea Sim made no mention of the tribunal during his speech.
International human rights groups have criticized the Cambodian government for delays in bringing the leaders to trial and early this week the US-based Human Rights Watch accused Prime Minister Hun Sen of deliberately obstructing the tribunal process and thwarting efforts to have more former Khmer Rouge leaders arrested.
"No serious observer believes there is any threat to Cambodia's stability if additional cases are filed against alleged Khmer Rouge killers," Human Rights Watch Asia director Brad Adams said in a statement.
"On the 30th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge's fall from power, the Cambodian government is playing games. This is a transparently political attempt to stop the court from doing its work," Adams said.
A number of CPP leaders are former Khmer Rouge members who defected before joining the Vietnamese-led invasion.
13 comments:
KI Team,
I just finished writing the article below, and appreciate if you can post it on the main page.
Thank you and long live to the Khmer Nation
Khmer Academy
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The Untold Truth of Jan 07, 1979.
The event of Jan 07, 1979 continues to generate protracted debates in our country at different levels and classes of society. Whether at political or academic institutions, professional or business communities, or casual web blogs, these debates have polarized the nation into two camps – the increasing majority who view Jan 07, 1979 as a full scale invasion with the intent-to-occupy; and the few who, for a matter of convenience, chooses to portray it as a genuine humanitarian intervention from Hanoi to save Khmer people from the KR killing machine.
At the center of these debates, the very same question has been raised repeatedly. What was the real motive(s) leading to the Jan 07, 1979 event? To these days, the answers to that question not only remain unsettled, but also continue to predominantly influence the nation affairs because of its far-reaching historical, socio-political and economical dimensions.
In this editorial, the author will endeavour to present an impartial view of the Jan 07 event based on personal experience, available historical and researched data, and genuine and verifiable information from credible sources; and hope to set the record straight.
In order to correctly understand the real motive(s) behind the Jan 07 event, it is important to revisit a series of key events starting from the Indochina anti-colonial war era.
During the struggle against the French colonialism (1946 -1954), a small number of Khmer nationals joint the Indochina Communist Party (ICP) which was created and controlled by the Vietnamese communists. However, many Khmer nationalists and intellectuals who also sought the independence from France at that time refused to joint the ICP movement because it was evident to them that the military defeat or rapid withdrawal of French colonialism would open the door for Vietnam to annex Cambodia.
In 1951, the Khmer section of the ICP was given the name of Khmer People’s Revolutionary Party (KPRP) under the leadership of Son Ngoc Minh, Sieu Heng and Tou Samut. Although they had their own party name, the KPRP leaders were nothing more than obedient executors of all plans drafted by the Vietnamese communists.
The Vietnamese communists betrayed their KPRP comrades when they signed the 1954 Geneva Agreements and withdrew their combat units from Cambodia. That betrayal allowed the Sihanouk armed forces to reclaim the zones occupied by the ICP and consequently liquidate many KPRP members. On the verge of collapsing, the KPRP went underground and largely disappeared from Hanoi vision for many years.
As the Vietnamese communists started the unification war in the South, they made an alliance with Sihanouk in order to use Khmer territory to create rear bases and deliver ammunitions and weapons to the South. In exchange, the Vietnamese communists would again betray their Khmer communist comrades by scrapping all plans for the Khmer communists to fight the Sihanouk regime.
With no outsider help and little hope to win, Sieu Heng, the second-in-command leader of KPRP, betrayed his comrades and secretly informed Sihanouk regime of Khmer communist activities in the country. In 1962, Sihanouk secret police found and killed Tou Samut at a hide-out in Phnom Penh.
In the middle of the KPRP chaos and absence of firm control from Hanoi, Pol Pot managed to get himself elected to the post of the General Secretary during the party congress in 1963. Completely caught Hanoi off-guard, Pol Pot quickly renamed the KPRP to the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK). Pol Pot later explained that the reason for changing the party name from KPRP to CPK was that the ICP and its by-product KPRP were created by Vietnam to occupy Cambodia and Laos lands.
By mid sixties, Hanoi realised that Sihanouk’s support for its armed struggle against American imperialism was weakening as Lon Nol and Sirik Matak increasingly opposed such support. Hanoi suddenly remembered its old allies – the KPRP, which had been renamed to CPK. However, Hanoi found out that due to its oversight or negligence, it had to confront many unexpected problems with the new CPK leadership.
People in Pol Pot’s clan who were nominated to occupy highest posts were largely unknown and suspicious to Hanoi because they were educated in France and were not checked for allegiance to the Vietnamese communists. Furthermore, unlike his elder comrades or predecessors from the 1950’s era, Pol Pot openly and vigorously promoted and defended a policy that Khmer communists should act in accordance with their own purposes and interests independent of all (i.e. independent of interests of Vietnamese brothers).
Recognizing the threat that Pol Pot’s clan was setting aside its interests, Hanoi considered two options – creating a new communist party in Cambodia with Khmers trained in Vietnam, or infiltrating agents inside Pol Pot’s structure. The Vietnamese communist leaders picked the second option which allowed Pol Pot to temporarily preserve the power, but hoped their infiltrating agents would be able to gradually remove him from the leadership position.
A few days after the Sihanouk regime was disposed by the military coup d’etat of Mar 18, 1970, the Vietnamese communists entered Cambodia arguably in response to Nuon Chea’s request. The Vietnamese occupied almost a quarter of Cambodia territory and transferred the control of the “liberated” regions to CPK. During that time, the Vietnamese leadership aroused obvious hostility and mistrust among Khmer communist leadership when it openly declared that the Cambodian communist party was given a subordinate role and obliged to follow all directions set by the Vietnamese Workers Party (VWP).
Under the 1973 Peace Agreement signed in Paris, Hanoi agreed to fully withdraw its forces from Cambodia. That agreement represented a unique opportunity for Pol Pot’s clan to break the Vietnamese influence and control within the Khmer communist structure. In the same year, Vietnamese communist leadership publicly admitted that the initiatives taken by the Khmer communists were out of its hands. In 1974, Pol Pot made it known to Le Duan that the relationship between the two communist parties was based on mutual respect and non-interference.
With the communist victories in Phnom Penh and Saigon in 1975, Hanoi had successfully accomplished one of the two Ho Chi Minh’s sacred dreams – unify North and South Vietnams, but failed the other dream – creation of Indochina Socialist Federation under the Vietnamese domination. Pol Pot continued to defy Hanoi by declaring that the KR had won a definitive and clean victory without foreign assistance, meaning the KR did not owe anything to Vietnam.
But that was not how Hanoi saw it. Hanoi was hoping that their infiltrating agents were working to gradually strengthening its influence in Cambodia. By September 1976, under the pressure from various factions, Pol Pot temporarily resigned his post of Prime Minister and made statements to fool his enemies that he was willing to soften his stance toward Vietnam.
The news of Pol Pot’s resignation was seen by Hanoi that its infiltrating agents were gaining the upper hand. In that same year, Le Duan indirectly told the Soviet Ambassador that Cambodia would become sooner or later part of Vietnam.
It turned out the news about Pol Pot’s resignation was totally misunderstood or misinterpreted by Hanoi. Hundreds if not thousands of KR pro-Vietnamese cadres trained and “introduced” by Hanoi into Pol Pot ‘s structure were arrested and tortured while Le Duan was telling his Soviet allies that Pol Pot’s clan was weakening.
For all these years, Hanoi incorrectly thought that people like So Phim, Ta Mok and Nuon Chea were loyal and sympathetic to the Indochina federation idea. Soa Phim may have opposed the Pol Pot’s killing regime, but by no way he was a pro-Vietnamese as Hanoi had sought. In fact, Soa Phim was a bitterly anti-Vietnamese.
Hanoi finally recognized its obvious and repeated failures to remove Pol Pot from power through internal uprising, and lost patient with the endless border fighting started by the KR since Spring 1977. It also realized that the Beijing was training, arming KR soldiers, building roads and military bases, including the Air Force base in Kampong Chhnang, which made it possible for a fighter jet to take off and reach Saigon with less than half an hour. Such possibility posed an unacceptable threat to Vietnam national security, and Hanoi was compelled to plot a new strategy to get rid of Pol Pot by staging a coup d’etat through the mutiny of the Eastern zone military forces. Since that option ended with a complete disaster and suicide of Soa Phim, Hanoi finally decided to overthrow Pol Pot regime by a massive military invasion, which were secretly and meticulously prepared since Summer 1977.
All of these preceding events undeniably suggest that the real motive of January 07, 1979 event was for Vietnam to re-conquer Cambodia and reassert its control and domination in a preparation for the eventual creation of Indochina Federation state. The presence of millions of Vietnamese illegal settlers on Cambodian soil today strongly supports that argument.
If many Khmer people lives were saved from the KR systematic executions by the January 07 event, it was simply an unexpected or accidental coincidence. For that reason, Khmer people celebrates the January 07, 1979 event only as the end of the KR killing regime, but never as a recognition of the Vietnamese intervention.
As it happened with other events in history, Vietnam through its agents and sympathizers can present the event of Jan 07, 1979 in the way that fits its expansionist agenda, but it can never fool the understanding and gain the trust of the Khmer nation.
Khmer Academy
What kind of Khmer Academy is this?
Conclude your point!
Who obstruct the UN-backed tribunal make a double crimes:
- the first crime: they participate with the KR.
- the second crime: they prevent justice from khmer people.
"ថ្ងៃ ៧ មករា ១៩៧៩ ជាថ្ងៃបរាជ័យ នៃរបបប៉ុល ពល និងជាថ្ងៃដែលកូនខ្មែរចេញពី របបកុំមុយនិស្ត ផ្តាច់ការមួយ (ប៉ុល ពត) ចូលទៅ របបកុំមុយនិស្តផ្តាច់ការ (យួនកាន់កាប់) មួយទៀត។ កូនខ្មែររស់ទ្រាំទ្រវេទនា ជាពិសេសក្រោមការកាន់កាប់ របស់យួនរហូតដល់ ថ្ងៃ ២៣ តុលា ១៩៩១ (សន្ធិសញ្ញាក្រុងប៉ារីស) ទើបបានស្គាល់ពន្លឺសេរីភាពខ្លះៗ។
ប៉ុន្តែ ថ្ងៃដែលកូនខ្មែរពិតជាបានស្គាល់សេរីភាពដំបូង គឺ ថ្ងៃ ២៣ ដល់ ២៨ ឧសភា ១៩៩៣ (ថ្ងៃបោះឆ្នោត រើសតំណាងរាស្រ្តលើកដំបូង ទូទាំងប្រទេសខ្មែរ រៀបចំឡើងដោយអង្គការ UNTAC តំណាងអង្គការសហប្រជាជាតិ) ហើយរាជាណាចក្រទី ២ ក៏បានចាប់បដិសន្ធិឡើង នៅឆ្នាំ ១៩៩៣ ដែរ"
នោះជាឃ្លាដែល កូនខ្មែរគ្រប់ជំនាន់ ត្រូវតែចងចាំជានិច្ច គ្មានភ្លេចមួយវិនាទី ព្រោះថ្ងៃ ៧ មករា ១៩៧៩ ជានិមិត្តរូប នៃលំហូរពួកយួន ចូលតាំងទី នៅប្រទេសខ្មែរ ក្នុងគោលដៅលេប យកប្រទេសខ្មែរ ដោយសន្តិវិធី ក្នុងអនាគតមិនយូរ, ក៏ជាថ្ងៃរំលឹកឡើងវិញ អំពើក្បត់ជាតិ របស់អាសំដាចម៍ក្បត់ជាតិ អគ្គមហាសេវាដៃចោរហ៊ុន សែនខូចសរសៃប្រសាទ (បើតាមសំដីរបស់ប៉ែន សុវណ្ណ, អតីតចៅហ្វាយរបស់ហ៊ុន សែន) កាត់ដីអោយយួន នៅឆ្នាំ ១៩៨០, ១៩៨៥, ១៩៩០, ២០០៥។
ឆ្នាំថ្មី ២០០៩, ជូនពរអាសំដាចម៍ហ៊ុន សែនងាប់តៃហោង ដោយរន្ទះបាញ់ដូចអាយួនហុក ឡងឌី ទៅហោង!!!
it was more to the invasion than just "liberation", my dear. if you scrutinize and look in the nook and crany, not just the outside appearance, please. there was method to the vietnamese invasion of cambodia; it's called pillaging and robbing cambodia at our weakest time, like an opportunist, the vietnamese are dreaming to own cambodia one day. perhaps, only in their dream as they have failed time and again and again! god bless cambodia.
Let us celebrate 10/23/1991 is the REAL PEACK OF CAMBODIA.
We all know that 1/7/1991 is a FAKE peace for Cambodia. This fake peace installed by Viets.
Red-Ant
Ah chhuot kem sokha,if you knew that too,why didn't you join SRP before the election ?you bastard.
Hi ah lob 4:15AM,If you knew that too,why didn't tell ah csam Rainsy to work together with hrp to save Cambodia before the election?.you bastard.Try do a research more before you place a comment. Ah Lob
Hi ah lob 4:15AM,If you knew that too,why didn't tell ah csam Rainsy to work together with hrp to save Cambodia before the election?.you bastard.Try do a research more before you place a comment. Ah Lob
Khmer Academy
Thanks for your efforts and time in writing this article. I think most Khmer politics followers and servers know about this.
I love to hear from what the Vietnamese generals who led the VN army into Cambodia, what they have to say, what they encountered and what they saw. I am certain that there were agents working for the VN who tried to sabotage Pol Pot's plans.
I was a kid and survived the KR's Pol Pot regime. I do not believe one bit that the VN army came to save Khmer from Pol Pot, if Pol Pot did what Hun Sen is doing that is a total and absolute slave to Hanoi, then there are no Hun Sen, Chea Sim, and Heng Samrin. The three cows that try so hard to persuade Khmer to believe in the 7 January and called others ignorant, but in fact they are the ignorant.
Let me assure all Khmer that this 7 January day will be gone when the lives of Hun Sen, Chea Sim and Heng Samrin end. It will then be marked appropriately as we Khmers see it.
KNM
5:41,
Remembered your mother is a whore in SVY PAK Ah Viet slave! go a head go and fuck your YOUN MOTHER WHORE BITCH!!
Ah begger undersea!!
Fuck Ah Pleu-oversea. They don't know what they are talking about. They are just a slave who dig potato oversea.
Don't listen to them.
Happy Freedom Day (Jan 7) to all!
Thanks to Vietnam!
Thanks to PM Hun Sen!
11:32,
Go and fuck your own Viet whore mother in SVY PAK..dumbshit! there's no such a things liberations...it was invasions! Ah jkort thork tiep Mok Krass begger undersea!!!
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