Historical Context for Vietnamization of Cambodia (e.g. Viettel/Metfone; Hun Sen's rise to power)

The Pol Pot Regime:

Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia, 1975-79

By Ben Kiernan

(Silkworm Books, 1996 Yale University)

Excerpts from Chapter 10

“Thunder Without Rain”: Race and Power in Cambodia, 1978

Escalating the War

On 31 December 1977, Democratic Kampuchea officially severed diplomatic relations with Vietnam.  Four days later, Pol Pot issued secret instructions to “attack from behind the enemy’s back.”… He ordered the deployment of up to 60 percent of Cambodia’s regular and regional forces, “to go in and wage guerilla war to tie up the enemy by the throat…”

An idea seemed to be forming in Pol Pot’s head… “to turn this hatred into a material hatred.”…

A week later, just after the Vietnamese pullback of 6 January 1978, Pol Pot arrived in the Eastern Zone.  He called a public meeting at Wat Taung, beside a rubber plantation in Suong district… Also presiding were Son Sen, So Phim, and Ke Pauk.  Heng Samrin attended as deputy chief of the Zone military staff.  Pol Pot gave the major address.  Samrin recalls hearing him start with a new arithmetical formula.  “Each Cambodian is to kill thirty Vietnamese”… The intended target was Vietnam.  But Phnom Penh Radio had also denounced an alleged “traitorous clique” inside Cambodia...

Rebellion in the East

…By 19 April, no fewer than 409 Eastern Zone cadres were being held in Tuol Sleng… The Center linked the East with Vietnam.  And it linked the 1.5 million Cambodians living there with the Vietnamese enemy… Like the Khmer Krom defectors whose massacre is described in the introduction, Democratic Kampuchea’s enemy was both Cambodian and Vietnamese…

On 23 May, Pauk arrested two relatives of Heng Samrin: his younger brother Heng Thal, commander of the Center’s 290^th (formerly eastern) Division, and their brother-in-law Soth, CPK secretary of Region 21…

In Prey Veng, [Heng] Samrin was now in direct command of the 5^th, 6^th, and 8^th marine battalion, the later based nearby at Neak Loeung.  He could also mobilize two battalions of trainees from the Zone Armed Training School and two tanks attached to the Zone staff.  The Zone artillery batteries were still stationed at Chup, and the three divisions remained at the front.  “I had no command, but I could send commands by telegram to every division.”…

It took Piem’s failure to return to his headquarters at Tuol Preap for Phim to finally determine that Pauk was at war.  The next day, 24 May, Phim met with a deputy chief of the Zone military staff Pol Saroeun, who ran the Zone ammunition factory in Koh Sautin district…

[ the chapter continues on in detailing the involvement and activities of Heng Samrin, Pol Saroeun, etc. To be continued… ]