A Cambodian Army officer, left, exhales marijuana smoke after using a homemade pipe as a soldier plays guitar in Phnom Penh. By the summer of 1974, an increasingly dire situation in the capital would lead to renewed calls from the US mission in Phnom Penh for a controlled solution.Brian Calvert, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
27 July 2007
Click here to listen Ker Yann narrates in Khmer
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Part Three: ‘Internationalization’
In May, John Gunther Dean, the last US ambassador to Cambodia before it fell to the Khmer communists, turned over thousands of documents to the Jimmy Carter Library in Atlanta, Ga., part of the US National Archives. In part, the documents show the ambassador’s attempts for a controlled solution to the deteriorating Cambodian conflict, including a plan he called the “internationalization” of the Cambodian problem. This plan, he hoped, would bring an end to the conflict and prevent a one-sided, unchecked takeover by the Khmer communists. This is the third in a series of reports on the Dean documents.
By September, the communists controlled 75 percent of the country, with their eyes ever on Phnom Penh. In the capital, you’d be playing tennis and the rockets would crackle over the courts. At night, you might go to the cinema, but it was dangerous; communist agents had begun planting bombs around town. By then, a rumor was circulating among the population that Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the head of state of the Government Royal d’Union Nationale de Kampuchea, which included the communists, was negotiating with the Khmer Republic for a ceasefire.
In fact, the US administration was considering a Cambodian peace conference, in part thanks to ideas put forward by a fresh ambassador in Phnom Penh, John Gunther Dean. After discussions with the ambassador, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Philip Habib, drafted a secret “action memorandum” for a peace conference and sent it to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
“Purpose of proposal: primarily to achieve a ceasefire linked to a political settlement through the early holding of an international conference,” Habib wrote. “The basic rationale is that if we let matters take their present course, the trends in Cambodia, the US and Vietnam will combine to produce an unraveling of the [Khmer Republic] and a more serious setback to US interests than the compromises that will inevitably have to be made under this proposal.”
A peace conference would “remove the danger of a challenge to the Khmer [Republic] credentials” at the UN’s General Assembly meeting later in the year, he wrote. In that meeting, the legitimate seat of the government would be decided between President Lon Nol’s Khmer Republic and Sihanouk’s Royal Government. The previous year had seen the Republic win a seat at the UN in a 53 to 50 vote. Diplomats were guessing the Republic this year would “barely squeak through,” the New York Times reported, but no one was sure.
A peace conference would also “move ahead of the growing Congressional opposition to US assistance to Cambodia and to obtain, in contrast, its support for this peace effort,” Habib wrote.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had prepared a bill for a $347 million aid cap for the following year, $200 million less than the administration of President Gerald Ford had requested. Without money to prop up the Republic, many assumed it could not survive.
An international conference could be pursued, Habib wrote, first by including the Chinese. The US would not oppose Sihanouk in a key role. US military assistance to Cambodia would not be necessary, but the US would contribute to reconstruction. Lon Nol and other leaders could step aside, if absolutely necessary. If the Chinese agreed, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union would be approached, to create a “bandwagon effect” the North Vietnamese might jump on, “if they are to be invited.” The plan could include the UN secretary-general.
Even if no solution emerged at a conference, the US would be prepared to announce its efforts and endorse participation in a government by all sides, Habib wrote.
“In this declaration, we should make the points that we were, and are, prepared to accept and support the results of the conference, including the participation in a Cambodian government by all factions and that the US will be prepared to assist in the reconstruction of a peaceful Cambodia,” he wrote. The US would accept “any reasonable compromise which would establish peace and a relative political balance between the two sides, as well as among the Great Powers. The return of Sihanouk to a position of importance would be acceptable, as would the departure of Lon Nol.”
In Phnom Penh, Dean understood well the implications of such a conference, what he called the “internationalization” of the crisis.
“I believe that an international conference is the only course left to us to achieve a ‘controlled’ solution to the Khmer problem,” Dean wrote Habib on Sept. 13. “If no conference is held or no solution is found, then we must be prepared for an ‘uncontrolled’ denouement to the Khmer drama as US military and economic funds run out, the US mission is withdrawn and the [Republic] and [national army] disintegrate. Under the latter circumstances, a bloodbath cannot be ruled out.”
Syndey Schanberg, writing for the New York Times, summed up the ongoing war in story that ran Sept. 8.
“By the lowest possible estimates, more than 300 Cambodians are killed or wounded every day,” he wrote. “So far 600,000 Cambodians have become casualty statistics, nearly one-tenth of the country’s population of 7 million…. Both sides are now equipped with a greater abundance of lethal instruments than before, and the fighting is intense…. Nearly half the people of Cambodia are now refugees…. And yet there is no discernable motion toward peace talks.”
In the end, no international conference took place. The violence dragged on. When the rains stopped, the Khmer communists would be ready for a heavy offensive that would rattle the resolve of the Republican army—though not Dean.
By September, the communists controlled 75 percent of the country, with their eyes ever on Phnom Penh. In the capital, you’d be playing tennis and the rockets would crackle over the courts. At night, you might go to the cinema, but it was dangerous; communist agents had begun planting bombs around town. By then, a rumor was circulating among the population that Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the head of state of the Government Royal d’Union Nationale de Kampuchea, which included the communists, was negotiating with the Khmer Republic for a ceasefire.
In fact, the US administration was considering a Cambodian peace conference, in part thanks to ideas put forward by a fresh ambassador in Phnom Penh, John Gunther Dean. After discussions with the ambassador, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Philip Habib, drafted a secret “action memorandum” for a peace conference and sent it to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
“Purpose of proposal: primarily to achieve a ceasefire linked to a political settlement through the early holding of an international conference,” Habib wrote. “The basic rationale is that if we let matters take their present course, the trends in Cambodia, the US and Vietnam will combine to produce an unraveling of the [Khmer Republic] and a more serious setback to US interests than the compromises that will inevitably have to be made under this proposal.”
A peace conference would “remove the danger of a challenge to the Khmer [Republic] credentials” at the UN’s General Assembly meeting later in the year, he wrote. In that meeting, the legitimate seat of the government would be decided between President Lon Nol’s Khmer Republic and Sihanouk’s Royal Government. The previous year had seen the Republic win a seat at the UN in a 53 to 50 vote. Diplomats were guessing the Republic this year would “barely squeak through,” the New York Times reported, but no one was sure.
A peace conference would also “move ahead of the growing Congressional opposition to US assistance to Cambodia and to obtain, in contrast, its support for this peace effort,” Habib wrote.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had prepared a bill for a $347 million aid cap for the following year, $200 million less than the administration of President Gerald Ford had requested. Without money to prop up the Republic, many assumed it could not survive.
An international conference could be pursued, Habib wrote, first by including the Chinese. The US would not oppose Sihanouk in a key role. US military assistance to Cambodia would not be necessary, but the US would contribute to reconstruction. Lon Nol and other leaders could step aside, if absolutely necessary. If the Chinese agreed, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union would be approached, to create a “bandwagon effect” the North Vietnamese might jump on, “if they are to be invited.” The plan could include the UN secretary-general.
Even if no solution emerged at a conference, the US would be prepared to announce its efforts and endorse participation in a government by all sides, Habib wrote.
“In this declaration, we should make the points that we were, and are, prepared to accept and support the results of the conference, including the participation in a Cambodian government by all factions and that the US will be prepared to assist in the reconstruction of a peaceful Cambodia,” he wrote. The US would accept “any reasonable compromise which would establish peace and a relative political balance between the two sides, as well as among the Great Powers. The return of Sihanouk to a position of importance would be acceptable, as would the departure of Lon Nol.”
In Phnom Penh, Dean understood well the implications of such a conference, what he called the “internationalization” of the crisis.
“I believe that an international conference is the only course left to us to achieve a ‘controlled’ solution to the Khmer problem,” Dean wrote Habib on Sept. 13. “If no conference is held or no solution is found, then we must be prepared for an ‘uncontrolled’ denouement to the Khmer drama as US military and economic funds run out, the US mission is withdrawn and the [Republic] and [national army] disintegrate. Under the latter circumstances, a bloodbath cannot be ruled out.”
Syndey Schanberg, writing for the New York Times, summed up the ongoing war in story that ran Sept. 8.
“By the lowest possible estimates, more than 300 Cambodians are killed or wounded every day,” he wrote. “So far 600,000 Cambodians have become casualty statistics, nearly one-tenth of the country’s population of 7 million…. Both sides are now equipped with a greater abundance of lethal instruments than before, and the fighting is intense…. Nearly half the people of Cambodia are now refugees…. And yet there is no discernable motion toward peace talks.”
In the end, no international conference took place. The violence dragged on. When the rains stopped, the Khmer communists would be ready for a heavy offensive that would rattle the resolve of the Republican army—though not Dean.
3 comments:
This is full of rubbish, no wonder that Cambodia fell to Pot Pot and Sihanouk. We never played tennis, cinemas were non existent at nights during the war.
The USA never did anything right except to poor its green notes to the corrupted Lon Nol dogs.
Please do not try to be a hero Mr Dean, forget it...
It sound like you above commentator was non existent.
Fighting went on and so did people who tried to live their lives the best they could. They didn't care for the war. What can they do? They were just innocent and helpless people or civilian.
Khmer's War was pure and simple joke. A very sick joke.
Just like the man that smoked wheat in the picture. Who gives? It's the war between Khmer's top dogs and whomever were involved at that time and who will die? It's the Cambodian people and may be him. So you see, his attitude was trying to live his life the best he could, before he too will disintegrate and he probably was. All soldiers were born to die for the fool anyway.
2 millions Cambodian people had died as a result to that sick war game.
Soldiers were the first to be slaughtered when the other side won and took over Phnom Pehn in April of 1975.
Cann't blaim him for having this simple good time. People as always will seek pleasure to help themself and for trying to play tennis or going to the movie at night and even smoking wheat. Sure, there were those things going on. People were still existing.
In the mind of those soldiers and people, they probably went crazy knowing they were going to die one day and may be sooner. All, because of those fools who started that sick game called " War" and sent rockets flying all over the places or to where the innocent and helpless people lived. They are the one that should go to hell themself and not the men in the picture. They were victim.
Talk meant nothing to those fools. They couldn't careless. If someone that is going to die, it won't be them. It will be those poor soldiers or their victim only.
All they care about was win! and win! and when they won, they didn't even know what to do with it.
They sent people that were supposed to be their wealth and great inheritance off to hell in the middle of nowhere or to where there was only grass to boil for the soup.
The next thing you knew they were all dead one by one and those fools lived by themself and lost their victory to someone else.
Let's wishper in your ears that when The Khmer Rouge Trail comes, we'll say halaluya! and we'll jump for joy!
8:28Pm is full of rubbish, this person does not even know whether cinemas were open at nights or not at that time. May be this person was not even born yet, so just shut up and stop talking nonsense...
My advice to this person is to ask those who were in Phnom Penh at the time so that they could verify the situation for him/her...
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