By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
07 January 2009
Around 40,000 Cambodians, many wearing white shirts emblazoned with the logo “7 January,” filled Phnom Penh’s Olympic Stadium to capacity Wednesday morning, celebrating the 30thanniversary of the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot.
Authorities from the provinces and the capital drove around the inside of the stadium’s football pitch, in a parade of floats encircling a formation of the armed forces, as supporters marched alongside and observers waved the flags of Cambodia and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
“The day of victory, Jan. 7, saved our country and our citizens on time,” Chea Sim, president of the CPP and the Senate, flanked by Prime Minister Hun Sen and National Assembly President Heng Samrin, announced to the crowd.
“We are thankful to the volunteer Vietnamese troops who died for the liberation of the Cambodian people from genocide,” Chea Sim said.
Cambodian forces, created from a resistance movement in Kratie province and supported by Vietnamese soldiers, took full control of Phnom Penh on Jan. 7, 1979, following a month of fighting the Khmer Rouge, ousting the regime of three years and eight months.
Wednesday’s celebration comes as a tribunal prepares to try five members of the Khmer Rouge, including Kaing Kek Iev, the chief of Tuol Sleng prison, whose trial is expected to begin early this year.
Chea Sim did not mention the tribunal or the jailed Khmer Rouge leaders in his remarks, in the only CPP speech of the day.
The “liberation” of Phnom Penh led to a decade of Vietnamese occupation and more years of civil war, as the Khmer Rouge retreated to jungle sanctuaries on the Thai border and fought Cambodian and Vietnamese soldiers.
The anniversary has become a contentious marker of Cambodian history. Hun Sen said in a speech Tuesday Jan. 7 represented the “truth of history” and lambasted critics of the anniversary.
Yim Sovann, a lawmaker for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, said Jan. 7 marked an anniversary for an invasion by foreign troops. The true day of liberation came on Oct. 23, 1991, he said, the day the Paris Peace Accords were signed.
Authorities from the provinces and the capital drove around the inside of the stadium’s football pitch, in a parade of floats encircling a formation of the armed forces, as supporters marched alongside and observers waved the flags of Cambodia and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
“The day of victory, Jan. 7, saved our country and our citizens on time,” Chea Sim, president of the CPP and the Senate, flanked by Prime Minister Hun Sen and National Assembly President Heng Samrin, announced to the crowd.
“We are thankful to the volunteer Vietnamese troops who died for the liberation of the Cambodian people from genocide,” Chea Sim said.
Cambodian forces, created from a resistance movement in Kratie province and supported by Vietnamese soldiers, took full control of Phnom Penh on Jan. 7, 1979, following a month of fighting the Khmer Rouge, ousting the regime of three years and eight months.
Wednesday’s celebration comes as a tribunal prepares to try five members of the Khmer Rouge, including Kaing Kek Iev, the chief of Tuol Sleng prison, whose trial is expected to begin early this year.
Chea Sim did not mention the tribunal or the jailed Khmer Rouge leaders in his remarks, in the only CPP speech of the day.
The “liberation” of Phnom Penh led to a decade of Vietnamese occupation and more years of civil war, as the Khmer Rouge retreated to jungle sanctuaries on the Thai border and fought Cambodian and Vietnamese soldiers.
The anniversary has become a contentious marker of Cambodian history. Hun Sen said in a speech Tuesday Jan. 7 represented the “truth of history” and lambasted critics of the anniversary.
Yim Sovann, a lawmaker for the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, said Jan. 7 marked an anniversary for an invasion by foreign troops. The true day of liberation came on Oct. 23, 1991, he said, the day the Paris Peace Accords were signed.
31 comments:
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
khmer must remember the mekong delta of kampuchea krom and koh tral! never in a million year can trust the vietnamese intention! maybe one day, khmer people will do the same to vietnam to make them realize how we don't like the way they did to cambodia! what goes around comes around, i guess!
the right symbol of this day should be done with ho chi minh head and yuon flag. why not with a picture in which sihanouk bend its head prostrated ho chi minh picture.
Hun sen was just a simple soldier of Khmer rouge, believing working for sihanouk but in reality hun always worked for yuons
Comon, Yim Sovann, How old were you at that time? were you there with us to liberated from the KR?
If you just shut up, better then you don't know would you. Don't you just say like the parrot of foreigner have said.
You fucking bitch don't know the day 1/7/79 you just known 11/23/1991 if don't has 1/07/79 no fucking 11/23/1991. No fucking UNHCR,No USA too.Especialy no fucking opposition party,too.
remember to listen to both views/ arguments. both makes sense in their own right, hello. without that date, we all are probably be dead by the KR atrocity already. please listen to both arguments! let khmer people celebrate life, it probably has nothing to do with hailing or celebrating the vietnamese; it's about celebrating to be alive and survive the KR killing, of course! how can one argue with that without taking it into consideration? well, did you ask how khmer people are thinking about this date, yet? then, you have no rights to prevent people from celebrating this date of new beginning for most khmer people, of course! god bless cambodia.
These monkies doesn't know what is right and wrong. They got confused from invasion to liberation.
YOUN had failed to control Cambodia during the KR's period they kept finding way to cause internal unrest until they found 7th of Jan. For me eventhough I am living I can not accept myself to celebrate this day.
Youn always poison.
Khmer Chea Nitch. Khmer forever!!!
If the CPP gonna just recognize this date ' 1/7/79 and not "1991 paris peace accord" then for sure they are lying and are a hyprocrite!
For:
1. Youn never left cambodia, it only be true liberation if vietnam left completely, but not.
2. Everything the CPP do must be approved by hanoi.
3.Most current leader the CPP now is youn.
4.The CPP or hun sen dare not speak about youn or thai. He only open his big mouth and kill his own people.
5.What kind of the democrazy under the CPP hanoi(communist)where only the CPP member's is wealthy? While other suffer.
6.Illegal youns can vote and native khmer can't vote. Is this truely liberation? Only idiot would agreed that it is.
The CPP AND HANOI IS FOOLING NO ONE.
2:12AM - Thank you brother. I am so touched by your nationalist spirit. Long live to Khmer Nationalists.
Khmer Nationalists, if you step your feet into cambodia soil, you will be done(.)
Ah youn choymaray!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2:38AM
Don’t be fool. We’re already in the country, living a few blocks from you and tracking your activities. Beware, youn agents…
Hay 1:53 am,
Shut up and go back to eat yuon shit.
Is Ah Hor Nam Hong sounded Youn or Khmer?
He " Ah Hor Nam Hong " was working for Pol Pot and is Working for Ah Hun XeN?
I am currently living in Phnom Penh.
To let you 2:38 know,
Nowaday is very modern. You can't do shit to us Khmer anymore. Today is not the day before or after Jan 7th. We can broadcast and deliver news to each other or to the world within a blink or instantly.
And let you and your YOUN know.
Remember during 1800's?? The so called Stoeung Meanchey. It wasn't call Stoeung Meanchey until recently. Before that it was called Rondao Kop YOUN. Or the mass YOUN's grave or YOUN's burial ground.
During that time all Khmer was rising up to uprise against Troeung Minh Giang. Which this guy was sent to Phnom Penh to take over Khmer from top down. But the failed. And this guy went back to srok YOUN and killed himself or killed by his empiror.
When Khmer united we will slaughter all of you YOUN.
Khmer Nationalist, from Phnom Penh
To 1:53 AM Vietcong bitch!
You fucking Vietcong bitch don't know the day April/17/1975 you don't have 1/07/79 no fucking Khmer Rouge and fucking genocide.Especialy no fucking AH HUN SEN Vietcong slave puppet government too.
I have read and watched many interview clips of the Vietnamese leaders and their view on the invasion of Cambodia and none of them said anything about having to do with humanitarian mission such as to save Cambodia and Cambodian people. What the Vietnamese leaders really want is to set up a puppet government that is friendly to Hanoi.
It seems that it is only the stupid AH HUN SEN officials who said this and said that of how the Vietnamese leaders want to save Cambodian people from the Khmer Rouge but the fact is the Vietnamese leaders never said anything!
Don't twist Cambodian history!
It's all to us Khmers to vote for a a government that we deserve. Why not vote for a different one the next time around?
Those 40,000 people that were at the
stadium probably were all vietnamese anyway. They probably were also laughing at the 3 monkeys right now that being so stupid and fooled by them.
Live long and propsper Khmer Nationalists.
Khmer Trek
In all, i blamed yuon for invading too early.Had the viet waited a little longer and let the khmer rouge annihilated his own people first and then invaded afterward.
Let us celebrate 10/23/1991 is the REAL PEACK OF CAMBODIAN.
We all know that 1/7/1991 is a FAKE peace for Cambodia. This fake peace installed by Viets.
Red-Ant
In all, I blame yuon for exporting its anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist wars to Cambodia. If the yuon did not export its wars to Cambodia, KR movement would never came to life, let alone came to power and kill so many people.
It is true that the fucking Youn always export their fucking problem to Cambodia!
It is the fucking Vietnam War that start everything!
In all i blamed ah sdach chomkuot sihanouk who had helped the yuon in the first place.Go to hell ah sdach traitor.
Jesus had no intention of turning his movement in religion. He had wanted only to rule politically as king of Israe.. But his disciples who turned it inot reliogn by twisting and bullshiting all sorts of his words.
7/1/79 is no different. Evil turned to god !
1:53,
Go fuck your whore Viet mother in KILO #6,(SVY PAK) stupid fuck!! there's no such a things liberations, it was invasions dumbfucking shit!!
Ah Pleur undersea begger!!
៧មករាគឺជាថ្ងៃដែលយួនបានចូលមកឈ្លានប្រទេស កម្ពុជា យ៉ាងពិតប្រាកដ។
បើយួនមានបំណងល្អចង់ជួយខ្មែរនោះ យួនត្រូវ ប្រគល់ ស្រុកខ្មែរឲ្យអង្គការសហប្រជាជាតិភ្លាម បន្ទាប់ ពីបានដេញប៉ុលពតចេញហើយនោះ។ ដូចជាប្រទេសឥណ្ឌា វាយចូលប្រទេសប៉ាគិស្ថាន ខាងកើត កាលពីឆ្នាំ១៩៧១។ មិនមែនអន្តរជាតិ គាបសង្កត់ផ្តាច់ការទាក់ទងខាងសេដ្ឋ កិច្ចហើយនៅមិនចង់ចេញទៀតនោះទេ។ ហើយចុះកិច្ច សន្យាដាក់ទ័ពសុទ្ធតែ២៥ឆ្នាំម្តង។ នេះឬ គេហៅ ថាជួយនោះ។ ពួកកញ្ជះយួន ក៏ល្ងង់ម្លេះ?
Don't listen to Pouk Ah Scam Rainxy. They are nothing but losers!
Happy Freedom Day (Jan 7) to all!
Thanks to Vietnam!
Thanks to PM Hun Sen!
Khmer spirits will condemn all who celebrate Jan 07 1979 as Liberation day.
On behalf of Khmer Ancestors.
Yes, we should abandon this day!!
Jan. 7th is truely the day of invasion. I am one of the HUN SEN's soldiers in the early 80s. The YOUN robbed, pillaged and looted everything. You name them, everything!!
They I escape to the border and join the resistance fighter. Like Pen Sovann said, he try to stop YOUN from stealing thing from Phnom Penh. They put what they looted on the trucks, ships and boats etc down to Ho Chi Minh city.
Mr. Pen Sovann said, you can come in to liberate but not to control (invade). They don't listen that's why they send him to jail in Hanoi.
True Khmer,
11:22,
You can go and eat your stinky whore viet mother pussy in KILO#6 dumb cheap Mok Krass undersea begger!! there's no such a thing as liberations...it was invasions!!
Ah jkout Lop Mok Krass undersea begger!!
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