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When the French were finally defeated at Dien
Bien Phu on the 8th of May 1954 by the communist general Vo Nguyen Giap,
they withdrew, leaving a buffer zone separating the North and South and
set up elections in order to form a government in the South. This defeat
set the stage for the Vietnam war. A peace treaty foresaw elections to
unify the country, but the South Vietnamese government under the
self-proclaimed president Ngo Dinh Diem refused to honour this treaty.
Between 1955 and 1960, the North Vietnamese with the assistance of the
southern communist Vietcong, tried to take over the government in South
Vietnam, and in November 1963 President Diem was overthrown and executed.
The United States, in the height of the cold war fearing a communist
take-over got more and more involved in the war, a war they should have
known they could never win.
"If you want to, go ahead and fight in the jungles of
Vietnam," Krutchev predicted. "The French fought there for seven
years and still had to quit in the end. Perhaps the Americans will be able
to stick it out for a little longer, but eventually they will have to
quit, too."
King Sihanouk realised this fact and tried to keep Cambodia neutral,
fearing his country would be subjugated by Vietnam when the US would be defeated, just
like the French at Dien Bien Phu. Cambodia and its king however had to pay
dearly for sticking to this policy of neutrality. In the sixties, CIA
conspiracies to dispose of Sihanouk were discovered, involving the
rightwing Khmer Serei troops in South Vietnam. Another plot
involved Dap Chuon's establishment of a "free" state that would
have included Siem Reap and Kampong Thom provinces and the southern areas
of Laos that were controlled by the rightist Laotian prince, Boun Oum.
In 1963, Prince Sihanouk announced the immediate termination of
Washington's aid program to Cambodia. The final break came in May 1965
amid increasing airspace violations by South Vietnamese and
by United States aircraft and of ground fighting between Army of the
Republic of Vietnam troops and Viet Cong insurgents in the
Cambodian border areas.
 When
in 1969 Henry Kissinger became President Nixon's security advisor, he
persuaded Nixon to widen the war with massive bombing of Cambodia and Laos,
which killed
approximately 600,000 Cambodian civilians (and another 350,000 in
Laos), far more than the number of people that were killed by Khmer Rouge
atrocities. For reasons beyond comprehension, these bombings are not
considered as crimes against humanity.
President Nixon gave the go-ahead to "Operation
Breakfast"
in an effort to destroy Communist supply routes and base camps in
Cambodia. This covert bombing of rural Cambodia, conducted without the
knowledge of Congress or the American public, continued for fourteen
months in subsequent Operations called Lunch, Snack, Dinner,
Dessert, Supper.
We need to emphasise that at the beginning of 1970, on the eve of the
coup against Sihanouk, Cambodia was a prosperous country and its balance
of payments was stable. In 1969, the farmers had a rich harvest and
Cambodia could export 400,000 tons of rice. |
What
happened as a result of the "Nixon doctrine" in its purest form, plunged
Cambodia in the deepest misery and deprivation.
 The US sponsored and directed on 18
March 1970 the coup by General Lon Nol that disposed
Prince Sihanouk as Head of State, established the Khmer Republic and set
off the civil war in Cambodia. The republican army repressed bloodily all
protest by
Khmer peasants and other Khmer citizens.
This civil war that followed with US support for the Lon Nol government
created momentum for the
"liberation" campaign by the Khmers Rouges, who gained support
from people loyal to prince Sihanouk, from patriots and from the victims
of the indiscriminate bombings of rural Cambodia.
Evidence from U.S. official documents, declassified in
1987, leaves no doubt that this U.S. terror was critical in Pol Pot's
drive for power. "They are using [the bombing] as the main theme of the
propaganda," reported the C.l.A. Director of Operations on May 2, 1973.
"This approach has resulted in the successful recruitment of a number of
young men and the propaganda has been most effective among refugees
subjected to B-52 strikes."
The Khmers Rouges had the apparatus already in place to fight the
corrupt regime and took control of the battle. Joining the liberation movement FUNC-GRUNC for which prince Sihanouk
had made an appeal, they took advantage of the prince's popularity in rural
Cambodia to expand their ranks. American support for the
ouster of Sihanouk (viewed by the rural populace as the father of the
country) and the subsequent invasion of Cambodia by U.S. troops in April
1970 prompted a backlash that strengthened support for the insurgent Khmer
Rouge guerrillas.
The Khmer Republic of Lon Nol and his younger brother Lon Non practised
a repulsive autocracy, according to the most honest western press. Massive aid and military support from the US gave raise to unequalled
corruption within the Cambodian administration and armed forces.
US bombing of rural Cambodia reached its peak in
the summer of 1973, when intense aerial bombardment was used to halt a
Khmer Rouge assault on Phnom Penh. This bought time for the Lon Nol
government, but did not stem the momentum of the liberation forces. These
bombings were also carried out against a peasant society with no air force
or ground defences.
The bombing contributed to the forging of a brutal and single-mindedly
fanatical Khmer Rouge movement.
On 1 January 1975, the Khmers Rouges started their offensive against the
capital. After the Mekong was effectively blocked in early February, the
United States began airlifting supplies. As defeat approached, Lon Nol
resigned on 1 April 1975 and fled the country.
On 17 April, Phnom Penh
fell into the hands of the Khmer Rouge forces. On 12 April, US
embassy personnel were evacuated by helicopter. The nightmare could begin.
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