• Hun Sen and CPP: Vietnamese occupation

In early 1979, for the first time since the 1950s, Cambodia was controlled by a foreign power. The situation was reminiscent of the 1830s insofar as the power was Vietnam, but closer parallels existed with the final years of the French protectorate, when the French took responsibility for Cambodia's defense, internal security, and foreign affairs, leaving less crucial areas (from their point of view) in Cambodian hands.

Almost immediately after capturing Phnom Penh, the Vietnamese set up what purported to be an independent government in Cambodia, styling itself the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK). Its leading officials were DK military officers who had defected to Vietnam in 1978, Cambodians who had lived in Vietnam since the 1950s, and members of ethnic minorities untainted by service to the previous regime. Several figures in this original group—including Heng Samrin, Chea Sim, and Hun Sen—remained powerful through the 1980s, although Hun Sen gradually assumed more and more power on his own and, by the mid-1990s, was in command of the country. The new government promised to respect human rights, including freedom of opinion and association, but it treated political opponents severely, as all earlier regimes had done. No elections were held until 1981—and even those were not contested by opposing parties.

Barely a month after declaring its existence, the PRK signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation with Vietnam. This gesture combined with the Vietnamese occupation and the severe hardships affecting all Cambodians, convinced many Cambodians that they would be better off outside the country and persuaded many who stayed behind that the Vietnamese planned to annex Cambodia, or at least dominate its politics for an indefinite period of time. During the first few months, the Vietnamese kept foreign observers away from Cambodia and denied their own military presence there.4

Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia and its alliance with the Soviet Union angered the Chinese, who launched a military attack on northern Vietnam in February 1979, with the tacit support of the United States.

The campaign involved two hundred thousand Chinese troops and lasted for two weeks. Thousands of people were killed on both sides and several Vietnamese cities along the border were laid to waste; but when the Chinese withdrew, supposedly after -teaching Vietnam a lesson " Vietnamese policies toward Cambodia (and Chinese policies, for that matter) were unchanged. The main effects of the attack were to encourage tens of thousands of Sino-Vietnamese to flee Vietnam and to strengthen the informal U.S.-Chinese alliance. Thailand's similar alliance with China encouraged by the United States, was beneficial to the DK remnants filtering into Thailand and made the Vietnamese even more reluctant to withdraw from Cambodia. Like those of DK in 1978 Vietnam's leaders believed themselves surrounded by enemies.

Nearly all Cambodians welcomed the Vietnamese at first, not because they preferred being invaded to being autonomous, but because the invasion signaled the end of DK.

Almost at once, nearly everyone began moving. Throughout 1979 and the first few months of 1980, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians crisscrossed the country looking for relatives returning to their homes, trading, or seeking refuge overseas. Although Vietnamese forces pursued DK armed units into the northwest, the civil authorities did nothing to prevent this less organized movement of people or the informal revival of trade. As the PRK struggled to its feet many pre-revolutionary institutions came back to life, including markets7 Buddhism, and family farming.

The PRK's laissez-faire policy did not extend to political activity, however; that was monopolized by the government and the People's Revolutionary party of Kampuchea (PRPK) a communist grouping that shared its pre-1975 history with the discredited CPK. Amid so much disorder, most of the 1979 rice crop went untended, and by the middle of the year a famine had broken out. Very few Cambodians stayed put long enough to plant the 1979-1980 rice crop, and when grain stored under the previous regime had been consumed, or appropriated by Vietnamese forces, hundreds of thousands of Khmer had little or nothing to eat.

Several factors encouraged the Vietnamese to withdraw the last of their troops - some twenty thousands men - from Cambodia in September 1989. One was the growing self-sufficiency of the PRK, which earlier in the year had renamed itself the State of Cambodia (SOC). Another reason was that the Soviet Union aid, and aid from the Soviet Bloc, were sharply reduced in 1989 following crises in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Given these conditions, The Vietnamese occupation had become too expensive to maintain. A third factor was the example provided by the USSR itself, which had withdrawn from Afghanistan.

Some hoped that the breakthrough would involved the massive intervention of the United Nations, which might establish a caretaker regime pending national election. These hopes were fulfilled by decisions made at the international conference on Cambodia that convened in Paris in October 1991.

Some hoped that the breakthrough would involve the massive intervention of the United Nations, which might establish a caretaker regime pending national election. These hopes were fulfilled by decisions made at the international conference on Cambodia that convened in Paris in October 1991.

The arrangement envisaged in Paris were to be monitored in Cambodia by UN personnel, pending disarmament and cantonment of the factional troops, the repatriation of over three hundred thousand refugees from camps in Thailand, and national elections for a constituent assembly. To achieve these ambitious goals, the United Nations established a short-term multinational protectorate over Cambodia.

David Chandler; A history of Cambodia, (Westview Press, Boulder, 2000)

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• Vietnamization of Cambodia: Culture at risk:

For ten years, the Vietnamese tried to apply to Cambodia a policy of ethnicide - the destruction of a culture within those who carry it - insidiously carried out, particularly in the beginning, in the educational domain; the main features are summarized below:

In the administration centers of communes and districts, and in the towns, the curriculum was based on that of Vietnam, even school names come from Vietnamese

• The first edition of books were printed in Ho Chi Minh City at Cambodia’s expense, even though Cambodia had three printing houses in working condition
• As evidence of the fraternal bounds uniting the three countries in, the cover of a history book showed a map of unified ‘Indochina’ - entirely red.
• Teaching of geography focused on the communist in the Indochinese peninsular and, as Hanoi clarified elsewhere, excluded Thailand
• Parents reluctantly permitted their children to take the required courses in Vietnamese the language
• Khmer officials in charge of arts could decide nothing without the approval of the Vietnamese expert, on the pain of loss of their positions. Thus Peou Chanda , who was openly opposed to the wearing of Vietnamese pants by dancers and to the modification of certain movements, lost his position at the school of Fine Arts and the presidency of Phnom Penh revolutionary committee.

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• Legalization of Settlement of Vietnamese civilians

In the same name of pairing of provinces, Vietnam sent teams of specialists particularly in construction. But it was the legalized settlement of Vietnamese civilians that most alarmed Cambodians. In May and autumn 1982 Phnom Penh issued memoranda on the reception of Vietnamese settlers and the facilities to be accorded to them. Some of these texts crossed the borders (see appendix 10); they undercut one journalist’s denial of the plan. There would have been no reason for these measures if the plan had consisted of bringing a number of Vietnamese equal to that of the 1960s - four hundred fifty thousand. Newspapers recorded this demographic colonization.

The problem of the massive implantation of Vietnamese civilians in Cambodia was raised by Thailand at the meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations on 26 October 1983. For his part Willibald Pahr, president of the international conference on Kampuchea, expressed his concern on 7 September 1984, during a stay in Southeast Asia.

The refugees’ protest, beginning in 1984, raised personal, cultural, and national issues. On the one hand, Khmer had to give up sections of their houses or - slightly better - garden and help build houses for the Vietnamese civilians. On the other hand, Cambodian society was still reeling from the shocks of the Khmer Rouge period and could not adequately reconstitute its structure under these conditions. Khmer peasants and lower-class city dwellers no longer felt at home, village, or neighborhood life became impossible when it included enemy colonists who, to make matters worse, had a culture very different from Khmer culture. Cultural conflicts aggravated by political interests broke out between the two communities. Refugees expressed their anguish at Cambodia’s loss of national identity; Vietnamese acquired Khmer nationality with the privileges it conferred, particularly the right to vote. Hanoi’s plan called for several millions settlers, approximately one million of whom seem to have been in place by the close of 1980s. Report of other in markers came from many refugees in Prey Veng and from Takeo, kompong Cham, and Svay Rieng provinces.

These usurpations were confirmed by the signing of treaties. The first dated 12 November 1982, dealt with maritime borders, in the annexed region to which Khmers no longer had access the Vietnamese then drilled for oil. The second in importance, eight pages long, concerned territorial borders and was signed on 27 December 1985 ‘in order officially to demarcate the national border between the SRV and the RKP with the goal of constructing a common border of lasting peace and friendship.’ The border that the same Vietnamese leaders had recognized in 1967 in the name of the DRV and South Vietnam’s NLF, Hanoi now acknowledged, was in its eyes no longer valid.

During the two first year peasants complied with the state’s levies and endured the consequences without flinching. They were sent into unhealthy and mine-infested forests where they had to construct strategic roads; the north-east-south transversal through the cardamons mountain; network in the border regions of the west and north that made possible the seizure of the guerrillas’ sanctuaries early 1985.

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• Sihanouk legitimizing Hun Sen:

On 16 November Sihanouk announced an alliance between the CPP and his own party, the FUNCINEC, now under his son Ranariddh’s authority. He declared that Hun Sen’s party’ will win the elections, it’s inevitable, I’ll bet on it.’ He considered himself ‘the state of Cambodia’s guest,’ and declared that ‘I shall not interfere in the internal affairs of the CPP or in the government of the state of Cambodia. I strictly respect [the status quo],’ which amounts to a disclaimer of any responsibility for the machinations of Phnom Penh leaders. This not, however, the view of the population, and at a meeting the next morning, the cheerleader who leads the young people in repeating phrases for the prince’s benefit, was specific ‘Samdech is back, not as a guest, but as president of the CNS. The next few days, while touring villages near Phnom Penh, Sihanouk encouraged peasants to vote for Hun Sen as member of parliament; Hun Sen, for his part, urged people to elect Sihanouk as chief of state of Cambodia. People wondered why they should vote for Hun Sen, of whom they wished to be rid; and why did Sihanouk not remain neutral to act as arbitrator, as had been previously agreed? They are convinced that Ranariddh does not decide anything without the agreement or the pressure from his father, including the alliance with the CCP, which will benefit Phnom Penh and its Vietnamese allies.’

According to a ‘reliable source’ cited by the press, Hanoi sought this alliance. Hun Sen himself had proposed that the CPP back Sihanouk for the presidency, a recommendation already agreed on during the party’s extraordinary congress. And the Khmer Rouge, sensing the danger, supposedly tried to prevent it. The CPP and FUNCINPEC strengthened their ties by signing two treaties, one political (20 November) and the other military (25 November).

Marie A. Martin; Cambodia: A shattered Nation; (University of Californ ia Press, Berkley, 1994)

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• Hun Sen: a puppet of the Vietnamese:

According to the discussions, we planned that the Vietnamese would attack, and then withdraw immediately in 1979,’ Hun Sen said. ‘It was I who talked with Le Due Tho (a member of the Vietnamese Communist Party politburo] and others. I told them that if they withdrew, and Pol Pot returned, more people would be killed. At the time, the Cambodian forces were not able to handle Pol Pot, and we needed time to strengthen our forces, and our economy.’

Without Vietnam's help the Phnom Penh government would not have survived. Fortunately for Hun Sen Hanoi never vacillated in its support. Vietnam's foreign minister, Nguyen Co Thach, said in June 1983 that his country would only withdraw its forces from Cambodia after a political settlement was reached between his country and China. That pact would ensure that China stopped aiding and arming the Khmer Rouge, and that Vietnam withdrew its 140,000 forces from Cambodia.

Hun Sen, then playing the crucial role of foreign minister. did not want to be left isolated in a situation where the Vietnamese withdrew their forces, but China continued arming Pol Pot. ‘The Vietnamese did not want to stay,’ he added. ‘It was our side that made such a request. We then agreed that they would try to reduce their forces in 1982. The Vietnamese would decrease their numbers, and we would increase our forces. Even as a foreign minister I was involved in such a strategy I still remember the meeting of the foreign ministers of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam in Hanoi in 1985 where we agreed that the Vietnamese forces would be withdrawn in ten to fifteen years. But owing to the progress of [developing] the Cambodian armed forces, and the [peace] talks between Sihanouk and me, we withdrew the Vietnamese forces earlier.’

Fears persisted that Vietnam was turning Cambodia into its colony.

A report in the Bangkok Post in June 1983 said that Hanoi had set up ‘development villages’ in Cambodia where one out of every five families was Vietnamese. Quoting ‘highly reliable military documents’, the newspaper said that such villages had been created in Battambang and Koh Kong, and in provinces along Cambodia's border with Vietnam.

Source: Harish and Julie Mehta; Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia; (Graham Brash Ltd. Singapore 1999)