Vietnam's Legacy After Occupying Cambodia

by Richard S. Ehrlich

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Vietnam's troops, completing nearly 11 years of war in Cambodia against Pol Pot and other guerrillas, have returned home, leaving a rescued, frightened nation controlled by a communist ally and locked in a fight for survival.

Vietnam hopes Cambodia's shabby, poorly equipped army can defend itself against the possible return of the Khmer Rouge who slaughtered more than one million people when their leader, Pol Pot, controlled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.

The departing Vietnamese scored successes and failures on the battlefield -- in what was derisively dubbed, "Vietnam's Vietnam" -- and in the hearts and minds of the Cambodians they tried to befriend.

Many Cambodians appear thankful Hanoi invaded their homeland in December 1978 and toppled Pol Pot, putting an end to his ghoulish reign which depended on massacres, torture, brainwashing, slavery, starvation and destruction of society.

Cambodians are also pleased Hanoi's soldiers withdrew in September 1989 after nearly 11 years, because the two nations traditionally distrust each other's motives.

But Cambodians are now worried that without Vietnam's experienced troops, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge may return to power, and again turn this tiny Southeast Asian nation into a vast killing field.

Many Western diplomats expect Hanoi will continue to manipulate the ravaged country's future, though Cambodia's Vietnamese-installed Prime Minister, Hun Sen, insists he will chart an independent, friendly but neutral course.

Vietnamese Ambassador Ngo Dien said in an interview, "We are very happy to have completed our task. It is very difficult to have a foreign army restore things in another country. I am confident Cambodia will succeed. The Khmer Rouge rebels may fight for some time, but the Khmer Rouge cannot carry out a guerrilla war like we waged in Vietnam against France and the United States because the Khmer Rouge are hated by the population.

"We want to have a friendly neighbor, no matter what course they may go, provided they are strictly neutral and have normal or friendly relations with Vietnam. That we expect. Cambodians understand it is in their interest to have friendly relations with Vietnam. Whenever they were against Vietnam, they were practically against themselves," the Vietnamese ambassador added.

During the 1980s, Vietnamese troops pushed the Chinese-supported Khmer Rouge into mountain hideouts along Cambodia's western border with Thailand, but failed to wipe them out.

In the vacuum, Hanoi installed pliant Cambodian communist cadres, a one-party structure, a rural commune system and other political institutions to control this impoverished nation.

Cambodia's government is modeled along Vietnamese lines complete with a politburo, a small but growing 30,000-strong communist party, and a ban on Western-style press freedom, political opposition and other potential challenges to Hun Sen's reign.

In the absence of Vietnamese troops, Cambodia's smaller, poorly trained, undisciplined military will face a difficult task against the experienced, determined guerrillas.

One Soviet military analyst explained, "It is said that the Khmer Rouge today are not of the same capability as the Khmer Rouge of the 1970s because they are a new generation of mostly young recruits. But these new Khmer Rouge have spent much of their time only fighting because they have no other jobs, so they are very experienced. I am not so confident about the Cambodian army. Many of them were just farmers before they became soldiers."

Cambodia's 30,000 to 60,000 troops, and its 150,000 or so village militiamen, are highly motivated, however, because they recall the horrors of the Khmer Rouge's regime.

"Pol Pot killed my mother, father, sister and two brothers," said Cambodian Lieutenant Sek Seng in an interview. "I will fight to my last bullet against the Khmer Rouge and then kill myself and all of my children, because I don't want them to know the cruelty of Pol Pot.

"The Khmer Rouge are only one-fifth compared with our forces," Sek Seng added.

Pol Pot's estimated 32,000 communist Khmer Rouge are also supported by the US-backed, non-communist resistance led by Prince Norodom Sihanouk's 12,000 fighters and former Prime Minister Son Sann's 10,000 followers. They are all fighting against the Vietnamese-installed regime.

One Cambodian lieutenant said, "I think we still need the Vietnamese army, because compared with Khmer Rouge forces we are not strong enough to easily defend ourselves. My military officers have learned very little, so they have little capacity to lead or defend.

"Cambodian soldiers are not like Vietnamese soldiers. Vietnamese soldiers are very strong," he said, asking not to be identified.

One sign of weakness in the Cambodian army is a policy of allowing soldiers to have their families live with them a few miles behind the front lines, to cultivate land and prevent troops from becoming homesick while posted along the inhospitable, malaria-infested Cambodian-Thai frontier, according to Soviet and Vietnamese officials.

Many Cambodians however benefited from Vietnam's reconstruction of the nation's military, schools, hospitals, agricultural and banking systems, markets, roads and other basic infrastructure which Pol Pot destroyed during his fanatic back-to-the-jungle policies.

In many towns and villages, people today enjoy a sense of improved security and a slowly increasing standard of living because the Vietnamese have allowed the new government to experiment with open market reforms and other modest freedoms.

In some ways, life in Cambodia can be better than in Vietnam, according to Vietnamese workers and traders who settled here because of the less restrictive laws.

Cambodia is still a crippled country hardly able to function. There is no income tax collection, nor bills for electricity or water, because people are too poor to pay and the bureaucracy lacks skilled administrators.

Cambodia's economy is trying to break away from the public sector and lure foreign investment. Some small, capitalist-style businesses are already booming, importing motorcycles, food and consumer goods from Thailand, Singapore and elsewhere.

Cambodian, Vietnamese and Soviet diplomats denied Western claims that military advisors from Hanoi and Moscow will remain after the troop withdrawal. They said only specialized, civilian staff, such as doctors and other personnel, may stay on.

Cambodia is an international pariah unable to rebuild its shattered economy because free elections have not been held. Cambodian politicians hope to stage polls for the National Assembly, which in turn elects the prime minister and other posts, early next year.

Western nations and many of Phnom Penh's neighbors in Southeast Asia have been pushing Hun Sen to share power in a transitional government to oversee the elections. But the West demands inclusion of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, along with Sihanouk and Son Sann, in the transitional team. Hun Sen rejects this proposal because of the Khmer Rouge's previous holocaust.

Hun Sen has failed to woo Sihanouk away from leading the resistance coalition, which depends on the Khmer Rouge's prowess.

Copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich

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Richard S. Ehrlich's Asia news, non-fiction book titled, "Hello My Big Big Honey!" plus hundreds of photographs are available at his website http://www.oocities.org/asia_correspondent