Source
http://amekhmer.free.fr/khcrucial-event/1actu-annonce/in_05april17.htm
-
http://amekhmer.free.fr/khcrucial-event/sihanouk-crime/sihanouk-crime.ram
- Thirtieth Anniversary of the beginning of genocide in Cambodia April
17 1975
In the name of history and the memory of the victims, this event must
be recalled in all its details even it may collide or hurts the
interest of some im****tant personalities, be they statesmen or kings.
Unfortunately, that has never been the case in Cambodia .
With the availability of modern technology such as the Internet,
Cambodians are more able to learn about their culture, history, etc...
in a more democratic, objective, and independent manner than under the
traditional systems, which more often have been manipulated to serve
the interest of some group of people. The Khmer people want to know and
have the right to know about the historical truth of their country, in
particular the political transparency of their country. Thus searching
to understand and analyze the political and historical events based on
independent and objective sources, and then share the information thus
obtained to others, hence offering possibilities to Cambodians to
denounce and demolish all historical and political falsifications in
Cambodia which are the root causes of the suffering of the Khmer
people.
April 17, 1975 conjured different perceptions depending on one's
interest and idea. Whereas the general opinion regards April 17 as a
communist geopolitical victory in the region, the Communists and
leftists viewed it as the fruit of a long and hard struggle costing
many lives and consuming large amount of materials and equipments in
order to mystify the truth and to spread the communist propaganda of an
emancipation ideology and universal fraternity (internationalism) in
order to seduce Khmer statesmen and intellectuals to link with
communism. Everything was done to achieve this morbid ambition of the
leftists against what they called "American imperialism." According
to the socialist revolution principles, the victory of April 17, 1975
in Cambodia was a decisive and im****tant step towards their "Popular
revolution" in Cambodia . In the following step, the so-called
"Democratic revolution" in Cambodia was nothing more than the
establishment of a "killing field" where no less than three million
of innocent Cambodians were cruelly massacred.
Brainwashed by communist propaganda and tempted by communist Chinese
and Vietnamese promises, some Khmer Rouge dared to hope that April 17,
1975 would be a new historical step which would liberate Cambodia from
the capitalists and the bourgeois who had exploited and dominated
Cambodia for centuries. They never thought that Chinese and Vietnamese
communism would lead them and the entire country towards a certain
death. Yet, the "Killing field" was only a prelude to the descent
into Hell before the total disappearance of Khmer people to the benefit
of the Vietnamese people.
Some Khmer Rouge leaders simply thought that they could use the
Vietnamese and Chinese communists to usurp the power in place. In the
foreword of his recent book " Recent History of Cambodia and My
Successive Standpoints
(http://amekhmer.free.fr/khcrucial-event/1kieusamphanbook.htm),"
Khieu Samphan declared: "When Third World countries are threatened by
colonial re-conquest, the forced choice was either the submission to
imperialism, or the rallying with the communist camp and
dictator****p..."
While the US and French imperialist war become ever raged, Khieu
Samphan, a recognized French-trained pro-leftist (See Kerry
http://khmervision.free.fr/do***ents/in-thought04kerry.htm
)
intellectual, like the majority of his comrades, was transformed into
French political tool against the US interest. The Khmer Rouge leaders
seemed to forget the historical Khmer-Yuon lessons of the past
centuries under the reign of Queen Ang Mey and under the boot of Minh
Mang of Vietnam (cf. The S****s of the Khmer Genocide by Soth Polin).
Therefore, for Vietnam and the "communist" Vietnamese, April 17,
1975 was a new step in their " Southward march" which was started
by the Nguyen dynasty in the 12 th century. The strategy of the
Vietnamese expansionist policy was principally and basically based on a
soft, but effective and dreadful, manoeuvre using women as bait to
attract their enemy leaders. This policy is deeply marked in the flesh,
blood, conscience, and subconscience of the Vietnamese people, notably
among the rank of several generations of politicians such: Ming Mang,
Bao Day, Ho Chi Minh, Pham Van Dong, etc... During the period of French
protectorate (before the cold war), the Vietnamese communists
infiltrated their "sleeping agents" almost everywhere inside Khmer
territory, especially in the North-western area of Cambodia (cf. The
S****s of Khmer Genocide by Soth Polin, and For Cambodia Freedom by Dr.
Baphoun). During the cold war, the Vietnamese used communism as a
political tool to carry out their neo-colonial ambition on their
neighbouring countries following the "Don Dien" expansionism
principle. In his article titled " The victims of today's communism
-1(http://amekhmer.free.fr/khcrucial-event/special-khrouge/in_victs-communi=
s2d.htm)"
Mike Benge defined this Vietnamese expansionism and neo-colonialism
strategy as follows:
"Amoeba parasites like, communist Vietnam practice, gently and
slowly, neo-colonialism in Laos and Cambodia using the traditional
Vietnamese method of expansionism called Don Dien, first with territory
occupations by armed troops then followed by the installation their
families on the recently conquered territories. The armed forces are
disguised as civilians, becoming "reserved" soldiers who can be
called upon at any time. The latter are then replaced by new armed
troops thus progressing further Vietnamese expansionism."
The conflict in Cambodia between 1970 to 1975, origin of a devastated
tragedy for the Khmer Nation - i.e. a terrifying genocide perpetrated
on the people by the pro-Chinese and pro-Vietnamese communists - was
falsified and disguised as a civil war (cf. article by ex-minister Chau
Xeng-Ua, " A False Civil War", and also his article titled " The
So-called Coup d'Etat of March 18, 1970 and another article of March
18, 1970
http://amekhmer.free.fr/khcrucial-event/sihanouk-crime/1march18.htm").
Was this war inevitable as Khieu Samphan claimed? War is synonymous of
destruction. What obliges the politicians to choose this path is the
perspective of the national interest following the war. Khmer Rouge
leaders belonging to the "FUNK" (French acronym for National United
Front of Kampuchea) and "GRUNK" (French acronym for Royal
Government of National Union of Kampuchea) who invited the
north-Vietnamese troops to come to Cambodia to kill Khmer people and to
destroy Cambodia, were they aware of the devastating consequences of
their acts? In fact, the north-Vietnamese troops started preparing for
this possible invasion since at least the 30s when Ho Chi Minh planned
his Indochinese conquest using communism as a complementary tool and
mechanic. These troops were only awaiting the "green light" from
one of the Khmer party to justify for legitimate launching of Cambodia
invasion.
Since the 60s (even as far back as the 50s), the north-Vietnamese
troops came to install on Khmer territory. Their main sanctuaries were
located in the area of "Rata****iri, Mondulkiri, Stung Treng, Svay
Rieng, etc..." (cf. open letter from Prince Sisowat Sirik Matak on
this subject). Bernard Hamel estimated that no less than 60,000 heavily
armed north-Vietnamese troops were facing against 30,000 Cambodian
troops, poorly equipped with World War I weapons or worse (see
do***entary film by Bernard Hamel and Som Sekkomar
http://amekhmer.free.fr/khcrucial-event/sihanouk-crime/sihanouk-crime.ram).
On March 28, 1969 , after allowing the settlement of north-Vietnamese
troops everywhere in Cambodia , Sihanouk openly declared at a press
conference : "the communists have invaded Cambodia - "I cannot
hide them any more - It is time that the International community knows
about it..." But one year later, Sihanouk fell deeper into the traps
set by the Chinese and Vietnamese communists. At the beginning of 1970,
he was plotting with his wife, his mother-in-law and his accomplices
leaving for China to found the National United Front of Kampuchea
(FUNK) on March 23, 1970, and later the Royal Government of National
Union of Kampuchea (GRUNK -1970) (cf. March 18, 1970 a sembling First
Khmer Republic Or myth of a complot ) These two structures were created
with an aim of saving and reviving the Khmer Rouge movement, created
and always sup****ted by Peking and Hanoi, which was recently
annihilated by the three-year sweeping operations for cleaning
communist elements in Cambodia carried out by Sihanouk himself in 1967,
1968, and 1969.
After Sihanouk's departure on January 6, 1970 , the north-Vietnamese
forces seized the occasion to attack Cambodia without any war
declaration or ultimatum. On March 27, 1970 , North Vietnam withdrew
all its diplomatic representatives from Phnom Penh and attacked our
country on March 29, 1970 .
Therefore, the notion of "civil war" in Cambodia is merely a
fiction invented by the leftist clan, their subordinates, and some
lobby groups in order to mislead national and international opinion on
this matter. In his book titled "Cambodia of Silence," Pierre Max
noted on page 140: "But in Cambodia , the Vietnamese are also
responsible. And the Khmer Rouge victory, contrary to what was said,
contrary to all the lies, is a Vietnamese victory, at least until the
end of 1973. We had said that in 1970 the Khmer Rouge were only a
handful, the majority of them were formed in Hanoi , and all surrounded
by north-Vietnamese or Vietcong elements. In April 1973, listening of
ground communications in the Phnom Penh area revealed that Vietnamese
was the only language used: thus, where was this 'Khmer Rouge
army?'"
However what Pierre max did not know or forgot to mention, was the fact
that even if some Vietnamese elements were withdrawn in 1973 after the
1973 Paris Peace Agreement, but at the end of 1974 numerous
north-Vietnamese troops returned back to Cambodia at the request of
Sihanouk and Pol Pot. The massive and spontaneous return of these
troops on Cambodian territory at the end of 1974 was decisive and it
was also the single cause of the famous "Khmer Rouge victory on April
17, 1975 ". Naturally, these troops were never withdrawn from
Cambodia after 1975 but were transformed into Khmer Rouge in order to
carry out the "Don Dien" plan. It was only a simple political
strategy of Vietnamese expansionism. In June 1975, at a press
conference, Vietnamese Foreign Minister, Nguyen Co Thach, openly
declared to the press this presence of north-Vietnamese soldiers on
Khmer territory at the end of 1974 (See do***entary video
http://amekhmer.free.fr/khcrucial-event/sihanouk-crime/nguyen-cothach.ram
):
"When Lon Nol led his Coup d'Etat against Sihanouk, they (Khmer
Rouge) were in a delicate situation - they were weak. They asked the
Vietnamese to come in March 1970 to help them build their army. Pol Pot
followed the great Chinese Cultural revolution. Pol Pot said he would
bring this revolution to Cambodia as well. Pol Pot and his army could
not be ready in a few months, you know! But they were very ambitious,
they said that they could hold on. We then left (Note: in fact, it was
because of the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement). Thus Lon Nol took that
op****tunity to launch a major offensive. Pol Pot thought that he could
face it. He concentrated all his forces against Lon Nol. But it was a
major defeat for Pol Pot who was surrounded near the Angkor temples.
They were in such bad situation that they asked the Vietnamese to come
back to help them again. We thus returned and this time, we destroyed a
big part of Lon Nol forces. What remained of these forces had to
regroup in the cities. Since then, Lon Nol never again could launch
large offensive against Pol Pot."
It is therefore obvious that the war between 1970 and 1975, and
subsequent years were Khmer-Yuon wars in which a handful of Khmer were
maintained on the surface to hide the truth and to mislead national and
international opinions of the false look of the "civil war or
auto-genocide" - a term invented against all evidences by Jean
Lacouture.
Hence, a victory obtained to the thanks to the Vietnamese. After April
17, 1975, the Vietnamese did not have any desire to let the Khmers
Rouges, their creatures, have the independence of their movement or
government simply because this victory was an immense victory of the
"southward walk" planned by their ancestors.
After April 17, several significant operations for cleaning large
cities were undertaken, in particular in Phnom Penh . The rest of
untaken materials are stocked in many storages for the next plundering.
In his book "Cambodia Year Zero," Fran=E7ois Ponchaud provided some
testimonials of people who had lived this event.
You Kim Lanh, an electrician, gave this account:
"I remained in Phnom Penh for one month, to work with the Khmer
Rouge. I had to search all houses and collect remaining rice, to stock
drugs coming from various pharmacies. We loaded all that on boats whose
crew was Vietnamese. From time to time, a fire broke out in the city,
but we did not do anything to extinguish it. Sometimes, the Khmer Rouge
made us demolish wooden houses, and put the beams and boards in a
heap."
Yen Savannary, a teacher who took refuge in Thailand on October 15,
1975 , indirectly confirmed the preceding account:
"From the end April, trucks made endless roundtrips on National Road
No. 1 to Saigon; they trans****ted radio sets, motorbikes, all brands of
vehicles, bicycles, packed drugs, and all kind of weapons. Near Neak
Loeung, about two hundred vehicles were waiting to cross the Mekong ;
there were mainly Mercedes and Peugeot 404 cars. There were also three
or four 105 mm artillery pieces, and three trucks loaded with drugs. It
seems that the whole thing was destined to Vietnam ."
Lao Bun Thai, a 23 years old mechanic, refugee in October 1975,
testified having worked until about May 15 to trans****t furniture,
television sets, refrigerators, and other household items to throw in a
large blazing inferno located about a dozen kilometers north of the
capital, near to the Stung Kambot dike.
"I saw, with my own eyes, several trucks, filled to the brim with
books, pass in front of the French embassy towards the north. I also
saw burning on the lawn, library and church books. The library of the
French School of the Far East , located a few hundred meters from the
embassy underwent a similar fate on the morning of May 5... It did not
contain much treasures anymore because the essential ones had been
saved in France ."
All these testimonials clearly show the conquest of one country by
another. The victorious country plunders the loosing one, carrying with
it all it needs and destroying all that is useless or inconvenient. The
cultural destruction of Khmer inheritance was nothing more than the
assassination of the national, cultural, and racial identity of a
Nation. It is therefore easy for the invaders or attackers to radically
eliminate at the same time the people, the culture, and the identity of
a nation in order to introduce the new elements.
Evidently, April 17 1975 as January 7 1979 , both are nothing than
Vietnamese expansionist strategic victory. Then the terms
"Nationalism- ultra nationalist - ethnic purification..." to name a
group of exterminators who is founded, trained and maintained by the
foreigners (Vietnamese and other by Chinese), thus half of theirs were
foreigners, are purely political manipulation to mystify national and
international opinion for political goal of those who control the
region and their accomplices.
It is interesting to note that the operations undertaken after April
17, 1975 repeated again following the victorious second step of
Vietnamese expansionist strategy in Cambodia . January 7, 1979 but
their plunder took another dimension even more significant quantity
than those undertaken on April 17, 1975 . All national heritage which
was collected, sorted, and stored in various large warehouses
throughout the country, especially in Phnom Penh since April 17 1975,
were taken to Vietnam by boats, trucks, and planes - an operation
strangely resembling a large scale national plundering. This shows that
the step following that of April 17, 1975 was indeed that of January 7,
1979 .
All this meticulous expansionist policy cannot be the results of
chance, but rather those of detailed, calculated, and planned policies
well thought out by someone.
After openly occupying Cambodia in 1979, the Vietnamese placed their
puppets to work for them. The various treaties that the Vietnamese was
not able to conclude during the first wave of Khmer Rouge, they were
successively and formally signed by the second wave of Khmer Rouge
(CPP) in 1979, 1982, 1983, 1985, in addition to the application of the
K5 plan, etc... It is im****tant to stress that the treaty "of
friend****ps and co-operations between Vietnam and Kampuchea " was
also submitted by the Vietnamese to Pol Pot for approval, however, the
latter refused to the great disappointment of the Vietnamese. One can
thus conclude that April 17, 1975 was a first attempt for the
application of the "Don Dien" policy. If this first attempt would
fail as it did, it was necessary to come up with provocations in order
to achieve a second attempt (in this case, it was accomplished on
January 7, 1979), and if this second attempt would still fail, it is
therefore necessary to repeat the attempt again and again until
achieving the final goal.
Why do the Khmer people suffer endlessly? Before the 1970-1975 war,
people living along border areas were daily repressed and killed by
Vietcong and north-Vietnamese troops. During the war, Khmer people
joined the marquis following the call made by Sihanouk, and they
witnessed the death of several thousands of their compatriots. Now,
after the war, Khmer people still live today in the genocidal context
of the past under the various communist regimes. These successive
terrible tragedies undeniably contribute to destabilize Khmer society.
The consequences of these disastrous conflicts are reflected in
numerous and unending social crises. The painfully surviving Khmer
people are physically, mentally, and morally handicapped. They do not
dare fight for their life and their survival rights anymore. Thus, the
enemies seize on the occasion to continue to mislead Khmer people, to
falsify their history, thus subjecting Khmer people to eternal slave of
poverty, to ignorance, and to fear. Each one of us should be aware that
"national interest has priority over everything else," and that it
is a duty to spread this idea in order for the Khmer Nation to be
finally freed from the unending danger that the Vietnamese expansionism
constitutes.
Amekhmer
http://amekhmer.free.fr/
* Avec sp=E9cial remerciement aux personnes ayant contribu=E9 =E0 ce
m=E9moire - With a special thanks to those who have contribuate to
this memory.
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