A brief history of the second civil war (1977 - 1998) by Jean-Claude Kroussar
7 January is a symbolic date that marks a high point in Cambodian history, but still carries the spectre of the Khmer Rouge. Some consider 7 January to be ‘Victory Day’, when the Khmer people were liberated from a bloodthirsty regime that had brought the country to its knees, starving and decimating part of its population. Others see it as a ‘dark day’, marking the beginning of the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. This event is not really understood and is often criticised.
Many people remember 7 January 1979 as the start of the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. This is a simplistic and inaccurate view. In fact, the truth is probably obscured for geopolitical reasons.
Those who know remain silent, leaving room for the official discourse often relayed by the sensation-seeking media, which cares little or nothing for the slightest truth.
This is still true today, when the causes of current conflicts are ignored in favour of the official narrative.
It is easy to see why they all have one thing in common: emotion. The emotion of a people faced with the death of innocent civilians, or that of thousands of victims of a pogrom...
But emotion does not explain everything. We need to look back at the historical facts to understand the sequence of events.
”History is nothing but a lie that no one disputes,“ said Napoleon
It's so true that for 50 years we've been told an inaccurate story about Cambodia. A story that I lived through, as a witness and direct participant in the tragedies of 1973 to 1998, with its hundreds of thousands of dead that the world seems to care little about.
So, quite apart from the emotion, which is quite legitimate, allow me to summarise for you the key dates in the little-known and complicated history of the Second Civil War, from 1977 to 1998. A summary that will help you understand the IMPORTANCE of 7 JANUARY.
The road to national salvation (Spring 1977)
In the spring of 1977, paranoia reigned supreme in Pol Pot's inner circle. In order to quell the growing dissent within Angkar (the Khmer Rouge organisation), the torture centre in Phnom Penh, known as S21, was operating at full capacity.
Set up in 1976 to obtain intelligence on Lon Nol's army and the links that the bourgeoisie might have with foreign powers, it is now being used to put down rebellions and confront Angkar leaders and military chiefs suspected of collusion with the Vietnamese.
Note: from April 1975 to January 1979, there were two separate organisations. The first was military, organised into 10 military regions responsible for defending the country and guarding the borders. The second, genocidal, was organised into labour camps and death camps under the direction of Angkar ideologues and their bloodthirsty young troops.
Against this backdrop, and in order to escape the purges and the prevailing madness, Major Hun Sen, then aged 25 and military commander of the Eastern Zone, decided to go to Vietnam. More than two hundred soldiers from his regiment, suspected of treason, had already been arrested and taken prisoner. He had only one choice: leave the country or die. Even though he had little chance of succeeding, knowing that Pol Pot would send his troops after him, he had to undertake this suicidal mission, which he called ‘The road to national salvation’.
Although he commanded a regiment of 2,000 men, he chose only four comrades, to whom he confided his intention: to prepare a revolution against Pol Pot's regime.
On the morning of 20 June 1977, the five men, lightly armed, left the military zone in the south-east and headed for the border. After long days walking through the jungle, avoiding mines and traps, hungry and soaking wet, they crossed the border south of Menot.
Intending to be pacifists, they hid their weapons and asked to meet the military authorities, who transferred them to Loc Ninh, then to Hô Chi Minh (formerly Saigon).
There, they were interrogated for hours on suspicion of espionage. The Vietnamese doubted their intentions, refused to believe them and, above all, ruled out any interference in Cambodia's internal affairs. But Hun Sen managed to convince the authorities, pointing out that his objective was not to spy, but to overthrow the bloodthirsty madman Pol Pot who was annihilating his people.
For their part, as soon as the Angkar commissars learn of the desertion of one of their leaders, the repression is bloody: sections, companies, local people, all are executed. Some managed to escape, but the Vietnamese border guards turned them back. The next day, hundreds of bodies float on the Thường Thới Hậu river, forming the border between the two countries.
In the following months, faced with the violence of Pol Pot's troops in the eastern part of Cambodia, villagers, prisoners and deserting soldiers took refuge in Vietnam. Among them were several Khmer Rouge military leaders, who joined Hun Sen.
In March 1978, Hun Sen, accompanied by several Vietnamese and Khmer officers, managed to infiltrate Cambodia in order to assess the situation and draw up a plan of attack. On his return, he explained the plan to one of the Vietnamese defence officials, General Tran Van Tra. After several days of negotiations, the Vietnamese government agreed to support Hun Sen in his bid for liberation.
Thus, on 12 May 1978, the Khmer United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS) was created, with the birth of combat unit N°125.
In the following days, in a fit of paranoia, Pol Pot launched a major offensive in eastern Cambodia, with the intention of eliminating the entire military zone, allegedly in the pay of the enemy. Khmer Rouge against Khmer Rouge, it was a massacre, with few survivors.
By the end of 1978, Hun Sen's forces, some 10,000 Khmers, were ready for battle. He was faced with a Cornelian choice.
Either he could attack with his own troops, with the Vietnamese providing logistics and support, with the risk of his army getting bogged down.
Or he accepts the direct and rapid intervention of the Vietnamese Army, with the risk of future interference.
The choice of a rapid liberation of the people took precedence, and unit N°125 was involved in the fighting, with its leaders taking charge of political affairs.
But before invading Cambodia, the Minister of the Army, General Võ Nguyên Giáp, asked the French for their knowledge of the country. Such a request was entirely legitimate, given that only France still possessed all the archives from the colonial period; all the documents in Cambodia had been destroyed.
Above all, General Võ Nguyên Giáp wanted to recover the staff maps produced during the protectorate. These highly accurate maps would enable Vietnamese officers to define their combat strategies.
At first, the French government refused, but then negotiated an active participation by imposing one or two observers, in order to have a clear view of the situation. The Vietnamese government agreed.
On 15 November 1978, at Nội Bài airport, a Vietnamese People's Army vehicle was waiting to take the two French observers to the Ministry of Defence. General Võ Nguyên Giáp, Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is under heavy protection. Several roadblocks and security checks protect access. But the two Frenchmen were expected and welcomed even before identity checks had been completed.
The mission orders were presented to General Võ Nguyên Giáp, who greeted the two men and thanked France in impeccable French. The staff cards were then handed to him. After half an hour's discussion, the two Frenchmen were integrated into the Vietnamese forces, one as an observer (my deputy), the other as a military adviser (yours truly Kroussar).
Liberation of the country (December 1978 - 7 January 1979)
On 21 December 1978, General Võ Nguyên Giáp advocated the use of overwhelming force to annihilate the enemy: first intensive bombardments by the air force, then a massive surge of 170,000 soldiers into Cambodia.
The same day, the first Vietnamese columns headed for the provinces of Kratïè and Stoeng Treng.
On 26 December 1978, the north-east of Cambodia was already under Vietnamese control. The Khmer Rouge, formidable fighters in the jungle, trained for guerrilla warfare, capable of remaining motionless for hours on end, crouching like shadows, were poor strategists on the plains and rice fields. They made the strategic mistake of immobilising their troops in advanced, fixed positions, instead of adopting mobile guerrilla tactics; they became ideal targets and were dismantled in less than a week.
Villages fell one after the other, the beginning of a blitzkrieg, while the Vietnamese officers looked down on the defeated. A look of life or death on everything that still moves here below. The Vietnamese soldiers machine-gun without mercy or distinction. They behave like conquerors and, unfortunately, use brutal force.
Cambodia, the Cambodia that used to hold a spell, is no longer the land of delightful mysteries that would give a child dreams of adventure or glory. This country no longer fascinates, it desolates. The shadow of death is all around. Everything is terror, dread, desolation, beyond reality. A spectacle that only the pen of a Dante could describe! Everywhere in the country is darkness and abomination.
In the open mass graves, from which emanates a sickening smell of rot and gunpowder, muffled moans are heard at regular intervals, of corpses below and above the survivors. In the rubble, a man in rags, an old man, stares stupidly, with the eyes of a madman. Another, more skeleton than man, his skin parched, his eyes glassy, bewildered, like those of a blind man watching for light, moans in long sobs.
“Faced with these apocalyptic scenes, it's hard not to feel an immense sense of unease that will leave an indelible mark on your memory ?”
The Khmers have fled the burning villages and labour camps to escape the fighting. There are so many dead bodies that we no longer know whether all these dead are in our world, or that we have arrived in the realm of the dead.
How can we forget the screams and frightened looks of young children scanning the sky, watching for the shrill whistles of the shells, watching them come at them? How could we forget the mothers throwing themselves on their children to protect them and die with them?
For several days, the fighting intensified and the troops reached the foot of Bokor. This mountain is home to a palace transformed into a citadel. The battle was bloody, with the Vietnamese advancing metre after metre, encircling every last rock, razing every last grove to the ground. The Khmer Rouge put up fierce resistance, holed up in the makeshift shelters provided by the old colonial buildings. The mountain was conquered. There were no prisoners, no survivors. Hundreds of bodies littered the various floors of Bokor Palace, but access to the port of Sihanoukville was clear.
Finally, the troops marched towards the capital
On 1 January 1979, the sound of artillery fire could be heard in Phnom Penh, rattling the windows of the palace where Prince Norodom Sihanouk had been under house arrest for four years. The following day, a Vietnamese commando attempted to cross the Mekong in rubber dinghies with the intention of kidnapping the prince. But they failed and were repulsed by the last remaining Khmer Rouge troops.
On 4 January 1979, the capital was surrounded. And on 6 January, a small Chinese twin-engine plane flew over the fighting with Prince Norodom Sihanouk and his family on board, fleeing to China. By evacuating Norodom Sihanouk, the Khmer Rouge gave themselves a new chance of support, as Sihanouk could not accept the Vietnamese invasion.
On 7 January 1979, Phnom Penh surrendered. For the second time in less than four years, Phnom Penh fell and surrendered. And the course of events changed abruptly. The ‘Youns’ had taken Phnom Penh; they were not liberators, they were invaders,’ was how the Parisian capital sounded that very evening.
Note: the word ‘Youn’ means ‘invaders/thieves’ in the ancient forms of Khmer
The next day, at Norodom Sihanouk's request, the Khmer diaspora in France gathered in front of the Vietnamese embassy in Paris to demonstrate against the ‘invader’. Anti-Vietnamese resentment resurfaced, all the more so as it served the Western cause. This time, the eyes of the world were on Cambodia. The leaders of Communist China fulminated against the Vietnamese, threatening them with terrible punishment, and the West denounced the invasion. As for the Khmers, they were torn between relief and fury. Relieved that the terror was over. Rid of Pol Pot and his Angkar. Furious that the country was now in the hands of the unwanted liberator they had always feared.
From that day on, the Khmer Rouge were no longer enemy number one. The resistance was born and organised around them. They regrouped in the north-west of the country and, as best they could, reorganised themselves, helped by many Khmers who joined their ranks. But they were soon rearmed, financed and legitimised once again.
On 11 January 1979, the ‘People's Republic of Cambodia’ was created, supported by the Vietnamese and the USSR. Major Hun Sen was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was responsible for securing recognition for the new government. And a new flag flew in the middle of the city.
The French translate the country's name as the People's Republic of Kampuchea when, in all honesty, they should have translated the name កម្ពុជា kampouthïr as : Cambodia.
Note: កម្ពុជា kampouthïr latinised kampuchea, has been the name of the Kingdom since its creation in 1445.
This makes it easier to pretend that the Cambodia of yesterday no longer exists, especially as Cambodia is supported by communist countries. This falsified name has created confusion in people's minds. A confusion that still exists today.
From then on, Norodom Sihanouk never ceased to denounce the invasion of his country before the United Nations Assembly in New York and then in Paris. His will, his political sense, his courage and his tenacity made him, in the eyes of the world, the only man capable of finding the path to national reconciliation. This suits the West just fine. Norodom became the man who wanted to crush the Vietnamese, in the name of revenge...
Thus began a terrible tug-of-war between, on the one hand, the liberator Hun Sen supported by Vietnam and the USSR and, on the other, the deposed Norodom Sihanouk supported by the rest of the world.
Never mind the collateral damage and the thousands of deaths that would result; this new republic and its new leaders had to be destroyed. And so, at the end of September 1979, the Khmer Rouge officially took their seat at the UN. The executioners became the representatives of their former victims. A scandal within the United Nations.
Start of the second civil war and Western blockade (1979 - 1987)
In February 1979, access to Phnom Penh remained forbidden for several months. The former inhabitants had to camp on the outskirts. While the government tried to restore the infrastructure to a minimum in order to accommodate the population.
In the surrounding camps, the many survivors tell of the terrible ordeals they went through. In some areas, the Angkar's directive to ‘crush the bourgeois class’ was interpreted by some as ‘kill everyone who is not of peasant origin’, and by others as ‘oblige the bourgeois class to live like the peasants’.
Fortunately, the harshness of the regime varied greatly from one province to another and from one camp to another. This has enabled the five million survivors to gradually regain a taste for life. The smiles of yesteryear are once again lighting up scarred faces. But can life be sustained in an environment full of rubbish, foul smells, rats, destitution and disease?
How can life exist in such poverty? How many people are there in the capital now? Hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million already, and nothing to enable them to live decently. And when the clouds pour down their raging torrents, and the floods sweep through the city, bringing with them mud, rubbish and the smell of excrement... How can they survive without the bare essentials of life, without a modicum of support? support that will never come.
In September 1979, the Westerners (French, Americans, British) and the Chinese exerted their influence at the United Nations General Assembly. They forced another vote in favour of granting Cambodia's seat to the deposed Khmer Rouge regime and put an end to a UN investigation into Pol Pot's crimes.
The West, mainly France, the United States and Great Britain, had two options:
The first was to recognise the end of the Pol Pot regime and force the Vietnamese to return home, by putting an international force in place to prevent the Khmer Rouge from returning to power.
The second was to condemn the Vietnamese intervention and support the Khmer Rouge by imposing a total blockade of Cambodia.
The second option was preferred.
The Westerners wanted to crush the invaders and, above all, overthrow Hun Sen's young government, while legitimising their embargo via the UN, without worrying about the fate of the five million Khmers and the thousands of children who would lose their lives for lack of care and medicine. It was this victimised people that Giscard d'Estaing, Brzezinski and Thatcher wanted to punish a dying Cambodia, because its liberator, Vietnam, was Communist and, above all, supported by the USSR.
The Khmer Rouge became the allies of the West and the Chinese, with the goodwill of the UN, forming a force of 30,000 to 35,000 soldiers.
From then on, the Khmer Rouge used the refugee camps in Thailand as their rear bases. These camps were also taken over by agents of the SDECE, the CIA and the SAS special forces. China supplied arms directly, while France (along with the United States, Belgium and the United Kingdom) worked discreetly, providing financial and military support through a humanitarian organisation.
It's not just any organisation - it's based in the American embassy in Bangkok. The leaders of this organisation are all former members of the secret services, including many agents from the French and British espionage services. A whole network was set up. Arms, ammunition and financial aid from Europe and the United States regularly passed through Singapore before arriving in Thailand. Then the Thai generals, not without having stolen hundreds of weapons and recruited thousands of dollars for their personal use, managed to get everything to the refugee camps, where the Khmer Rouge reigned supreme.
Unfortunately, history is repeating itself. As in 1970, the West and the Chinese want to overthrow the new Khmer government, by relying on the Khmer Rouge.
In November 1979, faced with this totally senseless and dramatic situation, thousands of Khmers fled to Thailand to escape the fighting, reprisals and savage famine. Many of them (the former executioners) fled out of fear, while others fled to refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodian border to escape the country's relapse into war. Many were requisitioned by the Khmer Rouge. Others were lucky enough to be transferred to host countries... France, Canada, Australia and the USA.
On 21 March 1981, Norodom Sihanouk, in exile in Pyongyang, North Korea, finally came forward and created an organisation to defend Cambodia, in order to give a monarchist component to the fight against the pro-Vietnamese regime in Phnom Penh.
As usual, he gave it a complicated acronym (FUNCINPEC - Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifique et Coopératif), seeking to express his thinking to the world. As Norodom Sihanouk avoided mentioning the Khmer Rouge, the spectre of a new, unnatural and forced alliance reared its head.
The political situation in Cambodia became even more confused. Certain countries in the free world stepped up their pressure on the resistance leaders to ally themselves with the Khmer Rouge. This unholy alliance came to fruition.
This facade of unity, between leaders who are at odds with each other, cannot fight effectively against the Vietnamese and the government troops led by Hun Sen. Despite the agreement, and in the midst of the greatest confusion, clashes continued to occur between the different factions of the coalition.
To protect themselves, the Khmer Rouge laid thousands of mines. But to defend themselves, the Vietnamese forces did the same. At a furious pace, the entire border area with Thailand was mined.
On 25 December 1982, the United Nations General Assembly voted on an amendment tabled by Vietnam requesting that the Khmer Rouge delegation no longer be recognised as the representative of Cambodia. The amendment was rejected by 90 votes to 29, with 26 abstentions. The United States, Great Britain and China voted against, with France abstaining. The result of this vote was a success for Prince Sihanouk, president of the coalition.
From 1985 to 1987, minefields proliferated in the west of the country, including the best known, K5, also known as the ‘Bamboo Wall’, made up of palisades lined with barbed wire and minefields 5 km deep and over 100 km long, bordering the Thai border, where every step could be fatal.
In the east of the country, Vietnamese soldiers were ordered to occupy abandoned land and bring in their families. The Khmer Rouge reacted, mounting punitive expeditions and destroying several occupied towns. It was a great victory for Pol Pot. But the Vietnamese retaliated violently, inflicting heavy losses in their turn. Despite this crushing defeat, the Khmer Rouge were able to withdraw to the refugee camps in the north-west of the country. They quickly reorganised an army, with the support of the UN, the Chinese and the West, with the sole aim of crushing Cambodia. Without Chinese and Western support, the Khmer Rouge would probably have stopped the war long ago.
The West had the opportunity to put an end to this guerrilla war and to trust Hun Sen who, for eight years, had had to face the worst difficulties. Powerless under pressure from the Vietnamese, a victim of the embargo imposed by the UN, weakened in relation to the Khmer Rouge ‘supported’ by the West.
The first attempts at peace
In December 1987, Prince Norodom Sihanouk and Prime Minister Hun Sen met for the first time at Fère-en-Tardenois near Paris. This meeting was the culmination of several years of efforts by His Excellency Hun Sen to promote peace.
The aim of this initiative is to seek a political settlement to the conflict that has divided Cambodia since the liberation by the Vietnamese army in January 1979.
On 4 December 1987, the negotiations ended with the signing of a joint communiqué emphasising that the Khmer problem must necessarily be resolved by the Khmer people themselves.
On April 5, 1989, at Hun Sen's request, Vietnam announced the total withdrawal, by September 30, of its troops, estimated at fifty thousand by Hanoi and around seventy thousand by the West. This withdrawal should put an end to more than ten years of Vietnamese military occupation of Cambodia.
April 29, 1989 saw the creation of the State of Cambodia. As resistance leader Norodom Sihanouk prepared to meet Prime Minister Hun Sen in Jakarta, the latter pushed through a revision of the constitution to satisfy a request made by Norodom Sihanouk.
The “People's Republic of Cambodia” gave way to the State of Cambodia, which became a neutral, peaceful, non-aligned country. The constitution dropped all references to socialism and re-established Buddhism as the state religion. This satisfied Norodom Sihanouk, but did not speed up the peace process. Nevertheless, a new flag was created as a symbol of hope and recognition.
On August 30, 1989, the Paris International Conference on Cambodia suspended its work, noting that “it is not yet possible to reach a comprehensive settlement”. The Khmer factions and their allies were unable to agree on the participation of the Khmer Rouge in a transitional government to be installed before general elections.
The government in Phnom Penh has ruled out any power-sharing with the Khmer Rouge, while the UN continues to demand it.
On September 26, 1989, the last Vietnamese units officially left Cambodia in the presence of numerous foreign journalists.
On September 27, 1989, as the various factions of the coalition tried to consolidate their positions on the ground against government troops, Norodom Sihanouk estimated that thousands of Vietnamese soldiers had not left the country.
Norodom Sihanouk refused to resume negotiations, and the civil war continued.
The international community put the brakes on the negotiations and tried to sideline Hun Sen in favor of the other coalition.
On October 23, 1991, in the hope of putting a definitive end to the second civil war, the main parties signed a peace agreement in Paris, in the presence of witnesses from 18 countries, including the UN Secretary-General. The main players in this agreement were :
Prime Minister Hun Sen for the Khmer government
Prince Norodom Sihanouk for the FUNCINPEC movement
Son San for the National Liberation Front
Khieu Samphan for the Khmer Rouge movement, still working with the UN
Despite the Paris Peace Agreement of October 23, 1991, civil war continued in the Kingdom, provoked by the Khmer Rouge, still supported by FUNCINPEC and the West.
Failure of UNTAC (February 1992 - September 1993)
In February 1992, following the 1991 peace agreement and as part of a peacekeeping operation, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) took over administration of the country, under UN supervision.
It has been given full powers to secure the country, re-establish an administration, organize general elections and form a new government.
This means wiping the slate clean of everything built up since 1979.
In the center of the flag the country's name កម្ពុជា which is pronounced Kampouthïr. The country's official name becomes: United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia ( អាជ្ញាធរ អន្តរកាល សហ ប្រជាជាតិ នៅ កម្ពុជា pronounced Aït'gna'thô Antarrakal Sä'hä Prrotièrthïèrt neuw Kampouthïr).
From March 1992 to September 1993, although the Khmer Rouge were signatories to the Peace Accords, they still refused to lay down their arms. We pretend to forget it, but the cessation of hostilities and the disarmament of the opposing forces were the first and most important objective of the “Peace Accords”.
Since the Khmer Rouge did not implement a single provision of the Accords, UNTAC showed hesitation, weakness and powerlessness, and ultimately failed. This may be seen as a political failure, but UNTAC's military forces were effective in the field, clearing mines and protecting the population...
UNTAC, with its four thousand civil servants, has greatly broken and darkened spirits throughout the country. By taking the place of the Khmers, who were full of good will, they discouraged them and, once their work was done, they left, leaving a total vacuum when they should have been training them, unfortunately encouraging a certain stagnation, corruption and prostitution.
The Clan War & The Tears of the People
In September 1993, the Khmer Rouge opposed the elections, even preventing people in some villages from voting, particularly in the north-west of the country. Against all expectations, the turnout was a resounding success. However, at the end of the ballot, no political party had either the absolute majority or the two-thirds majority required to adopt the Constitution.
However, FUNCINPEC, the royalist party, declared itself the winner, reinstating Norodom Sihanouk as Head of State. A political crisis soon erupted. Some members of the second-placed Khmer People's Party, including Hun Sen, and Norodom Chakrapong, one of the King's sons, threatened to secede and create a breakaway republic in the east of the country, where they had a majority. King Norodom Sihanouk, in order to allow everyone to save face, proposes :
“All we have to do is divide every administration and ministry in two, right down to the head of government...”
Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Sihanouk's eldest son and Funcinpec leader, becomes ‘first Prime Minister’ and Hun Sen, head of the Cambodian People's Party, is named 'second Prime Minister'. Peace seemed to be saved.
In reality, hostilities were merely delayed, as the army, police and administration were effectively cut in two, generating constant conflict and delaying the country's ability to recover from the long years of war.
On September 24, 1993, the Monarchy was re-established. The Constituent Assembly restored the country's status as a “Kingdom”, and recognized the sovereignty of King Norodom Sihanouk. Thus, the country finally regained its original name: Kingdom of Cambodia.
A new flag flies in the streets, hopefully the last for decades.
Unfortunately, it took several more years for the civil war to end completely. Some areas of the country were still under Khmer Rouge domination.
On July 6, 1994, the Royal Khmer National Assembly decreed that the Khmer Rouge were “outlawed”. But Pol Pot remained active within the movement, and insecurity reigned throughout the provinces.
On August 8, 1996, Ieng Sary announced his break with Pol Pot and, with around 4,000 men, defied FUNCINPEC by siding with Hun Sen. Ieng Sary's men were integrated into government troops, despite the hostility of Sihanouk and his son Ranariddh.
Ieng Sary's defection dealt a decisive blow to the Khmer Rouge, who by the end of 1996 had lost almost all their bases in the interior of the country and were confined to the jungle. Pol Pot then envisaged a return to legal political action: the Khmer Rouge announced the creation of two new political parties, a “Peasant Party” and a “National Solidarity Party” led by Khieu Samphân.
But they were no longer in a position to re-enter the electoral game. Some of the troops abandoned their ideology and denounced their former leaders. They have turned to business, and even organized crime, and continue to wield economic power in the Pailin region, near the border with Thailand.
Please note: we must not confuse the former military leaders who participated in the liberation of the country, and formed a government to rebuild the country and protect the people, with the bloodthirsty Khmer Rouge ideologues. It was the latter who sank into organized crime, banditry and continued to destroy the country. This is an important point, given the confusion and confusion surrounding this period.
In 1997, FUNCINPEC continued its negotiations with the Khmer Rouge faction based in Anlong Veng (Pol Pot, Ta Mok and Khieu Samphân), but the outcome was dramatic. When the FUNCINPEC negotiators' helicopter landed in the Khmer Rouge zone, it was stormed, apparently on the orders of Pol Pot, who had not been informed of the reason for their arrival. The fifteen emissaries were locked in iron cages, and only four men survived their five-month captivity.
On June 1, 1997, direct contacts were finally established and Norodom Ranariddh met Khieu Samphân to agree on a united front. Norodom Ranariddh then made the mistake of announcing publicly, without first referring to Khieu Samphân, that the agreement provided for the exile of Pol Pot, Ta Mok and Son Sen.
Khmer Rouge radio immediately denied the agreement. Norodom Sihanouk, for his part, issued a statement to the effect that he would not pardon Pol Pot and Ta Mok. He did, however, pardon Son Sen. Considering himself betrayed, Pol Pot had Son Sen and his entire family executed.
On June 11, 1997, Ta Mok, fearing for his life, took the initiative. He gathered his troops and staged a coup against Pol Pot, who fled. The last troops loyal to Pol Pot scattered.
On June 28 1997, Khieu Samphân announced the definitive end of the Khmer Rouge movement, his break with Pol Pot and his unconditional support for FUNCINPEC.
On July 5, 1997, the signing of an agreement between Khieu Samphân and Norodom Ranariddh to integrate the remnants of the Khmer Rouge into FUNCINPEC's united front precipitated events. The situation ignited.
The last steps towards peace
The forces of the two prime ministers clashed in the capital Phnom Penh. On one side, Hun Sen's forces (CPP) and on the other, Prince Norodom Ranariddh's forces (FUNCIPEC). Each with its own police force and army, skirmishes between the two parties resumed, with increasingly frequent clashes followed by arbitrary executions. Fighting in various parts of the capital resulted in over a hundred deaths.
It was against this backdrop that, in July 1997, in the spirit of the peace accords and in order to guarantee the country's security, Hun Sen staged a coup de force against Norodom Ranariddh, ousting the latter from power. According to Western diplomats in Phnom Penh, Prince Ranariddh is largely responsible for his fate.
And, according to Australian ambassador Tony Kevin:
“There was a consensus among ambassadors from France, the US, the UK and Australia, supported by those from Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and China, that Ranariddh and the Khmer Rouge wanted to defy the peace accords, while Hun Sen defended them.”
In their diplomatic cables, the ambassadors make no secret of their preference for Hun Sen: “Isn't that better than returning to the sterile game of supporting Ranariddh?” writes Tony Kevin.
For them, it was out of the question to denounce a “coup d'état” - and it was the term “coup de force” that quickly came to describe the events. The international community condemned Hun Sen's initiative, with several countries suspending aid and the kingdom's membership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations being postponed indefinitely.
France, however, distinguished itself from the other countries by explicitly supporting Hun Sen. French ambassador Gildas Le Lidec's analysis is pragmatic:
“We decided not to evacuate the French from Phnom Penh and not to interrupt our bilateral aid. Until 1997, we tried to keep an equidistance between the CPP and FUNCINPEC. But after July 5, it was clear that Hun Sen was the strong man of Cambodia and represented its future. Even Norodom Sihanouk recognized this.”
The situation in the country is complicated. By nightfall, the rule of law only exists on paper. The list of misery-stricken people living off the streets is long: cripples, deserted or demobilized soldiers, disaffected Khmer Rouge, refugees without homes or jobs, orphans addicted to glue... Insecurity is back, and many inhabitants are fleeing the capital.
On July 25, 1997, at a public meeting, Pol Pot was sentenced to “life imprisonment”. Gravely ill, he was placed under house arrest. His three military commanders were executed. Ta Mok, now the official leader of the Khmer Rouge, remained at the head of a few hundred men, who resorted to banditry to survive.
In September 1998, thanks to a win-win policy, H.E. Hun Sen was elected “The One” Prime Minister, putting an end to the second civil war. Clashes ceased. The country finally returned to complete peace and prosperity. Finally, King Norodom Sihanouk pardons the last rebels. In the days that followed, Pol Pot died of a heart attack. According to several sources, his personal physician helped him to take the plunge.
December 29 was declared “Peace Day in Cambodia”, to celebrate this new-found peace. Since the famous peace accords of 1991, the policies of the UN, the West and the Chinese have led to seven years of uncertainty and instability, delaying Cambodia's ability to rebuild its economy.
S21 Genocide Museum - An ambiguous symbol
The Khmer Rouge's Security Prison 21 (S-21), now the Genocide Museum, is located in the former Tuol Sleng High School. It was set up in April 1975 to obtain information on Lon Nol's army and the links that the bourgeoisie and nobility might have with foreign powers.
But its main activity resumed in the spring of 1977, when it became the main torture center for Angkar members and military leaders suspected of treason or collusion with the Vietnamese.
In this terrifying place, the torture and killing machine took on a life of its own. Whether they were former executioners, camp leaders, simple executors or close relatives, they were all forced, under torture, to confess to an imaginary crime before being sent to the “Choeung Ek” camp to be murdered.
In a house near the school, thousands of files containing confessions and photographs of each prisoner made it possible to understand the extent of the disaster. Pol Pot had to be kept constantly informed of the work of purification. The evidence, photos and signed confessions of the enemies of the true Khmer nation had to be brought to light. Names, dates, confessions were needed, and more were always needed.
It is estimated that around 18,000 Angkar members and military leaders were imprisoned and tortured at S21 between June 1977 and the end of 1978. Generations of executioners massacred their predecessors on orders, and were in turn murdered by their replacements, under the amused gaze of Kang Kèk Leu, alias “Douch”, the prison director.
This is the ambiguity of this museum, which is seen by Westerners as the museum of genocide (which is true), while many Khmer survivors see it, much more, as the museum of the fratricide perpetrated by Pol Pot against the rebellious military leaders and members of the Angkar.
Note: Angkar = name given to any organization, and by extension to the Khmer Rouge organization.
Témoignage de Kroussar
For those who wish to discover the details of this little-known history of the Kingdom, the evidence of Western involvement and what really happened in the embassy in April 1975, you will find: Mon récit GRATUIT - Cambodge-La longue quête "ICI".
This novel in French plunges us into the heart of secrets that have long been kept hidden by Western governments. According to readers: “More than a novel, it is first and foremost a moving testimony, a love story for a people, a tale that surprises by the force it carries, and lifts the veil on shameful Western geopolitics”.
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