Word: kampuchea
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...home and abroad. Its economy struggles along, its 57 million people are divided and demoralized, its leadership is doddering and ineffectual. A reluctant ally of the Soviet Union, Viet Nam faces China, a historic foe, to the north and finds itself bogged down in a drawn-out war in Kampuchea in the south. Finally, Hanoi is in the ignominious position of wanting better ties with he U.S.-only to be turned down cold by Washington...
Hanoi's frustrations sometimes flare into violence. Late last month, Vietnamese troops began their annual offensive in Kampuchea to flush out the estimated 45,000 armed rebels opposed to the Hanoi-backed government of President Heng Samrin. Vietnamese soldiers destroyed Phnom Chat, a border village sympathetic to the Khmer Rouge, the largest of the guerrilla groups, then pulverized O Samach, a settlement 70 miles to the northeast that served as an outpost for the 30,000 followers of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. During the blitz, however, the Vietnamese aimed their fire not only at the insurgents but at unarmed civilians...
...Hanoi with as much as $20 billion in aid during the war, tensions began to build in 1978, when ethnic Chinese fled Viet Nam as a result of Hanoi's economic policies. Then, shortly after the Soviet-Vietnamese treaty was signed, came Viet Nam's invasion of Kampuchea. Hanoi's forces quickly toppled the bloodthirsty, Chinese-supported Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot and installed in its place a pro-Vietnamese government headed by Heng Samrin. Today 180,000 Vietnamese troops are tied down in Kampuchea, while an additional 45,000 are encamped in Laos...
...deposed in 1970. The next Vietnamese target will probably be the camps of Ban Sangae and Nong Samet, which house 96,000 civilians and serve as a center for the Khmer People's National Liberation Front. That group is led by Son Sann, 71, who is perhaps Kampuchea's least-tarnished and therefore (to the Vietnamese) most threatening nationalist leader...
...return, the Vietnamese began a diplomatic offensive of their own, accusing Thailand of actively supporting the border rebels and China of supplying them with arms through Thailand. China has always backed the guerrillas in Kampuchea. But while Thailand probably allows China to send arms through Thai territory, it has tried to avoid direct involvement in Kampuchea's strife. Says District Chief Palakorn Suwannarath: "For the past four years we've been plagued by refugees, artillery shelling, black market activities and dislocation of civilians along the border. We get no benefit at all from these undisciplined resistance groups." Whatever...