Word: kampuchea
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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...
...Chinese are convinced that Viet Nam is bent on dominating Southeast Asia through a tripartite Indochinese socialist union that would include Kampuchea and Laos. Peking also fears that Hanoi's actions are part of a larger Soviet scheme to threaten China's southern flank. Aside from launching their brief attack across Viet Nam's northern border in early 1979, the Chinese have been giving weapons and supplies to the remaining Khmer Rouge guerrillas in Kampuchea. Hanoi, for its part, contends that its troops were sent into Kampuchea partly to end Pol Pot's killing spree...
...presence of Vietnamese forces in Kampuchea that remains a key stumbling block for the restoration of relations between Hanoi and Washington. Besides supporting a United Nations resolution that calls for the withdrawal of foreign troops, the Reagan Administration seems intent on keeping Viet Nam in the position of an international pariah. The U.S. prohibits American companies from doing business with Hanoi. Washington also lobbies against United Nations development grants for the country and discourages other nations from offering aid. "Basically, Viet Nam has isolated itself by its actions," contended Secretary of State George Shultz during a Far Eastern swing last...