Word: kampuchea
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...National anthem of Kampuchea...
Since the 1975 Communist takeover transformed Cambodia into Democratic Kampuchea, the prophecy of the new national anthem has been amply borne out. A series of political purges and a disastrous mass resettlement policy, combined with a nine-month-old border war with Viet Nam, have splattered, indeed drenched the country with blood...
...last week, the earlier purges cost 100,000 lives "as the absolute minimum." In 1975-76, the victims were intellectuals, officials of the previous regime and members of the armed forces, once commanded by Marshal Lon Nol, who escaped to Hawaii in 1975. (Last week the deposed leader challenged Kampuchea's right to U.N. credentials.) In 1977 the government concentrated on killing regional Khmer Rouge commanders who had collaborated with the Vietnamese in the war against the U.S. The current purge aims to liquidate professionals, minor officials, and peasants and soldiers suspected of disloyalty. "The killing is proceeding methodically," observed...
Responding to the purge threats, Khmer Rouge deserters combined with restive peasants to form a 25,000-man "liberation force" under the leadership of So Phim, a disaffected former Vice President of Democratic Kampuchea. The Vietnamese already occupy large areas of the so-called Fishhook region south of Mondolkiri province and a strategic bulge of Cambodia from Cheom Ksan to the Mekong River. They are now fighting for control of Parrot's Beak, where the U.S. invaded in 1970 (see map). Vietnamese troops are massing in Laos, near the Cambodian frontier. When the monsoon ends in October, clearing skies will...
...dilution of their doctrine by what Solzhenitsyn has called "the great reserves of mercy and sacrifice" from a Christian tradition. Yet if there is any doubt about what the focus of the purest of revolutionary values is, consider the first three lines of the national anthem of Democratic Kampuchea...