Word: kampucheans
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...attack was carefully timed and meticulously planned. Shortly after midnight under a full moon, small-arms fire began to crackle around the Kampuchean refugee camp and guerrilla base known as Ampil, hard by the border with Thailand. The shooting eventually died away, only to be replaced, just after sunrise, by a thunderous artillery barrage. Plumes of smoke rose from the dusty thatch-and- bamboo compound as heavy Vietnamese guns poured thousands of rounds into the area--"a huge rumbling," as one witness described it, "an explosion not every minute but every second." A dozen Soviet-built T-54 tanks...
...ended the latest phase of the annual dry-season effort by Hanoi to stamp out forces opposed to the Kampuchean regime of Heng Samrin, who is widely considered to be a Vietnamese puppet. From Hanoi's point of view, the operation was a success: between 89 and 103 guerrillas were killed or wounded in the action, while Vietnamese casualties were presumed to be much lighter. Moreover, the attack dealt a blow to the Khmer Front, the major non-Communist element in the close to 60,000-member guerrilla coalition that is continuing to resist the 1978 Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea...
...Vietnamese launched the initial phase of their offensive in November, and on Christmas Day attacked Rithysen, the biggest of eight Khmer Front guerrilla bases that dot the Kampuchean side of the border. The Christmas onslaught drove some 62,000 civilian refugees into Thailand; the threat to Ampil added 23,000 more. Many of the guerrillas are expected to filter back into Kampuchea, but the Vietnamese have made public statements indicating that they intend a permanent occupation of the border region, depriving the guerrillas of their comfortable zone of sanctuary. If the K.P.N.L.F. intends to fight on, it will probably have...
This year's Vietnamese drive has differed from earlier campaigns in both its relative ferocity and its single-minded concentration on the Khmer Front component of the Kampuchean resistance. With an estimated 12,000 fighters led by onetime Prime Minister Son Sann, the front is linked in a loose alliance with some 40,000 guerrillas of the Communist Khmer Rouge, backed by China, and 5,000 soldiers loyal to Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Kampuchea's former head of state. The guerrilla forces are no match for the Vietnamese, who maintain approximately 160,000 troops in Kampuchea and can bring in heavy...
...hour after midnight on Christmas morning, the onslaught began. Residents of Rithysen (pop. 66,000), a Kampuchean refugee camp and guerrilla base near the country's border with Thailand, were awakened by the sound of artillery and mortar shells exploding in and around their sprawling bamboo village. By 7 a.m. an estimated 1,000 Vietnamese infantrymen, led by armored vehicles, had fought their way into Rithysen (also known as Nong Samet), about 140 miles east of Bangkok. Their aim: to destroy the camp and other centers of opposition to the Viet Nam-backed Kampuchean government of Heng Samrin...