Word: khmer
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Normalization of relations with Viet Nam would serve to mitigate the plight of Cambodian refugees. Right now, rather than suffer further atrocities at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, thousands of Cambodian refugees have chosen possible execution and certain humiliation at the hands of their enemies, the Vietnamese. We should make normalization of relations contingent upon granting those people asylum. If the U.S. is serious about the human rights issue, it is our moral duty to accept the friendship that is obviously being offered by Viet...
Last week the regime of Premier Pol Pot was staggering under the weight of its own excesses. The government's ability to withstand Hanoi's military offensive was in jeopardy. Increasing numbers of once fanatically loyal Khmer Rouge were deserting to join the enemy forces. Peasants in Cambodian villages near the Vietnamese border had revolted, murdering the fierce Khmer "controllers" who police the villages. At the same time, 200 Cambodian civilians a week were desperately crossing minefields and other deadly border booby traps to take refuge in Thailand. More than 150,000 have already escaped to Viet...
...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 a Thai military analyst in Bangkok. "Now they're getting down to cousins of cousins...
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...
Typical is the village of Ko Tayou near the Thai border. Of its 1975 population of 500, only 100 have survived; of these 90 are women. To compensate for the sharply lowered productivity of the village, the Khmer Rouge controller drives the survivors out into the fields at 4 a.m. for a twelve-hour workday. The daily food ration per person is seven spoonfuls of boiled rice gruel. Since last July there have been four suicides. Other peasants have gone berserk in the fields or have retreated into total, pathological silence. One Ko Tayou villager who fled to Thailand last...