Word: khmer
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Innocent Cambodians are, as ever, caught in the crossfire. According to refugees, Vietnamese troops "liberating" a hamlet from the Khmer Rouge will customarily abolish the communal kitchens and other vestiges of Pol Pot's extremist brand of Communism and allow the citizens to elect their own leaders. The Vietnamese then move on to other villages, leaving the inhabitants defenseless against the revenge of Khmer Rouge who swoop down at night, reinstitute the communal kitchens, seize what food is available, and kill the elected leaders...
Although the Vietnamese troops in Cambodia outnumber the Khmer Rouge 7 to 1, it is by no means certain that Hanoi can defeat the Khmer Rouge. The Cardamom Mountains are densely forested and remote. The Vietnamese supply lines are long and vulnerable to harassment, and the Khmer Rouge know the country. Continuing Vietnamese efforts to root out the guerrillas may merely add to the chaos in Cambodia...
...advantage enjoyed by the Khmer Rouge is their ability to make tactical retreats into Thailand, where they rest and regroup?much to the discomfiture of the neutral Thais. Some 30,000 Khmer Rouge and their supporters crossed into Thailand last month during a Vietnamese offensive, and reportedly have since returned to Cambodia, presumably having hidden their arms there. One obvious danger is that Hanoi might risk a direct attack into Thailand. Said a top Western diplomatic observer in Bangkok last week: "The war can easily spill over into Thailand. Hanoi wants very badly to get rid of the Khmer Rouge...
...relief efforts. Said one Western diplomat in Bangkok: "The Vietnamese might not want supply trucks rolling down the Cambodian highways because they are engaged in military operations on those roads. They also may not want outsiders to see that it is Hanoi that is righting the war against the Khmer Rouge and not Phnom-Penh. They fear that even if the food is distributed to Cambodian civilians, some of those civilians may pass it on to the Khmer Rouge, or have it seized. Finally, the Vietnamese simply don't give a damn about what happens to the Cambodians...
...that chilling assessment is correct, what does the future hold for Cambodians who may survive the present famine? No viable alternative to Vietnamese rule exists at present. Some Cambodian emigres have placed their hopes in the Khmer Serei, or Free Khmers. These survivors of the Lon Nol forces are bitter enemies of both the Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge. But with only 3,000 able-bodied soldiers, concentrated in western Battambang province, the Khmer Serei are a very remote threat to Hanoi. TIME's Clark visited a camp on the Cambodian-Thai border north of Aranyaprathet where there are Khmer...