Word: khmer
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...past year the U.S. has grown increasingly concerned that the Khmer Rouge might fill a vacuum left by a Vietnamese retreat from Kampuchea. As part of Mikhail Gorbachev's overall policy of defusing Third World conflicts, Moscow has been pressuring Viet Nam to end its occupation. Hanoi has agreed to pull out all its troops by September. In response, China seems willing to cut off support to the Khmer Rouge once the Vietnamese complete their withdrawal...
...defanging the Khmer Rouge will require more. As Pol Pot's mentor Mao Zedong once said, "Power comes from the barrel of a gun," and thanks to years of Chinese-Thai assistance, with tacit American blessing, the Khmer Rouge have more guns than the two non-Communist guerrilla groups that the U.S. has been aiding directly. The CIA estimates that the Khmer Rouge have enough materiel to fight on for an additional two years against their erstwhile allies...
...avert that catastrophe, the U.S. should use its influence with China and Thailand not just to cut off arms to the Khmer Rouge but also to shut down their base camps on the Thai side of the Kampuchean border, ferret out and seize their arms caches, round up their most villainous leaders and arrange for their peaceful retirement to, say, rural North Korea...
...decade, the No. 1 American objective in Kampuchea has been to get the Vietnamese out. No. 2 has been to squeeze the Vietnamese-installed rulers out of a new coalition in Phnom Penh. Until recently, preventing the Khmer Rouge from butchering their way back into dominance has been a distant...
...those priorities must be reversed. Blocking the return of the Khmer Rouge should take precedence, even if it means a slower Vietnamese withdrawal and a larger role for the pro-Vietnamese faction in the new government. And no more winking at abominations...