Word: khmers
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...Vietnamese incursion into Thailand was mercifully brief. Nonetheless it raised international alarms that Hanoi was threatening to pursue into Thailand its war against Cambodian Khmer Rouge guerrillas still loyal to the ousted Pol Pot regime. Many of the estimated 600,000 Cambodians who have fled to Thailand or border camps over the past two years have been sympathetic to either the Khmer Rouge or non-Communist groups known collectively as the Khmer Serei. All oppose the Hanoi-installed regime of Heng Samrin in Phnom-Penh. By midweek virtually all of the Vietnamese had withdrawn. But the action appeared to have...
...main thrust occurred at the two border camps just north of Aranyaprathet. The camps, at Non Mak Mun and Nong Chan, had long been a source of annoyance to the Vietnamese. Non Mak Mun was the headquarters of a Khmer Serei group known as the National Liberation Front of Cambodia. Nong Chan was the main dispersal point for the "land bridge" program, operated by international relief agencies, that distributed rice, seed and other supplies inside Cambodia. The camps were also the sites of huge jungle black markets, where smugglers bought sarongs, watches, cigarettes and other consumer goods for resale...
Hanoi apparently acted also to show its anger over the U.N. repatriation effort. Viet Nam has charged that the program was a plot to strengthen the Khmer Rouge resistance. In the single week that it had been in operation, 8,700 Khmers had returned to Cambodia. Pol Pot's rebel forces somehow managed to survive Cambodia's dry season against overwhelming Vietnamese armor and airpower. Now that the monsoon rains have arrived, the Khmer Rouge's clandestine radio has announced plans to step up the guerrilla war against the 200,000-man Vietnamese army occupying the country...
...same time, Hanoi undoubtedly wanted to give Thailand a demonstration of its military muscle. Viet Nam has long accused Thailand of providing military support to the Khmer Rouge and Khmer Serei guerrillas. Most observers say that the charge is accurate. Khmer soldiers, with Thai acquiescence, habitually seek refuge in the border camps, replenish their food supplies and then return to Cambodia to fight. Thailand, like the U.N., the U.S., China and several other Asian states, has refused to recognize the Hanoi-sponsored Heng Samrin government, even though it succeeded the vicious, genocidal reign...
...visited the scene while the fighting was still going on. "Thousands of refugees were fleeing down the road," he reported, "and many others squatted in the water of the overflowing rice paddies, the picture of abject misery. 'Well, we're on the move again,' said one Khmer. Herders, many of them carrying shotguns, drove bunches of cattle down the roads and across the fields, spurred by the whooshing sounds of Thai howitzer shells passing overhead...