Pol Pot was the political leader of the Communist Khmer government which led Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Though this seems like a relatively short period of time, the damage and destruction that the regime wreaked on Cambodia led to it being regarded as one of the most barbaric and murderous regimes in recent history. The Khmer Rouge’s main aim was to socially engineer a classless society through a so-called ‘agrarian revolution’ which directed its aim at city residents, intellectuals, civil servants, religious leaders and the ethnic Vietnamese. During the time that Pol Pot was in power, an estimated 1.5-2 million Cambodians died of disease, starvation, overwork or execution, which was around a quarter of Cambodia’s 7 million person population at the time. A prime example of the cruelty of the government was the S-21 detention centre - only 7 out of the roughly 20,000 people there are known to have survived.
Vietnam’s invasion in 1978 of Cambodia, or Democratic Kampuchea as it came to be known under Pol Pot’s regime, was preceded by several events that galvanized Vietnam’s army into action. It is important to note that Vietnam and Cambodia have historically been enemies, which can be attributed to Vietnamese occupation which lasted up till the mid-1800s. However, in the years leading up to the war, their diplomatic relationship was tumultuous and featured a period of time in which North Vietnam aided the Khmer Rouge, supplying them with weapons and training in 1971 and a further 4,000 tons of weapons and ammunition in January of 1975. The collaboration between the two countries broke down due to the Khmer Rouge’s fear that the Vietnamese communists had never given up their dream of creating an Indochinese federation with Vietnam as the leader.
This led the Kampuchean government to invade the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc in May 1975 and claim it as part of Democratic Kampuchea. The forces continued onwards, occupying Tho Chu, another Vietnamese island, where they executed around 500 civilian residents. The justification for the raids was the Khmer Rouge rhetoric of conquering lands that had historically been part of the Khmer Empire. By the end of May, however, Vietnamese forces had mobilised and eventually recaptured both Phu Quoc and Tho Chu, pressing on to invade the Kampuchean island of Koh Poulo Wai. The island was returned to Kampuchea in August 1975 and Kampuchean sovereignty over the island was formally recognized.
Relations between Democratic Kampuchea and Vietnam improved somewhat in 1976, in part because of Pol Pot’s preoccupation with internal challenges to his leadership and, in May, a year after the Khmer Rouge’s first attempted to invade Vietnam, Democratic Kampuchean and Vietnamese representatives met in Phnom Penh in order to establish a commission to resolve border disagreements. As well as this, throughout 1976 there was an exchange of official “messages” between Kampuchea and Vietnam congratulating and supporting various statements. In July 1976, following the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam as a reunified country, Phnom Penh Radio even went so far as to broadcast a commentary which proclaimed the "militant solidarity and friendship between peoples of Democratic Kampuchea and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam grow constantly greener and sturdier".
However, this tentative peace was not to last and, with Pol Pot back in the forefront of the regime in 1977, the situation rapidly fell apart. This was mostly due to both countries’ leadership harbouring private suspicions of the other which inevitably led to a deterioration of their diplomatic relations. From the Vietnamese perspective, it was vital for them to exercise some sort of control over Kampuchea seeing as they viewed themselves as the driving force behind the communist revolutions throughout Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, in Phnom Penh, the Kampuchean leadership had developed a fear and hatred of the Vietnamese leadership as a result of Vietnam's historical dominance over their country. From the Kampuchean perspective, the Vietnamese strategy to dominate Indochina involved infiltrating the communist parties of Kampuchea and Laos with Vietnamese-trained cadres.
Incidents escalated along all of Democratic Kampuchea’s borders, meaning that alongside Vietnam, Thailand and Laos were also on the receiving end of the Khmer Rouge’s brutality. In retaliation to the renewed attacks on the villages in Vietnam’s border areas, Vietnam launched airstrikes against Democratic Kampuchea. In September, Kampuchean artillery struck several Vietnamese villages, alongside this Kampuchean infantry overran villages on the border. Shortly afterwards, the KRA (Kampuchean Republic Army) continued their advance into Thailand, resulting in as many as 1,000 Vietnamese civilian casualties. The following month Vietnam counterattacked in a campaign involving 20,000 personnel. With a further 58,000 reinforcements, Vietnam was able to march through the province of Svay Rieng, stopping just short of entering the provincial capital. Despite the threat the Vietnamese retaliation posed, the Kampuchean government remained defiant and on December 31st 1977, Democratic Kampuchea “temporarily” severed all political and diplomatic relations with Vietnam until Vietnam withdrew. A week after this statement was released, on January 6th 1978, the Vietnamese forces, led by defence minister General Vo Nguyen Giap, retreated from Democratic Kampuchean territory (only 38 kilometers from Phnom Penh) having been unable to achieve Vietnam’s political objective; the Khmer Rouge remained unwilling to negotiate seriously. During the withdrawal, the Vietnamese army was able to evacuate thousands of prisoners and civilian refugees from Kampuchea. Instead of being sobered by the Vietnamese show of force, the Kampuchean government boasted that the Vietnamese withdrawal was a major victory for Democratic Kampuchea.
Early in 1978, following their attack, the Vietnamese leadership again attempted to destabilise the Khmer Rouge’s regime, this time from within Democratic Kampuchea, supporting internal resistance which led to the Eastern Zone becoming a focus of rebellion with Pol Pot labelling the region a “nest of traitors”. This, in turn, led to an intensification of massacres of ethnic Vietnamese and their sympathisers in the Eastern Zone. On 12 April 1978, the Kampuchean government declared that Kampuchea and Vietnam could negotiate again if the Vietnamese gave up their ambitions of expanding and recognised Kampuchea's sovereignty. However, there was also a pre-condition requiring Vietnam to meet several obligations through a seven-month trial ceasefire. The Vietnamese government immediately rejected this demand. In response, on April 18th 1978, the Khmer Rouge sent forces across the border into south-Western Vietnam, attacking the village of Ba Chuc and massacring 3,157 civilians.
As 1978 wore on, the aggressive actions of Democratic Kampuchea in the border areas finally surpassed Vietnam’s threshold of tolerance. A military solution was looking more and more like the only viable option at this point. Vietnam soon amassed 150,000 soldiers, well-supported by heavy artillery and airpower, and launched a full-scale invasion on Democratic Kampuchea on December 25 1978, gaining control of Phnom Penh less than two weeks after, on January 7th 1979. And by January 10th, three days after the successful coup, Vietnam created a puppet government called the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, a socialist state aligned, unsurprisingly, with Vietnam and its ally the Soviet Union.
Following their takeover of Cambodia, Vietnam consequently occupied it for a decade. Despite constant pressure from the international community, it was only in 1989 that Cambodia was truly ‘liberated’- with Vietnamese forces withdrawing completely following the Paris Peace Agreement. It’s important to note that while in control of Cambodia, Vietnam was decidedly kinder to its population than the Khmer Rouge, who are infamous for their strict, Communist regime. Vietnam ran Cambodia like a colony, with every decision having to go through the Vietnamese government and, in the early portion of the occupation, having a Vietnamese “minder” sitting in on every meeting held with Kampuchean officials. Perhaps the most damning evidence of all was that even after they had been ‘liberated’, many Cambodians fled to refugee camps in Thailand fearing the installation of yet another Communist government.
There is still controversy today over whether Vietnam was in the wrong to invade, by all accounts they were provoked and were justified in retaliating, yet the fact that they occupied the country 10 years after ‘liberating’ it lends some credence to the view that the Vietnamese were invaders. Whilst this may be true, were they not also liberators? Did they not overthrow Pol Pot, remove the Khmer Rouge regime - a regime that pioneered an attempted genocide of its own citizens? Do they not somewhat deserve to be regarded as saviours by, not only Cambodia but also the wider international community? Now, armed with the facts, it’s up to you to decide on where you fall in this debate.
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