Candidate Number 19558

Facing the Inevitable?

Vietnam’s Decision to Invade Cambodia, 1977-78

Hoang Minh Vu

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank first of all my academic and

dissertation advisor, who I cannot name here for reasons of
script anonymity but knows who he is. He has been a great
inspiration for me over the past three years at LSE, has
helped me achieve more than I could ever have imagined,
and has been so understanding and helpful to me in
difficult times. He is the best academic and dissertation
advisor anyone could ever hope for and I hope many more
generations of students will benefit from his excellent
teaching.

I would furthermore like to thank my family and friends,

who have supported me in so many ways both in the
making of this dissertation and in my last three years. A
special shout-out to my parents who were instrumental in
helping me gain access to primary sources, helped me with
some difficult translations, and has taught me so much
about diplomacy in work and in life. And special thanks to
my beautiful girlfriend, Van Anh, who came along to
Interview III and has helped me annotate it for your
reference.

Finally, I would like to thank my four interviewees, the

staffs at the London School of Economics and Political
Science, the Viet Nam National Archives, the British
National Archives, the Institute of Strategic Studies –
Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, and the Embassy of the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam in London, and many, many
unnamed others (for I have not asked for their permission
to be associated with this potentially controversial work)
who have made this dissertation possible.

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Facing the Inevitable?

Vietnam’s Decision to Invade Cambodia, 1977-78

INTRODUCTION

Hanoi, 30/4/1976. As part of the first anniversary celebration of the

liberation of Saigon, my teenage father was selected to deliver a kiss and

bright flowers to a beaming Khieu Samphan, who only three weeks earlier had

replaced the moderate Prince Norodom Sihanouk as President of the State

Presidium of Democratic Kampuchea. 1 Little did my father know that at that

very moment across the border, between 0.6-2.7 million people were being

killed in one of the bloodiest genocides in history under the direction of our

valued guests.2

Fast forward to Tay Ninh Province’s border with Cambodia at dawn on

24/7/1978. My great-uncle, twenty-two-year-old volunteer private Lam Duc

Truong, was ambushed in his sleep by the Khmer Rouge and was killed in

action. Truong had just returned to the border to serve the final weeks of his

tour of duty, ignoring family exhortations to wait it out at home. Within seven

months, Vietnam would launch a lightning campaign (25/12/1978–7/1/1979)

that toppled the Khmer Rouge and installed a pro-Vietnamese government in

Phnom Penh. By then, another of my uncles had volunteered for the militia

1
Craig Etcheson, The Rise and Demise of Democratic Kampuchea (London: Frances Pinter,
1984), 173.
2
Ibid., 148; Interview IV.

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units that bore the brunt of the 200,000-strong Chinese punitive expedition on

our northern border.3

For all those who suffered from war, genocide, and economic

disruption; for disillusioned socialists around the globe; and for interested

historians, there remains a great unresolved question: What happened in

those fateful two years that turned solidarity in triumph into bloody fratricidal

conflict, and could it have been avoided? A Vietnamese National Archivist

confided that while the state historians have reached a consensus on what

happened during the French and American Resistance Wars, they have been

unable or unwilling to do the same for the Vietnam-Cambodia and Sino-

Vietnam Wars. That is, 25 years after the event, the Vietnamese government

has made no update to its 1979 White Book, which classified the two conflicts

as originating from China’s latest attempt to gain regional hegemony. 4 Due to

ongoing political considerations, the Vietnam-Cambodia and Sino-Vietnam

Wars share a rump page in the official high school history textbook, much of

what young Vietnamese know about these conflicts are garnered from online

forum and blog articles of dubious provenance, and I was politely shown the

door when a retired Politburo member found my questions “too sensitive”. 5

On the Cambodian side, the ongoing trials of former Khmer Rouge

leaders and monuments like the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum still remind

Cambodians of their bloody past. Yet the recent 2013 General Elections has

3
Grant Evans and Kevin Rowley, Red Brotherhood At War: Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos
since 1975 (London: Verson, 1984), 108-115.
4
Truong Chinh, About the Cambodian Situation (Hanoi: Truth, 1979), 7-11.
5
History 12 (Hanoi: Ministry of Education and Training, 2013), 206-7.

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seen the rapid rise of the Cambodian National Rescue Party, whose leaders

are resurrecting the call to expel the yuons (Vietnamese, derogatory), labeling

the government as Vietnamese stooges, and whose followers claim the

Vietnamese invasion was carried out primarily to subjugate Cambodia. 6

Clearly, the Vietnamese side’s reluctance to open its relevant archives to free

academic debate risks leaving the field open for opportunistic politicians to

manipulate history for their own interests, with incalculable consequences.

This paper’s goal is to be a modest first step in rectifying this problem.

In the first section, I will critically assess two popular proposed causes of the

invasion, namely Vietnam’s racial/territorial aggrandizement and Soviet

masterminding. I will show how these theories fundamentally mischaracterize

Vietnam’s primary objectives, which were in fact international stability and

economic reconstruction. I thereby reject the prevalent belief that the final

resolution of the conflict by force was inevitable because Vietnamese or

Soviet ambitions clashed fundamentally against those of China and

Democratic Kampuchea. It was instead a series of misperceptions from all

sides that turned full-scale conflict into a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the second

section I will reconstruct the process in 1977-78 by which Vietnam’s leaders

formulated their decision to invade Cambodia based on an analysis of their

perceptions, drawing primarily from Vietnamese archival sources, interviews

with ranking members of Vietnam's government and military, personal

memoirs, and the official newspaper Nhan Dan.

6
Julia Wallace and Neou Vannarin, “Cambodia protests unmask anti-Vietnam views”, Al
Jazeera, 24/1/2014, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/01/cambodia-protests-
unmask-anti-vietnam-views-2014122101345786547.html.

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This paper argues that between 1977-78, Vietnamese foreign policy

underwent three non-distinct phases: an increasingly desperate search for a

negotiated solution to the escalating crisis (April 1977 to February 1978);

breakdown of relations with China and facing up to the futility of negotiations

(February to June 1978); and maneuvering internationally to optimize

conditions for the invasion, but failing (June to December 1978). The invasion

was ultimately a case of preemptive self-defense, wherein the Vietnamese

government responded with overwhelming force to what it misperceived to be

a threat to its very survival from a two-front war against an alliance of the

People’s Republic of China and Democratic Kampuchea. While Vietnamese

leaders had prepared for the eventuality of removing the Khmer Rouge as

early as September 1977, the final decision progressively crystallized

throughout 1978, as the failures of repeated attempts at obtaining Chinese

mediation and rapprochement with America turned the specter of a Soviet-

Vietnamese alliance into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Vietnam had tried its best to

focus on economic development, but was pulled into war by the irrational

actions of its neighbors and its own inaccurate assessment of the international

situation, specifically its overestimation of Chinese control over the Khmer

Rouge and underestimation of the costs of invasion. The bonds of ideological

kinship made Vietnam initially reluctant to abandon hopes of reconciliation,

but the perception that its cause was morally righteous tipped the scale

towards invasion. Far from an inevitable clash of wills, the invasion and its

consequences were ultimately in none of the participant states’ real interests,

but resulted from specific and contingent misperceptions by decision-makers

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in Hanoi, Beijing, and Phnom Penh regarding the intentions of their

counterparts.

PART I: ASSESSING VIETNAMESE OBJECTIVES AFTER 1975

The myth of Vietnamese hegemonism

The Khmer Rouge attacks on Vietnam’s border towns in April 1977

following two peaceful years caught Vietnamese leaders by surprise. 7 Insofar

as I argue Vietnam’s invasion was in response to the series of events that

followed, any analysis of Vietnam’s decision to invade Cambodia should

rightly focus on the period 1977-78. However, Vietnam’s decision-making

process would have mattered little to the final outcome had its intentions and

core interests clashed fundamentally with its neighbors’ to begin with, making

conflict more or less inevitable. To establish the relevance of the discussion in

Part II, Part I must therefore show that there was in fact no fundamental clash

of interests. Rather, multiple misperceptions led countries unwittingly down

the path to war. We must thus go back a little further to understand how

contemporary leaders viewed their world.

All authors, regardless of their stance, start their assessments with an

exploration of the long historical context of the conflict, and with it an

examination of the claims advanced in the Khmer Rouge’s Black Paper.

7
Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy: The War After the War (London: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1986), 91-2.

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Published in September 1978 to mobilize international opinion against

Vietnam’s impending invasion, this document alleged that the conflict was the

inevitable culmination of a life-and-death struggle between the Vietnamese

and Khmer races. Its roots lie in the medieval Vietnamese state’s “Southward

March” from their Red River Delta homeland beginning in the 15 th century,

which destroyed the Indic Kingdom of Champa and annexed Khmer Krom (the

Mekong Delta) from a declining Khmer Empire. This was followed in the 19 th

century by imperial Vietnam’s interventions in Cambodia’s succession crises,

facilitated by the “sordid use of Vietnamese girls”. French imperialism came in

time to save Cambodia from total dismemberment by these powerful

neighbors, but it also resulted in an influx of ethnic Vietnamese administrators,

merchants, fishermen, and farmers. Ho Chi Minh’s Indochinese Communist

Party (ICP, 1930-45) merely repackaged Vietnam’s historical ambitions into

their quest for an Indochinese Federation, which entailed subjecting Laos and

Cambodia into “special relationships” of subservience. The Khmer Rouge

summed up their position thus:

So, whether in the feudalist era, in the French colonialists'

period, in the U.S. imperialists' period or in the [sic] Ho Chi

Minh's period (that is the present period), the Vietnamese have

not changed their true nature, that is the nature of the

aggressor, annexationist and swallower of other countries'

territories.8

8
Black Paper: Facts & Evidences of the Acts of Aggression and Annexation of Vietnam
against Kampuchea (New York: Group of Kampuchean Residents in America, 1978), 3-89.

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While rejecting the Khmer Rouge’s over-simplistic reading of history

and noting their border provocations to be the primary trigger for Vietnam’s

invasion, Norodom Sihanouk nevertheless empathized with this long historical

narrative. He opined it was “still true” that “from time immemorial the

Vietnamese and the Khmers have been mortal enemies”, an opinion he

claimed was shared by most Asia experts in the West. 9 Scholars have also

fallen prey to this admittedly tidy narrative. Elizabeth Becker sees the

Vietnam-Cambodia border as the meeting point between the industrious and

militaristic “Sinitic” and the artistic and peace-loving “Inditic” civilizations.

Comparing this with the Franco-German border, which demarcates the

industrious and militaristic Teutons from the artistic Latins, Becker theorizes

the hostility between Cambodia and Vietnam to be the latest iteration in a

recurring clash of civilizations.10 Similarly, Thu-huong Nguyen-vo accuses all

sides with betraying their lofty ideologies to “purely national interests and

emotions left over from the same feudal, dark ages which their revolutions

sought to erase.”11 Even scholars like Stephen Morris and William Duiker who

do not rely as much on arguments from medieval history believe the historical

context produced in Vietnamese leaders a superiority complex in dealing with

Cambodia.12 These arguments, if correct, would suggest that sooner or later,

conflict between Democratic Kampuchea and Vietnam would prove

unavoidable.

9
Norodom Sihanouk, War and Hope: The Case for Cambodia (New York: Pantheon, 1980),
3.
10
Elizabeth Becker, When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution,
(New York: Public Affairs, 1995), 337.
11
Thu-huong Nguyen-vo, Khmer-Viet Relations and the Third Indochina Conflict (London:
MacFarland & Co., 1992), 144.
12
Stephen J. Morris, Why Vietnam Invaded Cambodia: Political Culture and the Causes of
War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 45-6; William Duiker, China and Vietnam:
The Roots of Conflict (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1986), 1-7.

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This neat historical narrative is useful to help us understand how the

lenses of history colored the Khmer Rouge’s perception of Vietnamese

intentions, but is of little value in explaining Vietnam’s own perceptions and

intentions in the late 1970s. None of the authors above have looked at

Vietnamese sources to find concrete evidence of a racial superiority complex

having any impact on Vietnamese policy. An exception is the Khmer Rouge’s

publication of Vietnamese prisoners’ confessions that supposedly proved the

Vietnamese state had ordered them to rape, loot, and kill. 13 But once one

considers the methods of torture the Khmer Rouge were wont to invoke in

extracting them, the reliability of these confessions becomes highly

questionable. In my extensive research in the Vietnamese archives and Party

documents, and through my interviews of Vietnamese officials, I have yet to

encounter any document that alludes to the racial inferiority of the Khmer

people, or any designs on the part of the Vietnamese state to annex Laotian

and Cambodian territory. Perhaps the most important evidence that calls into

question this entire thesis is the fact that despite Vietnam’s military victory in

the Third Indochina War, no Indochinese Federation was ever proposed at

any level at any time, and today Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia remain

sovereign states.

“It’s the economy, stupid!”

13
Evidences on the Vietnamese Aggression Against Democratic Kampuchea (Phnom Penh:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Democratic Kampuchea, 1978).

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In fact, Vietnamese documents point us in the opposite direction. Grant

Evans and Kevin Rowley have rightly argued that after three decades of brutal

fighting, the top priority of the government of reunified Vietnam was to avoid

further costly conflicts and focus on economic recovery and development. 14

Contrary to Chang Pao-min’s claim that the Vietnamese resorted to

aggression in order to avoid having to deal with the difficulties of economic

reconstruction, their commitment to development was formalized during the

Fourth Party Plenum of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV, 14-

20/12/1976) in the ambitious Second Five-Year Plan. 15 Its primary target was

sustained GNI growth of 13-14%/annum, nearly doubling the size of the

economy in just five years. It was to achieve this while also integrating the

hitherto separate economies of North and South, which entailed

comprehensively restructuring the South’s capitalist system socialism into a

command economy. In order to achieve these targets, the government

banked on raising 30 billion VND (~US$12.9 billion) in capital investment.

Furthermore, Section 1 recommended clearing one million hectares for

cultivation, primarily in the South; Section 3 provided for military units to

engage in new economic ventures; and Sections 5 and 6 called for the

expansion of exports and technical cooperation with the global economy, in

particular with Laos, Cambodia, and other socialist states. 16

14
Evans and Rowley, 37.
15
Chang Pao-min, Kampuchea Between China and Vietnam (Singapore: Singapore
University Press, 1985), 157-78.
16
Report of the Central Committee of the Politburo of the CPV at the Fourth Party Plenum,
16/12/1976, http://123.30.190.43:8080/tiengviet/tulieuvankien/vankiendang/details.asp?
topic=191&subtopic=8&leader_topic=221&id=BT990538780.

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Their ambitious nature did not mean that these goals were merely for

show. After all, Communism views economic strength as the foundation of

political and military power. In the 1970s Cold War context, a main attraction

of central planning for less developed nations was its promise of rapid but

equitable industrialization, as epitomized in the experiences of the USSR in

the 1930s and North Korea in the late 1950s. Both the Vietnamese and

Cambodian Communists sought to channel the groundswell of public support

following their military victory into proving the economic superiority of

socialism as well, albeit in very different ways. Moreover, in my experience

interning in Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, even today when ideology is

much diluted compared to the 1970s, all organs of Vietnamese government

still formulate and justify their individual policies with direct quotations from the

latest Party directives, of which those issued during the Party Plenums hold

pride of place. That the economy grew 12% in 1976 convinced the Central

Committee that, given ideal conditions, these targets were within grasp. 17

Vietnam was even willing to critically compromise its military readiness in

pursuit of this goal: between 1975-76 the bulk of wartime forces were

demobilized, with the few divisions remaining in commission each sending all

but one regiment to work on economic projects. 18 We have therefore very

strong evidence that after unification, the Vietnamese government centered its

efforts on maximizing trade, growth, and orderly integration of the defeated

South into the national economy.

17
Tetsusaburo Kimura, The Vietnamese Economy, 1975-86 (Tokyo: Institute of Developing
Economies, 1989), 11.
18
Interview II.

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Vietnam’s detractors themselves acknowledge that Vietnamese

decision-makers applied their resources in aggressive but rational pursuit of

their core interests.19 I now employ Robert Putnam’s popular reformulation of

a rational-actor, two-tiered model for decision-making that takes into account

domestic preferences.20 If, as we have established, Vietnam’s core interest

between 1976-80 was economic recovery, then its leaders would have

prioritized international stability over expansionist conquest. With regards to

relations with the Communist giants, Vietnam’s “dominant strategy” would be

to tread a fine line between the Soviet Union and China in order to maximize

aid and trade, and certainly conflict with a China-backed Cambodia would be

anathema to this goal. It was therefore irrelevant even if Vietnamese leaders

did hold chauvinistic attitudes towards their neighbors, for their core national

interests should have restrained them from acting on any such impulse.

While the Vietnamese indeed wanted to build “special relationships”

with Laos and Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge and Chang grossly misstate the

term’s meaning when they equate it with federation. In fact, Vietnamese

leaders had always seen an Indochinese Federation as antithetical to

Vietnamese nationalism.21 Following the critics’ lead in tracing the historical

context, Ho Chi Minh had initially presided over the formation of a Vietnamese

Communist Party in 1930, before the Comintern chastised him for allowing

nationalism to color Communism’s international spirit and pressured him to re-

19
Sihanouk, 85.
20
Robert Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games”,
International Organization 42/3 (1988), 427-60, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2706785.
21
Sophie Quinn-Judge, “Victory on the battlefield: isolation in Asia: Vietnam’s Cambodia
decade, 1979-89” in Odd Arne Westad and Sophie Quinn-Judge eds., The Third Indochina
War: Conflict between China, Vietnam and Cambodia, 1972-79 (Oxford: Routledge, 2006),
214.

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found it as the ICP. The ICP never garnered significant Laotian or Cambodian

membership, and its operations in these countries were very limited up to its

self-disbandment in 1945. From the formation of the Vietnam Workers’ Party

in 1951, its official line advocated aiding Laos and Cambodia with the

development of indigenous Communist movements – the Pathet Laos and

Khmer Issarak – rather than continue pursuing an Indochina-wide party. This

was consistent, as Evans and Rowley, Nayan Chanda, and William Duiker

have noted, with the particularly nationalistic flavor of Asian Communist

movements. Thus the proposition that Vietnam seek national aggrandizement

through federation would have been cognitively jarring to contemporary

Vietnamese nationalists.

In the late 1970s, what Vietnam really wanted from Laos and

Cambodia were friendly relations and border security. The latter was

especially important as Vietnam intended to build the reeducation camps

critical to the political and agricultural transformation of the South on the last

major tracts of uncultivated land along the Cambodian border. This was made

clear on by the Secretariat’s Directive 22-CT/TW, which, in calling for

emergency measures in response to the Khmer Rouge attacks in September

1977, gave lengthy instructions to “firmly foil the enemy’s plot to disrupt

production, create barriers to our people’s cause of building socialism.” 22

Indeed, what made the repeated Khmer Rouge incursions into Vietnamese

territory and the influx of refugees unbearable was their disruption of

Vietnam’s core aim of economic recovery and nation building.

22
File 38, 22-CT/TW, 21/10/1977, Communist Party of Vietnam,
http://dangcongsan.vn/cpv/Modules/News/NewsDetail.aspx?co_id=30063&cn_id=213669.

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To maintain regional security, Vietnam was eager to offer what limited

material contributions it could to buttress their weaker neighbors’ armed

forces precisely to avoid in the long run having to interfere directly in their

domestic affairs. As late as 30/5/1976, Politburo Resolution 251-NQ/TW still

identified the US and its allies’ meddling in Laos and Cambodia as the main

threat to regional stability, and called for increased military aid to help both the

Pathet Laos and Khmer Rouge resist Western imperialist subversion. 23 In

direct contradiction to the “swallower of territory” allegation, Vietnam’s border

settlement with Laos in February 1976 bought Laotian goodwill by exchanging

24 disputed zones from Vietnam for just 10 from Laos. 24 In September-

October 1977 Vietnam agreed, among other provisions, to train 1,343-1,533

Laotian officers in Vietnamese academies, help construct the military airbases

at Ban Ang and Seno, and transport 73,114 tons of military shipments bound

for Laos through its ports in 1978. 25 By 18/7/1977, Vietnam and Laos had

signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation, whose Article 5 stipulated:

The Contracting Parties… undertake to never cease improving

militant solidarity, long-term cooperation and mutual aid with the

brother country of Cambodia on the principle of absolute

equality, respecting the independence, sovereignty, territorial

integrity of one another, respecting one another’s legitimate

23
File 37, 251-NQ/TW, 30/4/1976, Communist Party of Vietnam,
http://dangcongsan.vn/cpv/Modules/News/NewsDetail.aspx?co_id=30063&cn_id=213669.
24
VNNA/PTT/418/9991.
25
VNNA/PTT/444/10684.

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interests, refraining from interfering in the domestic affairs of

one another…26

Indeed, Vietnam had been supporting the Khmer Rouge from 1970

onwards, after a coup replaced the pliant Sihanouk with Lon Nol’s rightist

government, which collaborated with the Americans in rooting out Vietnamese

insurgents from Cambodian territory. Between 1970-76 Vietnam passed on to

the Khmer Rouge their share of Chinese and Soviet supplies shipped to

Vietnamese ports, including medicine, civil aviation equipment, and radio

equipment critical in the final push for Phnom Penh, for which Ieng Sary gave

special thanks.27 Many authors see the early clashes with the Khmer Rouge

during the Vietnam War and in 1975 on the offshore islands as evidence of

long-running problems, missing out on the truly remarkable feature of these

incidents, namely how quickly and efficiently the two sides settled their

differences. In the interests of maintaining stability and solidarity, Vietnamese

leaders readily accepted Pol Pot’s apology that his troops were “ignorant of

local geography” and quickly restored the status quo ante bellum.28 Even

when the invasion did take place, Vietnamese troops were carefully drilled

beforehand in the “Three Prohibitions and Five No’s”, which essentially taught

absolute respect for Cambodian property and persons, and required the

invasion force to be entirely self-sufficient, allowing them only to “breath

[Cambodian] air and drink their water”. By all accounts these regulations were

followed scrupulously, helping the army earn Cambodian civilians’ trust, at

26
VNNA/PTT/431/10339.
27
VNNA/PTT/407/9689; VNNA/PTT/417/9960; VNNA/PTT/417/9961.
28
Chanda, 14-16.

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least initially.29 Vietnam’s actions certainly did not resemble those of a racist

aggressor intent on the destruction of the Cambodian race. If anything, history

will castigate Vietnamese leaders for seeking security through blindly

supporting the Khmer Rouge, and ultimately losing both.

Ultimately, the allegation that postwar Vietnam wished to assert its

racial superiority through an aggressive or expansionist program to subjugate

the Khmer race can never be conclusively falsified, for it claims the existence

of subconscious biases that are impossible to test. But the authors touting this

view have not presented any proof that this attitude, if it existed, shaped the

formulation of Vietnamese foreign policy in any concrete way. Their assertion

that Vietnam pursued national aggrandizement and yet was wedded to

internationalist federation would have appeared self-contradictory in the

contemporary political philosophy. Meanwhile, all the available evidence

suggests that it would have been strongly in the interests of postwar

Vietnamese leaders to suppress any militaristic urging they might have

harbored in favor of peace, stability, and FDI to facilitate the reconstruction of

their country. The story of the Vietnamese decision to invade Cambodia in

1977-78 should be best told as a tragedy in which Vietnam responded

inappropriately to a conflict instigated by Khmer Rouge radicalism due to a

series of misperceptions, rather than a fable of an inevitable clash of

civilizations, or the logical ending to some grand federalist plot by the latter-

day emperors in Hanoi.

29
Interview II.

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China and the self-fulfilling prophecy of the Vietnam-Soviet axis

Since the Sino-Soviet split manifested into actual armed conflict in the

1969 border clashes, the Soviet Union gradually surpassed the US as the

primary threat to China. This was an important factor leading to the Sino-

American rapprochement when President Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in

1972, and which contributed to the success of the Paris Peace Conference in

1973 that saw the withdrawal of American troops from Indochina. 30 Increasing

Sino-Soviet hostility and warming Sino-US relations provide the backdrop to

this period, culminating in President Jimmy Carter’s announcement on

15/12/1978, ten days before the Vietnamese invasion, that the US would

recognize the People’s Republic of China from 1/1/1979. 31 For Chinese

leaders, the 1950s-60s need for North Vietnam to act as a buffer against

American aggression gave way to a nagging fear of united Vietnam becoming

a Soviet puppet on its southern border, forming part of an encirclement of

China. Alarm bells rang the moment Le Duan secured $3 billion in Soviet aid

in October 1975 for the Second Five-Year Plan, and they rang even louder in

1978 as Vietnam-Soviet relations warmed again. 32 China’s suspicion of

Vietnam’s economic, political, and ideological dependency on the “revisionist-

expansionists” contributed to the breakdown of Sino-Vietnamese relations by

mid-1978. In this context, the pragmatic Chinese leadership put aside their

ideological reservations for the Khmer Rouge regime and extended their

support to Pol Pot.

30
Duiker, 35-62.
31
Haas, 81-83.
32
Robert Ross, The Indochina Tangle: China’s Vietnam Policy, 1975-1979 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1988), 60-61.

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As it turned out, Chinese leaders were lashing out at imaginary

demons. Given that its economic plans rested on raising $12.9 billion of

capital investment, with little indigenous capital stocks and no single power

willing and able to foot this bill, Vietnam could ill afford to alienate any

potential benefactor. Thus it desired to tread the middle path between the

USSR and China and distance itself from the Sino-Soviet split, seeking to

maximize aid from both sides. Vietnamese leaders, particularly Deputy-Prime

Minister Le Thanh Nghi, made repeated trips to Beijing asking for additional

aid from an increasingly suspicious and unwilling Chinese donor, who referred

to him as “the beggar”, but even in this he was not alone. 33 Even in November

1977, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Van Dong asked Chinese leaders for an

outright grant of goods valued at 1.1 million RMB (~US$585,000) and zero-

interest loan of 800 million RMB in cash over the period 1977-80, on top of

completing outstanding joint projects. 34 To reassure China it was no Soviet

puppet, Nayan Chanda recounts many episodes in which Vietnamese

diplomats openly snubbed their Soviet counterparts, especially when cornered

by the latter at public events to criticize China. Even while asking for Soviet

aid aggressively, Vietnam’s continued refusal to lease Cam Ranh Bay to the

Soviet Navy or join COMECON produced further friction. 35

Were Chinese

policy-makers able to look at the facts objectively and have some trust in their

wartime ally, they would have seen clearly that the Vietnamese were much

33
Chanda, 27.
34
VNNA/PTT/435/10469.
35
Chanda, 170-71, 187.

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more interested in getting aid rather than being pulled into their quarrel with

the USSR.

Their initiatives to establish good relations with the non-Communist

powers were further evidence of Vietnam’s independent path. The Second

Five-Year Plan had called for increased production of consumer goods. As

the Communist world had fallen far behind their Western counterparts in this

area, gaining access to Western investment, technology, and markets was

imperative. From 1975, the Vietnamese government actively courted French,

Japanese, Norwegian, and Indian investment, which started so positively that

by 1977 the Soviets had even feared Vietnam would soon be lost to the

capitalist camp. While reporters from Western organizations were allowed to

set up camp in Ho Chi Minh City, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union’s

application to open a bureau there was rejected, reducing the Soviets to

swarming Western journalists returning from the South for the latest updates.

Vietnam also broke all the Cold War rules by requesting observer status in

ASEAN in January 1976, joining the Non-Aligned Movement in August, and

by September becoming the first openly socialist member of the International

Monetary Fund, from which it promptly received a loan of $36 million in

January 1977.36 After several rounds of negotiations, the US withdrew its veto

of Vietnamese membership in the UN on 20 September 1977. Normalization

of relations was never achieved only because the Vietnamese refused to drop

their demand for $3.25 billion in reconstruction aid, which Nixon had secretly

promised in 1973 but Congress was loath to grant. 37 Thus did Vietnam pursue

36
Chanda, 157.
37
Becker, 377-85.

20
 Candidate Number 19558

an open-door policy in 1976-77, which saw it shake hands with all of its

erstwhile enemies less than a year after its victory, as if to prove just how far it

was willing to go to achieve its reconstruction targets.

Those scholars who have gone through the Soviet archives confirm

that the Soviets had little influence over the Vietnamese policy towards

Cambodia.38 Admittedly, Vietnamese officials regularly consulted with the

Soviets, and KGB personnel stationed in the Soviet embassy in Hanoi were

adept at uncovering anything they omitted. Certainly, the Soviets must have

tacitly approved of Vietnam’s impending invasion when they signed the Treaty

of Friendship and Cooperation between the USSR and Vietnam on 2/11/1978.

Its Article 6 extended to Vietnam a flexible security guarantee:

The High Contracting Parties will consult one another on all

important international questions concerning the interests of

either country. In the event that one of the countries is the

object of aggression or is under threat of aggression, the High

Contracting Parties will immediately enter into mutual

consultations with the aim of eliminating this threat and of

taking corresponding effective measures for the maintenance

of the peace and security of their countries. 39

38
Morris, 215-18; Dmitry Mosyakov, "The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A
History of Their Relations as Told in the Soviet Archives," in Susan E. Cook, ed., Genocide in
Cambodia and Rwanda (New Haven: Yale Genocide Studies Program Monograph Series No.
1, 2004), 54-94.
39
Nhan Dan No.8915, 4/11/1978, 1, 4.

21
 Candidate Number 19558

But this awareness was far from exceptional. Indeed, Western

commentators discussed political friction between Vietnam, Cambodia, and

China openly throughout 1978 as all sides launched their fierce public

rhetoric. A Vietnamese invasion around the start of the dry season in

September 1978 was widely predicted, the only surprise being the delay to

December.40 And besides information gathering, no evidence has been found

to suggest that the USSR was willing or able to convince Vietnam to

undertake aggressive actions against its neighbors to further Soviet interests.

As has often been said of the US-Israel relationship and also applicable to the

China-Democratic Kampuchea relationship, the Soviet-Vietnam relationship in

the late 1970s was a case of the “tail wagging the dog”, where Hanoi

formulated its initiatives and then convinced Moscow to get on board.

Unfortunately, Chinese policy-makers’ misreading of these dynamics would

contribute to the breakdown in Sino-Vietnamese relations in 1977-78 and

inadvertently drive Vietnam into the Soviets’ arms, making China’s worst fear

a reality.

Thus the Chinese thesis that the invasion was inevitable because

Vietnam was acting on the orders of an expansionist Soviet Union is entirely

false. Even though it was the smaller nation in need of Soviet aid, by virtue of

its strategic and ideological importance Vietnam held the wheel in its

relationship with the USSR. This conclusion saves me from the unenviable

task of assessing Soviet ambitions in the region in the late 1970s, which

would require a much larger study. Ultimately, it was very specific and

40
Ross, 218.

22
 Candidate Number 19558

contingent foreign policy failures arising from mutual misperceptions that

brought about the Third Indochina War.

PART II: PERCEPTION AND MISPERCEPTION IN VIETNAMESE

DECISION-MAKING, 1977-78

Misperceiving Chinese and Cambodian intentions

Up until the Khmer Rouge resumed their offensive in April 1977, the

Vietnamese leadership consistently failed to recognize the imminent danger.

As late as 16/11/1976, Le Duan still confided to the Soviet Ambassador that

he expected the situation in Cambodia to shortly improve. With the economic

and social failure of the Khmer Rouge methods apparent by this time, the pro-

Vietnam faction led by Non Suon had on their own initiative forced the “bad

people” to retire their official posts in September 1976 in favor of the

“moderate” Nuon Chea.41 In December 1976 the Fourth Party Plenum still

“enthusiastically celebrate[d] the grand historic victories of the fraternal people

of Laos and the people of Cambodia”. 42

But the pro-Vietnamese faction had severely miscalculated, as Nuon

Chea exposed his true nature as a Pol Pot loyalist. By February 1977 Pol Pot

had reassumed power and began a comprehensive purge of pro-Vietnamese

41
Mosyakov, 84.
42
File 37, 251-NQ/TW, 30/4/1976, Communist Party of Vietnam,
http://dangcongsan.vn/cpv/Modules/News/NewsDetail.aspx?co_id=30063&cn_id=213669.

23
 Candidate Number 19558

and other “reactionary” cadres.43 Suspicious that the Vietnamese were behind

Non Suon’s mini-coup, after he had sufficiently consolidated power Pol Pot

set out to pursue his long professed but oft ignored quest to recover

Kampuchea Krom in earnest. On 30/4/1977, the two-year anniversary of the

fall of Saigon, Khmer Rouge troops struck at An Giang province. A

Vietnamese proposal for a peace summit was rejected on 18 June, and

throughout that summer the fighting spread along the border from the Mekong

Delta up to the Central Highlands, prompting General Giap to visit the border

in July.44 Undeterred, on 24 September the Khmer Rouge launched their most

horrendous attack on Tan Lap Commune, leaving 500 civilians dead, with

reports of babies ripped out of mothers’ wombs and well-endowed women

decapitated alive.45 This incident prompted a major Vietnamese operation into

eastern Cambodia directed by Giap himself to signal Vietnamese resolve and

test the Khmer Rouge’s capabilities, culminating in Khieu Samphan’s

announcement on 31/12/1977 that Democratic Kampuchea would temporarily

suspend relations with Vietnam.46 Around this time Vietnam began

remobilizing two Army Corps (III and IV) and preparing them for an all-out

offensive to remove the Khmer Rouge if needed. 47 But in early 1978 Vietnam

had not abandoned all hopes of a peaceful settlement with Chinese

mediation. It withdrew its forces, which were just 38km from Phnom Penh, on

6/1/1978, and issued a 5 February proposal for a comprehensive ceasefire

agreement, appealing to the spirit of international socialist solidarity. 48 This

43
Etcheson, 177-80.
44
Evans and Rowley, 104-7.
45
VNNA/BDTHQCT/33/567.
46
Morris, 102-7.
47
Interview II.
48
Nhan Dan No.8667, 5/2/1978, 1, 6.

24
 Candidate Number 19558

plan backfired, however, as Pol Pot saw only vindication for his irrational

beliefs in his army’s super-masculine fighting strength. Throughout 1978, the

Khmer Rouge progressively ceased their incursions into Thailand and Laos to

shift 19 out of their 24 divisions to the Vietnamese border by December 1978.

These divisions mined the border areas, conducted ambushes on Vietnamese

patrols, and attacked border towns, inflicting severe damage. 49

On paper, Vietnam possessed the world’s fourth largest army and air

force, but the border conflict caught them unprepared. The PAVN failed to

mobilize its fighting and Medical Corps in time, relying initially on local militia

and suffering heavy losses from the Khmer Rouge’s hit-and-run tactics. A

summative report estimated total material damages at 111,500,600 VND or

around US$51.3 million, of which 86% was to civilian property and 59% was

incurred in An Giang Province alone. This estimate did not account for the

opportunity costs resulting from the disruption of economic activities along the

border and the remobilizing of units that would otherwise be engaged in

production.50 Total military casualties from that undeclared war has never

been officially computed, but an official interviewed by Michael Haas gave the

figure as being higher than that suffered in the First Indochina War. 51 Total

civilian casualties were recorded as 5230 dead, 4710 injured, and 24,300

missing. The refugee situation was dire as well. The Ministry of Labor, Invalids

and Social Affairs in its call for emergency international aid reported that,

towards the end of 1978 268,380 Vietnamese, 195,620 Khmer, and 25,554

49
Interviews I, II, III, IV.
50
VNNA/BDTHQCT/33/566.
51
Haas 58.

25
 Candidate Number 19558

Chinese fled to Vietnam from Cambodia, while 769,500 Vietnamese had to

evacuate from the border areas.52 Clearly, Vietnamese leaders had to address

the root of the issue, and fast. But it was here that they suffered their first

misconception.

Witnessing the ferocious attack from their supposed Communist

brethren with amazed horror, and even more puzzled by their total refusal to

negotiate terms, Vietnamese leaders fell prey to the common cognitive trap of

ascribing undue rationality to their foes’ action, a concept first described by

social psychologists Edward Jones and Victor Harris as “actor-observer

asymmetry”.53 Major General La Van Nho explained the reasoning of

Vietnamese leaders:

Of course [the Khmer Rouge] had their main plan, which was to

weaken Vietnam, making it impossible for Vietnam to rebuild

our economy... If that was the case, then, we have to look more

carefully. Cambodia was a country of only 7 million people, but

dared to take on such big ambitions against Vietnam. Cambodia

obviously did not have the strength to do this alone... So who

was behind them? This is a sensitive issue today, but before, it

was very clearly taught to [PAVN officers] that it was China. 54

52
VNNA/BDTHQCT/33/566.
53
E. E., Jones and R. E. Nisbett. The actor and the observer: Divergent perceptions of the
causes of behavior (New York: General Learning Press, 1971).
54
Interview II.

26
 Candidate Number 19558

This argument would have been valid were it true that the Khmer

Rouge had acted logically, but this proved to be a false assumption. While the

Khmer Rouge’s motives for attacking its overwhelmingly stronger neighbor

are still disputed today, most scholars now concur that the Khmer Rouge

leadership believed sincerely and irrationally in the superiority of their

movement. Radio Phnom Penh’s broadcast in May 1978 claimed that each

Khmer would be capable of killing 30 Vietnamese, and was confident that the

total destruction of the Vietnamese race and the recovery of Khmer Krom

would only cost the lives of 2 million Cambodians, leaving 6 million to build

socialism.55 For all their professed Marxist purism, the Khmer Rouge dreamed

of a rebirth of the mighty Angkor Empire, their territorial claims on Khmer

Krom being put forward in defiance of the “imperialist” borders drawn by the

French.56 They also saw preemptive war as the only way to contain ongoing

Vietnamese subversion, with the increasingly close Vietnam-Laos relationship

and Non Suon’s mini-coup evidencing Vietnam’s insidious plots. Whatever the

case, insofar as the Khmer Rouge acted irrationally, the Vietnamese

reasoning that they had to be acting on Chinese orders proved invalid.

Actually, the Khmer Rouge almost certainly acted in defiance of

Chinese orders. When asked by Wilfred Burchett about Khmer Rouge

intentions in October 1978, Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Co

Thach compared the Khmer Rouge’s brazenness in attacking Vietnam to

Israel’s boldness in attacking Egypt, arguing they both enjoyed the ultimate

55
Etcherson, 192.
56
Haas, 41.

27
 Candidate Number 19558

insurance of Great Power protection. 57

But Thach failed to follow this simile

further to distill how the Khmer Rouge might, like Israel or Vietnam itself, have

been capable of acting on their own initiative and forcing their more powerful

benefactor to follow their lead, as was indeed the case. Post-Mao Chinese

leaders, coming out of the horrors of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural

Revolution, often privately expressed their displeasure at the radical policies

of the Khmer Rouge, and tried repeatedly to convince them of the folly of their

ways, to no avail. Sihanouk recounted how as early as 1975, Zhou Enlai on

his deathbed told Khieu Samphan and Minister of Social Affairs Ieng Thirith to

“take things slowly”, receiving condescending smirks in response. 58 Deng

Xiaoping’s similar admonishment of Minister of National Defense Son Sen in

1978 also fell on deaf ears. It was the Chinese who interceded in the

Cambodia-Thailand border conflict in June 1978 and convinced Pol Pot to

cease bloody fighting that had been going on since January 1977. 59

Unfortunately, the high-ranking delegation led by Zhou’s widow Deng

Yingchao to Phnom Penh in January 1978 to defuse the conflict at Vietnam’s

request was met with much fiercer resistance and failed spectacularly. By the

end of 1978, Deng had intimated with his Western colleagues his conviction

that these policies would lead to a Vietnamese invasion and the removal of

China’s only close ally in Southeast Asia. 60 And beyond merely ideological

and strategic concerns, it must have been emotionally difficult for Chinese

leaders to turn a blind eye to the genocide of ethnic Chinese in Democratic

Kampuchea. The ethnic Chinese there were concentrated in urban areas and

57
Etcheson, 187-88.
58
Sihanouk, 86.
59
Morris, 75-83.
60
Ross, 218-23.

28
 Candidate Number 19558

thus suffered disproportionately from the Khmer Rouge policy of clearing out

the cities. Their population declined from 430,000 in 1975 to just 215,000 by

1979.61 Thus all evidence points to the moderate leaders of post-Mao China

being deeply unhappy with the Khmer Rouge’s self-destructive domestic and

foreign policies.

The Khmer Rouge were themselves aware of this coolness on the part

of the moderates in Beijing towards their cause. After Mao’s death in 1976,

when the radical Gang of Four and the moderates struggled for power, Radio

Phnom Penh blasted Deng for being an “anti-socialist and counter-

revolutionary”.62 Their broadcast of the arrest of the Gang of Four came in

December 1976, a full two months after the event, signaling their severe

disappointment and apprehension that the new moderate rulers of China

would soon withdraw their support.63 The Khmer Rouge needed not worry,

however: it was their very pragmatism that drove China’s new leaders to

commit themselves to the Khmer Rouge when they rekindled the conflict in

April 1977 against Chinese wishes, lest they risk losing a crucial ally to a

Vietnamese regime misperceived to be a Soviet pawn. Khmer Rouge leaders

soon realized this and milked it for all its diplomatic and material advantages;

Vietnamese leaders did not. While they had legitimate reasons to think China

were behind the Khmer Rouge attacks, there was enough countervailing

evidence that a more sensitive and less colored Vietnamese reading of events

should have discerned China’s distaste for Khmer Rouge tactics.

61
Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the
Khmer Rouge, 1975-79, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 288-96.
62
Evans and Rowley, 76-80.
63
Chanda, 78.

29
 Candidate Number 19558

Ultimately, actor-observer asymmetry led Vietnamese leaders to the

wrong conclusion. From 1975, Vietnamese leaders were made aware of

China’s interest in the Cambodian revolution when Mao Zedong congratulated

Pol Pot for achieving “at one stroke what we failed with all our masses” and

lectured the Vietnamese to “learn from the Khmer Rouge how to carry out a

revolution”.64 In August 1975, China claimed to be short of funds and had to

cut aid for Vietnam in 1976 to just 20% of 1975 levels and refused to discuss

aid for the Second Five-Year Plan period. Yet that very same month the Khieu

Samphan – Ieng Sary delegation received $1 billion in aid over five years, out

of which $20 million was outright grant that the Khmer Rouge would leave

largely unused due to their self-sufficiency policy. 65 On 10 February 1976,

Deputy Chief of the PLA General Staff Wang Shangrong promised the Khmer

Rouge some 500 advisors to train their forces in the use of artillery, naval, and

anti-aircraft equipment China would soon deliver. 66 By 1977, the frequent

military encounters in the border war yielded solid reports that all the weapons

and supplies used by the Khmer Rouge proudly carried Chinese markings. 67 A

classic example of actor-observer asymmetry ensued: Vietnamese leaders

knew their own forces were still enjoying Chinese aid and used some

Chinese-made weapons while exercising political autonomy, yet failed to draw

the same distinction between material support and conflict instigation when

assessing China-Democratic Kampuchea relations. By February 1978

Vietnam had given up hope in Chinese mediation of the crisis with Cambodia,
64
Kenneth M. Quinn, “The Origin and Development of Radical Cambodian Communism”
(PhD thesis, University of Maryland, 1982), 187.
65
Chanda, 79.
66
Chanda, 17-18.
67
Interview II.

30
 Candidate Number 19558

despite the Chinese by all accounts having given their best shot at mediation

with Deng Yingchao’s mission.68 What they were interested in was results,

however, and Chinese mediation efforts had inadvertently made matters

worse for Vietnam, allowing the Khmer Rouge to pivot their forces from the

Thai border to the Vietnamese.69 Understandably, Vietnamese leaders

became increasingly convinced that China was sponsoring the Khmer Rouge

against Vietnam.

Contributing to this perception was the fact that Sino-Vietnamese

relations themselves were quickly taking a turn for the worse. The first signs

of a strain in relations between the American War allies was in January 1974,

when China seized the Crescent Group of the Paracel Islands from South

Vietnam, prompting newly reunified Vietnam to occupy six of the Spratly

Islands and issue a map claiming both island chains in 1975. 70 From 1977

onwards there arose periodic clashes along the still-disputed Sino-Vietnam

border. In an effort to resolve their differences Vietnam called for land and sea

border negotiations, the first round of which took place between October 1977

and March 1978. In a top-secret report, the head of the Vietnamese

delegation Deputy Foreign Minister Phan Hien made this grim assessment:

… there is little chance the Chinese side wants to conclude a

border agreement in the foreseeable future… Even so, in their

policy towards us, China must… avoid heightening tensions…

68
Ross, 162-63.
69
Truong Chinh, 21-3.
70
VNNA/KST/12/328.

31
 Candidate Number 19558

[and thus] will not abandon the negotiations, hoping to use

these negotiations for domestic and international propaganda

purposes when needed.

Hien’s recommendation that Vietnamese forces do their best to

“preserve the status quo” against possible Chinese attempts to forcibly alter it

and create a fait accompli further revealed Vietnam’s dearth of confidence in

Chinese good faith.71 He also asked various government agencies to

coordinate their policies with regards to “the ethnic Chinese fleeing across the

border”. Since January 1976, Vietnam had stepped up efforts to get their

ethnic Chinese (the Hoa) to take up Vietnamese citizenship pursuant to a

1955 agreement with China, evoking suspicion among them and the Chinese

government of Vietnamese intentions. Many were unwilling to obtain

Vietnamese citizenship, which would entail giving up their Chinese citizenship

and the promise of Chinese government protection that came with it.

Meanwhile, in a quest to quickly set the South on the socialist path, on

24/3/1978 30,000 businesses in the South were nationalized, followed by the

introduction of a new unified currency on 3/5/1978, done in a way that it wiped

out most South Vietnamese savings. As at the end of 1974 the Hoa controlled

around 80% of industries in the South, these policies affected them

disproportionately and naturally gave Beijing reason to believe Vietnam was

out to persecute them in particular.72 Hysteria spread among the Hoa

community, and 1978-79 would see 450,000 out of a total of over 1 million

71
VNNA/PTT/435/10464.
72
Ross, 176-88.

32
 Candidate Number 19558

Hoa leave Vietnam alongside other Vietnamese refugees, prompting an

international crisis.73

Chinese policy-makers, whose patience with Vietnam was already

wearing thin, had little trouble believing that Vietnamese socialist reforms

were merely to disguise a conspiracy to get rid of the Hoa population. Duiker

and Huy Duc agree with this view, arguing that the Hoa was seen to pose an

internal threat to Vietnam at a time of tensions with China, but have not

provided adequate supporting evidence. 74 Neither have I found anything in the

Vietnamese records to indicate the existence of any such concerns prior to

the breakdown of relations that in large part resulted from the refugee crisis.

Applying Ockham’s razor in the absence of more conclusive evidence, the

crisis was most likely an unfortunate consequence of shoddy planning and

disgraceful insensitivity to the already tense international situation that could

and should have been avoided. Vietnamese leaders for their part were

surprised by the crisis, but even more shocked by the strong Chinese

reaction. For after all, the White Paper wondered, why did China maintained

friendly relations with a Khmer Rouge regime that was slaughtering some

200,000 ethnic Chinese, and yet react in such a way to Vietnam’s

redistribution of its ethnic Chinese’s wealth? 75 Again, actor-observer

asymmetry prevented Vietnamese leaders from seeing that their Chinese

counterparts might have sincerely believed that Vietnam had moved against

the Hoa deliberately to undermine China. Instead, they ascribed the entire
73
“World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Vietnam : Chinese (Hoa)”,
UNHRC, http://www.refworld.org/type,COUNTRYREP,,VNM,,49749c7f8,0.html.
74
Huy Duc, The Winning Side (two volumes) (California: OsinBooks, 2012),
http://www.vietnamvanhien.net/benthangcuoc.pdf, Chapter IV; Duiker, 74-77.
75
Ross, 176-89.

33
 Candidate Number 19558

fiasco to Chinese manipulations to destabilize Vietnam from within and

without.

By June 1978, China had been recognized as the number one threat to

Vietnam.76 Irritating but not regime-threatening border skirmishes against the

Khmer Rouge’s vastly inferior guerrilla force suddenly became seen as part of

an ominous plot by their giant northern neighbor, who incidentally possessed

the world’s largest army and was also the greatest traditional threat to

Vietnamese sovereignty. The threat of a two-front war with China and

Cambodia was disconcerting at a time of logistical overstretch, when it took

the PAVN up to 29 days to transport personnel between these two fronts. 77

The fear of China finally awakened in Vietnamese leaders the racial/historical

outlook on the conflict that had been absent in their attitude towards

Cambodia, evidenced by Vietnamese publications’ references to two millennia

of patriotic struggle against Chinese domination. 78 Concurrently, the costly

border clashes coupled with the progressive suspension and withdrawal of

Chinese aid were rapidly threatening to make the ambitious Second Five-Year

Plan, that cornerstone of Vietnamese postwar policy, simply unattainable.

Hanoi was now forced to seek a powerful ally that could provide both

protection against possible Chinese aggression and FDI for its Five-Year

Plan. The modest inflow of European and Japanese investment had not lived

up to Vietnamese planners’ lofty targets. 79 The negotiations for war

76
Gareth Porter, “Vietnamese Policy and the Indochina Crisis” in David W.P. Elliot ed., The
Third Indochina Conflict (Boulder: Westview Press, 1981), 105.
77
Interview II.
78
Truong Chinh, 17.
79
VNNA/PTT/431/10399.

34
 Candidate Number 19558

reparations from the US were going nowhere. By mid-1978, when Vietnam

was finally willing to drop all financial conditions to normalization of relations,

the hawkish National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski had ascended the

foreign policy driving seat at the expense of the more moderate Secretary of

State Cyrus Vance. The Vietnamese had little to entice Brzezinski to sacrifice

his “China card” by risking rapprochement with one of its principle enemies. 80

Only their old benefactor, the Soviet Union, was left waiting patiently for

its prodigal Vietnamese brother’s return to the fold. On 28/10/1977 Vietnam

secured from the Soviet Union six small ships, communication equipment,

and 45 million rubles’ worth of spare parts, unmistakably directed against

Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea. Still, the Soviets’ refusal to accede

to Vietnam’s request of 14 MiG-21s made clear their wish to distance

themselves from the conflict with Cambodia.81 Although they had confidentially

explored the possibility since mid-1977, it was only at the 32 nd Session of the

COMECON Council from 27-29/6/1978 that the Vietnamese delegation

publicly requested full membership, whereupon they were unanimously

welcomed and allowed to bypass all the normal procedures for accession. But

privately, some East European countries expressed their discontent at being

forced to take on this additional burden, showing how far the USSR was

willing to go to bring Vietnam under its sphere of influence. 82 An internal report

stated clearly the impact of Chinese hostility on the Vietnamese decision:

80
Chanda, 263-96.
81
VNNA/PTT/418/10007.
82
Morris, 209-11.

35
 Candidate Number 19558

Since China has publicly pursued a hostile policy against

Vietnam, we have joined COMECON as a full member to make

clear our viewpoint and where we stand, for it is very necessary

now for us to make full use of the support the USSR and other

COMECON members could provide.83

In response, on 3 July, China made the final break with Vietnam by

announcing the immediate cessation of all aid projects and withdrawal of all

experts, and closed the border on 11 July. 84 Vietnam had by now decided that

if a two-front war was unavoidable, it would be fought on its own terms by

means of a decisive preemptive strike to topple the Khmer Rouge. In

preparation, on 2 November Vietnam signed the aforementioned Treaty of

Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union, with its Article 6 acting as

a flexible security guarantee to deter any full-scale Chinese invasion of

northern Vietnam.85 The Vietnam-Soviet alliance and the invasion of

Cambodia that China originally feared and Vietnam originally spurned thus

became a reality by virtue of the mistrust and inflexibility on both sides.

Underestimating the costs of invasion

Two further interconnected misperceptions caused Vietnam to severely

underestimate the costs of invasion, the first of which was their belief that their

83
VNNA/PTT/411/10565.
84
Chang, 62.
85
Nhan Dan No.8915, 4/11/1978, 1, 4.

36
 Candidate Number 19558

stint in Cambodia would be short. By September 1978, Vietnam had two full

army corps totaling 128,000 regular troops, supported by aircraft and artillery

inherited from the American War, and commanded by generals with decades

of battle experience. Facing them were 100,000 Khmers Rouges, consisting

mainly of drafted youths so demoralized and exhausted by Pol Pot’s bloody

reign that many simply deserted on sight of the Vietnamese armies. 86 This

mismatch in firepower resulted in a Vietnamese invasion that started on

25/12/1978, captured Phnom Penh by 7/1/1979, and secured all the major

population centers by the end of January at minimal loss. On the

administrative side, on 2/12/1978 the Kampuchean United Front for National

Salvation (KUFNS), an anti-Pol Pot government led by ex-Khmer Rouge

survivors of his purges, was born. At the time of the invasion it had succeeded

in building a frame of government, and even possessed its own small army of

nearly 30 battalions, capable of stationing one battalion in each province.

These foundations emboldened Vietnamese planners to believe that the

rebuilding a viable government would be complete within 1-3 years, and no

comprehensive aid program was planned for the fledgling People’s Republic

of Kampuchea (PRK).87

Only after the invasion did the extent of the damage inflicted by the Pol

Pot years become apparent. Phnom Penh and other major towns were found

devoid of people. Rotting corpses littered the roadsides and filled the wells. A

whole generation of intellectuals and skilled personnel had perished in the

concentration camps, and the survivors suffered from exhaustion and

86
Evans and Rowley, 109.
87
Interviews I, II.

37
 Candidate Number 19558

malnutrition.88 Transportation networks and industrial infrastructure was non-

existent, threatening a famine that would dent the credibility of the newly

formed PRK government, which had already proved incapable of independent

administration.89 As it turned out, the PRK would remain dependent on

Vietnamese advisors and Soviet aid for the next decade. Memos from the

Vietnamese Prime Minister’s Office revealed a how far the reality on the

ground diverged with their expectations even in 1979:

We must request greater emergency aid from the USSR and the

East European countries. If the USSR has difficulties in providing

rice we request corn to quickly alleviate the situation… We do not

have the ability to provide any more food to Cambodia. If the

situation is too urgent we will have to temporarily dip into the

national grain reserves to help… As for grain seeds (comrade

Con has requested 10,000 tons) we must provide. 90

Meanwhile, the Chinese punitive expedition (17/2-16/3/1979) would

cost an unprecedented 20,000-60,000 military casualties on each side and

the destruction of four provincial capitals, leaving 250,000 people homeless. 91

That expedition also necessitated Vietnam’s transferal of Army Corps III to

Hanoi, allowing the Khmer Rouge remnants the necessary respite to regroup

on the Thai border and resume their guerilla operations. 92 Supported by

88
Interviews I, II, III.
89
VNNA/PTT/TL57435/11100.
90
VNNA/PTT/TL57-435/11100.
91
Evans and Rowley, 115-16.
92
Interview II.

38
 Candidate Number 19558

Chinese and international aid as well as Thailand’s provision of a safe haven,

these guerrillas managed to bog down Vietnamese troops in Cambodia until

1989, inflicting some 45,000 casualties in the meantime. 93 The massive

destruction of human and industrial capital in the Third Indochina War and its

resultant international isolation made Vietnam miss its ambitious economic

targets by a wide margin, with GDP growth falling to zero in 1979 and not

picking up significantly until after the 1986 reforms, condemning it to even

greater economic and political dependence on the USSR. 94

Vietnam’s second misconception was in believing that the international

community would laud its invasion for halting China’s imperial designs and the

Khmer Rouge genocide. After all, the Carter Administration had condemned

the Khmer Rouge atrocities, and several ASEAN countries were constantly

fearful of ethnic Chinese insurgencies. 95 From 1/1/1978, Nhan Dan engaged

in a public war of words against Cambodia and China for propaganda

purposes.96 In July, Phan Hien toured various ASEAN capitals, and in

September-October Pham Van Dong, now Prime Minister, did the same to

reassure them that Vietnam held no hegemonic ambitions and gauge their

potential reactions.97 Both publicly and privately, Vietnam celebrated this trip

as a major diplomatic coup that set regional sympathies firmly in favor of

invasion.98 Concurrently in New York, Deputy Prime Minister cum Foreign

93
Margaret Slocomb, The People’s Republic of Kampuchea 1979-89: The Revolution after
Pol Pot (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2003), 227-51.
94
Tetsusaburo Kimura, 11.
95
Haas, 75-87, 88-99.
96
Nhan Dan No.8779, 19/6/1978, 1, 5-6.
97
Ross, 197.
98
VNNA/PTT/440/10552.

39
 Candidate Number 19558

Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh laid out eloquently before the UN General

Assembly the Vietnamese case, especially courting Third World sympathies. 99

The invasion was delayed to December to allow time for the formation of the

KUFNS, so that they could issue a public request for help to topple Pol Pot,

which all the officials interviewed believed legitimized the Vietnamese

intervention in international law. Nhan Dan portrayed the entire invasion as a

KUFNS-led operation, with Vietnamese support mentioned only in passing. 100

That Vietnam went to such great lengths to court international support only

sharpened their indignation when they learned of the international

community’s refusal to recognize the PRK, the American-led embargo against

Vietnam and the PRK, and Thailand’s willingness to harbor their erstwhile

Khmer Rouge enemies. In fact, most countries were still far too wary of

Vietnamese military power to welcome their violation of Cambodian

sovereignty, even if to remove the Khmer Rouge. 101

Besides the obvious failures of Vietnamese military intelligence and

foreign policy analysis, there were also two cognitive factors that negatively

affected Vietnamese leaders’ ability to accurately gauge the costs of the

invasion. In my review of Vietnamese archives and through my interviews,

one thing that struck me was the frequency with which Vietnamese decision-

makers referenced the genocidal policies of the Khmer Rouge, a factor that a

purely realpolitik approach to the pursuit of national interests would simply

ignore. Certainly, the concept of humanitarian intervention was only starting to

99
Nhan Dan No.8887, 7/10/1978, 1, 3.
100
Nhan Dan No.8981, 9/1/1979, 1, 6.
101
Haas, 72-115.

40
 Candidate Number 19558

emerge in international law at the time and is still deeply controversial even

today, so Vietnam never tried to formally justify the invasion on those

grounds.102 Nevertheless, Vietnamese leaders’ perception that their cause

was morally justified certainly played a role in influencing their decision

beyond just cold strategic calculations – after all, leaders are only human.

Secondly, because of its biased coverage, any regular consumer of Nhan

Dan and other state news outlets would have believed world opinion to be

firmly behind the Vietnamese cause. It is conceivable Vietnamese leaders fell

prey to reification, i.e. came to believe in the propaganda machine they

themselves set up. Clearly, for Vietnam, the costs of the invasion far

outweighed any benefit, and some Vietnamese officials I interviewed have

indicated to the effect that had it been aware of the full costs, Vietnam would

certainly not have invaded Cambodia.103

CONCLUSION

In Part I, I critiqued some popularly accepted motivations for Vietnam’s

invasion of Cambodia in order to prove that it was not inevitable. It was not an

inevitable clash of civilizations, because there is no evidence that chauvinism

was a driving force of Vietnamese foreign policy, or that Vietnam wanted to

dominate Laos and Cambodia within an Indochinese Federation. Rather,

Vietnam had until April 1977 blindly supported even the Khmer Rouge to
102
Gary Klintworth, Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia in International Law (Canberra:
Australian Government Publishing Service, 1989), 59-84.
103
Interviews I, II, III.

41
 Candidate Number 19558

maintain regional stability and facilitate the reconstruction of its war-ravaged

economy. The invasion was also not an inevitable outcome of Soviet

manipulation, because Vietnam had sought an independent foreign policy

from the USSR to maximize its access to international credit and trade. It was

China and Democratic Kampuchea who, by misperceiving Vietnam’s motives,

drove it into Soviet arms.

In Part II, I built upon this narrative of overlapping misperceptions to

reconstruct the process by which Vietnam arrived at its decision to invade

Cambodia. Falling into the trap of actor-observer asymmetry, Vietnam came

to believe China was plotting to establish hegemony by using the Khmer

Rouge and the refugee crisis to undermine Vietnam. As Sino-Vietnamese

relations nosedived, hopes of Chinese mediation of the conflict with

Cambodia gave way to full alignment with the USSR. It is probable that, had

Vietnam correctly identified Pol Pot’s mad designs to be the source of

Cambodian aggression, and/or correctly gauged the massive costs of its

Cambodian adventure, it would not have invaded Cambodia. Without the

imminent threat of a two-front war, a partially mobilized PAVN would arguably

have been able to protect Vietnam’s borders from a strong network of

fortifications and wait out the collapse of the suicidal Khmer Rouge regime at

a fraction of the human, monetary, and diplomatic cost it was to incur by

invading Cambodia.

It is not entirely fair for us, with the benefit of hindsight and abundant

resources, to retrospectively chastise contemporary decision-makers for their

42
 Candidate Number 19558

mistakes. It is enough that we understand that misconceptions on the part of

China, Cambodia, and Vietnam were contingent failures of diplomacy that led

directly to the Vietnamese decision to invade Cambodia, despite that decision

being a suboptimal outcome for all three governments. It is my hope that this

study has shed new light on these contentious events, and serves as a

valuable public resource to instruct scholars and policy-makers in the perils of

misperception in foreign policy.

43
 Candidate Number 19558

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Newspaper:
Nhan Dan (official Party daily), 1/1/1977-31/3/1979. Accessed in hardcopy
from the Library of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Diplomatic Academy of
Vietnam.

Interviews:
- Interview I: Nguyen Trong (Appendix I)
- Interview II: La Van Nho (Appendix II)
- Interview III: Nguyen Hieu (Appendix III)
- Interview IV: Le Lien (Appendix IV)

Memoirs and Personal Papers:

- Nguyen Chien Thang (former Vietnamese Ambassador to Cambodia),
http://chienthang47.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chuy%E1%BB%87n%20k
%E1%BB%83%20c%E1%BB%A7a%20m%E1%BB%99t
%20%C4%90%E1%BA%A1i%20s%E1%BB%A9
- La Van Nho (unpublished)

Archives:
Vietnam National Archives Center III
(yellow highlight = confidential to top secret)

Special Collections (KST)

Box Doc Title Year Pgs

13 322 Hiệp ước hoà bình, hữu nghị và hợp tác giữa nước 1979 02
CHXHCNVN và nước CHND Campuchia năm 1979
Ký ngày 18/2/1979 giữa TT Phạm Văn Đồng &
Heng Somrin ở Phnom Penh
13 323 Tuyên bố của Chính phủ nước CHXHCNVN về vấn 1977 06
đề biên giới VN – Campuchia 1977

13 324 Sự thật về quan hệ VN – TQ trong 30 năm qua, tài 1979 58

liệu do Nhà xuất bản Sự Thật in năm 1979

13 328 Tài liệu về quan hệ Việt Nam – Trung Quốc trong 33

những năm 1978-1980.

Committee of War Consequences Research (BDTHQCT)

Box Doc Title Year Pgs

44
 Candidate Number 19558

36 594 Người Hoa ở Việt Nam và chính sách của 125

Bắc Kinh
36 596 Số lượng hoạt động và âm mưu của Bắc 1978 70
Kinh với vấn đề Hoa kiều tại Đông Nam á
và thế giới
36 601 Một số tư liệu về hoạt động của tổ chức 07
Hoa Kiều tại Việt Nam
36 602 Tài liệu tham khảo về vấn đề người Hoa 14
ở Việt Nam
35 591 Báo cáo về một số hiện tượng đáng chú ý 1978 14
trong văn học viết về chiến tranh chống
Việt Nam trên văn đàn công khai ở TQ
trong thời gian gần đây
33 563 Báo cáo hàng tháng, quý, năm ở tỉnh 22/3/1978 80
Tuyên Quang về tội ác của bọn Pônpot- – 8/1979
Iêngsary 1978
33 564 Tội ác của bọn Pônpot-Iêngsary và tay 6/1978 – 88
sai bọn bành trướng Trung Quốc tại Ba 25/4/1988
Trúc, Từ Sơn, An Giang và Ba Trúc sau
10 năm
33 565 Tập hợp ý kiến các bài báo về tội ác của 1978 74
bọn Pônpot-Iêngsary.
33 566 Tổng hợp giá trị thiệt hại của các tỉnh biên 1978 20
giới Tây Nam trong chiến tranh do
Pônpot-Iêngsary gây ra.
33 567 Ghi chép tội ác của bọn phản động 11/4/1978– 23
Pônpot tại tỉnh Tây Ninh 10/7/1979,
+ [1977]
34 574A Tư liệu về tội ác của Mỹ và bọn phản 1991 11
động Pôn pot-Iêngsary tại Kiên Giang từ
30/11/1978 - 1985
34 574B Báo cáo về tình hình biên giới Hồng Ngự 24/4- 77
- Đồng Tháp và tình hình thiệt hại chiến 22/7/1978
tranh do Campuchia gây ra
26 476 Những tuyên bố của giới cầm quyền Bắc 24
Kinh-TQ với Việt Nam
26 477 Âm mưu và chính sách của TQ đối với 69
Đông Nam á
27 478 Âm mưu và chính sách của TQ trong 176
chiến tranh xâm lược Việt Nam
27 480 Tổng hợp hành động thù địch của TQ 78
chống VN.
28 485 Báo cáo tình hình biên giới 1978 04
30 510 Tổng hợp tư liệu về tội ác TQ đối với VN 1975-89 41

Office of the Prime Minister, Volume III

Box Doc Title Year Pgs

436 10489 Hồ sơ xét duyệt đoàn ra, đoàn vào cho 19/12/1977 176

45
 Candidate Number 19558

Bộ Quốc Phòng, Bộ Tài chính và Bộ –

Thuỷ lợi năm 1978 28/12/1978
440 10552 Báo cáo của BNG về cuộc đi thăm 5 10/11/1978 28
nước ĐNA: Thái Lan, Philippines, –
Indonesia, Malaysia và Singapore của 21/12/1978
Thủ tướng Phạm Văn Đồng và những
vấn đề cần giải quyết sau chuyến đi của
Thủ tướng năm 1978
441 10565 Tài liệu của Đại sứ quán Việt Nam tại 3/1978 22
Liên Xô giới thiệu về HĐTTKT năm
1978
441 10567 Tờ trình của HĐCP lên UBTVQH đề 1978 8
nghị phê chuẩn việc gia nhập HĐTTKT
năm 1978
441 10568 Bài nói của Phó Thủ tướng Lê Thanh 1978 18
Nghị về một số việc cần làm sau khi gia
nhập HĐTTKT ngày 20/7/1978
418 9991 Tập tài liệu về đàm phán biên giới Việt – 10/3/1977 26
Lào năm 1976 –
31/3/1977
418 9990 Hồ sơ đàm phán và ký kết hợp tác kinh 31/8/1976 31
tế, văn hoá và KHKT năm 1976 với Lào – 01/1977
418 10001 Hồ sơ về chuyến đi thăm Liên Xô của 10/11/1976 84
Phó TTg Đỗ Mười từ ngày 22/11/1976 –
đến 04/12/1976 04/12/1976
418 10002 Bản ghi nội dung cuộc gặp giữa Phó 1976 02
Thủ tướng Lê Thanh Nghị với Đại sứ
Liên Xô tại HN ngày 11/02/1976
Mật
418 10007 Tập tài liệu của Ban Đối ngoại TƯ Đảng 28/10/1977 11
v/v Liên Xô viện trợ quân sự cho VN
năm 1976, 1976 – 1980
Tuyệt mật

421 10089 Tập tài liệu về đợt làm việc với Chủ tịch 1976 26
Hoa Quốc Phong, Phó Thủ tướng Cốc
Mục (TQ) cùng Phó Thủ tướng Đỗ Mười
tại Bắc Kinh ngày 5/12/1976 đến
6/12/1976
421 10090 Hồ sơ hợp tác với TQ về các công trình 09/02/1976 17
quốc phòng năm 1976. –
08/9/1976
417 9960 Hồ sơ đàm phán về thiết lập đường 31/7/1976 18
hàng không dân dụng VN – Campuchia –
năm 1976 12/8/1976
417 9961 Báo cáo của Bộ Y tế về kết quả chuyến 6/12/1976 4
đi công tác Campuchia năm 1976
407 9689 Báo cáo của Đài tiếng nói Việt Nam về 1975 3
giúp Campuchia trong công tác phát

46
 Candidate Number 19558

thanh từ năm 1970-1971

410 9800 Thư của Thủ tướng Phạm Văn Đồng 1974 5
gửi Thủ tướng TQ Chu Ân Lai về đề
nghị TQ viện trợ kinh tế, quân sự năm
1975
410 9801 Hồ sơ về đàm phán ký kết viện trợ hợp 1974 – 74
tác kinh tế, quân sự năm 1975 với TQ 1975
421 10088 Hồ sơ về đàm phán, ký kết hợp tác kinh 31/8/1975 7
tế, viện trợ thương mại năm 1976, 5 –
năm 1976 – 1980 với Trung Quốc 13/11/1976
434 10460 Tập biên bản các cuộc gặp gỡ giữa Thủ 1977 40
tướng Phạm Văn Đồng với các nhà lãnh
đạo Đảng và Nhà nước TQ: Đặng Dĩnh
Liêu, Hoa Quốc Phong, Lý Tiên Niệm tại
TQ từ 08 đến 10/6/1977
435 10461 Hồ sơ về chuyến đi thăm TQ của Đoàn 1977 78
đại biểu Đảng & CP VN do Tổng bí thư
Lê Duẩn dẫn đầu tháng 11/1977
435 10464 Hồ sơ chuẩn bị đàm phán biên giới với 12/7/1977 22
TQ năm 1977 –
02/12/1977
435 10469 Công hàm của Thủ tướng Phạm Văn 1977 3
Đồng, Phó Thủ tướng Lê Thanh Nghị
gửi các nhà lãnh đạo CP TQ yêu cầu
viện trợ, hợp tác kinh tế kỹ thuật năm
1977
442 10630 Công văn của PTT, Bộ Lao động 04/5/1978 20
TL57 Thương binh và Xã hội v/v sử dụng viện –
076 trợ của các tổ chức quốc tế cho người tị 18/1/1979
nạn từ Campuchia chạy sang VN năm
1978-79.
444 10684 Công văn của Bộ Quốc phòng v/v hợp 1978 20
tác quân sự với Lào năm 1978.
446 10776 Tập tài liệu của Bộ Ngoại Giao về kết 1977-1978 31
quả đàm phán biên giới giữa VN và TQ
năm 1977-1978
TL57 11104 Tập tài liệu về giúp đỡ và những việc 1978-79 97
447 làm thiết yếu trước mắt của Nhân dân
Campuchia năm 1978 - 1979
TL57 11100 Tập tài liệu của BCHTW v/v viện trợ cho 7/3/1979 – 27
435 Campuchia năm 1979 22/1/1980
TL57 11103 Quyết định của PTT v/v tổ chức đoàn 1979 2
444 chuyên gia kinh tế, văn hoá của CP giúp
HĐND cách mạng Campuchia năm
1979
TL57 11057 Tập công văn của HĐTT KT về ký kết 1979 138
421 hiệp định giúp Campuchia và Lào năm
1979
431 10339 Hiệp ước hữu nghị và hợp tác giữa VN 1977 7

47
 Candidate Number 19558

– Lào ký tại Viên Chăn ngày 18/8/1977

British National Archives, Kew: 24 files from the Foreign Office (FCO):

Name Date Reference

Political relations between 1979 Jan 01 - 1979 FCO 15/2472-73 (2 files)
Cambodia and Vietnam Dec 31
VIETNAM. Conflict with 1977 Dec 31 - 1979 PREM 16/2292
Cambodia; military action by Mar 21
China against Vietnam
Political relations between 1980 Jan 01 - 1980 FCO 15/2645-47 (3 files)
Cambodia and Vietnam Dec 31
Indo-Chinese solidarity: 1980 Jan 01 - 1980 FCO 15/2590
relations between Vietnam, Dec 31
Laos and Cambodia
Soviet intentions in Indo- 1979 Jan 01 - 1979 FCO 28/3875-76 (2 files)
China: Soviet aspects of Dec 31
Vietnam's invasion of
Cambodia and conflict with
China
Political relations between 1978 Jan 01 - 1978 FCO 15/2333-39 (7 files)
Democratic Kampuchea and Dec 31
Vietnam
Attitude of other countries to 1979 Jan 01 - 1979 FCO 15/2480
the conflict between Dec 31
Democratic Kampuchea and
Vietnam
Cambodia: New Regime and 1979 Mar FO 973/35
Relations with Vietnam
Political relations between 1977 Jan 01 - 1977 FCO 15/2226
Democratic Kampuchea and Dec 31
Vietnam
Political relations between 1978 Jan 01 – 1978 FCO 15/2436
Vietnam and the Soviet Union Dec 31
Political relations between 1980 Jan 01 – 1980 FCO 15/2788
Vietnam and the Soviet Union Dec 31
Political relations between 1977 Jan 01 – 1977 FCO 15/2248
Vietnam and ASEAN Dec 31
Vietnam: annual review for 1978 Jan 01 - 1978 FCO 15/2430
1977 Dec 31
Vietnam: annual review for 1979 Jan 01 - 1979 FCO 15/2572
1978 Dec 31

Books and Websites

48
 Candidate Number 19558

Black Paper: Facts & Evidences of the Acts of Aggression and Annexation of
Vietnam against Kampuchea (New York: Group of Kampuchean Residents in
America, 1978)

Chanda, Nayan. Brother Enemy: The War After the War (London: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1986).

Debra Weiner, “Playboy Interview: Norodom Sihanouk”, 1/5/1987, The

Sihanouk Archives, http://sihanouk-archives-inachevees.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/10/Sihanouk_Playboy.pdf.

Evidences on the Vietnamese Aggression Against Democratic Kampuchea

(Phnom Penh: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Democratic Kampuchea, 1978).

File 37, 251-NQ/TW, 30/4/1976, Communist Party of Vietnam,

http://dangcongsan.vn/cpv/Modules/News/NewsDetail.aspx?
co_id=30063&cn_id=213669.

File 38, 22-CT/TW, 21/10/1977, Communist Party of Vietnam,

http://dangcongsan.vn/cpv/Modules/News/NewsDetail.aspx?
co_id=30063&cn_id=213669.

History 12 (Hanoi: Ministry of Education and Training, 2013).

Mosyakov, Dmitry. "The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A

History of Their Relations as Told in the Soviet Archives," in Susan E. Cook,
ed., Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda (New Haven: Yale Genocide Studies
Program Monograph Series No. 1, 2004).

Report of the Central Committee of the Politburo of the CPV at the Fourth
Party Plenum, 16/12/1976,
http://123.30.190.43:8080/tiengviet/tulieuvankien/vankiendang/details.asp?
topic=191&subtopic=8&leader_topic=221&id=BT990538780.

Sihanouk, Norodom, War and Hope: The Case for Cambodia (New York:
Pantheon, 1980).

Truong Chinh, About the Cambodian Situation (Hanoi: Truth, 1979).

Secondary Sources

Becker, Elizabeth. When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer
Rouge Revolution, (New York: Public Affairs, 1995).

Chang Pao-min, Kampuchea Between China and Vietnam (Singapore:

Singapore University Press, 1985).

49
 Candidate Number 19558

Chandler, David P. The Tragedy of Cambodian History: Politics, War, and

Revolution since 1945 (London: Yale University Press, 1991).

Duiker, William. China and Vietnam: The Roots of Conflict (Berkeley: Institute
of East Asian Studies, 1986).

Elliot, David W.P. ed., The Third Indochina Conflict (Boulder: Westview Press,
1981).

Etcheson, Craig. The Rise and Demise of Democratic Kampuchea (London:

Frances Pinter, 1984).

Evans, Grant and Kevin Rowley, Red Brotherhood At War: Vietnam,

Cambodia and Laos since 1975 (London: Verson, 1984).

Huy Duc, The Winning Side (two volumes) (California: OsinBooks, 2012),
http://www.vietnamvanhien.net/benthangcuoc.pdf.

Jones, E. E., and R. E. Nisbett. The actor and the observer: Divergent
perceptions of the causes of behavior (New York: General Learning Press,
1971).

Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia
under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2002).

Kimura, Tetsusaburo. The Vietnamese Economy, 1975-86 (Tokyo: Institute of

Developing Economies, 1989).

Klintworth, Gary. Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia in International Law

(Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1989).

Morris, Stephen J. Why Vietnam Invaded Cambodia: Political Culture and the
Causes of War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).

Nguyen-vo, Thu-huong. Khmer-Viet Relations and the Third Indochina

Conflict (London: MacFarland & Co., 1992).

Putnam, Robert. “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level

Games”, International Organization 42/3 (1988), 427-60,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2706785.

Quinn, Kenneth M. “The Origin and Development of Radical Cambodian

Communism” (PhD thesis, University of Maryland, 1982).

Ross, Robert. The Indochina Tangle: China’s Vietnam Policy, 1975-1979

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).

Shawcross, William. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of

Cambodia (London: The Hogarth Press, 1986).

50
 Candidate Number 19558

Slocomb, Margaret. The People’s Republic of Kampuchea 1979-89: The

Revolution after Pol Pot (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2003).

Smith, R.B. with Beryl Williams, ed. Communist Indochina (London:

Routledge, 2009).

Wallace, Julia and Neou Vannarin, “Cambodia protests unmask anti-Vietnam

views”, Al Jazeera, 24/1/2014,
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/01/cambodia-protests-
unmask-anti-vietnam-views-2014122101345786547.html.

Westad, Odd Arne and Sophie Quinn-Judge eds., The Third Indochina War:
Conflict between China, Vietnam and Cambodia, 1972-79 (Oxford: Routledge,
2006).

“World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Vietnam : Chinese

(Hoa)”, UNHRC,
http://www.refworld.org/type,COUNTRYREP,,VNM,,49749c7f8,0.html.

51
 Candidate Number 19558

Interview Transcript I
30 August 2013, 57 minutes 33 seconds

Nguyen Trong, Head of the Army Medical Corps for the Tri-Thien Hue Military
District; research officer at the Army Medical Corps Research Institute; and
Principal of the Friendship Highschool of the Revolutionary Workers of
Cambodia, from 1979 to 1988. Many of his Cambodian students today are
generals in the Cambodian military.

NB: Mr. Nguyen Trong was, at the time of the interview, advanced in age with
impaired hearing. He is most used to hearing his wife Ms. Do Thi Mai Hoa’s voice,
which is why she was gracious enough to sit in on the interview to repeat and
clarify my queries. Her assistive interjections are not transcribed here for the sake
of flow and clarity. The formal recorded interview was preceded and succeeded by
informal, unrecorded discussion, during which time Mr. Trong furnished the
interviewer with his personal papers, which are not published as part of this
dissertation.

The principal purpose of this interview was to ascertain to what extent Vietnamese
leaders knew of the atrocities conducted by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and
Vietnam, and to what extent this may have influenced the decision to invade.

VMH: Yes, so I am beginning the recording. Today, we have myself, Mr. Vu Minh
Hoang, interviewer, and Mr. Nguyen Trong, interviewee. I have a few questions I
need to ask you regarding the origins of the Vietnam-Cambodia War to support
my final year undergraduate dissertation. I have sent you some questions
beforehand.

NT: Yes, please read out the questions.

Wife: Ok. So the first question is: Please tell me what positions you have held,
what activities you have taken part in in connection with the Vietnam-Cambodia
and Sino-Vietnam Wars. You need only to answer with regards to the Vietnam-
Cambodia War.

NT: I was the Principal of the Friendship Highschool of the Revolutionary

Workers of Cambodia, from 1979 to 1988.

VMH: So you were there from the very first day after the liberation.

NT: That is correct.

VMH: So what do you think was the main reason Vietnamese forces went in and
liberated Cambodia from Khmer Rouge rule?

NT: The main reason was because the Pol Pot regime conducted genocide upon
the people of Cambodia, leading to popular resentment and made deaths from
famine and cold widespread. Because of this, Vietnam, noting that the peoples of

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Vietnam and Cambodia are friends, had to fight the Pol Pot forces to liberate the
people of Cambodia.

VMH: So could I ask a follow up question from outside the list. In some of
Vietnam’s arguments before international laws and courts, usually Vietnam has
not greatly emphasized the liberation of the Cambodian people, but instead
focused on the self-defense elements from the Pol Pot government. What do you
think is the relationship between these two factors?

NT: The second major factor is that in the year 1978 the Khmer Rouge attacked
Khamat (?), Trieu Ngon Airport (?), Tay Ninh, killed 145 of our people on the
border. There arose from these activities a feeling of malevolence towards
Cambodia, and as a result we needed to fight back against the Khmer Rouge in
order to protect the Cambodian people as well as the Vietnamese people.
Secondly, in April 1978, a Khmer Rouge division attacked near our border at the
Seven Mountains in Ba Nha Bang, on the other side of the Kinh Te Bay (?) of An
Giang Province. Thirdly, the Khmer Rouge sent a force to attack our cement
factory in... Ha Tien Province. Although they only shelled the factory and the
people in the surrounding areas, but that is also an act of invasion. This was a
prelude to an invasion.

VMH: So, when you present these Cambodians in 1978, do you think these
actions were directly responsible for the final decision that we need to attack the
Khmer Rouge? Because obviously we had a few options at the time: continue
with the fighting on the border, we could continue pursuing negotiations, or wait
for either China or the international community to intervene – but we chose the
option of invading Phnom Penh. Do you think that the actions above were
primarily responsible for this decision?

NT: The main reason was that the Khmer Rouge had attacked Vietnam from
Tamac to Tay Ninh – this was a criminal act. Secondly, they brought their troops
to attack An Giang from Ba Nha Bang. Thirdly, they attacked the cement factory
at Ha Tien. Of these three incursions only at Ha Tien did we counteracttack and
the Khmer Rouge had to withdraw. As for the time they attacked us at Nga Ba
Nha Bang did we counterattack, whereas at Tamac we did not.

VMH: So we can continue with the next question. So you have worked in the
Vietnamese army at some point, is this true? Before uncle Tien, who introducted
us, told me that you were part of the Army Medical Corps. Could you elaborate a
little on your work in the Army at this time?

NT: In the People’s Army of Vietnam, I was Head of the Army Medical Corps for
the Tri-Thien Hue Military District. And after that, I was a research officer at the
Military Medical Corps Research Institute.

VMH: So at this time, what were the Army Medical Corps’ views on and what
information had been known about the crimes and aggressive actions
perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. Was there any important piece of information
that played a part in the preparations for the invasion of Cambodia? What was

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the role of the Army Medical Corps in recording the crimes of the Khmer Rouge?
Were there any specific reports of the Medical Corps at this time which you think
might have had an appreciable impact in terms of formulating policy for the
People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) specifically and the Vietnamese Government
in general?

NT: When our army attacked the Khmer Rouge, the Medical Corps played the
role of helping our injured, and also helped the people of Cambodia.

VMH: When were these activities you mentioned carried out?

NT: From December 1978 to January 1979. By 7 January 1979 we had totally
liberated Cambodia.

VMH: So before this, we had a long period of conflict with the Cambodians. So
what I am trying to ask is, in this pre-invasion period, that includes the examples
of aggression in An Giang and Ha Tien that you mentioned earlier, what was the
role of the Army Medical Corps in documenting these?

NT: The Medical Corps of each army and division followed their fighting units in
order to look after our troops, as well as look after injured and sick citizens.
Afterwards, the Army Medical Corps had brought entire Vietnamese hospitals
from Vietnam to Phnom Penh and sent teams to major cities to treat injured
soldiers, including to Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Battambang. The team in Ha Tien
was small, the big teams are in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and Battambang.

VMH: But my question is, before 1978, before the invasion, can you recall what
the Army Medical Corps’ role in the Southwest border areas was?

NT: Before the PAVN came to Cambodia to liberate the Cambodian people and
destroy the Khmer Rouge, our superiors did not give us any mission or
responsibilities for investigation. Our only duty was just to follow the troops.
Each army unit had a medical team that followed them. But only from 7 January
1979 were the main hospitals and teams sent to Cambodia to treat our injured in
the major cities.

VMH: So you’re saying before December 1978, the Army Medical Corps was
never mobilized to help with the Vietnamese refugees fleeing Pol Pot’s regime
from Cambodia, or even the Cambodians and Chinese fleeing Pol Pot, and also
were not mobilized to support Vietnamese troops fighting the border war from
1975 to 1978?

NT: Before the liberation of Cambodia from Pol Pot, the Army Medical Corps was
not mobilized by the Government to deal with any of these problems, and our
only presence was in the medical personnel attached to individual fighting units.
The main Army Medical Corps and the Ministry of Defense never gave us the
mission to deal with this crisis.

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VMH: Why, in your opinion, did the Government of Vietnam not order the Army
Medical Corps to deal with the refugee and border war crises, even though the
Government had received reports and the Army Medical Corps had also received
reports of the attacks on An Giang, Ha Tien, and Tay Ninh? Why did they not send
overwhelming force down to deal with the situation within our own borders?

NT: Because either the Government and the Ministry of Defense were not yet
able to formulate a policy, or had formulated a policy but had not yet
disseminated this policy down to the Army Medical Corps. Therefore, the Medical
Corps could not take action. What we could do is to support the forces in the
provinces on the Cambodian border which were Military Zone 5, 7, and 9. In
particular, Military Zones 5 and 9.

VMH: These Military Zones covered which provinces?

NT: Military Zone 5 was from Da Nang to the South. Military Zone 9 was An
Giang, Hau Giang, Tien Giang, Ha Tien, these provinces forming the Mekong delta,
at the extreme south.

VMH: So the Army Medical Corps had at this time the responsibility to deal with
the refugees?

NT: At this time, the refugees came over, who were sick and with injuries or
mishaps, were aided by both the civilian and military communities of Vietnam.
There was no major policy, but when they arrived, we had to give them food and
water and various services. We were not prepared for this, but when they came
we had to help.

VMH: Well, we are departing quite a bit from our original questionnaire, but I
think this is a valuable exchange. In the process of working with the refugees,
what information did you gather about what was happening inside Cambodia at
this time, and were any of the research, collections, and reports produced by the
Army Medical Corps particularly important at this time?

NT: The Army Medical Corps had not done any research, because the
Government and the Ministry of Defense had not given us that mission. Our
mission was to help the refugees. The Government and Ministry of Defense had
not given any directives to the Army Medical Corps, so only the units in the
relevant areas were able to help. Because the relationship between our two
peoples was good, the war was caused by the higher-ups, but the people of the
two country have no quarrels with one another.

VMH: So are you saying that even though the governments of Vietnam and
Cambodia did have some friction, officially the two countries were still friends,
and therefore the authorities in both countries worked along with this surface
impression, which is that the two sides had no quarrels?

NT: Our two peoples had no quarrel.

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VMH: So this was the premise upon which our authorities founded their policies.

NT: Our people organized to help, it was the civilian services rather than the
army.

VMH: So, I just have a few more short questions. So...

NT: When the Army Medical Corps helped the refugees, it was mainly in an
organizational capacity [of aid efforts].

VMH: So about the leaders of postwar Cambodia. There were Heng Samrin, Hun
Sen, all former refugees. Even though they were Khmer Rouge, they fled to
Vietnam because Pol Pot tried to get rid of them, and after coming to Vietnam
they formed a Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS) which
participated in the operations alongside our troops, am I correct? So while they
were still refugees, were the military not involved with them, talking to them and
helping them form this KUFNS?

NT: Hun Sen led a Khmer Rouge regiment, but split from that government before
the war, and thus when we liberated Cambodia he was placed in power. Hun Sen
then became Minister for Foreign Affairs, and today is Prime Minister.

VMH: Yes, so at that time, Heng Samrin and Hun Sen...

NT: Heng Samrin was not Khmer Rouge, but a “clinger-on”…

VMH: What does that mean?

NT: That means while the Khmer Rouge were still conducting their destructive
policies, he stayed in the countryside and led an insurgency [against them].
There were a number of such men, including the current Minister of Defense.
They had split from the Khmer Rouge to join us before the fighting. Our army
attacked the Khmer Rouge and he split off from them, but did not flee to Vietnam.

VMH: Ok, well, from the historical records elsewhere I know that some of these
men did indeed come to Vietnam to form the KUFNS.

NT: Yes, when they split off from the Khmer Rouge, some of them did come to
Vietnam for their activities, especially at the border. While there, our forces did
help them form the government-in-exile. I am not very sure whom among them
spent significant amounts of time in Vietnam. But as for Hun Sen, he must have a
lot of good memories of Vietnam, as we have helped him become Minister of
Foreign Affairs. Among the top leaders, there were some who were trained in
Vietnam. Penn Souvann spent a lot of time in Vietnam, he did gain substantial
support from Vietnam… trained as a soldier. We appointed him to the position of
General Secretary cum Minister of Defense.

VMH: So my initial question before mentioning these characters was…

NT: Chea Teo (?) was also trained in Vietnam, worked as Head Advisor.

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VMH: Right. So the reason I mentioned these personalities is to ask, at that time,
which Vietnamese agencies had the responsibility of liaising with, if not outright
training, at least aiding the formation of this Front as its army so that they might
fight alongside Vietnamese forces to liberate the country?

NT: I am not sure, but when we have liberated the country, we helped bring a
number of [those leaders] back to Cambodia. Wherever these Cambodians were
working in Vietnam, we sent all of them back. The PAVN’s General Political
Department was delegated this task by the Central Personnel Committee.

VMH: So, would you say that before 1978, before the December invasion, these
people [Cambodian leaders-in-exile] were not particularly important in the
liberation of Cambodia? I am not sure if I understand you correctly, but the way
you say it gave the impression that these leaders were merely appointed by our
government to these leadership positions rather than being significant agents in
the liberation process.

NT: Before, the Vietnamese government, based on their capabilities, sorted them
into the various government agencies. After the liberation, we gave them back
their independence. In November 1978, we created the KUFNS, and these people
were rerouted to this Front, and through their activities they became friends and
comrades. After this, the PAVN’s General Political Bureau conducted thorough
investigations [into these Cambodian cadres]. After an assessment of their
leadership and personal abilities to take on positions of responsibility as part of
the liberation campaign, the front was introduced to the research departments of
the [Vietnamese] Ministries of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from
there the Vietnamese government gave them support in organization and
military matters. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other Ministries, including
the Ministry of Public Security, also helped. Any Ministry we had, we sent over to
help them establish one in its image.

VMH: This is after 1978, right? I just wanted to ask about before the invasion,
before the creation of the Front, was this level of support from all Ministries
already present, or is this after?

NT: From the moment of the formation of the KUFNS, but after the liberation of
Cambodia on 7/1/1979, then the various Ministries came one-by-one to help.
Your own maternal grandfather came as well even though he was advanced in
age. As for myself, I was part of the Medical Corps, but was sent over as well.
From Liberation Day, after 7/1, I was given the task [inaudible]. The returning
civilians, they were from various provinces and cooperatives and we had to ask:
From where? What is your background? What age? What is your level of
education? We really needed people with some education to return, so we could
treat their diseases and train them [for the civil service]. After the genocide, who
was left for us to train? They have all perished! From there, the Central
Personnel Committee picked 25 people to train as cadres in Vietnam, but after
that, seeing the Army Medical Corps did well, Le Duc Tho [Chairman of the
Central Personnel Committee] kept us there for the next 10 years [chuckles].

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VMH: This is all extremely interesting and I am learning a lot. However, my topic
is focused on the roots of conflict, that is, the events that led to the final invasion.
I have some final questions. So, between 11/1978 and the end of December, and
even before that when the future leaders of Cambodia fled to Vietnam or split
away from the Khmer Rouge, what influence did they have over Vietnam’s
policy? For example, did they call for Vietnam’s help to remove Pol Pot swiftly?
Did they call for the total liberation of Cambodia by Vietnamese forces?

NT: Each sector, each Ministry sent some officials to the KUFNS to help train
their cadets, to create a framework for the government, which was very
important. When the Ministry of Defense encountered problems, the high-
ranking officials were then delegated tasks through the Central Personnel
Committee. As for myself, I was just a regular civil servant when I was
introduced. [Misunderstood the question, clarified].

Technically speaking, we needed a request from the Cambodian side in order to

take action

In order to legitimize [the action], we created the Front, in order that it may issue
the request for Vietnamese assistance, and only then were we able to take action.
If not, if we undertake illegal action, or if the world were to see that we acted
unilaterally… so we needed to create the Front. Anything we do would need a
request, they would issue the request, for example to help us liberate our
country, or to take action against the genocidal policies of the Khmer Rouge, only
then could we take action. We knew very well that we needed to liberate
Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge so that the Cambodian people might enjoy
freedom. However, if Cambodian citizens do not issue a request, then what could
we do? Even though, and I speak frankly, even if they had not issued a specific
request we would also have taken it as such [chuckles].

VMH: Because, speaking from an international legal point of view, we had the
right to enter Cambodia in order to exercise self-defense, but if they had issued a
request it would have been better. But as I see it, even if there was no request, we
would still reserve the right from a legal perspective to self-defense, I do think
so.

NT: We did so for legal reasons and they also made the request in writing, so that
later on we had evidence.

VMH: So one last last question: So could we say that Vietnam’s waiting until
December 1978 to invade was in part so that the KUFNS could be formed in
November, and so that they could issue the request? Or do you think that even if
the KUFNS were not formed it would not have mattered much for Vietnam’s
strategic calculations?

NT: Although my post was small, and I was not responsible for overall
operations, but I am certain that when they [the leaders of the Cambodian exiles]
issued their request to form the KUFNS, it had requested in writing, and only

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after that did we begin operations. Had we, without having the KUFNS,
undertaken unilateral military action against the Khmer Rouge, then who would
aid us? The organization was essential, because there must be someone to
support us from behind. If without this we were to proceed… An expert, even if
you are ten times as good, but would always have to try to help them help
themselves. We can help in terms of ideas, but the final decision was theirs to
make. Well, often it is our own decision, but we must say that it is theirs
[chuckles]. If we, as they say, help them for them to be in control, rather than for
ourselves...

VMH: So ultimately we must remain in control?

NT: Let me say something else. The countries that gave aid, even though two or
three foreigners are present, even if we are in control, we must let the
Cambodians take the podium, so that they are making the decisions. But the
opinions and ideas come from the foreign experts. But the ones to make the
decision are the Cambodians.

VMH: Thank you. I believe that this was a very productive working session. I
want to thank you very much for having spent time to talk with me about these
issues. This was a very good learning experience and there are many more things
I need to consider and will supplement my work accordingly. Thank you very
much!

[Pleasantries and end]

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Interview Transcript 2
2 September 2013, 84 minutes 22 seconds
Translated from Vietnamese, original recording available on request from
[email protected]

General Lã Vă n Nho, veteran military scout

Vu Minh Hoang: So we now begin the interview with myself, Vu Minh Hoang, a
student at the London School of Economics and Political Science as interviewer
and Mr. La Van Nho, the interviewee – and there will be questions for you to
introduce yourself. So the first question: Please list the offices you have served,
and activities in which you have taken part, in relation to the Cambodia-Vietnam
War, and perhaps also the Sino-Vietnam War if applicable.

La Van Nho: Thank you. During the Southwest Border War, as Vietnam calls it,
between Vietnam and Cambodia, with its climactic phase starting on the 25
September 1977, on the border zone of Military District VII. A large number of
units participated in this conflict. My own unit followed behind, because at that
time we were still rebuilding our economy in Phuoc Long Province. Therefore,
the entire force of my unit yielded the field to others, and stayed behind to accept
new recruits and would only move to the border later. At that time I was a scout
at the battalion level. After the training was complete, in August 1978 we
accepted a mission from the Third Army to march to Tay Ninh Province,
specifically to two villages: Tan Dinh and Tan Loi, which bore the brunt of the
25/9/1977 atrocities conducted by the Khmer Rouge. In this time, I rose from
Deputy Platoon Commander to Platoon Commander, and then became the
Deputy Head Advisor, and then Company Commander, and then Assistant
Scoutmaster for the regiment. I then moved down to Company Commander, then
Assistant Regiment Commander and Head Advisor at the beginning of 1986.
From the end of August 1987 I returned to Vietnam to study, and stayed in
Vietnam henceforth, because in 1988 we started withdrawing our forces. And
those were the posts I held during the border war between Cambodia and
Vietnam, which we called the Southwest Border War. I should probably stop
there.

VMH: Ok. So, in these posts, what encounters have you had with the discussions
and strategic plans of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and Government of
Vietnam in this time?

LVN: When we prepared for the invasion, we were educated [on the situation].
Firstly, we learned all the information regarding the motives of the Khmer
Rouge. Their goal was to bring instability to the border. Beyond murdering
civilians, they also invaded Vietnamese territory, and even to 20km at some
points. Why were they able to do this? Because of the jungles and mountains, the
area is sparsely populated, so when they moved in we were unaware. So they
were able to come in, murder civilians, and bring about instability along the
border with Cambodia. The total length of the Vietnam-Cambodia border is
1,222km or something like that. This lengthy border is divided into three
military zones. From South to North, these were Military Zone IX, Military Zone

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VII, and Military Zone V. We were part of Military Zone VII. We were informed
about the military clashes that climaxed in 1977, including the incidents in which
civilians were murdered, Vietnamese territory was mined, and frontier posts
were ambushed. So while we were working to rebuild the economy, we had to
mobilize and expand the army to protect the border and our civilians. The
civilians evacuated away from the border 2-3 km, those living closest to the
border having to evacuate 15km, and the majority were evacuated, so that
operations could be carried out along the border by the army. When we finally
invaded Cambodia we were trained in Three Prohibitions and Five No’s. The
Three Prohibitions were: prohibition from transgressing on Cambodians’ private
property. When we came over there, we had to bring our own food supplies. We
could only drink Cambodian water, but were not allowed to chop down their
trees... Basically, all of these rules we studied very carefully before we came, so
that we would do nothing that would compromise our unity of purpose with the
Cambodians. So that’s why we had the Three Prohibitions, including the
prohibition from violating civilian property. The second was the prohibition on
immoral actions, respecting the people of Cambodia, which we learned before
carrying out our international mission. We were considered to have been doing
the international mission. So before we came, we firstly studied the military
situation including the aims of the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot and Ieng Sary,
disrupting the stability of Vietnam’s borders, and preventing Vietnam from
attaining economic development, forcing us to mobilize a large amount of human
and material resources to protect the border. Because we ourselves were
engaged in the economic effort, planting rubber trees in Phuoc Long Province.

VMH: During the education process on these matters, you said you were taught
that the Khmer Rouge attacked in order to disrupt the stability of the border and
preventing us from pursuing economic development. [Assent] But at the time,
did the PAVN and the Government say anything more specifically about why the
Khmer Rouge might want to cause instability and why they did not want us to
attain economic development?

LVN: Of course. We were all filled in on this. Because when the South... Perhaps
this issue relates to international matters, relates to a number of other countries
other than the Khmer Rouge government. As we were told, in Cambodia there
were Chinese experts, both military and civilian.

VMH: So this was made known to you in the education process?

LVN: The information came from the Government that there were military
experts who were Chinese in Cambodia. In reality, during our offensive we did
not take prisonner any such expert, the prisonners were mostly Cambodian.
Perhaps the experts were withdrawn beforehand, as we had expected. As this
matter is somewhat sensitive...

VMH: Yes... So, in your opinion, after all of your experience with the preparation
process and after the liberation of Cambodia, why was it that Vietnam waited
until December 1978 to invade and liberate Cambodia while the Khmer Rouge

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clearly, in the opinion of our military and government, had caused damage to our
country from several years prior? So why do you think we waited until then?

LVN: Actually, we were filled in on the issue every year from 1975. From the
complete liberation of the South on 30 April, on 3 May 1975 the Khmer Rouge
had already organized a landing force on Phu Quoc Island [Puolo Condor]. On
5/5 they had already landed on Tho Chu Island and taken it. And sporadically
throughout 1975-76, there were various transgressions of our territory,
although these were small-scale, not yet massively organized. Especially in 1977,
and climaxing in 1977, they sent several regiments, the Khmer Rouge army did,
sending several regiments over to massacre Vietnamese civilians. The reason
why we waited until December [1978] to attack was because this period was one
where there were a lot of refugees fleeing from Cambodia to Vietnam, among
whom were many patriots, officers of the military and civil service. When they
came over they requested Vietnam’s aid for Cambodia. In December 1978, at the
beginning, the Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS) was
officially formed, within which a new Cambodian army was formed. As I
understand, when they were first formed the army was very small, consisting of
over 20 battalions. They had made preparations such that when they return to
Cambodia each province will have a battalion, because Cambodia has in total
around 27 provinces, so as I understand it they had nearly 30 battalions. This
was the entire army of the KUFNS when it was founded at San Ul, on the
mountain. So only when the KUFNS issued its call for Vietnam to aid Cambodia
did the PAVN have the basis for helping them, help the government-in-exile, help
the Cambodian army to wipe out the genocidal Khmer Rouge.

VMH: So, allow me to ask, why were the leaders of the KUFNS, people like Heng
Samrin and Hun Sen...

LVN: Hun Sen came first... Allow me to skip ahead: Mr. Heng Samrin liaised with
the scouts of my regiment, who came to establish communications. When Heng
Samrin was an officer leading a regiment, I think it was Regiment 320 of Military
Zone 203 [of the Khmer Rouge]. We were informed, and I may not recall the
exact figures of the Khmer Rouge forces, but we were informed that there were
some antiwar elements that opposed the Cambodian government’s carrying the
war into Vietnam, but we were afraid of mistaking their true nature, and so had
to send our scouts to establish communications, and bring them back. So that’s
why our scouts penetrated into Cambodian territory around 7-8km into the
jungle to escort them back. When they arrived, they were discovered by their
scouts and pursued. However, as they were already close to the border, they
made it. This was at the end of November 1977, when we rescued Heng Samrin.

VMH: As for Hun Sen, who came before...?

LVN: Mr. Hun Sen came much earlier, I guess in 1977 or something like that.

VMH: According to my own research, if I’m not wrong part of the reason Hun Sen
fled over was because Pol Pot at the time was purging a number of Khmer Rouge
units.

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LVN: Absolutely. All of the Khmer Rouge officers who fled to us were purged, and
those who disagreed with the Khmer Rouge government. To eliminate them they
were invited to a meeting. Heng Samrin himself received a meeting invitation. He
knew that on the way to that meeting he would have been disposed with, and
thus had to go into hiding. He brought along his radio transmitter. So he
transmitted a message to the PAVN. Now you need to understand, all of our
receivers were trained onto signals from Cambodia, and discovered these SOS
messages. So we were able to send our forces and ascertain the location for
liaising. As we were scouts, we were told that we had come to escort... well, we
were the backups. The main scouting force was from Regiment 429, who
belonged to Division 302, which included a team from Military Zone VII. The
total scouting force was not large, each team was only 7-8 people. As for scouts
from the Military Zone there were only four in total, with the regiment boasting
15-16 only.

VMH: These were the scouts of Military Zone VII?

LVN: Military Zone VII, also scouts of the regiment, and scouts of Regiment 429
[clarification]. As for myself in 271 we were sent towards Samat, based in La Go.
We had to rely on Regiment 429 who were familiar with the main road to lead
the way.

VMH: So from the time these leaders fled to Vietnam or were first contacted by
Vietnam to extend our aid, between 1977 and December 1978 did they make any
requests of Vietnam, or did they wait until November...

LVN: Of course not. As soon as they arrived, all of the officers requested
Vietnamese help.

VMH: What kind of help specifically?

LVN: Firstly, to extend political asylum. At that time there was a substantial
inflow of civilian refugees. For example, betwee 1976-77 many Cambodians fled
over, for instance in Tay Ninh Province, they established several Khmer villages
in the so-called Bau Co area, from the Ba Den Mountain in Tay Ninh on the road
to Kon Tum, on this route there were several Khmer villages. So we had the
responsibility to help them achieve a stable livelihood, supplying food to allow
them to survive. They construct their own houses, as we were too busy with the
war to help with that, and they cleared their own land and farmed so they had
food to eat, even though before the harvest we had to provide food for all the
Cambodian refugees. I apologize for not having a firm grasp of all the figures, but
what I know is that there were several villages, perhaps four, from Bau Co to Tay
Ninh, there were many Cambodian refugees. Later on, the KUFNS also recruited
from here, among the youths.

VMH: So, the first thing they requested was political asylum.

LVN: Well, as refugees from conflict, let’s just say.

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VMH: But from when did they request that Vietnam...

LVN: As I understand, from Hun Sen’s arrival, at that time Mr. Hun Sen was an
officer in charge of a battalion. I do not have exact information on this, this is
from what I heard. From 1977, Hun Sen had asked the PAVN to help...

VMH: To liberate the country?

LVN: That, I suppose means helping the people of Cambodia to escape the
genocidal regime, or else the Khmer race would gradually disappear. Because
from 1975 to 1977, a vast swath of people, and only when I came over did I
realize, there were numerous mass graves in Kampong Cham, Prey Vieng,
bordering with Vietnam. And the people said that these holes collapsed, and the
flies came, an innumerable swarm of flies, because they killed and just gave up
burying the corpses, so when we came over there were just so many flies,
especially in Kampong Cham province. As for me when I came over, I can
ascertain for you this is the truth: all the towns and cities were empty of people.
They had all been sent to the work camps, divided into three categories. Category
1 were those loyal to the Khmer Rouge regime. Category 2 were the petit-
bourgeosie, merchants on the township level. And Category 3 were those
friendly to Vietnam, many of whom lived close to the border. These were moved
deep into the inner part of Cambodia, into the jungles and mountains, and to the
Thai border, to form farming plantations, clearing the jungles and engaging in
agriculture. So when we came over, everywhere we went the wishes of the
people were to return to their hometowns, and we asked them to do so. So in
January-February 1979, the entire Cambodian nation were on the march, all
topsy-turvy, for they asked to go back to their homes and ply their trades. At that
time, the plans were that our transport trucks would transport food and military
supplies to our units, and on the way back would bring civilians home. So for
example we arrived at Siem Reap, and asked all those wishing to go back to
Kampong Thom, Kampong Cham to get on the trucks, and when we were on our
way back through Kampong Thom and Kampong Cham they would request to be
let off. So for several months from January to March 1979, the entire Cambodian
nation was on the march for that reason. So beyond the requests that we provide
transport for civilians, we were also told to give them grain, or else they would
starve – they weren’t able to take anything with them on the way. When we
came, we saw that the towns had not a single civilian. I was not able to come to
Phnom Penh, as my commands were to attack Kampong Cham, Kampong Thom,
and Siem Riep, and in none of these towns was there a shadow of a man.

VMH: When Hun Sen and Heng Samrin gave their request for Vietnamese help,
did Vietnam understand this to mean a request to help liberate their country
from the genocide?

LVN: The policy at the time was that we needed to act upon the basis which I
have discussed, which was to help the people of Cambodia escape from the
genocide. That was the only way. But to become a basis on which Vietnamese
help could be rendered, firstly Vietnam tried to resolve the border situation via

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peaceful means, which would have been the best option. That was the policy.
Because as you know, the Vietnamese nation had just gone through the American
war, having not yet been able to rebuild the country and deal with the problems
of the last war. Now, to have to begin a new war, that was very difficult. The first
difficulty was that most of our units had demobilized. A few units were shifted
into economic activities. Volunteer units of the American War mostly returned to
their homes and were released from military service. As for the standing army
units, they were shifted mainly to economic reconstruction tasks. If we had
wanted to help Cambodia topple the Khmer Rouge we needed the numbers, but
it was not a simple matter to shift units working on economic tasks back to
military standby. Secondly, the Government policy was to resolve the issue with
the Khmer Rouge through peaceful negotiations. However, after the climax, in
1978, as I was informed, that while the total strength of Khmer Rouge units was
24 divisions, they had sent 19 divisions to the Vietnamese border – that is, 19
army divisions to the Vietnamese border to cause trouble. Thus, conflict broke
out every day, and every day new units were organized to infiltrate Vietnamese
territory.

[Recording breaks off momentarily]

VMH: I apologize that our recording was interrupted momentarily just now due
to a call. Let me repeat a few things which were missed. At the point of the
interruption, you had stated that Vietnam had demobilized many units. Of those
that were not demobilized many where engaged in economic activities, and
therefore the policy of Vietnam was to pursue peaceful negotiations, even while
there were calls by some Cambodian quarters to help them remove the genocidal
regime in Cambodia. And then we exchanged that in the middle of 1978, the
Khmer Rouge had moved 19 out of their 24 divisions to the Vietnamese border
to cause trouble, especially through mining, causing damage to Vietnamese units,
as well as conducting various ambushes of Vietnamese forces on Vietnamese
territory.

LVN: Let me just say this. The policy of the Vietnamese government at the time
was because after the liberation of the South, we needed an interval that, even
though the Cambodian officers had fled to us and requested help the Cambodian
people escape from the genocide, or else all of them would perish – they said that
clearly. Vietnam at the time, the majority of our units that participated in the
liberation of the South were demobilized in 1976-77. The main army forces were
only empty shells, and only a small number of troops were recruited to deal with
the various complications that might have arisen unexpectedly, and a few units
were shifted to economic activities. My own division had seven regiments, which
were ordered to form the Phuoc Long Economic Group, and it was no longer a
division, for its name is now the Phuoc Long Economic Group, comprised of
seven regiments which engaged in economic activities. And even then our
numbers in each regiment were very few. They called us a regiment, but in
reality we were not. For example, our infantry were reorganized into economic
teams, for instance my regiment was reorganized into four teams tasked with
clearing forests and planting rubber. The other units in other Military Zones did
the same, for example I know Military Zone IX had reorganized into economic

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teams to build plantations to produce rice. Some units from Military Zone VII
also produced rice, but other plantations produced industrial crops. As for the
other units from the army corps, as I understand it each division only left one
regiment at arms, and even that regiment would not be fully staffed, reduced to
around 70% of their full strength, even though officially they were on full
strength. As for those remaining, the majority were demobilized and formed into
economic cooperatives, and we called them the reserves, who were ready once
war breaks out to mobilize. When the border situation suddenly flared up, militia
units across the countryside were formed, and began recruiting to defend their
own land. Each district and each province took its security into its own hands. As
for the units belonging to the Military Zones at the border had to rush to
supplement their strength, moving troops and recruiting troops and training
troops, which took some time, because you cannot just field units engaged in
economic activities immediately. So as I said before, for example my regiment
which came behind, all of us joined the army in 1973 to no later than early 1975,
were redistributed among the teams within the Phuoc Long Economic Group,
who [in 1977] had to reorganize their personnel to send to the front. When, by
mid 1978 I was finally sent to the border, we were informed that at that time 19
out of 24 Khmer Rouge divisions had been moved to the border. When we came
into contact with our local militia units, I could see that they had sustained
substantial casualties, mostly from mines and ambushes, even ambushes of
entire small units. So that’s what I saw in Military Zone VII. As for the other
Military Zones, the story was similar. My Military Zone was mostly jungle, but
Military Zone IX was mainly paddy fields, so the force we had to field was larger
at the border, because of the flat terrain which was harder to hold.

VMH: So, as we have spoken, from the Vietnamese side we only had three
military zones which were V, VII, and IX, and within Military Zone VII there were
Divisions 302 and 305, Military Zone IX had Divisions 4 and 8, and Military Zone
V had only Division 2.

LVN: As far as I know, yes. Although in the South there were two other army
corps, Army Corps III and Army Corps IV. Army Corps III and Army Corps IV
were at the time recruiting and training troops, making preparations for the
resolution of the bigger problem, which was to invade and remove the Khmer
Rouge.

VMH: When did they begin their preparations?

LVN: I was part of Military Zone VII, so I only knew that these two Army Corps
were recruiting and training troops at the back, 30-40km from the border.

VMH: But from when did they begin their preparations?

LVN: In 1977.

VMH: At the end of 1977?

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LVN: Yes, because the most significant incident occurred in September 1977,
when there was an infiltration all along the border.

VMH: So Vietnam had begun training two Army Corps...

LVN: Supplementing their forces. You need to understand that at the time they
were merely empty shells.

VMH: So after 1975, they were demobilized. After September 1977,

remobilization begun to return these units to their full fighting strengths.

LVN: Yes.

VMH: And this remobilization was intended to resolve once and for all the
Cambodian problem?

LVN: To be ready to do so. When the peaceful policy failed, and when the KUFNS
issued their request...

VMH: Was this also the time when they began their requests?

LVN: Heng Samrin would only flee over in 1978.

VMH: Yes. But around the time after September 1977, was also the time when
Hun Sen made his request for help to Vietnam, when Vietnam was also
remilitarizing?

LVN: Yes.

VMH: This is a very important detail.

LVN: You see, all seven of our regiments became the Phuoc Long Economic
Group and lost our division designation [chuckled].

VMH: So getting on to 1978. So as you stated before, there were military

preparations for the eventuality of the peace overtures breaking down. About the
peace overtures, which continued until the middle of 1978, had tried to get China
to mediate with the Khmer Rouge. So what were the conditions surrounding the
peace overtures and why did they, well, fail?

LVN: Because the overtures failed, and with the formation of the KUFNS from the
beginning of December 1978, which formed the basis for our liaising with
Cambodia’s [anti-Pol Pot] revolutionary forces. Perhaps that would be a
comprehensive recounting of the situation. Before, patriotic forces fled over and
requested our help, but the KUFNS had not yet existed. Only at the end of
November and beginning of December... Of course, the revolutionary Cambodian
forces had been formed beforehand, but have actually made their preparations
from 1977, but they had not yet formed a full-fledged government and had not

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made themselves publicly known. When between peace efforts between the
governments of Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge failed...

VMH: Why did they fail?

LVN: Of course because they had their main plan, which was to weaken Vietnam,
making it impossible for Vietnam to rebuild our economy. That was their policy.
If that was the case, then, we have to look more carefully. Cambodia was a
country of only 7 million people, but dared to take on such big ambitions against
Vietnam. Cambodia obviously did not have the strength to do this alone. That is
something we have to be clear about. So who was behind them? This is a
sensitive issue today, but before, it was very clearly taught to us that it was
China.

VMH: So this was the official line of the government?

LVN: Indeed, from the official announcers, we were taught this.

VMH: This was taught to all the units in the PAVN, that China was behind the
attacks? And when were these conclusions arrived at? Because before, China had
aided us. So at what point did the government begin to teach our military units
that?

LVN: This is what we were told from 1977, after the September incident.
Because, you need to understand, for all the units that have not yet engaged in
combat this information was only circulated among the officers as part of their
education, but not widely among the common soldiers. However, for the units
that have been sent to the border they have all been taught this. Just like when I
said earlier, before invading Cambodia we were taught the nine prohibitions,
including the non-violation of Cambodian persons and property. We were only
allowed to breath their air and drink their water. This is what we were taught.

VMH: So according to what you said, it seems that the Vietnamese side had
understood that with just 7 million Cambodian people versus 70 million
Vietnamese, there was no unilateral threat from Cambodia. But when we arrived
at the conclusion that behind Cambodia there was another power, did Vietnam
then come to a realization that actually Cambodia could be a threat for the
Vietnamese state?

LVN: As we understood it, Cambodia had little ability to threaten Vietnamese

state. However, they could weaken us, firstly through infiltration of the border
and forcing Vietnam to mobilize our forces to defend, which made demands on
our human and military hardware resources at a time when Vietnam had to go
alone – before against America we had Chinese and Soviet aid. If we were to use
the leftover military hardware in Vietnam... Let me tell you frankly, ammunition
for the M79 had run out by the beginning of 1979. They had run out. B40-B41
ammo which were delivered before, by 1979 they had basically run out. The
situation with anti-tank ammo was the same, all had to be manufactured in 1978.
And as you know, by 1979 we had already to use them. Our arsenal at the time

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after the liberation of the South had basically been used up in 1977-78. So, as we
say, the Khmer Rouge could not threaten Vietnam, but it could weaken us,
forcing us to field a large force to defend our border, which would sustain
human, military equipment, and supply losses that we had to replenish through
production, while we were supposed to be rebuilding the economy in the army’s
plantations. We, the Phuoc Long Economic Group, were basically a plantation,
now called Military Group 15.

VMH: So, could we say that a factor leading to Vietnam having to conclusively
resolve the Cambodian problem after the peace overtures failed...

LVN: After the several peace overtures failed.

VMH: When did they completely break down?

LVN: As the border war continued and even escalated, with 19 out of 24
divisions...

VMH: But was there a specific point when the Vietnamese negotiators had to
throw up their hands and say this was just not going to work, or did they
continue their efforts all the way until December?

LVN: Vietnam had a policy of resolving the issue conclusively by December...

VMH: But is there a date?

LVN: There is and I will supply it sometime. But when the efforts to resolve the
issue peacefully failed, Vietnamese policy became having to resolve it by force.
But this force was to be used to aid the Cambodian [KUFNS] army. As I have said
before, in preparation to help them at the beginning of December, in preparation
for the drive in January, from December we had to organize our education
classes for the Nine Prohibitions and Five Nos. The content of these was
generally understood among all our troops: do not violate anything of the
Cambodian people, do not take anything from them for our own use, except for
breathing their air and drinking their water. This is to let you understand that.

Ok, specifics. On 31/12/1979 [sic: should be 1977] the Khmer Rouge

government suspended s with Vietnam. On 2/12/1978, the KUFNS was born, and
called for the liberation of the Cambodian people from the genocidal regime.

VMH: So there was no specific date for the end of all negotiations?

LVN: There was such a date, but I will have to follow up with you after consulting
some documents. As I understand, the Vietnamese government continued to
pursue peaceful options, knowing that invading Cambodia will bring many
difficulties. At that time, soldiers like myself had to eat bobo, which had to be
imported – bobo is the name we gave to barley. A country that today exports rice
by the millions of tons at that time had to eat barley. When I was fighting at the
border it was all barley.

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VMH: So could we say that one factor leading to the invasion of Cambodia to
resolve once and for all the Khmer Rouge question is because the Khmer Rouge
threatened our economic development, weakening us? So according to that logic,
the resolution of the Khmer Rouge problem should have resolved the threats to
Vietnam’s economy.

LVN: Well, to talk only of economic reasons would not be sufficient. Because
their troops killed our civilians, totaling over two years over 50,000 – you can
see here in my documents, here [opened file]: “And then they opened up fighting
in the Southwest Border Areas, killing 5230 civilians, injuring 4,710 civilians, all
along the border. They also disposed of/took away 24,300 civilians.” And look at
the materials damage: 22,000 houses, schools, hospitals, 30,000 civilians along
the border had to leave their homes to evacuate, tens of thousands of hectares of
farmland abandoned.

VMH: This was only counting Vietnamese civilians, and we haven’t yet accounted
for the Vietnamese and Cambodians killed on the other side of the border.

LVN: Correct. And the number of refugees was so great as to form several
villages, which I personally witnessed, stretching from Ba Den Mountain to Bau
Co, all along the border. We had to provide them with supplies, only until the
harvest were they able to eat their own food.

VMH: This was clearly an economic burden.

LVN: An economic burden, but also a manpower burden. We encountered mines

and ambushes along the border, which chipped away at our forces and people.
Those who died is one matter, but those were injured were a big burden.

VMH: So we have talked at length of the military, civilian, and political aspects of
the conflict, but now about the economic aspect. As historians, we are always
lucky in the sense that we have the benefit of hindsight.

LVN: I agree.

VMH: But at that time, looking ahead into the future, Vietnam had many reasons
to destroy Pol Pot. But one of those reasons was economic. So at that time, did
Vietnamese leaders believe that this was going to be a short fight, and that we
could withdraw early and achieve economic stability for both countries quickly?
Or were they able to see that the next ten years would be exceedingly difficult?

LVN: We were ordered to go over there to help our friends, and then withdraw.

VMH: What was the timeframe?

LVN: There was no timeframe. After we have completed the mission we were to
go back “early”. However, because Cambodia [the KUNFS] had, as I was informed,
merely 30 battalions, only enough so that each province would be led by one

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battalion. In order to topple the genocidal regime, we toppled them from center
down to periphery. To restore government in Cambodia from center to
periphery, to restore the revolutionary army of Cambodia, we needed time. Also,
when we invaded, we merely dispersed [the Khmer Rouge], toppled the
government and dispersed the troops, but were not able to destroy many units.
As you know, each thrust by the [KUFNS] army was meant to advance as quickly
as possible. The entire [Khmer Rouge] force at the border was dispersed into
many small pieces, who simply disguised themselves as civilians. We knew this,
but there were so many of them, groups and groups of them, so many, 6-8 people
per group, all youths, wearing black, with a hammock slung across their back and
in their pockets a spoon each. So I knew that they were Khmer Rouge soldiers,
but practically speaking, how could I myself who am tasked with sweeping out
enemy troops... If they had fought, then I was ready to fight, but they had no
weapons, and were on their way home to build a new life.

VMH: So why did you not take them prisonner?

LVN: How could I look after them? I was busy with my sweeping mission, and
they had no guns and offered no resistance. Those units that have disbanded,
who were returning to their hometowns to build a new life, to become civilians...

VMH: But did these deserters again pick up their weapons?

LVN: Afterwards, in February 1979, China invaded our northern border, in

concert with the Khmer Rouge forces who have been able to regroup on the
western border.

VMH: What were their numbers?

LVN: We couldn’t track them, they ambushing our units from all directions, right
from February, in concert with the action in the northern border. Truely I tell
you, there were some companies that lost 30-40 trucks. For example, the major
general commanding Army Corps IV was also ambushed. Had he gone in a
bulletproof humvee he would have survived, but he went in a jeep, which went
under fire... So you must understand how they acted in concert with the events in
the northern border, and it was at this time that the commander of Army Corps
IV was killed in action. The remaining units were mostly ambushed, our vehicle
losses was very high.

VMH: But how was the damage on vehicles inflicted, by mines or by missiles?

LVN: Using B40s, using mines. They waited for us to hit a mine before ambushing
us with their full force, attacking our supply convoys rather than against our
fighting forces.

VMH: So these heavier weapons to take out vehicles...

LVN: Concentrated firepower from B40-41 shoulder launched rocket-propelled

grenades.

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VMH: These weapons, how did the Khmer Rouge acquire them?

LVN: All the shells were made in China [chuckled].

VMH: Did Vietnam gather hard evidence to ascertain these weapons’ origin?

LVN: Of course! They had Chinese characters on them. The guns also were
inscribed with Chinese characters. Even the mines. All of the weapons were
made in China. So you can see that this action was in concert with that on the
northern border. At that point, Chinese clothes had not yet come in. But by the
1980s the Chinese had supplied to the Khmer Rouge camouflage uniforms, their
entire uniform from head to the slippers on their toes, in 1980-81. The
hammocks were made in China. The thing is, at that time the clothes were a
nylon composite, not like back in the American War when all the [Chinese-
supplied] uniforms [of the PAVN] were made of cotton fibers, and by this time all
the uniforms were green camouflage, but the material was composite, and not
cotton like before. The mosquito nets and hammocks were of the same materials
as those the Chinese supplied to us in the American War.

VMH: Ok, so back to the question before. Before Vietnam invaded, did the PAVN
come to the conclusion that firstly, Vietnam might need to stay in Cambodia for
some time to help out, and secondly did Vietnam consider the possibility that
China might intervene?

LVN: At that time our upper estimate for the time we needed to stay was three
years, to help rebuild the Cambodian revolutionary army. Around three years.
But after that the war just dragged on and on. Honestly, it was exhausting. At the
front it was war, but at home it was peace. We were suffering so much. When I
went for leave, from the time leaving my unit to go north it took 29 days to get
home. Why was this so? Because from our secluded location, going to the rear to
form groups and await our transport already took four days. To get to our
military base at Siem Reap would take a further three days. The journey itself
took just one day to go over 100km, but we had to wait three days to assemble
our units, for we could not go singly without protection. And from there, our
trucks took another day to reach Kong Thuon [?], another day to reach Kampong
Cham, and another day to reach Vietnam, totaling three more days to reach
Saigon. Today, that journey would take only from morning until afternoon to get
to Phnom Penh from Saigon, but back then from my unit to get to Saigon would
take a total of 9 days, 9 or 10 days. And that’s not even counting the waiting time
for the train from Saigon, and back then our transportation network wasn’t that
developed. Moving both by military trucks and trains, and it was not as if we
could take leave any time we wanted, only in the 1980s could we do it. 1979, ’80,
’81, it was three years later before I was allowed leave. And that was only the
border war with Cambodia, back then I wasn’t allowed leave either. So it was
four years before I was given just a single period of leave. It took 29 days before I
returned to my home.

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VMH: So could we say that the Vietnam was not able to plan ahead for the
difficulties we would later encounter?

LVN: Yes.

VMH: Were we able to predict two other things that did occur, which were firstly
the border war with China, were we able to predict that China would respond in
such a way?

LVN: I believe that we only alert to that possibility, and on the strategic level the
government had been alert to the possibility that when we attack Cambodia,
China would cause difficulties at the northern border. But as for an outright
attack all along the border we had no intelligence. But there were symptoms, for
example from scouts being sent to gather information, we had some information.
The purpose of China’s attack on the northern border was to force Vietnam to
withdraw our forces, so as to allow the Khmer Rouge who were then dispersed…

VMH: The Chinese said as much.

LVN: So we had to order Army Corps III who were in Bac Giang – Thai Nguyen [to
move North].

VMH: Army Corps III was one of the two Army Corps engaged in Cambodia, so
half of the army had to withdraw?

LVN: Yes, half. Army Corps III, which was responsible for the Central Highlands,
had to move north.

VMH: So only Army Corps IV was left?

LVN: Only Army Corps IV was left.

VMH: But they arrived in time at least.

LVN: At that time, we had a comprehensive agreement with… Ah, when we came
over, and were allowed to stay, it was due to the policy of two governments. On
17/2 the northern border incident occurred; on the 18th, Prime Minister Pham
Van Dong signed the Treaty of Cooperation between the KUFNS government and
Vietnam. This was the basis for us remaining there. The Cambodian government
requested that the Vietnamese government to station our troops on their soil to
help strengthen their army for self-defense. As for our own calculations, we
thought that we would be there for three years tops, but unexpectedly the
fighting just kept dragging on.

VMH: At this time in the north, while Army Corps III and IV was invading
Cambodia, in the north which Army Corps were stationed?

LVN: At that time Army Corps I and II.

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VMH: I and II were in the North.

LVN: Army Corps II was actually in the Central Coast. The Central Highlands was
under Army Corps III. The Southeast and Southwest were under Army Corps IV.
As for Army Corps II was in the Central Coast, based around Hue, and covering
up to Quang Binh, Quang Tri. Only Army Corps I was in the North.

VMH: That means that in the North…

LVN: I am talking about the areas of operation, where they were based. But
afterwards we were forced to move units north.

VMH: This was before China attacked or…

LVN: No, only after China had attacked, did we move our troops.

VMH: So at first Army Corps I had to deal [with the People’s Liberation Army]
alone?

LVN: At that time Army Corps II had already contributed one division to Military
Zone IX, as I was informed. As for Military Zone VII there was Army Corps IV, and
the area between Military Zones VII and V there was Army Corps III.

VMH: So actually the troop movements from Army Corps II was not to the north
but to the south? So we could say that, based on Vietnam’s troop distribution at
the time, it seems we were not able to preempt the Chinese intervention.

LVN: Yes. But as we were told, the local units for example in Military Zones I and
II, they had to build up their own [militia] forces to defend their own zones. Out
here there was only Army Corps I standing ready to distribute forces all through
the North. Army Corps II was ready to distribute forces along the North and
Central Coast. Army Corps III was responsible for the Central Highlands. Army
Corps IV was responsible for the Southeast and Southwest. And so it was, as I
was educated and observed. But when the incident in the northern border
occurred we had to reposition one Army Corps from Cambodia back up. And you
must understand at the time we faced many hardships, moving an entire Army
Corps back was no simple task!

VMH: Yes, as you have already described the difficult transport situation,
certainly not easy.

LVN: Our transportation network at the time was still weak. When we liberated
the South but faced the border war from the middle of 1977 to 1978, beginning
of 1979, we felt exhausted economically. At the time, the entire army was fed on
barley, so you can see [the extent of the hardship, for Vietnamese cuisine does
not traditionally include barley]. There was only little rice, mostly it was barley.
As for foodstuff, as you know, it was not good at all, just fish sauce and shredded
pork and some dried meat. At the border there was actually some fresh meat,
from Ho Chi Minh City north, frozen meat and fish. But by the time we went over

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the border, we relied on reserve supplies which were mainly canned meat, which
was scarce in themselves, mainly it was fish sauce and shredded pork.

VMH: Today, I have certainly learned many things. All the things you have said
were very valuable, and I have learned so much. I just have one or two small
questions to conclude our working session today. We have touched on the big
questions from many different angles. There were two major countries relevant
to this issue but we have not yet discussed them, one being the Soviet Union and
the other being the United States.

LVN: The USSR, as I understand, seeing the Vietnamese situation, signed the
Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation…

VMH: If I am not wrong it was signed in early December 1978.

LVN: The timing I defer to your research. But as I was informed, it was to guard
against negative developments that might have arisen.

VMH: Did the Vietnam side see that treaty as a bilateral defensive pact?

LVN: No, no! There were no Soviet troops present! As I understand, in Cambodia
there was a Soviet air transport regiment.

VMH: In Cambodia?

LVN: From Saigon to Cambodia.

VMH: So they only helped us at transportation?

LVN: Yes, and nothing else.

VMH: But did Vietnam see the treaty with the Soviet Union as a military pact? For
example, an article in that treaty concerned matters of national security and,
perhaps it was not precisely phrased, but did Vietnam at the time see the Soviet
Union as a shoulder to lean on in case Vietnam comes under any sort of attack, or
did Vietnam merely see the USSR as a friendly nation and a source of aid?

LVN: I only know that there was a treaty that set out the basis for Vietnam-Soviet
relations. Without this treaty the Soviets could not have helped us. I do not know
about the other matters. All I know is that the air transport planes that brought
supplies to the front and injured soldiers to the rear from Siem Reap to Saigon
were marked with Soviet insignia.

VMH: Besides the Soviet Union, another country relevant to this issue was the
United States…

LVN: Not at all. At that time, we still considered the United States our number
one enemy.

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VMH: The United States at this time had two major developments. First, the US
government under Carter did denounce the Khmer Rouge regime…

LVN: Generally speaking, all the countries in the world had denounced them. The
genocidal regime of Cambodia, with the pictures circulating around the world,
when I went over there I observed them firsthand to be true, it was all true. It
was not only in Phnom Penh that these atrocities happened, but in all the
provinces, wherever our troops advanced we saw many mass graves from the
executions, not just a few but tens of mass graves. And that’s not mentioning our
discovery… especially when we went around the Kampong Cham area, and
paused to make a sweep of the area. You need to understand that the advance is
along the major roads, the Army Corps advanced at the head but the divisions of
the Military Zones had to stay behind to expand our zone of control outward to
both sides of the road. As I was coming behind, I had to stop and expand our zone
of control for 15-20km on either side. When we returned to shower and wash
our clothes, we dropped the bucket down a well and a search party had to jump
down to find it. While we were eating and sleeping the sweeping parties still had
to do their duty, from morning till night. They found many human bones at the
bottom of the wells. And we said, “Damn, how did we consume several days from
this well and had no idea!” But by then what could we do? We had already eaten,
washed, and only knew that the water had some yellow goo floating on top, and
the color of the water was yellowish. But if we do not drink then we would have
no water! And by then we had drank from it for several days. At night we still had
to eat rice with corn. We had to expand the zone of control to 15-20km on both
sides of the road, by the evening when we come back, still had to wash and
shower quickly so that by next morning we would march again. So we dropped
that bucket down the well while drawing water and that was how we discovered
the bones. The well was 6-7m deep. When we dropped the bucket down and had
to get a guy to rappel down to get the bucket, which was when we discovered
that it was filled with human bones. This was probably from 1975-76 when they
tossed the bodies down.

VMH: And if you did not drink from that well, then where else would you have
drank from?

LVN: If we did not drink from there where would we have gotten our water? As
for a lot of other wells we went to we found the stench to be horrid, but the leaf
of the mango tree, we had no other option but to toss one into the pot to cook. It
changed color, before cooking it was fairly clear, but as we started cooking it got
yellow, with a film floating up, I was not sure what was in the water, but it floated
up. But once we put the mango leaf in it turned back to black, rather than green.
We put the mango leaf in to dispel with the pungent smell, and then we had to
eat it. You have to understand, sometimes on a sweeping mission our unit got
very thirsty, even the regimental commander got thirsty. When we came to
Cambodia we did not have any maps, we were not able to prepare them in time.
So we used the maps from the French colonial era, which had no elevation
markings. When we came to a lake there had to be water, and if it did not then
we would not know what to do. And the same with streams. But when we came
over there things were completely different. Truly I tell you, each day marching

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some 50km on the map, but in reality it was more like 70km, with a heavy bag on
our shoulders, our weapons and our supplies, and ready to fight the enemy
whenever we see him.

VMH: Clearly to liberate Cambodia we encountered many difficulties, and these

difficulties at the time arose because we failed to destroy many enemy units,
allowing most of them to flee and disperse. This is a matter in which I have little
knowledge, and this is the final question, but I have heard at certain quarters, but
no verified information: There were some Vietnam strategists, including General
Vo Nguyen Giap, who envisioned a pincer strategy for the invasion, cutting off
the Khmer Rouge’s route of retreat. What were the discussions in the PAVN at
the time regarding different strategy options in dealing with the Khmer Rouge?

LVN: You need to understand: as a principle of combat, firstly, the regiment must
have a main force to break the enemy center, as well as a force to destroy the
enemy. There of course had to be a force attacking from behind to prevent them
from escaping, to allow the main force to attack. This would also be the case on
the division level, it would also have to dedicate several battalions to preventing
the enemy from escaping, to destroy them.

VMH: That means whether on the large or small scale, we always had such a
strategy.

LVN: This was a principle of combat. On the Army Corps level we had to have
helicopters transporting troops to their rear to prevent escape. However, in
Cambodia we mostly succeeded only in the frontal attack component.

VMH: Was there any particular reason why Vietnam chose that route? Because it
was the Khmer Rouge’s ability to escape to Thailand that clearly was…

LVN: They did not flee right away! Only later when their units at the border were
scattered, due to our policy of getting people to return to their homes, did they
from 1979-80 start to regroup. As for several units that were able to retreat
intact, these were able to resist us right from February 1979. In January they
offered no resistance, but from February 1979 in concert with the border war in
the north they were able to resist us. So you need to understand that. Those units
that were able to retreat intact, and a few divisions that were stationed in Phnom
Penh or on the Thai border were intact. As for those on the Vietnamese border
they were mostly dispersed, and it would take a year before they would be able
to regroup, they certainly weren’t able to do so immediately.

VMH: Ok, but coming back to the question, why did Vietnam at the time not
adhere to the aforementioned principle strictly?

LVN: That I cannot say, because I held only regional command. That only the
higher-ups can answer. All that I know is that, when I was escorting Mr. Chea Sim
to reveal himself to the people of Siem Reap after the liberation, at the beginning
of February, before the Chinese invasion in the north. We picked up Mr. Chea Sim
at the airport via a M113 armored personnel carrier, I have to say that our

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airplanes did such a fine job, they made no hit at all on the runway. All our shells
fell 20m away! It seemed to me that we actually wanted to preserve the airstrip,
to merely chase the Khmer Rouge away and deny them that facility, that’s all. Not
a single bomb hit the center of the runway.

VMH: So this was intentional?

LVN: I do not know! But perhaps we intentionally did that just to chase them
away, to deny them the use, rather than to destroy.

VMH: Because afterwards, we ourselves made use of the facilities.

LVN: Indeed! Because if we had to repair it we would be doomed! Or the bridges.

We actually prevented them from destroying the bridges. All the bridges we had
to keep.

VMH: So the point was to advance to quickly as to prevent them from destroying
the infrastructure.

LVN: They had no time to scuttle the bridges, because they had to withdraw. We
were hot on their heels.

VMH: So are you saying that one of the reasons why Vietnam had to focus on the
lighting frontal advance was because we were afraid the Khmer Rouge would
practice a scorched earth policy, like what the Russians did while resisting
Napoleon and Hitler.

LVN: Yes, yes. Of course, while they retreated, if they wanted to slow us, they
needed to destroy the transport infrastructure, to cause difficulties for the
advancing army, forcing us to stop and make repairs. But I did not see a single
collapsed bridge. Even our air force did not attack the bridges.

VMH: So we can say that one important reason why Vietnam had pushed back
the Khmer Rouge so quickly was economic and looking towards rebuilding the
country, but did not account for the possibility that this would allow the Khmer
Rouge to regroup in the jungles and resist us.

LVN: We did consider that. All wars are like that. When the war is over, the
defeated soldiers, how do we take them in, how do we provide for their
education? We could not take them in, we were still busy dealing with those who
still had their weapons. As for those who were disarmed, we could not take them
in, but only encourage them to go back home. And there were so many, the entire
Cambodian nation was on the march. The civilians in the villages or on the
Vietnamese border who were marched deep into the heartland or to the Thai
border to perform hard labor, only engaging in agriculture and working on levee
projects. The climate in Cambodia was thus: in the wet season everywhere was
water, but in the dry season the entire country was in draught, as for six months
there was no rain and the soil was sandy.

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VMH: So, when we attacked at the end and beginning of the year, was the that
dry or wet season?

LVN: We attacked during the dry season.

VMH: That also facilitated a speedy advance.

LVN: In the dry season in Cambodia, even those places where the bridges were
broken, we could sometimes just jump over. But I was lucky that when I came
over, straight along Routes 7 and 6, all the way until Sisophone near the Thai
border, turning north to Sam Rong and up to the Frog Mountain, I saw not a
single broken bridge. This was a major success for us. Why was this so? Only
later did they ambush us and attack our bridges. But when the advance took
place no bridge was attacked. There were some bridges in the process of being
burned, for they were wooden, but we reached them in time and put out the
fires. Our advance was that fast.

VMH: Ok. So thank you very much for today. This working session, I must say,
was a very big success, and I have learned many things. Certainly, your expertise
in the military field has clarified many things, and for those who are raised in the
civilian sector like myself, who have only read books, there are many things
which we still have to learn. I just want to thank you very much today.

LVN: I want to give you these additional documents.

VMH: Thank you very much.

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Interview Transcript III

Mr. Nguyen Hieu

Deputy Head of the military attaché delegation in Cambodia, promoted to Major
General; spy; advisor to Le Duc Tho, Politburo Central Committee member, chief
advisor to the KUFNS and PRK

VMH: Yes, so I am beginning the recording. Today, we have myself, Mr. Vu Minh
Hoang, interviewer, and Mr. Nguyen Hieu, interviewee. I have a few questions I
need to ask you regarding the origins of the Vietnam-Cambodia War to support
my final year undergraduate dissertation. I have sent you some questions
beforehand. So the first question is: Please tell me what positions you have held,
what activities you have taken part in in connection with the Vietnam-Cambodia
and Sino-Vietnam Wars. You need only to answer with regards to the Vietnam-
Cambodia War.

NH: Since I was born I had never thought one day I would join the Army.
Returning home with injuries from the war, being a Communist party member at
the time, I then moved to the South to work.

VMH: Can you please specify the time you started to work in the South?

NH: It was the year 1948 when I first left the North and literally walked on my
bare feet to the South for 11 months. I was assigned to keep a weather eye on the
situation and report any major development in Cambodia during that time. The
Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party was founded since the Indochinese
Communist Party had had been divided into separate communist parties. The
party was still aboriginal since then. In July 1930, the Overseas Vietnamese
National Rescue Youth Cell in Phnom Penh was founded. After the August
General Uprising in Vietnam, the Indochinese Communist Party started to pose a
plan to separate the party itself into three communist parties based in Laos,
Vietnam, and Cambodia. In 1946, there were only 2 communist party members
in Cambodia who were Son Ngoc Minh and [inaudible]. In 1949, the Kampuchean
People’s Revolutionary Party was officially established consisting of 21 members
with the support of Vietnam. By the beginning of April 1950, they reached 40
members. In March 1951, the Indochinese Communist Party eventually split into
three. After the Geneva Accords was signed in 1954, a number of Cambodian
communist party cells and members, who were mostly working for the Army,
evacuated to Vietnam. In October 1954, there were 189 out of more than 1000
party members gathered in Cambodia. A lot of the other party members were
simultaneously being active beyond the border, mainly in France, including
Saloth Sar, Pol Pot who were introduced by the Vietnamese Communist party to
the French Communist Party, and actually departed from Vietnam for France.
During his time in France, Pol Pot seemingly did not want to get involved in and
keep in touch with either the Indochinese Communist Party or the Vietnam
Communist Party. With that in mind, you can probably not have a complete
picture of the history of the Vietnamese Communist Party without mentioning
the amity and even the betrayal of Cambodia, and China. As a 85 year-old man
working for the Army for all my life, I dare to say this straightforward without

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hesitation that not only in the past but even at present the first and foremost
neighbor Vietnam should always be cautious of is always China, and the second
one must be Cambodia. As I observe, China currently seems to be eager for the
reestablishment of Pol Pot’s regime perhaps.

VMH: Can you talk more about activities you have taken part in in connection
with the Vietnam-Cambodia and Sino-Vietnam Wars?

NH: I was a politician during that time in the West South main force, working in
collaboration with Pham Van Xo who was a former central committee of the
Communist party of Vietnam and the Communist party of Cambodia as well. This
guy was the one who carried an investigation into an oligarch, and made a public
enquiry about whether the party was truly communist or not. This enquiry was
disregarded by Le Duc Tho who once acknowledged the party as communist no
matter what. I knew it inside out since I was a deputy leader of the military
attaché in Cambodia by that time.

Talking about Pol Port and other Cambodian communist members abroad in
France, they were inclined to be separate from the Indochinese Communist
Party. In between 1953 and 1954, 30 of them retuned to Cambodia. In 1951, just
when a campaign for the Cambodian Communist Party’s establishment was
launched, another party was founded at the same time by those abroad in
France. These lads coming back from overseas looked down on domestic
members. Living in such political climate, domestic members were reluctant to
make a move to establish their party as planned. Some were even caught in
corruption claims. In 1952, the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party was
established, being intensely opposed by Cambodian communists coming back
from France including Pol Pot. They wanted to have a party of their own to easily
control the political situation. Their intention was no doubt to keep close
relations with China.

VMH: Did they intend to keep such relations with China since 1952?

NH: Exactly

VMH: Was it the time when Vietnam and China were still close?

NH: Well I shall say… the word “close” should be put in double quotes to indicate
a different meaning thereof. It can be said that the relations was close only on the
surface.

VMH: Even in the Vietnamese revolution against French colonial rule?

NH: Yes it was. There was an implicit disagreement between Vietnam and China
during that time. Even now when most of my family’s appliances and commodity
products are made from China, we can hardly have a pure friendly perception
towards China. We never know what intrigues laid behind their moves. Only
fools do not know how China once used not only Vietnam but also North Korea to
disguise their actual plans. They did not want Vietnam to be reunified. To

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implement their plan, is there any better excuse than Cambodia? Just look at
how Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai intervened and consulted our government and
our communist party right after the Geneva Accords of 1954 was signed, you will
see their intention.

VMH: Were you fighting in the South at that time?

NH: Yes I was.

VMH: What did you do after 1954?

NH: Well I returned to the North and worked as Head of Department of

Cambodian affairs in the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1960. In 1968 I went to Cambodia
to keep an eye on the situation then came back to the North of Vietnam in 1972
after [inaudible] the Ping-Pong diplomacy in the early 1970s.

VMH: Did you work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during all those years?

NH: Yes I did. Between 1954 and 1975, I think it was fair to say that we did give
them the Cambodian a hand in putting an end to five years of bloody civil war on
17 April 1975. However it was not a pure assistance since we did actually make
use of Sihanouk and the Cambodian communist party and struck a balance
between the two.

VMH: Were you working in Cambodia during such tension?

NH: Yes I was. To balance the support for both Sihanouk and the Cambodian
communist party was an irresistible mission [inaudible]

VMH: If I remember it right, Sihanouk allowed the delivery of our weapons and
ammunition to Vietnam?

NH: Yes we had to support Sihanouk to guarantee the delivery of our weapons
and ammunition to Vietnam was run smoothly. He was really wealthy and made
most of his money out of those deals.

VMH: And at the same time the Vietnamese communist party started to have
several disagreements with Khmer Rouge?

NH: Yes it was true. Despite having such disagreements, Pol Pot was still treated
very well in Hanoi. A group of Cambodian communist was gathered in the North
and trained to form a core force when they come back to Cambodia.

VMH: Were they The Khmer Issarak?

NH: Yes they were. I want to talk a bit more about the reasons why Vietnam
intervened in Cambodia’s issues during that time [pointed at his eyes, nose,
mouth, and head and made gestures] You know such situation when your eyes,
nose, mouth, and head co-exist on the same face but do not really see eye to eye.

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VMH: Would you mind telling me more about your activities between 1972 and
1979?

NH: As I said I was assigned by General Giap to be in charge of the Department of

Cambodian affairs and came back to Vietnam in 1980 when the war in Cambodia
was finally over.

VMH: What positions did you hold?

NH: I was the Deputy Head of the military attaché delegation in Cambodia,
promoted to Major General.

VMH: Which means you also worked for the Army?

NH: Yes I did

VMH: Were your research and report steered by both government and the Army?

NH: There was a close collaboration between Government and the Army at the
time. I worked with Mr. Le Duc Tho as his envoy. I still keep his telegraph here in
my documents.

VMH: Is it appropriate to say that you had certain knowledge of perceptions from
the highest level, specifically Mr. Le Duc Tho, towards the situation in Cambodia?

NH: Of course. Mr. Le Duc Tho did not even know Chea Sim, Hun Sen, not
mention the situation.

VMH: It means you are the one who reported and kept Mr. Le Duc Tho updated
with the political situation in Cambodia?

NH: Yes. During the time even Pen Sovan used to be my subordinate officer. You
sure know Pen Sovan.

VMH: So does that mean you also got involved and helped train the first
generation of The Khmer People's National Liberation Front?

NH: I was assigned a mission from General Giap to work for the establishment of
Cambodian government from the very beginning. To make things clearer, I
would probably have to talk about why General Giap sent me to Cambodia to
help building up their government there. Having accompanied with Mr. Phan
Hien who was former Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mr.
Xuan, I came to Cambodia to join a negotiation regarding the border issue
between Vietnam and Cambodia.

VMH: Which year was that?

NH: 1976 right after "Liberate the South".

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VMH: By that time is there any conflict regarding the issue arising?

NH: Yes there is. Even before that. In the aftermath of the Cambodian civil war,
Pol Pot began to arrogantly unruly by arresting (?) and killing them. He even
arrested then executed monks, officers, authorities under Lon Nol’s regime, even
Lon Nol’s family. That was the time when I came to negotiate the Vietnam-
Cambodia border issue, before our government decided to fight against Pol Pot.

VMH: How long did you stay in Cambodia? Was it the time between 1975 and
1978 when the atmosphere was very intense and dangerous.

NH: Yes I lived there from the beginning.

VMH: Did you live in the Vietnamese embassy?

NH: No I did not live in the embassy. After April 17 th the political situation in
Cambodia was very complicated. In April 24 th Khmer Rouge declared 8
commands which are: 1) Disperse all the cities. 2) Suppress all the markets. 3)
Arrest all the monks. 4) Execute leaders under Lon Nol’s regime. 5) Held
communal meals. 6) Held collective confine. 7) Expel Vietnamese people. 8)
Establish the so-called senior co-operatives.

VMH: During the time the Government of Vietnam still publicly reaffirmed a
friendly relations with Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge, didn’t they?

NH: Well actually not. The relations between the two started to turn shaky long
before that. There were divided opinions right in the internal Vietnam’s
communist party discussion.

VMH: According to historians the relations between Vietnam and Cambodia was
only friendly on the surface during that time. Military attaché like you already
knew Pol Pot was no longer comrade, if not enemy. However it seems to me that
the high level of the communist party of Vietnam did not really see it through,
didn’t they?

NH: They didn’t. As I said there were divided opinions over this. Even when the
Vietnamese border was attacked by Pol Pot, still, there were opinions wanting to
remain friendly relations with Cambodia. Someone even said…

VMH: Is it convenient for you to name “someone”?

NH: No it isn’t I’m afraid. We shouldn’t mention his name. He said: “They are (Pol
Pot and Khmer Rouge) our communist comrades no matter what they did”.

VMH: When did the high level of the Communist Party of Vietnam begin to
recognize Pol Pot as their enemy?

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NH: Only when the atmosphere turned so tough, did they finally realized the fact
that Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge were expanding deep into Vietnamese territory.
Even so, the division of opinions in the internal Vietnam’s communist party
discussion remained.

VMH: So when did they start to unanimously make a decision on how to deal
with Pol Pot and decided to liberate Cambodia?

NH: I think I cannot tell. Only the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee
can tell.

VMH: I did interview Mr. Vu Oanh who was a former member of the Political
Bureau of the Party Central Committee. And he was not willing to talk about this
as well.

NH: Well it’s understandable. At that time there were two divided opinions over
whether or not to send military force to Cambodia. General Giap did not want to
send military force to Cambodia as he said that would be nothing but bringing a
stammer to beat a fly. It was so obvious that Pol Pot already kept very close
relations with China. There were a plenty of issues put on the table but we
subordinate officers couldn’t do anything but to shut our mouths since then.
General Giap suggested to send several groups of the armed force one by one,
and to gradually develop our power from that foundation. Sending the grand
army to Cambodia was pretty much like destroying your own power. Those who
are wise enough sure know that sending the grand army to fight back such
unworthy enemy was definitely a nonsense thing to do.

VMH: Can you talk in more details about how the high level came up with the
idea of sending the grand army to Cambodia?

NH: Sending the army to Cambodia is a must at the time since they already
expand deep into Vietnam’s territory with the support of China. Nevertheless,
how many and in which way should we have to fight back is the question.
Recalling the year 1978 when we had the border issue with Cambodia, General
Le Trong Tan sent only 3 divisions to settle the situation. You can clearly see it is
not worth sending the grand army to handle such problem [inaudible].

VMH: How about the view from military attaché like you who lived in Cambodia
in such a long time and had an insight into Cambodia?

NH: There were still different opinions. Some suggested we’d better reinforce
our army force in Cambodia and station there for long enough until we could
really put an end to the issue. Others said it would be better if we could send our
army force to solve the problem quickly and withdraw as soon as possible.

VMH: What was your opinion at the time?

NH: I would prefer withdrawing as soon as possible to stationing there for a long
time. However other strategists wanted to station the arm force in Cambodia

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since they foresaw and were worried Pol Pot might fight back down the line,
which I think unnecessary.

VMH: As aforementioned, China was also taken into account when the
government of Vietnam considered whether or not to fight back Cambodia. What
is the position of China in this decision-making process?

NH: It was not that the leaders of the government of Vietnam did not know China
did support Cambodia and intervened in this war

VMH: Since when did they know that China actually intervened in this issue?

NH: I couldn’t tell exactly since when. When we invited Sihanouk to come back
and visit reminiscing battlefield, treated him very well, there was no response
from Cambodia. And when Sihanouk came back to China, he started to have
opposition claims against Vietnam.

VMH: Which year was that?

NH: It was 1973

VMH: Did strategists take China for granted when strategizing for the North and
West South border security issue. If not, what is the position of China in this
process?

NH: As you know, right after the West South border issue arose, Deng Xiaoping
immediately attacked the North border.

VMH: Was this taken into consideration by the Vietnamese strategists?

NH: No it wasn’t. We were not aware of it and it came all of a sudden.

VMH: How come did it happen all of a sudden when Vietnam already knew that
China did intervene in the West South border issue since 1973? There must be a
plan for the North border security?

NH: In my opinion, our security force was not on the alert for China. We were not
cautious enough. First, the grand army and most of the legions were assigned to
handle the West South. It was just too late to send Legion 2 from the South to
fight back Chinese army in the North at the same time. Second, after the
liberation in 1975, dominant forces in the North border were disbanded to join
the post-war reconstruction and development. After the event ended, they the
leaders of our government also admitted their incautiousness.

VMH: As you said, Vietnam was totally unaware of what was going to happen in
the North border. However according to an article by Mr. Truong Chinh, Vietnam
was quite prepared for a two-front war with an alliance between China and
Cambodia. What is your opinion?

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NH: It was all about our incautiousness. General secretary Le Duan, in his speech
after the liberation, once said: “We have finally won the day. There will be no
enemy from now”. This sentence somehow summarizes the whole attitudes from
the highest level of the Party. It can be concluded that the North border issue
was poorly solved due to first incautiousness, and second impulsiveness. We
don’t have the attitude of a great power. I wish to reiterate that the top leader, Le
Duan, had said that there would be no more any enemy, so no one dared to think
otherwise and hence we were not prepared.

VMH: In your point of view, can it be interpreted that there must be a great
power behind Cambodia when Cambodia as a small country dared to trigger the
war with Vietnam?

NH: Yes, it can be interpreted that way.

VMH: With regard to military preparation, we know that there were different
opinions about how to deal with the Khmer Rouge, but could you tell us when
did the Vietnamese leaders come to the decision to get rid of the Khmer Rouge by
force?

NH: Well, many of us, including me, would like to continue to fight against the
Khmer Rouge and not let them to be part of the negotiated settlement of the
Cambodian issue. We did not want to follow the agreement reached at Thanh Do,
China (between Vietnam and Chine, also called the Red Solution, to keep Khmer
Rouge in the solution together with Hunsen). We could not understand why our
leaders suddenly came to Thanh Do for such a solution with China. Even Hunsen
did not want this. He at that time came to Paris and agreed for a solution without
the Khmer Rouge, so Hunsen did not support the Thanh Do’s agreement. It was a
very complicated move. You may want to talk with the Vice Minister of Foreign
Affairs at that time, Mr. Tran Quang Co, and he also wrote in his unpublished
memoir.

The Pol Pot’s regime actually wanted to follow the commune model, to build a
most advance society in the world, they claimed, a society without money,
market, social institutions…

VMH: So to protect the human rights in Cambodia was also an important

consideration, a goal of the Vietnamese government and leaders in intervening
into Cambodia?

NH: Yes, indeed. It is an international value.

VMH: What about the efforts of Vietnam to find a negotiated solutions?

NH: Vietnam made many efforts. But I think we made some mistakes. We trusted
the Khmer Rouge too much. Both Ieng Sary and Pol Pot were not trustworthy,
only playing lip service with sweet words, and we believed them. Even in the
early 70s. We also were too soft, with many appeases, like granting Cambodia
some islands that belonged to Vietnam, such as the Svay Island. There are

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documents regarding negotiations being kept in CP-48 files (an agency) that we
cannot access easily.
VMH: Were there actual negotiations between Vietnam, China and Khmer Rouge?
Any results, when the negotiations broke down? Was there any moment that the
sides saw that negotiations could not lead to anything and had to prepare for a
military solution? Did China also try to solve the Cambodian issue?

NH: Yes, among the three parties. And as I said, at Thanh Do, Vietnam and China
had a talk and agreed to solve the conflict. China did try, but only for their
national interests. They pushed Vietnam into this agreement. Vietnam had to
agree to reach the normalization of relations with China. Hunsen did not agree
with this agreement.

VMH: So the role of the Cambodian patriots like Hunsen was very important,
thus going against the Thanh Do agreement?

NH: Yes, very important role. But I need to emphasize again, that the model of
the communist society that the Khmer Rouge tried to build, with so much
violation of human rights, Vietnam as a neighboring country, simply could not
stand idle. Especially with Chinese support for the Khmer Rouge, to follow the
Mao Zedong’s policy and thoughts. We need to make sure the West understand
the motive of Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia.

VMH: Talking about the US, I may recall that in American literature, including a
number of magazines and journals in 1978-1979, and later on, even Jimmy
Carter acknowledged that the Khmer Rouge’s regime was a cruel genocide
regime.

NH: First the US and the West believed that the victory of the Khmer Rouge was
thanked to the assistance of Viet Nam. In fact we did provide some weapon and
supplies. So the US mostly blamed Vietnam for the Khmer Regime coming to
power but it was not the case.

VMH: Did Vietnamese leaders take into consideration the policy of other
countries such as Thailand, who after the Khmer Rouge was driven out of Phnom
Penh gave them sanctuary to continue the fight against Vietnam and the new
Cambodian Government for the next 10 years, even though Thailand had a
sensitive history with Cambodia and did not like the Khmer Rouge (like the UK
condemned the genocide regime) – did Vietnam expect the sudden change of
policy of Thailand?

NH: I do not know much about the US policy and influence over Thailand’s policy.
Vietnam did not think much about the neighboring countries such as Thailand at
first. We did try to attack the Palin area at the border of Thailand, and when we
withdrew we left some tanks, so they took it as evident that Vietnam invaded
Thailand but it was not true.

VMH: So the embargo against Vietnam after that was very serious, but you think
the Vietnamese leaders did not foresee these consequences?

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NH: No, I think our leaders did not. We still believed ASEAN was just a puppet of
the US and the West.

VMH: What about the former Soviet Union? The West and some ASEAN leaders,
at that time thought Vietnam was a puppet of the former Soviet Union. And they
could see Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia as the expansion of the Soviet
power and influence in the region. Could you please tell me your thoughts about
the role of the Soviet Union in the Cambodian conflict?

NH: The Soviet Union did not play any major role here at that time. Between
Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union had already some disagreements and
issues. Only when China openly intervened the Soviet Union paid some attention
to the issue. But even when China attacked Vietnam, the Soviet Union did not
come to help (in military term), only made some statement. Only after that the
Soviet Union gave Vietnam some more aid. China regarded Vietnam as an ally of
the Soviet Union, but Vietnam was not really.

Vietnam did not make a good policy either regarding ASEAN. They invited us but
we refused to join at that time.

VMH: Vietnam and the Soviet Union signed an agreement on cooperation,

including defence cooperation in 12/1978, just about one month before the
Chinese border war against Vietnam. Did Vietnamese policy makers consider this
agreement as security insurance for Vietnam?

NH: In the leadership of Vietnam there were different opinions regarding the
relations with China and the Soviet Union.

VMH: So the agreement with the Soviet Union in your opinion did not push
Vietnam into the intervention in Cambodia?

NH: No, I don’t think so. Besides, there were many different options regarding
the policy of Vietnam to settle the Cambodian issue, including using the factions
departing from the Khmer Rouge who then came to exile in Vietnam.

VMH: Now let’s talk about the role of the National Salvation Unity Front leaded
by Heng Somrin and Hun Sen?

(NH showing some documents to VMH).

NH: There were many good Cambodian leaders who had good relations with
Vietnam but were eliminated by the Khmer Rouge. We need to build the support
up from the grassroots, not just the top leaders, that is much more important.
The National Salvation Unity Front of Cambodia was established but without real
capacity and social base. We had to help build from the ground.

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VMH: Did Vietnam have a plan when Vietnam helped to set up the National
Salvation Unity Front of Cambodia? Did it make the intervention of Vietnam
legitimate?

NH: Yes it helped. On 07/01/1978 Vietnam helped liberalized Phnom Penh, and
the next day 08/01/1978 King Sihanouk announced in the UN that Vietnam
invaded Cambodia. So with the establishment of the National Salvation Unity
Front of Cambodia on 01/12/1977, and the call for help, it created the legitimacy
for Vietnam to be in Cambodia to help. So we made it just in time. Vietnam
actually tried its best to help create the Front as early as possible. We did not do
a good job in training for the Cambodian comrades.

VMH: So the timing was a critical one, as I wondered why Vietnam could not do it
earlier.

NH: You should read ‘ The winning side’ by Huy Duc. He had good connections
and he did talk with me a lot.

NH: The Lon Nol’s regime killed a lot of Vietnamese people living in Cambodia
(thousands of Vietnamese). Then the Khmer Rouge continued the genocide
against the Vietnamese people in Cambodia.

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Interview Transcript IV
Le Lien, Journalist
By email

Question 1:
Which positions had you held in the Ruling Party and Government of Viet Nam and
what was your involvement in the Viet Nam – Cambodia conflict?
Answer: During the Viet Nam’s resistance against the Khmer Rouge’s invasion at
the Southeast border area of Viet Nam, and the period when Viet Nam helped the
Cambodian people to overthrow the genocide regime, revive and develop the
country, I had served as a front correspondent for the Viet Nam People’s Army
Newspaper and then a volunteer specialist from the People’s Army of Viet Nam
to assist the Ministry of Defence of Cambodia.

Question 2:
What do you think are the most important reasons for Viet Nam’s throwing out the
Khmer Rouge in 1978-1979?
Answer: There are three major reasons.
i. The Khmer Rouge invaded Viet Nam, committing numerous crimes against the
Vietnamese people, and considering Viet Nam as its long-term enemy, therefore
Viet Nam had to fight against this invasion.

ii. Inside Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge exercised a genocide policy against its own
people, so the Cambodian people could not stand it and revolved against the
Khmer Rouge and asked Viet Nam for help.

iii. The ultimate goal of Viet Nam’s intervention was to restore the friendship, unity
and good neighbourhood between the peoples of the two countries on the basis
of respect for independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of the two
countries.

Question 3:
Please provide the most detailed possible context and orders from your
commanders when you were assigned to come to Cambodia.
Answer: I would like to quote some facts below for your reference.
- On 17/4/1975, right after the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh, the people of
Phnom Penh poured into the streets to welcome and celebrate the ‘liberators’
only to be met with the cold faces of the Khmer Rouge soldiers. All were shocked
to hear the order ‘Everybody must leave the city at once’. People from all walks
of life, men, women, old and young, monks, teachers, traders, students… could
not have time to collect their belongings or contact relatives, and were pushed
out of the city like slaves.

- On 03/05/1975, two days after the South of Viet Nam was totally liberated, the
Pol Pot’s army landed onto Phu Quoc Island of Viet Nam, but they were defeated
by the Vietnamese army and people and had to withdraw. However, on

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10/05/1975, the Pol Pot’s army invaded Tho Chu Island, also an island of Viet
Nam, forced 500 ordinary people living there to go with them to Cambodia and
later killed them all.

- On 20/05/1975, the Standing Central Committee of the Pol Pot’s Party convened
a meeting and decided on three important policies:

+ ‘Cleansing’ the entire people of Cambodia.

+ Naming Viet Nam as the number one eternal enemy.
+ Building a ‘new Khmer society’ as a society without market, money, school,
urban area, intelligence, religion.
With such a hostile policy, the Khmer Rouge leaders ordered their army and
people that ‘one Khmer person must kill 30 Vietnamese persons’. The Pol Pot
regime decided also that the Cambodian people must be cleansed to leave only
two million left; two million Cambodian should sacrifice to kill 60 million
Vietnamese people.
To implement this reactionary policy, the Pol Pot regime attacked Viet Nam and
took this goal as the pretext for internal cleansing, thus eliminating all genuine
Cambodian patriots, those peace loving people, including those who followed
Buddhism, who were of the policy to make Cambodia independent, non-aligned,
and neutral. The brutal and dictator nature of the Pol Pot’s regime had clearly
been revealed with such policies.
Moreover, for the Pol Pot’s regime, invading Viet Nam was a long term strategic
goal, going side by side with the internal cleansing and genocide against its own
nation.
Therefore, after attacking Phu Quoc and Tho Chu islands in May 1975, Pol Pot
army started attacking Vietnamese villages on the border. On 07/12/1975, they
attacked Sop village (Gia Lai – Kontum province), took away and killed 107
people. On 25/02/1976, they attacked the Vietnamese Border Control Stations
number 7 and 8 in Bu-rang. In 1976 alone 280 Vietnamese locations were
attacked.
- On 30/04/1977, the second Anniversary of the liberalization of South Viet Nam,
the Pol Pot’s regime began the invasion attack on the whole border of Viet Nam.
In An Giang province alone, they attacked 13 out of 15 villages and 13 Border
Defence Stations of Viet Nam, having killed 758 people, burned down more than
110 houses.

As time went, the Pol Pot’s regime climbed onto higher ladders of aggression
against Viet Nam. Nevertheless, Viet Nam tried to self-restrain. Not once, the
leaders of the Party and Government of Viet Nam had offered to the leaders of
the Pol Pot’s Party to have talks for settling the conflicts by peaceful means, but
all efforts by Viet Nam had been turned down.
- Up to 21/12/1978, the Pol Pot’s regime had used 10 army divisions to carry out
offensive campaigns to attack Viet Nam on the whole border line with the major
goal to occupy Tay Ninh Town.

Since May 1975 up to 23/12/1978, the Pol Pot’s regime had committed
unforgivable crimes against the Vietnamese people, killing at spot more than

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5000 ordinary Vietnamese, injuring another 5000 people. They took away and
then executed secretly more than 20,000 people and destroyed immeasurable
property and livestock in the Southeast border area of Viet Nam, forcing half a
million people to abandon their home to evacuate into inner Viet Nam.
According to the statistics by the National Salvation Unity Front of Cambodia, the
Pol Pot’s regime killed more than 2.7 million Cambodian, including 200 writers
and journalists, 600 medical doctors and pharmaceutical specialists, 18,000
teachers, more than 10,000 students, more than 1,000 artists, and more than
1,000 professionals who came back from abroad, leaving only 85 professionals
alive. They destroyed 6,000 schools, 700 hospitals, about 2,000 temples, more
than 100 Catholic and Muslim churches.
- In this situation, in July 1977, the ruling Party of Viet Nam decided to open war
on the land of Cambodia. At that time, I was sent to the Southeast Border areas to
study and analyse the developments and then was assigned to Division 7 to carry
out offensive operations on Cambodia territories. Vietnamese army then
approached Xoai Rieng town. I followed the Vietnamese soldiers into Cambodia
land and saw through my own eyes a country left without markets, temples,
churches and schools.

At that time, Viet Nam had the military capacity to take Phnom Penh right away,
but our policy was only to push the Khmer Rouge back far from our borders so
that they could not make any harm to us, and thus helping the Cambodian people
to get rid of the genocide regime by themselves. Therefore Vietnamese soldiers
were first ordered to withdraw back to Viet Nam when this goal was achieved.
Then we witnessed thousands of Cambodian refugees ran to Tay Ninh Province
in Viet Nam and were warmly received and helped by Viet Nam. The refugees
were settled down in the camps in Ben San, Go Dau, Tay Ninh Province.
- On 02/12/1978, the National Salvation Unity Front of Cambodia was launched in
Snun, Kra-che Province of Cambodia, with the participation of representatives of
Cambodian people from neighbouring provinces. Then the members breaking
away from the Khmer Rouge party formed the Cambodian Revolutionary
People’s Party and convened the Third Congress and elected a new Central
Committee. The Cambodian Revolutionary People’s Party and the National
Salvation Unity Front of Cambodia issued the Policy Paper for liberating
Cambodian people from the genocide regime and called the Vietnamese ruling
Party, government, and the People’s Army of Viet Nam to assist in the struggle
against the Pol Pot’s regime.

- When the Pol Pot’s regime used 10 division to attack Viet Nam on the whole
border line, the Vietnamese army fought back and pushed them back into
Cambodian territories. Then, in response to the call for help by the Cambodian
Revolutionary People’s Party and the National Salvation Unity Front of
Cambodia, the Vietnamese army started five offensive campaigns to eliminate
the Khmer Rouge forces in Cambodia. 0n 07/01/1979, Phnom Penh was
liberated from the Khmer Rouge, and a few days later, all Cambodia was freed
from the Khmer Rouge regime.

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Question 4:
According to my sources, the conflicts between the Khmer Rouge regime and Viet
Nam dated back to 1973-1975 and the border war broke out in 1977. Why do you
think the Vietnamese government had to wait till December 1978 to launch a
general offense and throw the Khmer Rouge government?
Answer: (summary from a long Vietnamese original text): Even long before, in
1970, Viet Nam knew that leaders of the Khmer Rouge were not a true ally and
had built up closer relations with China. After the Khmer Rouge took Phnom
Penh on 17/04/1975, the Khmer Rouge openly opposed Viet Nam and took a
hostile stand toward Viet Nam. Viet Nam had learned that the Khmer Rouge
killed a number of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers who came to help them come
to power. However, before the liberalization of the South of Viet Nam on
30/04/1975, Viet Nam respected the fundamental principles in the alliance
between Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia, putting the priority on the ultimate goal
of reunification of the country, and helping the two neighbouring countries Laos
and Cambodia to be freed from the neo-colonialism. Therefore Viet Nam put
aside the conflicts between Viet Nam and Cambodia. After 30/04/1975, when
the Khmer Rouge started openly invading the Vietnamese territories, Viet Nam
tried to solve the conflict by negotiation, avoiding direct military confrontation.
Only when all the peaceful efforts failed and the Khmer Rouge intensified their
aggression, attacking the whole border line, committed major crimes against the
Vietnamese people, Viet Nam started fighting back, using military forces.
Question 5:
During this period, did Viet Nam have any effort to pursue other ways than to
totally eliminate the Khmer Rouge’s government?
Answer: From May 1975 to December 1977 Viet Nam had made a lot of efforts to
avoid military confrontation by negotiations and dialogues, to find a peaceful
solution.
Question 6:
In your unit in particular and in the Vietnamese Army in general, what were the
perceptions about the nature of the Khmer Rouge’s regime?
Answer: We all believed that the Khmer Rouge followed extreme nationalism,
was ready to ignore all the interests of the people. It was a cruel, aggressive, and
genocide regime, who had no respect for international law.
Question 7:
Nhan Dan Newspaper 1977-1978 issues show that only in mid-1978 the
Government of Viet Nam officially declared that Khmer Rouge was the puppet of
China. Does this statement correctly reflect the perception of the high ranking
leadership in the People’s Army of Viet Nam?
Answer: Khieu Samphan, a key leader of the Khmer Rouge, was the architect of
the social and economic structure of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, wanted
to build Cambodia as a model after the People’s Commune of China during the
Cultural Revolution. Thus, the Khmer Rouge tried to establish a rudimentary
communism without money, school, market, hospital, and private life. These
were the thoughts of some Chinese leaders during the early 70s of the 20 th
Century. China was among the few countries that supported the Khmer Rouge.
China had helped Viet Nam a great deal during Viet Nam’s resistance against
France and the US, and for the construction of socialism in North Viet Nam
during the wars. However, during the late stages of the war against the US,

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especially after the visit to China by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (about
May 1972), the Chinese leadership did not support the policy of Viet Nam to
liberalize South Viet Nam and unite the country by force. When Viet Nam fought
back against the invasion by the Khmer Rouge and helped the Cambodian people
to get rid of the genocide regime, the Chinese leaders openly opposed Viet Nam,
calling the Chinese Vietnamese to leave the country, and granted weapons and
military supplies to the Khmer Rouge, and helped train them to invade Viet Nam.
On 17/02/1979, China attacked Viet Nam on the whole border line from the
North, thus starting the invasion of Viet Nam known as the border war of 1979.
Therefore, it is no doubt that the Khmer Rouge was a puppet of the Chinese
leadership at that time. All Vietnamese army personnel who took part in the
voluntary missions in Cambodia agreed with this perception.
Question 8:
How did the assessment that the Khmer Rouge was the puppet of the Chinese
government affect the strategic planning of Viet Nam in general and the decision
to eliminate the Khmer Rouge’s regime in particular?
Answer: The fact that Viet Nam had to fight back the Khmer Rouge and help the
Cambodian people to get rid of the genocide regime and revive the country was
dictated by the historical situation, not something that Viet Nam could choose.
The intervention by China did create additional difficulties for Viet Nam to reach
its goals, but could not change the whole picture and final outcome. Viet Nam has
continued to implement the policy to defence and develop the homeland since
30/04/1975 up to now.
Question 9:
Did the Vietnamese People’s Army have any calculation about the possibility that
China would attack the country from the North in 1977-1979? Did Viet Nam see
this as an imminent threat?
Answer: The developments such as Chinese support to Khmer Rouge and the
creation of the Chinese Vietnamese ‘incidents’ did alert the Vietnamese Army
and made it consider the possibility of a Chinese military intervention and
invasion. In 1979, the Vietnamese Army had the capacity to carry out major
campaigns to eliminate a large number of Chinese military units invading Viet
Nam. However, with the goals to self-defence and protect the life and properties
of the people living in the border areas, driving the invaders out of Vietnamese
territories without resulting in numerous casualties, Viet Nam used mostly local
forces and para militants, using ordinary weapons, thus avoiding the escalation
of conflict and casualties as well as the creation of deeper legacy of hostilities
between the two countries.

Question 10:
Did the (former) Soviet Union then have any impact on the policy of Viet Nam
towards China and the Khmer Rouge?
Answer: Leaders of the former Soviet Union at that time understood well the
Chinese leaders, having experienced themselves military border conflicts
between the two sides in the past. After the full liberalization of South Viet Nam,
the Soviet Union supported the policy of Viet Nam regarding the defence and
construction of the country and helped us with large amount of financial
resources and expertise. The Soviet Union helped Viet Nam to build a modern
and effective army, providing us with sophisticated modern weapon and military

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equipment. The Soviet Union also sent specialists and advisors to Viet Nam to
share expertise and do training. However, the making of policy towards China
and the Khmer Rouge was totally decided by Viet Nam. Viet Nam treated China,
dealt with the Khmer Rouge’s genocide regime, and helped the Cambodian
people to revive and reconstruct their country in our unique Vietnamese ways.

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