For the Sake of All Living Things

by John M. Del Vecchio

  Then came a naked soldier. He ran into the tent. He ran to her corner, blubbered, “If you cry, they shoot you.” Vathana rose, grasped an old krama to give to the young man. He took no note. “Pech Chieu Teck,” he reported. “I saw him. They ate his liver.”

  CAMBODIA:

  Factions, Influences and Military Disposition

  HISTORICAL SUMMATION

  Part 4 (1974-1978)

  Prepared for

  The Washington News-Times

  J. L. Sullivan

  April 1985

  THE STORM AND TSUNAMI set off five years earlier by the shifting of international plates did not end with the fall of the three Southeast Asian capitals to Communist regimes. Aftershocks of mass evacuations, concentration camps, bloodbaths, starvation, waves of forced migration and murder, and continuous attempts at cultural extermination continued to batter the peoples of Cambodia, Viet Nam and Laos. In the West, political and social repercussions rumbled through America. And the war, wars, fighting, did not end! Not only did battles continue to be fought within each nation, but almost immediately fighting erupted between Democratic Kampuchea and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam.

  Having won the spoils of war, one must ask, why did the new regimes pursue policies which led to more internal and external conflict and killing? Why did the Communists of both Viet Nam and Kampuchea strive to eliminate some or all cultural memory? What drove the victors?

  Also, how important was, is, the end—the final collapse or final victory, depending on one’s perspective? Of course it is important as a historic event, as a human tragedy or human triumph—but is the event itself important in terms of understanding the event itself?

  It is not in the scope of this report to recount all the political chatter, the attempts to negotiate “controlled solutions,” the verbal ruses; nor can all the battles and maneuvers that led to the fall (“liberation”) of Phnom Penh, Saigon and Vientiane be detailed. Yet, to understand the impact on the Cambodian people, it is essential to reconstruct at least a skeleton of that time.

  A SOURCE OF AMERICAN MISUNDERSTANDING

  Conclusions about the final collapse, often based on media reports, have tended to be simplistic and shallow. To those who believed deeply that American involvement was wrong, illegal and/or immoral, Saigon and Phnom Penh fell because the U.S.-backed regimes were corrupt and had the backing of neither their people nor their armies. The falls signaled the end of a long and bitter American mistake. To staunch supporters of American efforts to stop the Communists, those Southeast Asian capitals fell because the United States, through diplomatic sleight of hand, and beneath a veil of “peace with honor,” “decent interval,” and “legislative mandate,” quit and abandoned Viet Nam and Cambodia by drastically reducing military aid, by effectively pulling the rug from under its friends.

  Generally, Western press coverage of the events of that time, and reviews and reports of those events in the ensuing years, have focused, like a coroner’s conclusions, on the final outcome, on the last four months, without analyzing the events of 1973 and 1974. For example, in the 641-day period from 1 March 1973 (after the Paris peace agreement was signed) to 1 December 1974 (before the final offensives began), the three major U.S. television networks aired 785 news stories relating to Southeast Asia—an average of less than three items each per week. Of those items, 219 related to the fighting in or bombing of Cambodia. By contrast, the networks broadcast 645 news stories in the 61-day period beginning 1 March 1975 (when Saigon’s and Phnom Penh’s collapse seemed certain)—an average of twenty-five items each per week. Newspaper and news magazine coverage. followed similar patterns. Among the numerous accounts of the falls, there are a few good ones. The Fall of the South, part of the Boston Publishing Company series The Vietnam Experience, presents a balanced assessment.

  THE FALL OF PHNOM PENH AND SAIGON

  On the evening of 1 April 1975 the enclave of Neak Luong, swollen to a quarter-million people by refugees and FANK soldiers, fell to Krahom yotheas. The fighting had been intense and the city smoldered for days. The fall of Neak Luong released 5,000 Communist soldiers with six newly captured 105mm howitzers to join the assault on the capital.

  During the next sixteen days, the Krahom armies tightened the noose strangling Phnom Penh. Using tens of thousands of rounds of artillery, the Communists concentrated their fire both on civilian concentrations, including the sprawling refugee camps, and on FANK garrisons. American efforts to effect an orderly surrender and transfer of power were scoffed at by both government-in-exile leader Norodom Sihanouk and the chiefs of the Kampuchean Communist Party (KCP), Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and Pol Pot. With military victory imminent they had no reason to negotiate. Of major importance to them, however, was capturing Phnom Penh, and thus Cambodia, before North Viet Nam could capture Saigon and South Viet Nam. As we have seen, the leadership of the KCP was, and had been for many years, fearful of Hanoi’s hegemony. KCP motivation in 1975 had not changed drastically from 1973 when the Krahom attempted to withstand American bombing in order to topple Phnom Penh before the ramifications of the Paris peace agreement allowed the NVA to recommence attacks on Khmer territory; it had not changed from 1971 when yotheas attacked behind NVA lines during Chenla II in an attempt to keep Hanoi from winning in Cambodia; indeed, it was the same motivation which sent Solath Sar (Pol Pot) to Peking in the early 1960s to attempt to establish an independent Khmer revolution with a separate sponsor and supply source; and it was the same impetus from 1954 when the KCP saw the Geneva Agreements as a sellout of the Khmer insurgency.

  At 0500 hours, 11 April 1975 (Phnom Penh time), American Ambassador John Gunther Dean received permission from President Gerald Ford to commence Operation Eagle Pull—the evacuation of American embassy personnel and dependants from Cambodia. In slightly more than two hours the next morning, 82 Americans, 159 Khmer and 35 people of other nationalities were whisked via helicopter to U.S. ships in the Gulf of Thailand. Krahom soldiers marched into Phnom Penh five days later. America’s direct involvement with Cambodian affairs had ceased.

  Saigon’s fall was perhaps more dramatic and more tragic, for the resistance to that fall, though bungled, was more heroic. For years we have been told Saigon fell with only limited resistance. Perhaps this impression lingers because there were TV cameras in Saigon but none west of Ban Me Thuot, outside Hue, in the Mekong Delta, or at Xuan Loc, with the actual fighting. This excerpt from The Fall of the South reflects the usual view:

  Throughout the city [Saigon] isolated groups of government soldiers and civilians fired on the advancing [NVA tank-led] columns. Barely eliciting a response from the victorious army, these acts of resistance were largely futile. For the most part, the North Vietnamese marched easily into the city.

  It was the lesser-known political and military events of 1973 and 1974 which established the conditions for the fall of Saigon and for the way in which that fall was perceived. Since the Easter Offensive of 1972, South Viet Nam’s Airborne and Marine Divisions, Saigon’s only strategic reserve—that is, the only divisions the ARVN command could call upon to blunt new offensives—were tied down in I Corps below-the DMZ. Throughout 1973 the NVA remanned, re-supplied and expanded its trail and sanctuary system unhindered by U.S. bombing. The expanded trail system included not only the old network in Laos and Cambodia but the new Truong Son Corridor crossing the DMZ and descending through the Khe Sanh plain and the A Shau Valley, past the triborder area, Duc Co, Dak To, the la Drang Valley, Duc Lap, Bu Prang and on south, west of Song Be City (Phuoc Binh) to Loc Ninh. Allowing the establishment of this new corridor, which enabled the NVA to have quick and extensive mobility along the western edge of government-controlled territory, would prove to be the fatal pathogen which led to the death of South Viet Nam. This corridor covered the exact physical area on which so many American-NVA battles were fought, areas which often, even as those battles were being waged, were described by American antiwar legislators as useless ground (for example, Hamburger H
ill).

  By June 1973 the NVA had recovered sufficiently to strike in the Central Highlands. The NVA 10th Division, led by the NVA 297th Tank Battalion and supported by the NVA 40th Artillery Regiment (130mm howitzers), assaulted at Polei Krong near Kontum. South Viet Namese counterattacks were so strong that two regiments of the NVA’s 10th Division were rendered combat ineffective. Again in August and September the NVA attacked in the highlands, this time the NVA 320th Division near Plei Ku. Again the ARVN was victorious although victory took longer. In October 1973 NVA Provisional Division 95 attacked farther south. The ARVN reacted well, shifting forces to counter the thrust. By the end of the year, the South had again stopped the North.

  These battles illustrate several major points. The NVA could mass forces and attain numerical superiority almost at will, but these engagements, and indeed all NVA assaults from the cease-fire to early 1974, demonstrated the growing ability of the South’s Regional and Popular Forces to slow main force NVA attacks. The engagements also demonstrated the ability of, and the necessity for, mobile ARVN reaction forces to turn the tide of battle once the engagements commenced. At the same time these battles exposed serious weakness in the NVA command. As Captain Bill Betson, an instructor at the United States Military Academy, has noted, NVA “generalship does not match that of the South.” He further explains, however, that these battles show the “rifle platoon superiority of the North Viet Namese Army.”

  At this point major changes occurred among the backers of the two sides. The U.S. 1973-74 war budget for South Viet Nam was 4 percent of its 1969 level. The 1974-75 funding was only 43 percent of what the U.S. Defense Attaché Office had requested. Adjusted for inflation, this sum equaled approximately 1 percent of the 1969 allocation. By contrast, Soviet and Chinese aid to the NVA, which had been reduced in response to the apparent Northern defeat in 1972, increased by 50 percent after the peace agreement was signed, reaching a level 10 percent higher than the previous high of 1971. In 1974, support for the NVA quadrupled, reaching 440 percent of the 1971 high.

  The reduced aid to ARVN caused the retirement of 224 military aircraft, including 61 fighter-bombers, 36 of 46 Spooky/ Shadow gunships (C-47s or C-119s) and 50 percent of the South’s C-130 air transport cargo planes. In addition, 4,000 tanks, APCs and trucks were immobilized because of a lack of spare parts. Beyond this, although the South had the manpower to create a new strategic reserve division (reaction force), under reduced U.S. aid levels, the ARVN did not have the money to equip this unit with artillery, transportation and communication equipment. All this came to mean reduced ARVN mobility (helicopter repair and maintenance was poor—during the battle of Ban Me Thuot, 13 of 14 CH-53s were grounded within three days) against a tremendously expanded NVA force with vastly increased, motorized mobility.

  Before the final assault began in 1975 the NVA would have 370,000 troops in the South—200,000 seasoned combatants, 100,000 support soldiers and an additional force of seven newly deployed divisions. The NVA also had 600 to 700 Soviet tanks—a two-to-one advantage over the ARVN—400 130mm howitzers, 200 large-caliber antiaircraft guns and numerous batteries of SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles (which effectively negated RVNAF air power).

  In spite of this lopsided advantage, or perhaps in ignorance of it, many commentators have viewed the effect of lowered American support as chiefly psychological—a fatalism, not unlike that of FANK, caused by ever-decreasing American commitments in the face of ever-increasing Russian and Chinese support to the NVA. Nineteen seventy-four was the bloodiest year of that long war in South Viet Nam. Still the ARVN fought well when attacked. Not until January 1975 did the NVA capture a provincial capital. On 6 January, Phuoc Binh (Song Be City) fell to the NVA. Two significant points must be noted: (1) the ARVN no longer had the reserve forces to flank or to counter NVA movement, and (2) there was no American reaction to the fall of a major South Viet Namese population center. The NVA now became certain that the United States would not, in any way, reenter the war.

  In March, the ARVN in the Central Highlands, anticipating a major assault, deployed its forces around the northern highland towns of Plei Ku and Kontum. The attack, a five-division mechanized assault, hit Ban Me Thuot far to the south. The ARVN was unable to react and reinforce. Ban Me Thuot’s five battalions held out against 24 NVA battalions for a week. This was followed by preposterous Saigon-ordered withdrawals and a series of other tactical and strategic blunders. By the end of March, six of South Viet Nam’s thirteen divisions had been destroyed. Panic in the northern military regions multiplied these errors. Some major centers evacuated even before the NVA approached. Even had President Thieu been a tactical genius and a great leader, it is doubtful that seven ARVN divisions could have held out against 25 well-equipped NVA divisions for any great length of time. The mid-April 13-day battle of Xuan Loc, during which the ARVN 18th Division not only stalled but severely damaged three NVA divisions, was the last major heroic stand of the South Viet Namese army. Although unseen and unnoted in the West, fighting continued in numerous locations for many months. Saigon fell on 30 April 1975.

  THE IMPLEMENTATION OF COMMUNISM IN DEMOCRATIC KAMPUCHEA

  The Khmer Krahom victory of 17 April 1975 ushered in a new age, one the Khmer call peal chur chat, a sour and bitter time. One thing it did not bring was peace.

  Phnom Penh’s nearly three million inhabitants were herded from the capital in coerced chaos beginning only hours after Khmer Krahom soldiers entered the city. Battambang (population, 120,000) was similarly evacuated the next day. Western reporters and editors, some who had ignored or downplayed earlier reports of Communist atrocities, expressed public shock. Banner headlines, such as “REDS BEHEAD FORMER CAMBODIAN LEADERS” (from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner), appeared as early as 19 April. By the 23rd the victorious Khmer Communists had emptied most of Cambodia’s medium-sized to small cities (Pailin, Kompong Chhnang, Pursat and others) and many of the nation’s towns, villages and hamlets. Surprisingly, the southeastern region about Neak Luong, which had fallen more than three weeks earlier, was one of the last areas to be subjected to evacuation. Throughout the country evacuations were swift and always termed temporary. Frightened people, told that “the Americans are going to bomb” (Communist officials moved into Phnom Penh almost immediately, knowing no bombs were coming) and expecting to return home within a day or two, took few belongings. Soon, escapees later reported, many people were out of food and at the mercy of the Communists. Because they had to rely on the soldiers for basic subsistence, they obeyed orders. Of first priority to the Communists, and thus among the first orders issued to the evacuees, was the collecting of personal data on individuals and families. Each person was “requested” to write his or her autobiography, including family relations, occupation and education. The KK ruse was to tell people that the new regime needed them to help rebuild the country. Within weeks, sometimes days, this hoax was exposed. The new regime wished only to identify “enemies” of the new state.

  Some reports of bloodbaths seeped across the closed border into Thailand. Within a month of Phnom Penh’s fall, 7,000 refugees reached Thai soil; 300 more were shot and killed at the border by KK yotheas. In late April came unconfirmed reports of the methodical killing of FANK soldiers and families on a platform at Mongkol Borei. On 8 May the Los Angeles Times reported under the headline “REDS ‘PURIFYING’ CAMBODIA”:

  The Red Khmer forces which took over the country on April 17 had long ago prepared a plan to move millions of inhabitants into liberated zones where they would be instilled with the spirit of service to the revolution.

  And as the revolution started from zero, so will the people of Cambodia.

  The 12 May 1975 issue of Newsweek reported that all the officers of the old army, down to second lieutenant, were being executed. Newsweek said that thousands had already been killed and that the figure might reach into the tens of thousands. By June, while KK units attacked Viet Nam’s Mekong Delta with the announced intent of exterminating the Vi
et Namese and annexing “lost” territory, there were unconfirmed reports (flatly denied by several prominent journalists) that 3.5 million city dwellers and half a million peasants had been “deported” in the forced migration; that 300,000 had died in the first month; that at least 8,000 corpses, and perhaps up to ten times that, lay along Highway 6 north of Phnom Penh; and that there, too, stood a forest of 200 heads on stakes.

  In August, new evacuations and executions, “forced” by Viet Namese counterattacks following KK June and July raids into the Mekong Delta, were ordered by the Center. At the time of Phnom Penh’s fall, Ieng Sary (deputy premier for foreign affairs and number-two man in the KCP) said the Krahom army had been charged with “driving out the Viet Namese who had been [in the border area] throughout the war.” The NVA (now PAVN, the People’s Army of Viet Nam) had, even after Saigon’s fall, refused to withdraw. Battles flared from the triborder area southward through Ratanakiri, Mondolkiri and the Fishhook to the disputed offshore islands. Krahom leaders, paranoid about the Viet Namese counterattacks, ordered all cadre of all divisions who were trained in Viet Nam (or by Viet Namese—that is, “had the wrong background”) arrested and killed. In April there had been 14,000 members of the Kampuchean Communist Party (KCP) and approximately 68,000 yotheas. In May, Party membership was closed. By August the inner-Party and inner-military political purge was under way, and General Pol Pot had ordered the establishment of a wide no-man’s-land along the entire length of the border. (This was why, when U.S. Marines attempted to assault the sparsely inhabited island to free the crew of the seized U.S. freighter Mayaguez, they were met by a large, deeply entrenched, heavily armed Krahom force. The U.S. suffered 38 killed. General Pol Pot and the Center used the Mayaguez raid as “proof” of U.S. designs on Kampuchea and for two years beat the drums of imperialistic adventurism. This, according to refugee reports, was used to justify the purging of additional thousands as “CIA agents.”) A third (second nationwide) massive forced relocation was ordered in late October and carried out in November and December 1975.