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by refurb
2164 days ago
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As I'm sure you know, there is a lot of history between the Vietnamese and Cambodians. I understood that Cambodians hold a lot of animosity when the Vietnamese took the Mekong delta from Cambodia in 1698. They ended up as 2nd class citizens and the Khmer Rouge figured it was a good time to take it back. And one can't ignore North Vietnam's support of the Khmer Rouge early on. On 29 March 1970, North Vietnam launched an offensive against the Cambodian army. Documents uncovered from the Soviet Union's archives reveal that the invasion was launched at the Khmer Rouge's explicit request after negotiations were held with Nuon Chea.[33] A North Vietnamese force quickly overran large parts of eastern Cambodia reaching within 15 miles (24 km) of Phnom Penh before being pushed back....After defeating those forces, the North Vietnamese turned the newly won territories over to the local insurgents.[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide |
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> Paranoia flourished and this set off a violent reaction against the nation's 400,000 ethnic Vietnamese.
> Lon Nol hoped to use the Vietnamese as hostages against PAVN/Viet Cong activities, and the military set about rounding them up into detention camps. That was when the killing began. In towns and villages all over Cambodia, soldiers and civilians sought out their Vietnamese neighbors in order to murder them. On 15 April, the bodies of 800 Vietnamese floated down the Mekong River and into South Vietnam. [1]
Under the circumstances, the North Vietnamese allied with the Khmer Rouge and the ousted Sihanouk to take back the government from Lon Nol. In the beginning there was no sign of a genocidal regime, and the Khmer Rouges were just "comrades" supported by the Cambodian prince trying to take back his government. It was not until later that ethnic and ideological hatred turned the Khmer Rouge against their Vietnamese allies.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_Civil_War