Today the Indochinese revolutions have to confront a coalition of international interests that seem increasingly determined to bring them to their knees. It has reached the point that Roland Pierre Paringaux could write in the November 3 Paris daily Le Monde that "two campe face each other in a conflict with global repercussions. Lined up against an Indochina dominated by Hanoi and its Soviet allies is a de facto coalition with more or less convergent interests: China, the ASEAN* countries, the United States, Japan, the West."
This conflict is expressed in every sphere: diplomatic, political, humanitarian, economic, and military. It threatens to envelop Indochina in a triangle of war: war on the Thai border, in Northern Laos, and along the Sino-Vietnamese land and sea borders.
The conflict has profound repercussions throughout the entire region. In particular, it is forcing the Communist movements of Southeast Asia to confront developments they are poorly prepared to deal with. Sihanouk's Return
The situation is now evolving rapidly. The evolution can be seen first of all in regard to the Khmer forces gathered on the Thai border. For a long time the Khmer Rouge received the most support. Despite Sihanouk's opposition, Pol Pot's regime was able to keep its seat at the United Nations as a result of determined activity by the United States. Peking exerted pressure on its "distinguished guest" Sihanouk to accept a formal alliance with his former jailers-to the point of provoking a public split with the prince, resulting in his withdrawal to North Korea for four months.
Two basic reasons, common to both China and the West, explain this support for Pol Pot. The first was the possibility of using the juridical fiction of the "continuity" and "legality" of Pol Pot's government in international proceedings. The other reason was that even after last January's debacle the Khmer Rouge forces included tens of thousands of soldiers while the Khmer Serei groups (the old farright) were divided and did not have more than a few thousand soldiers, whose willingness to fight was highly questionable.
But since then the limits of giving too
• Association of South East Asian Nations, made up of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
much support to the Pol Pot leadership have become clear.
The support to the Khmer Rouge was becoming an embarrassment, particularly in the United States and Europe where the governments were using humanitarian questions as a pretext for denouncing Vietnam.
In addition, the guerrilla operations waged by the Khmer Rouge during the rainy season-which is militarily the most favorable period for them—did not meet Western expectations. The absence of any real popular support—aside from the families of the Khmer Rouge soldiers-became increasingly obvious.
The Khmer Rouge benefit from a vital rear area in Thailand, bases in several mountainous areas, and, it would appear, a network of informers and sympathizers inside Kampuchea. This allows them to carry out some blows, to create insecurity, and thus hamper the revival of agricultural activities. They contribute to keeping Kampuchea in a state of war, but they have been unable to wage major battles and are threatened with severe reverses during the dry season.
Because of these factors, the interested powers-China on the one side, and the U.S., Japan, the Common Market coun tries, and ASEAN countries on the othernow seem to be in agreement in favor of a three-pronged broadening of anti-
Vietnamese opposition: on the political, military, and geographic planes. The "Sihanouk solution" may now be in the process of being implemented.
Already at the time of the Colombo, Sri Lanka meeting of nonaligned countries in June 1979, Ieng Sary, the deputy premier and foreign minister in Pol Pot's government, had confirmed the existence of agreements on the ground between the Khmer Rouge and the Khmer Serei (which had been fighting each other before the fall of the regime in January). Ieng Sary also confirmed Khmer Rouge cooperation with the anticommunist montagnard FULRO [Front for the Liberation of the Oppressed Minorities] forces in central Vietnam (cooperation that had been going on for a long time). In addition leng Sary declared his support for the tribal revolts in Laos (Nayan Chanda, Far Eastern Economic Review, June 22, 1979).
On September 5, 1979, Khieu Samphan proposed, as president of "Democratic Kampuchea," that Prince Sihanouk again become chief of state and form a government of unity. Sihanouk declined the offer. The prince returned to Peking on August
24, a sign of détente in the relations between Sihanouk and China.
Each of the contending forces then positioned their pawns. Sihanouk founded the Conference of Khmer Nationalists (CKN) on September 27, and one of his former prime ministers, Son Sann, set up the National Liberation Front of the Khmer People (FNLPK), also known as the Khmer Serika, on October 9. Each created "their own"
guerrilla groups and stated their readiness to fight the Vietnamese on the ground.
Sihanouk, who yesterday had been isolated, was now invited to France as "a friend." He feels that things are evolving in his direction. "The Chinese are very intelligent," he declared in Peking. "Things are getting much worse for Pol Pot, so if they go bad for Pol Pot, they still have Sihanouk. I am the Sihanouk card. First they deal Pol Pot, and if that doesn't work, then they deal Sihanouk" (Jay Matthews, Washington Post, October 30).
Prince Sihanouk has expressed his policy at length in his recent book, Chronique de Guerre et d'Espoir (Chronicle of War and Hope), as well as in a series of declarations. That policy is to use political, military, and economic pressure (i.e., threats to cut off all aid) to force the Vietnamese to negotiate their withdrawal, leaving the Khmer Rouge leadership to die a natural death, and then take over the leadership of the opposition to the Heng Samrin regime. Sihanouk would then call for a new Geneva conference where the Western powers and the ASEAN countries would be represented, obtain international imperialist military protection, and in this context lay out a "political solution."
He comes out for a liberal capitalist economy in Kampuchea. He is convinced that time is working in his favor, with the Khmer Rouge unable to regain a base of popular support. He also knows that his "solution" would be pro-Western.
The Triangle of War
While the Khmer Rouge are running out of gas on the political plane, they nonetheless remain the most solid anti-Vietnamese military force. And Sihanouk's return to center stage does not in any way mean a lessening of the military pressures weighing on Indochina.
The bloc of ASEAN countries are united in denouncing Vietnam. It was said in the past that Indonesia remained relatively neutral and hostile to China. But Jakarta quickly moved to remove the ambiguity. The Indonesian government made it known that in the event of a conflict between Thailand and Vietnam it would send troops to help the Thai war effort. And quite recently Indonesian Vicepresident Adam Malik declared that ASEAN intended to "strengthen its ties with China in order to preserve the equili brium of forces and regional stability" (Le Monde, October 24, 1979).
Thailand also always claims to be "neutral." Despite that, we should not ignore the fact that the Thai army maintains very close relations with the Khmer Serei guerrilla groups. And in an interview in the October 21 Bangkok Post, Ji Peng Fei, the vice premier of China, told journalist Theh Chongkhadikij "that China is supplying the Pol Pot forces with arms by land and sea in order to aid them in their fight against the Vietnamese." We need hardly mention that this aid would be impossible without the active participation of the Thai army.
On several occasions journalists have witnessed humanitarian aid sent for Kampuchean refugees being delivered directly to the Khmer Rouge and Khmer Serei bases. Some reporters have also seen the Thai army distributing rice directly to Khmer Rouge soldiers in their camps.
Refugee camps have sometimes remained under the effective control of the Pol Pot forces. These forces distribute food and medicine very unequally, with the lion's share going to combatants, and they continue to apply the Khmer Rouge's very peculiar concept of justice on Thai soil.
It is no longer a secret that Thailand serves as a base camp and recuperation area for the anti-Vietnamese forces. In the October 31 Le Monde, Paringaux noted that some 30,000 Khmer Rouge had returned to Kampuchea, leaving a refugee camp that was being moved, in order to return to battle. This involved "the great majority of the Khmer Rouge cadres and combatants who had sought refuge in Thailand since October 10 to escape the pressure of the Vietnamese armed forces. In returning to Kampuchea they were following orders from the Angkar (the Organization).
"In addition," Paringaux remarked, "the Pol Pot fighters will benefit from increased mobility since they will no longer have to worry about the immediate fate of their exhausted families, who are now in the care of the Thai military authorities and the international assistance."
"This being the case," the Le Monde reported continued, "it appears that the first phase of the 'welcome to Kampucheans' program announced by the Bangkok government October 19 has primarily benefited the Khmer Rouge who had found refuge south of the border city of Aranyaprathet and whose state of health was miserable."
The American government is getting involved alongside its ASEAN protegés. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance went to the
ASEAN conference in Indonesia where, on July 2, he denounced the "fighting in Kampuchea" as an "increasingly grave threat to the security of the region." He then announced that the United States would "pursue the policy of strengthening its military potential in Asia, the Pacific, and the Indian Ocean," while increasing its military aid program to ASEAN (Le Monde, July 5).
Later Malaysia received new war planes and Thailand received F5E
fighter bombers, 105mm long-range cannon, M-48 A-5 tanks, mortars, mines, and
M-47
Dragon and TOW anti-tank missiles, not to mention light arms and munitions and armored cars.
Then in Peking on October 28, Deng Xiaoping reaffirmed to the president of the Thai National Assembly, Harin, that "China will line up with ASEAN if Vietnam attacks them. It will line up on the side of Thailand...." Deng repeated that his government would use "all appropriate means to support the struggle of Democratic Kampuchea [meaning Pol Pot] and all the patriotic forces [the rightist Khmer groups] that oppose the Vietnamese ag gressors" (Le Monde, October 30, 1979).
While Thailand is one of the principal places from which military pressure is exerted on Indochina, through the Thai borders with Laos and Cambodia, it is not the only place.
On October 29 the Laotian government announced that it had placed its army on a state of alert and denounced the presence of Chinese divisions on its northern border. It also denounced the training of Laotian "rebels and reactionaries" in Yunnan in southern China, who are sent into Laos to fight. There has apparently been a spread of tribal rebellions in the northern provinces of Laos adjacent to China. According to Thai military sources, four thousand opponents of the Laotian regime have been equipped and provisioned by China and organized in a "Lanna div. ision" (Le Monde, August 3, 1979).
There appears to have been a new increase in border incidents between Vietnam and China, as well. Vietnam is denouncing major Chinese troop movements in the area (where army maneuvers are taking place) and is worried about a possible new intervention. Hanoi is also protesting against the aid Peking is giving to tribal dissidence.
At the same time, naval maneuvers have taken place in the South China Sea. Peking gave American oil companies exploration rights in waters whose control is disputed by Hanoi. The Chinese government has also prohibited aerial overflights in a number of maritime zones in the same region (around the Paracel Islands).
Cold War Tones
The countries of Indochina are therefore threatened from the west, the north, and the northeast. As long as the United
Nations was still to discuss the question of Kampuchea, it was unlikely that the Peking regime would decide to teach Vietnam "a new lesson." But there seems to be a real danger of new and large-scale battles breaking out in the not too distant future. This is even more likely since military measures are not the only ones that can be taken.
The U.S. economic and diplomatic blockade of Vietnam is continuing. The European Economic Community (Common Market) decided in July to suspend shipments of food aid that were to be furnished to Hanoi, while Vietnam's population goes hungry every day. Tokyo has also suspended its economic aid to Vietnam.
Clearly Vietnam, not to speak of Laos and Cambodia, is going through a very difficult economic and social situation. The goals of the 1976-1980 five-year plan had to be abandoned, including the goal of self sufficiency in foodstuffs.
Nhan Dan, the Vietnamese CP daily, dealt with the "extremely complex situation" in the economy on October 9, 1979:
There is a lack of supplies and consumer goods. The life of the workers is very hard, economic management is failing. In addition to its serious consequences on daily life, this situa tion has had widespread unhealthy manifestations (embezzlement and corruption) ... [Le Monde, October 11.J
This passage is even more significant in that it is written as a commentary on a recently adopted resolution of the Central Committee on the reorganization of the economic apparatus. Under these circumstances, it is easy to imagine the toll taken by having to maintain Vietnam on a war footing and by the continuation of its international isolation.
Those who decreed the blockade of the countries of Indochina, who decided to stop the economic assistance to Vietnam, who slowed down the sending of help to Kampuchea knew what they were doing.
Today the question of aid to the Kampuchean population gives rise to a vast anticommunist ideological offensive, as was the case very recently with the question of refugees. In the climate that has been established, we can often see the Western press express itself in cold war tones. Derek Davies, the editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, which is published in Hong Kong for business circles, wrote a tirade against the menacing "Shadow of the Kremlin" in the August 24 issue of that magazine. Davies' article began:
The Soviet Union poses the greatest single threat to Asia today. It is the superpower most likely to drag the region into a third world war, through direct conflicts with China (and possibly Japan) or as a result of the support it is giving to the destabilising policies of its ally, Vietnam. It is the only actively expansionist superpower, and is obviously preparing to use the toe-hold it has acquired in Indochina to spread its power and influence in the region.
The editorials in that magazine call on the ASEAN countries to do everything in their power to see that the UN decides to impose "maximum global pressure on Hanoi, including the imposition of all possible sanctions and the severing of all aid by the UN and its member countries, to persuade Vietnam to withdraw its troops from Kampuchea, prior to free elections supervised by a UN force...
" (Far Eastern Economic Review, October 5, 1979.)
Even the French Socialist Party newspaper Le Matin published, in its October 26 issue, an editorial that implicitly praises the efforts of the Thai army and government to avoid incidents by moving refugees far from the border zone, but denounces "Hanoi, supported by Moscow," as guilty of "waging the first big war where the supreme weapon is hunger."
According to Le Matin's editors, Nothing prevented the Hanoi leadership from sending home their soldiers [after the withdrawal of U.S. forces] to cultivate the land. They chose to continue the war and to live off the labor of populations they repressed by force. How far do they want to go? As far as Singa pore?... A warlike instinct, an instinct for survival, and a desire for power, that is what underlies the operations of the Vietnamese army. Stakes That Go Beyond Indochina
Might the negotiations now taking place with a view toward normalizing Sino- Soviet relations change this situation of extreme tension in Southeast Asia? While it is very difficult to foresee what might finally result from these negotiations-if anything at all—it is doubtful that they would relieve Indochina of the convergent pressures weighing on it.
The Vietnamese themselves have publicly voiced their concern over what they think is a Chinese attempt "to separate Vietnam from the Soviet Union and the socialist system," according to Vietnamese party General Secretary Le Duan.
From the Chinese bureaucracy's point of view, Vietnam is seen as a threat not only because of its relations with Moscow, but also because it is a screen between China and the rest of Southeast Asia. Indochina's geopolitical situation, the potential power of an Indochina that is politically unified by Hanoi, and the objective dy. namic of the Vietnamese revolution in the region prevent China from fully carrying out its policy of winning influence and peaceful coexistence, which it views as indispensable.
Furthermore, there is nothing to indicate that the Chinese leadership is in the process of revising its worldwide anti-Soviet policy. Hua Guofeng's recent trip to Europe is an example. While in France, Hua reaffirmed that he saw no chance for a peaceful settlement of the Kampuchean question. In West Germany he saluted Franz-Josef Strauss, who is the president of the Christian Social Union and leader of the right-wing opposition as well as a conservative candidate for the federal chancellorship. Hua also spoke approvingly of the "legitimate aspirations" of the German people for reunification. In London, Hua delivered a violent attack on the USSR.
As for Washington's aims in the region, it is clear the U.S. does not want to abandon its policy of peaceful coexistence with the USSR. The Soviet Union is a much more important power in the world than China and Washington must deal with it in order to try to hold back the rising course of the class struggle. Nevertheless, the U.S. continues to play the "China card" in East Asia.
Moreover, Carter has just asked the U.S. congress to grant China "most favored nation" status for its exports to the U.S. During a speech to students at the University of Peking, Vice-president Walter Mondale went further than ever in defining the "numerous parallel strategic and bilateral interests." "Our interest," Mondale declared, "is to strengthen our cooperation in all spheres, since this helps to dissuade others [meaning the Soviet Union] who might try to assert themselves at our expense" (Le Monde, August 29, 1979).
The campaign against Vietnam assumes at least a three-fold importance in American imperialist policy. First, it provides an opportunity to deal very heavy blows against the revolutions in Indochina that only recently defeated it. In fact these revolutions were the first to defeat an intervention into which Washington threw all its resources.
Second, it provides an opportunity to try to restabilize the imperialist order in Southeast and East Asia. Some of the pillars of the imperialist order had been deeply shaken by the victory of the revolutions in Indochina.
The crisis that broke out recently in South Korea once again confirms the importance the American government places on this question. Even though the assassination of President Park Chung Hee was the work of one of the regime's main dignitaries, the head of the sinister Korean CIA, even though no one believed there would be a North Korean intervention, even though the American intelligence services might themselves have been involved in this murky affair, President Carter seized the occasion to prepare public opinion for maintaining and strengthening the imperialist presence in that part of the world. He warned North Korea against any "adventurist" inclinations; he showed the flag by placing U.S. forces on the peninsula on a state of alert and sent part of the Seventh Fleet to sail off the coast.
More fundamentally Washington is trying to restore, at whatever cost, the domestic and international political conditions that would permit it to again send major military intervention forces anywhere in the world. The U.S. has no longer been able to do this since the Indochina debacle and this fact goes a long way toward explaining the relative paralysis of the U.S. during crises such as Angola, Iran, and Nicaragua.
This objective is thought to be so important that it is publicly proclaimed. In an extraordinary declaration, General Bernard Rogers, the U.S. Army Chief of staff, in effect announced last June 22 that the Pentagon had established a special military corps of 110,000 troops, whose purpose was to intervene in all theaters of operation in the Third World when the interests of the United States are threatened there (Le Monde, June 24-25).
The campaign against Vietnam is one of the key aspects in preparing American and international public opinion for new direct and massive imperialist military interventions.
Aid Campaign and Kampuchea Question
This is the context in which we must examine the questions posed by the unfreezing and delivery of the aid that is indispensable for saving the Kampuchean population, which is threatened by starvation and illness, and Vietnamese policy toward Kampuchea.
At present it is impossible for us to judge all the negotiations that have taken place between Hanoi, Pnompenh, the private humanitarian organizations, and the International Red Cross or UNICEF. But President Carter quite recently cited the "impossibility" of determining who controlled the country as grounds for suspending the shipment of all humanitarian aid to Pnompenh. Many have also called for stricter accounting of the use that would be made of aid allocated to the Heng Samrin regime (which has so far received very little aid from the West) than aid to the Khmer Rouge (which has clearly received the bulk of it).
The imperialist powers have in fact used the question of humanitarian aid-despite the urgency-for political ends. In this context questions could be raised about the character of the American proposal to send the aid by truck convoys from Thailand, which would have to cross right through the combat zones where various anti- Vietnamese groups are functioning with Uncle Sam's blessings, when the U.S. has done nothing beforehand to use or help to improve the air, sea, and river accesses to Pnompenh.
We can also understand why the French hospital ship lle de Lumières makes the Pnompenh authorities nervous, even if it now carries only well intentioned doctors and nurses. When the "Ship For Vietnam" operation was launched, it was, in fact, as much a political move as a humanitarian operation aimed at saving refugees lost at sea. In the final analysis, it was not coincidental that anticommunist rightwing Vietnamese, former members of the French government, and leaders of the American AFL-CIO (whose relations with the CIA were no secret) took charge of this initiative. It confirms what we said at the time, that with such political types involved it was not possible to launch a rescue operation that would be strictly humanitarian.
It is necessary to fight to lift the political obstacles that prevent the massive delivery of food and material and medical aid to the Kampuchean population, along with aid needed to revive the country's socioeconomic life. But to do this it is also necessary to struggle against the attempts by the imperialist powers and the Chinese bureaucracy to fan the flames of war and try to strangle the Indochinese revolutions through every means at their disposal.
There must be determined activity to see that help is sent-and sent right away—to Kampuchea as well as to the refugees in Thailand, the living dead who are coming out of the border zones and forests. Even in the case of the refugees now in Thailand, the amount of aid that is actually distributed and the number of medical teams actually in place seem, in many cases, ludicrous given the needs. This is the case even though none of the obstacles that are invoked elsewhere exist there on Thai soil!
If this activity is to be carried out effectively, it must take into account the state of war that exists, particularly on the Khmer Thai border. Unless this is done, the aid destined for a dying population could easily, as we have seen, turn into support to the Khmer Rouge, Khmer Serei, or Khmer Serika armies in their fight!
But we must also deal in a clear way with the question of the presence of Vietnamese forces in Kampuchea. Nearly a year after the Vietnamese military intervention, Heng Samrin's regime still seems basically dependent on the Vietnamese presence in getting an administration off the ground again, although some progress has been made, particularly in Pnompenh and the surrounding area.
The blood-letting against political, administrative, technical, and medical functionaries was terrible. The overwhelming responsibility for this situation lies with three parties: the Americans-who for five years were guilty of devastating this small country through one of the most savage and destructive wars in history; the Khmer Rouge-through their policy of forced resettlement of the population, forced collectivization, and sweeping purges; and the Chinese-through the political, diplomatic, and material support they provided to this leadership group.
In his recent book Prince Sihanouk specifically confirms what had already been reported about the double leap into the unknown-internally and on the Vietnamese-Kampuchean border-that tragically dominated the Khmer Rouge reign.
But it remains true that the Vietnamese leadership also bears important responsibility, even if not of the same degree. Because in the final analysis, the forced collectivization policy, which undermined the ability to act of a population that had already been hard hit by the American war, was only gradually extended throughout Kampuchean territory. And the political purges that struck at the Communist Party and army cadres who might have opposed the orientation practiced by Pol Pot and leng Sary did not become massive until 1977- 1978, although they had begun very early in the liberated zones against the militants "returning from Hanoi" during the war.
It was not, therefore, a foregone conclusion that the new Kampuchean regime that has been installed had to be so weak, so drained. If they had received aid earlier, a much stronger oppostion than what was finally set up as Heng Samrin's Kampuchean National United Front for National Survival (FUNKSN) could probably have been established. But without aid from outside the country the opposition was mercilessly decimated, quite often, apparently, before it could even establish itself.
But this support would have had to be first of all political support. It was necessary for the Khmer and Vietnamese populations (and through them the peoples of the world) to be able to judge what was actually happening in Kampuchea and on the Khmer-Vietnamese border.
But, until too late, the Vietnamese leadership preferred to try to handle the "differences" between Hanoi and Pnompenh through secret negotiations. Hanoi maintained public silence on the real evolution of the situation, even though the extreme gravity and the character of the problems posed required the direct intervention of the masses if they were to be correctly resolved. Our knowledge of the history of those few key years between the victories of 1975 and the entry of Vietnamese forces into Kampuchea in December 1978 is still quite incomplete. But one cannot help but think that Khmer Communist opposition to the Kampuchean CP leadership's policies had been abandoned long before. And we can now conclude that the policy of trying not to wash Sino-Vietnamese and Khmer-Vietnamese dirty linen in public was a failure.
The December 1978-January 1979 Vietnamese "military solution" as such became an "inevitable" extension of the policy of silence of previous years. It was above all this aspect of the large-scale entry into Kampuchea that had to be condemned: as the outcome of an incorrect and profoundly bureaucratic line, with extremely grave consequences for Vietnam as well as Kampuchea, in Southeast Asia as well as in the rest of the world.
The new Heng Samrin government's dependence on the Vietnamese following the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime stems in part from the policy the Vietnamese leadership followed after 1975. This has major consequences even today. Journalists who have been to Phompenh can, in fact, testify that even among people who recognize that their lives were saved by the Vietnamese intervention (and there are surely many in that category), there are many who are uneasy about the future of Vietnamese-Khmer relations. They fear both a premature departure of the Vietnamese armies that would leave the field open to the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, as well as a long-term occupation of the country by Hanoi (see particularly Nayan Chanda's article in the August 31 Far Eastern Economic Review).
As long as the Kampuchean regime cannot demonstrate its autonomy and its representative character by showing that it no longer depends on the massive presence of Vietnamese forces, there will always be the danger of a reawakening of a sentiment of national oppression among the Khmer as social life revives. This could provide a breeding ground for the influence of proimperialist forces, beginning with those of Prince Sihanouk.
It is therefore necessary to create the conditions for a withdrawal of Vietnamese forces that will not be accompanied by a return in force of the Khmer Rouge and anticommunist guerrillas. The Kampuchean masses must be armed so they will be in a position to defend themselves. Clearly a regular army cannot by itself definitively crush a guerrilla force that has the benefit of solid sanctuaries outside the borders and gets regular military and economic aid. Only the Kampuchean population can inflict such a defeat on the guerrillas.
But to do this it is necessary to aid the revival and reestablishment of political, economic, and social life. There has been very halting progress in this direction in recent months. This revival must be encouraged, and this is also one of the indispensable functions of the international aid.
The political lessons of the Sino- Indochinese crises must be widely discussed throughout the revolutionary and national liberation movements. But there is a pressing and indispensable task: to defend the Indochinese revolutions at a time when they are the target of renewed attacks by the imperialist and neocolonial forces as well as by the Chinese bureaucracy.
All indications, in fact, point to the real possibility of a new Chinese invasion. At minimum, the political, diplomatic, social, economic, ethnic, and military pressures now being exerted against Indochina will continue, and perhaps be stepped up.