Red Horror

The history of the contemporary Cambodia, also called Kampuchea, is characterized by the presence of two men: Norodom Sihanouk and Pol Pot. The first one was up to 1954 the absolute ruler of the kingdom of Cambodia. Descending from a ruling lineage accustomed to practice a power at the limit of the despotism, this character didn't also avoid in the first part of his life this same cliche. He conducted a luxurious and unrestrained youth, without ever taking care indeed of his own people. When he assumed to the honors of the throne it would be expected an unfit and few accustomed to the government ruler, instead it has immediately to retract. Educated in the schools of typically French extraction he had had the opportunity to open himself to the western ideas of democracy and prosperity of the nation. In his way, once become a king, though not abandoning the proper style of life, he knew also to give an appearance of liberality to Cambodia. In 1954, in the moment in which French were withdrawn by their colonie he was elected constitutional monarch, trying his own liberal position. The fifteen years that followed, they were characterized by a moderate politics in economic circle and decidedly neutral in international field.

The Asian Southeast of the sixties, as many will remember, had troubled from the conflict of Vietnam. Cambodia constituted for the Vietcongs the ideal base where to depart for tormenting the rear lines of South Vietnam in the Delta of Mekong. Occupied part of Cambodian territory in half of that decade, the communist troops of North Vietnam had free hand for long time because of the scarce weight of the Cambodian army. With the intensifying of the conflict between North Vietnam and United States, Cambodia found itself hold between two fires. On one side the military presence of Hanoi prevented to follow the American directives, on the other hand the American economic pressures risked to strangle the weak economy of the Asian country. Between the two solutions Sihanouk decided to maintain a behavr that did not met either with the uncomfortable neighbor either with the world superpower. He denounced the presence of the Vietcongs in his country, but it never activated his forces to send them away.

In 1969, the United States reached their maximum employment in terms of troops on the Vietnam's front and could not allow that a country, at their eyes meaningless as the Cambodia, made insecure even the Head Command of Saigon, harboring the communist rebellious troops. Seen the immobility of the sovereign, they tried to find a most obliging ruler. He was individualized in the person of Lon Nol. Presumably supported by CIA, he got a large electoral victory in that year that allowed him presenting to Sihanouk with the investiture of the electorate. Become Prime Minister with a royal nomination, Lon Nol didn't wait a lot to manifest his real intentions. Taking advantage of the absence of the sovereign that was in France because of health's problems; he put in scene a putsch that dismissed the king depriving him of every power given from the constitution. That the new potentate was protected from the United States it was immediately clear with the attack to the embassy of South Vietnam that provoked repercussio at international level. Sihanouk didn't know anything of this action. Perhaps for ingenuity or perhaps for excessive superficiality, he had given the power position to Lon Nol. Exiled in France without funds and without supports, he acted searching new friends. From the interview that he released to Oriana Fallaci and that we can find in his book “Interview with History”, we are able to see which were his feelings during such first period. He immediately excluded collaboration with the Soviet Union, since as he has said “the Soviets help the obedient communist only” and Sihanouk was neither communist nor obedient. A lot of the nations traditionally favorable to his regime, among which France and Italy, turned him the shoulders recognizing the government of Lon Nol. So Isolated, the only hand was extended from China. Zhou En Lai wanted him in Peking to guarantee the whole Chinese support to the Cambodian cause.

The financial and military support of communist China would have served to well few if Sihanouk had not also gotten the collaboration of the Red Khmers. These were communist partisan formations that had raged in the northern part of the country since the French abandonment of Cambodia, protected from the ground, covered by jungle, favorable to Guerrilla. They took the name from the ancient inhabitants of Cambodia who had dominated the whole Indochina before being defeated by Vietnamese in the past and forced to abandon large part of their own possessions. Inside dominant figure was Pol Pot, whose true name, Saloth Sar, remained a secret for long time. If we don't want to take the risk to expedite the times of exposure, it is necessary to remember that Sihanouk fought for several years against the Khmers Rossi when he was still at power, but once he was dethroned, he recognized, like a good man of state, that the contingent interest came before the political convictions. He affirmed: “for me the principal eny is the American imperialism and the fascism of Lon Nol; the communist are the secondary enemy. Conclusion, I choose to be with the secondary enemy to defeat the principal enemy… The Red Khmers don't love me at all, they hold me with them because without me they would not have the farmers and a revolution in Cambodia is not possible without the farmers. Once won the revolution they will spit me as the core of a cherry.” His clear examination of the facts would have made true in every particular. He committed only an error that, however, would have been very serious. The king wished the advent of the communism in the country because according to him the proletarian revolution had had success in the zones already freed and rather than to see a reissue of the Marcos' Philippines and Kim's Korea, he preferred an agrarian and independent nation.

The ascent of the Khmers was not immediate. In 1973, while the negotiations of peace for the repatriation of the American contingent were already in progress between Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the United States invaded Cambodia pursuing Vietcongs. Lon Nol gave full support to the operation, losing so the support of all the lowest layers of the population. The effectiveness of the attack was nearly nothing. The Vietcongs adopted a very simple technique withdrawing in good order in the jungle already occupied by the Khmers, stopping their operations until calm had not returned. It didn't delay for a long time because the signature of the peace between Vietnam and United States made useless the prosecution of the clashes on the Cambodian territory. Ended the war, the irregular troops of North Vietnam returned in their country, leaving Kampuchea in an apparent calm. The years that went since 1973 to 1975 were characterized by the slow progress toward Phnom Penh, the capital city, of the rebellious squads. It was rived to the point that only the capital city remained in the hands of the government of Lon Nol and only thanks to the large campaign of bombardments made from the United States that still saw the advance of the communism in Indochina as a threat to their affairs. Completely withdrawn in 1975 from the Vietnam, the American administration didn't have any more way to justify the expenses for the operational maintenance of the squadrons of bombardiers in Cambodia. Without the help of the western ally, it also declined the star of Lon Nol who on April 1 1975 succeeded miraculously in running away to Hawaii, leaving Phnom Penh to the Khmers who entered on 17 of that same month.

Victorious on the whole field, the representatives of the communism had now to venture with the government of the country. Beginning with Sihanouk's affaire. Had they to hold faith to the pacts and to divide with him powers or could they eliminate him and do without him? The king's words on his ascendancy on the farmers were true and unfortunately for the Khmers, they had to name him president of the Cambodian Republic. The investiture so receipt crowds only formally and for less than one year. Sihanouk, in effects, was imprisoned by his own allies that had already started the preparations for one of the biggest mass massacre that the history remembers. The methods of the communist regime remained for many years hidden to the public opinion in consequence of the isolation in which the Khmers forced Cambodia. Only the conflict against Vietnam would have dissolved the fog on these crimes. The fertile ground, in which the roots of the new war sank, went up in the time back for centuries. As we have already remeered, Vietnamese had contributed to the fall of the Khmer's empire and the existing racial difference between the two populations was considered before the affiliation of the two states to the communist area. Signed the accords with the United States, Vietnam had in practice abandoned Cambodia to its destiny.

The fatiguing struggle of Pol Pot for the victory had mantled the Red Khmers of a halo of invincibility that pushed the new dictator to excesses of megalomania. Following an insane expansionistic wish, he arrived to attack for more times the Vietnamese border until instigating the reaction of Hanoi. On Christmas Day 1978 150.000 soldiers of reunified Vietnam invaded Cambodia conquering it in only 13 days. Hunted by the hostile army, Pol Pot took to the bush to reorganize his teams.
The victory of Vietnam brought to the light the horror of the common graves. In the visionary mind of Pol Pot, brought up at the old school of the proletarian communism of the continuous revolution, Cambodia would be due to become a totally self-sufficient country on the economic point of view and because the only true resource that existed there it was agriculture, it was on it that it was had to make trust. Every other working condition was banished. Particularly who belonged to the middle class and the political classes were deported in fields of work and subsequently slaughtered. Being learned over the least necessary of knowing how reading and writing could cost dear, also the life. It has never succeeded in calculating the course of the massacres, but according to a reliable respect, of seven million resident inhabitants in Cambodia at the moment in which Pol Pot took the power, between 1.500.000 and 3.000.000 were killed by the red squads. However, the forced pacification brought by the military defeadidn't have to last for a long time. Vietnam that during the war with United States had had great helps from China had moved on a position near Soviet Union's philosophy. The Chinese Popular Republic, seeing in the widening of Vietnam an attempt of Russian encirclement, intervened in help of the old Cambodian friends, sending a punitive army that destroyed the region in the North of the country during February and March 1979.

The Chinese action weakened the Vietnamese resistance that also holding power in Cambodia never had the suit control on the territory where the Red Khmers were still very active. Abroad in the meantime, two movements were born for the liberation of Kampuchea: the National Front for the Liberation of Kampuchea (said Blue Khmers) of nationalistic extraction and the National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful and Cooperative Cambodia, (White Khmer) headed by Sihanouk. The sovereign showed to have thousand resources. Deposed for the second time in 1976 he had escaped to the execution fleeing to Peking. Already burnt by the collaboration with Pol Pot, Sihanouk would have had to learn the lesson. Instead as if nothing had happened, in 1982 he accepted to preside over a common committee that unified all three factions of resistance. Despite the coalition between the rebellious forces, Vietnam possessed a highly efficient military apparatus that would have destroyed every resistance if it had notost the financial resources to maintain it. Gone out of the ruinous war of independence with France and then from that of reunification against United States, the subsidy of an army established in a foreign country didn't reenter in its economic possibilities. The withdrawal of the Soviet support in 1988 constituted the pretext for its own withdrawal.

The Cambodian puppet government convinced to the negotiations with the other parts that would have brought to an accord for the cessation of the hostilities in 1991. UN would have guaranteed the permanence of the peace with 22.000 blue helmets until the carrying out of the elections. These were held on May 23 and 28 1993 with the amazing victory of Sihanouk's party over the communists. Launched the democratic constitution and named the previous king president, the definitive consolidation of the Cambodian government seemed done. Contrarily, Sihanouk expelled the representatives of red Khmers from the government, alleging as pretext their refusal to disarm as be anticipated by the accord in Paris. The new return in the secretness of the Khmers and the revolutionary tendencies even between the children of the president himself don't let presage a too rosy future for the florid Kampuchea.

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