Why did they care about Pol Pot? It’s not like he was torturing and murdering the Vietnamese.
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In theory, the Kampuchean People’s Army was under the central command of Pol Pot. In practice, this weren’t necessarily so. It is my understanding that the Khmer Rouge troops weren’t too picky about where the border was. This led to various border incidents that irritated the Vietnamese.
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Refugees were streaming into Vietnam more or less continuously, with unbelievable horror stories. In time, the Vietnamese began believing them.
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Over time, it became clear that the Khmer Rouge regime was dangerously unstable. Hell, just dangerous. Being next door to a country with a totally demolished infrastructure and an insane ruler is almost always not good for you; ask any recent South Korean politician about that.
I always figured they did it to stabilize their own borders, so to speak. I may well be wrong, though, and would welcome any opportunity to learn.
There is one other factor. Eastern Cambodia has a lot of Vietnamese, and the Khmer Rouge was of the opinion that they “held back” the transition to “Year Zero”. Thus, the Khmer Rouge embarked on a policy of exterminating the Vietnamese in Cambodia.
[hijack] It was never very clear in the media why Pol Pot did what he did.
One allegation was, the Khmer Rouge had all the farmers in the village bring their iron hoes, and throw them in the river. Whatever was that about?
What was Pol Pot’s overall “vision”?
@Thread creator
Vietnamese were tortured and executed because of many Khmer Rouge hating the Vietnamese for not giving them back their “lost land” from Pol Pot theory of “Year Zero”
The cause of the Invasion was because the KRA (Khmer Revolutionary Army) invaded Vietnam island, Phu Quoc; in the South of Cambodia. Creating a massacre. But the VPA didn’t care about the people… obviously but they did care if the KR invaded their soil. It took 2 years for the Hanoi government to do any action about the Invasion of Phu Quoc ( Which Vietnamese re-captured it quickly after the KR captured it ). The Vietnamese government declare a full-scale invasion against Democratic Kampuchea and succeeded by capturing Phnom Penh in 17 days. It took 2 years to make the decision of invading due to the fear of the Chinese invading, but luckily Union Soviet Socialist Republic “got their back” because of their contract of 25 years friendship with the USSR and the SRVN. The Chinese did eventually invaded around spring because they were a allianced with the Khmer Rouge. The Chinese lost due to failing to reaching to Hanoi and getting the Vietnamese out of Cambodia.
I know this thread is old but I just want to point it out.
IIRC - Pol Pot and his bunch held the theory that people educated by the west or exposed to western ways were “corrupted”. The ideal communism was a collective of peasants working for the common good, with no outside distractions like technology, education, intellectualism, etc. to distract them.
So they started by massacring anyone who opposed them and had any connection with the west - then the educated class; then they forced people to leave the cities and “go back to the land”. Then they started in on anyone whose job did not relate to the simpler things in life. It was simpler to massacre the people who appeared to be an impediment than to re-educate or work with them.
As for the Vietnamese - just like Europe, many countries around the world have long histories and very imprecise borders where one ethnic group blends into another. Racism or ethnic tension is always just below the surface, in case we forget the lessons of WWII or Bosnia or Rwanda. When the goal is to get a non-intellectual group to be running thecountry, when a lack of deep thinking is its own reward (life) then it’s no surprise if your army decides to act out it’s deep aggressions and ancient hatreds. Besides, anyone who comes from that ethnic group must, of course be allied with their mother country against you. Americans instinctively understood this lesson about Japanese Americans during WWII. And like Europe in 1939, the boundaries of Vietnam and Cambodia IIRC were arbitrary French colonial divisions.
Also, who’s going to stick their neck out by punishing thier own Cambodia People’s Army units for going too far against ethnic Vietnamese?
I think the Vietnamese got fed up with the loose cannon on their border and the frequent clashes by undisciplined soldiers on their border, and decided to teach them a lesson.