'Overthrowing Pol Pot is Vietnam's only choice to protect the Cambodian people'

Former Indian Deputy National Security Adviser Pradhan said that overthrowing the Pol Pot regime was Vietnam's only choice in 1978 to protect the Cambodian people as well as the national border.

45 years ago, on January 7, 1979, the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, was liberated. From a legitimate counter-attack in self-defense on the southwestern border, the Vietnamese People's Army, together with the Cambodian resistance forces, ended the long nightmare of the Pol Pot genocidal regime, ending the dark period and opening a new era of independence, freedom, democracy and social development for Cambodia.

SD Pradhan, former chairman of the Intelligence Committee and former deputy national security adviser to India, described the Pol Pot years as the "most horrific and bloody period in the history" of Cambodia. The Pol Pot regime, with its vision of designing "a classless, self-sufficient agrarian utopia," hunted down and persecuted all intellectuals, urbanites, and minorities, and massacred its own people.

Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's right-hand man, appeared before the United Nations Court in August 2008. Photo: Reuters

Farina So, former head of the Gender and Ethnicity Research Center at the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), estimates that 36% of the Cham Muslim population, or more than 300,000 people, died during the more than three years of Pol Pot's regime.

The late Professor Benny Widyono, a former senior fellow at the Center for Khmer Studies in Siem Reap, said the brutality of the Pol Pot regime sparked outrage around the world, with many journalists and groups calling for justice. "It is a pity that the voice condemning the genocide regime at that time was not raised at the United Nations, which was dominated by the diplomatic calculations of the great powers," Mr. Widyono wrote in a 2009 commentary, published in the UN Chronicle .

According to Mr. Hun Sen, in the domestic and international political situation at that time, the only country capable of helping Cambodia was Vietnam. This was the reason why Mr. Hun Sen decided to go to Vietnam with a number of patriotic Cambodian officials to express the Cambodian people's desire for help, because he believed that "there was no other way".

Mr. Pradhan commented that Vietnam's support for the Cambodian people to overthrow the Pol Pot regime was not only a moral obligation to end the genocide nightmare, but also a legitimate act of self-defense against Pol Pot's territorial ambitions.

"In early 1978, Vietnam sought to negotiate but Pol Pot refused to listen. By the end of 1978, overthrowing the Pol Pot regime became Vietnam's only option to protect both the Cambodian people and the national border," Mr. Pradhan commented.

In response to the call of the Cambodian National United Front for National Salvation, in the face of the Pol Pot gang's crimes of aggression, Vietnam exercised its legitimate right to self-defense, stopped the war of aggression along the southwestern border, and helped the Cambodian revolutionary armed forces liberate the nation from genocide.

"Almost all Cambodian people at that time, regardless of political views, welcomed Vietnamese troops to help liberate them from the nightmare years," said Mr. Pradhan.

Speaking at the 45th Anniversary of the "Journey to Overthrow the Pol Pot Genocide Regime" on June 20, 2022, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that Vietnamese volunteer soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder with the revolutionary armed forces and Cambodian people to conduct many campaigns and battles to completely liberate the capital Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (standing, left) and Mr. Hun Sen at the ceremony commemorating the 45th anniversary of the "Journey to overthrow the Pol Pot genocidal regime" on June 20, 2022. Photo: VNA .

"This is a victory of great historical significance, bringing Cambodia out of the genocidal regime, reviving the country and entering an era of independence and freedom," Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized. January 7, 1979 is honored by the Cambodian people as "their second birthday", helping them have the life they have today.

After overthrowing the Pol Pot regime, Vietnam sent many delegations of experts in all fields to support Cambodia in building a grassroots government and recovering the economy and society from the ruins left by the genocidal regime. Cambodia's revolutionary political and armed forces have also grown increasingly mature and strong, capable of defending the revolutionary achievements and reviving the country on their own.

At a workshop organized by the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee's Propaganda Department and the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City) in 2019, former Vietnamese Ambassador to the United Nations Vo Anh Tuan said that Vietnam had encountered many difficulties in the Cambodian issue.

This topic is always hot in every UN peace and security meeting. Faced with many countries' accusations that Vietnam "invaded Cambodia", the Vietnamese delegation had to find arguments to refute and affirm that the war was just.

"Vietnam's difficulty at that time was that we had few friends. We were almost isolated on the Cambodian issue," he said. "In international relations, friends or enemies can change, but national independence and sovereignty never do. If you can maintain independence and sovereignty, you are always right. If you can't maintain it, whatever you say is wrong."

The former ambassador said that it was very difficult to listen, understand and respond to the more than 90 member countries of the United Nations at that time so that they could understand Vietnam's reasoning. The Vietnamese diplomatic delegation always applied President Ho Chi Minh's motto "with the unchanging, responding to all changes" to solve this problem.

Cambodian revolutionary armed forces and Vietnamese volunteer soldiers entered to liberate the capital Phnom Penh, January 7, 1979. Photo: QĐND

In an article commemorating the 45th anniversary of the Victory Day on January 7, the Royal Academy of Cambodia (RAC) said that Cambodia was able to overthrow the Pol Pot genocidal regime thanks to the support and assistance from volunteer soldiers and the Vietnamese people. The victory on January 7, 1979 was a historic event demonstrating the spirit of international solidarity between the people and armies of Cambodia and Vietnam, opening a new page in the friendly and good neighborly relations between the two countries.

RAC believes that the relationship between Cambodia and Vietnam has continuously progressed to this day and is increasingly developing in many fields, bringing many practical benefits to the people of the two countries.

In 1989, according to the agreement between the two countries, Vietnam withdrew all volunteer troops in Cambodia, fulfilling a noble, glorious, and pure international duty, rare in the history of international relations.

"We are always proud of those unforgettable years. The Cambodian people affectionately called the Vietnamese volunteer soldiers 'Buddhist soldiers'," Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized. "We respectfully remember and pay tribute to the great contributions and heroic sacrifices of the outstanding sons of both nations in that noble struggle."

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