
When the Vietnamese army threw out the Khmer Rouges, they rescued this country for whatever reason from slavery and possible extinction. Western governments may not want to recognise that fact, but nothing is more obvious to the Cambodian people.
When the Vietnamese army threw out the Khmer Rouges, they rescued this country for whatever reason from slavery and possible extinction. Western governments may not want to recognise that fact, but nothing is more obvious to the Cambodian people.
The Vietnamese are condemned for driving out the Khmer Rouge killers. Were the Tanzanians condemned for throwing out the hideous Idi Amin? Of course not! It should be explained why the Vietnamese came here to Cambodia: after 1975, Vietnam was under constant attack by the Khmer Rouges, who massacred Vietnamese border villages and were supported by 10,000 Chinese. An unholy trinity of Pol Pot, China and America say that Vietnam is an agent of Russia. Anyone who knows the fiercely nationalistic Vietnamese, who have stood virtually alone against invaders for thirty years, knows this to be laughably untrue. But the Chinese threat and the present denial of aid is pushing both Vietnam and Cambodia deeper into the waiting arms of the Soviet Union. Both the Cambodians and the Vietnamese are fighting for their survival as never before.
I am not frightened. The Khmer Rouge horrors were frightening. But to know that you are losing your battle, losing your country, is a feeling of sadness.
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Pol Pot is a very, very good military leader and strategist. He has succeeded in making his troops the best guerrillas in the world - even better than the Vietnamese. You know, as a Cambodian, I am proud of them, if I may say so. Not proud of their communism but proud of their military capability, their dedication, their toughness, their skill on the battlefield. The Vietnamese fear them so much. That is why they have set as a condition for withdrawing their troops from Cambodia the liquidation of the Khmer Rouge--not just Pol Pot but the Khmer Rouge--as a military and political force.
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The Vietnamese proclaim throughout the world that they are very popular in Cambodia, but why do they fear general elections? If they are, as they pretend to be, so popular, they would win an election. But the Vietnamese know that they'd be sure to lose now, because the majority of Cambodians would choose the Khmer Rouge as the lesser of two evils.
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Variante: I vietnamiti proclamano in tutto il mondo che sono molto popolari in Cambogia, ma perché allora temono le elezioni generali? Se sono, come dicono loro, così popolari, potrebbero vincere una elezione. Ma i vietnamiti sanno che sarebbero certi di perdere ormai, perché la maggioranza dei cambogiani preferirebbero i Khmer Rossi come il male minore.
“Se è stato relativamente facile cambiare nome al PCI è impossibile cambiare nome a Marx.”
Origine: Perché credere?, p. 6
Variante: Prima dei bombardamenti, i Khmer Rossi erano stati un culto maoista senza base popolare. I bombardamenti fecero da catalizzatore. Quello che Nixon e Kissinger avevano iniziato, venne completato da Pol Pot. Kissinger non sarà sul banco degli accusati a Phnom Penh. Lui fa il consulente di Obama per la geopolitica. Né vi sarà Margaret Thatcher, e neppure un certo numero di suoi ministri e funzionari ora in pensione che, sostenendo segretamente i Khmer Rossi dopo che i vietnamiti li avevano cacciati, contribuirono direttamente alla terza fase dell’olocausto cambogiano.