Foreign Intervention and the Cambodian Genocide

8/12/2019 Foreign Intervention and the Cambodian Genocide

1/8

Tucker LeavittForeign Intervention and the Cambodian Genocide

On March 14, 1947, President Harry S. Truman stood before Congress and presented a case

concerning the foreign policy and the national security of the United States (Carvin,Truman). At the time, the two far away nations of Turkey and Greece were beset byCommunist insurgents, and the countries governments were struggling to resist the uprisings. In

his speech, which would later become known as the Truman Doctrine, the President beseechedcongress to give aid to these two failing nations, in the form of a lump sum of $400 million,worried that If Greece should fall under the control of an armed minority, the effect-upon itsneighbor, Turkey, would be immediate and serious. Confusion and disorder might well spreadthroughout the entire Middle East (Carvin, Truman).Trumans belief was that becausetotalitarian regimes such as communism coerced free peoples, they undermine the

foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States (Carvin,Truman). Greece had no one else to turn to, Truman reasoned; Britain would be unable to

supply Greece with financial aid after March 31, so it fell to America to assist Greece in itspursuit of freedom from coercion by a Communist minority.Trumans proposed policy won the Republicans who controlled Congress at the time, and shortlyafter his speech was delivered, the US began supplying the Greeks small and poorly equippedarmy with financial aid. The Communist insurgents in Greece were effectively contained, largelybecause of this aid. Henceforth, the Truman Doctrine was viewed as the basis of modern USforeign policy. The US would frequently extend itself to nations worldwide struggling againstCommunist uprisings in the years following the delivery of Trumans famous speech. During theCold War era, it was a commonly held belief that the US, as a well-established globalsuperpower, was morally obliged to liberate foreign nations from movements that wereperceived by the US as evil. America was not the first in history to take on this responsibility.The explanation Europe gave to justify its colonization of the underdeveloped world was rootedin the belief that it was the white mans duty to elevate savage peoples from their uncivilizedway of life to Europes refined, Christianized way of living. The purpose of this paper is todemonstrate the negative consequences of such meddling through a historical illustration of theCambodian genocide.In 1975, a communist organization known as the Khmer Rouge orchestrated a devastatinggenocide in the small Southeastern nation of Cambodia. France, by colonizing Cambodia in thelate 1800s, and the US, by intervening militarily in Cambodia as part of the Vietnam War, are asmuch to blame as the Khmer Rouge for this tragedy. While foreign intervention is notnecessarily bad in all cases, there are generally harmful consequences resulting from a morepowerful state interfering with a less powerful one when the interference is not in the interest ofthe less powerful state. This was the case with the Cambodia; the US and Frances intervention

in Cambodian affairs, this intervention being only in the interest of the US and France, broughtabout the socioeconomic upheaval that led to the Cambodian genocide.1. The GenocideIn order to understand the arguments made in this paper, one must first have a generalunderstanding of the Cambodian genocide and those who perpetrated it. The Khmer Rouge firstemerged as a prominent rebel organization in Cambodia in 1970. Over the next several yearsafter their appearance on the national scene, the Khmer Rouge assisted the North Vietnamese


2/8

Army and the Viet Cong in displacing the Cambodian monarchy and seizing control of thecountry. The insurgents took control of Phnom Penh, Cambodias capital, on April 17, 1975.Communist Vietnam, with direction by China, appointed the Khmer Rouge and their leader, PolPot, as the head of the Communist Party of Cambodia, in attempts to promote the spread ofcommunism throughout Asia.

Once elevated to power, Pol Pot aimed to create a completely self-contained, agrarianidyll in Cambodia. His utopia had no use for cities or specialized professions, as everyone was towork as a rural laborer. So, the Khmer Rouge evacuated all of Cambodias major cities,including hospitals housing countless disabled war victims, and systematically kidnapped andmurdered anyone perceived as a subversive element to their new agrarian order. This includeddoctors, scientists, engineers, academics, and professionals in all fields, as well as people whospoke a foreign language, wore glasses, or showed overt signs of emotion. Thousands more diedfrom disease or malnutrition due to Cambodias isolation from foreign trade routes. The numberof people who died as a result of the Khmer Rouges attempted social reform is generallyestimated to be between 1.4 and 2.5 million, roughly a quarter of the countrys total population.

The Cambodian Genocide lasted from 1975 to 1979, when a Vietnamese coup ousted

the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot and his following retreated into the jungles surrounding Cambodiaswestern borders, but continued to operate as the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea.Throughout the 1980s, Cambodia was denied a seat in the United Nations general assemblybecause of its political instability. This punishment was further compounded by harsh economicsanctions imposed by the US in an attempt to starve out the Khmer Rouge. This, combined withthe fact that the Khmer Rouge had killed off all of Cambodias doctors, engineers, andspecialized professionals, meant that Cambodia was completely unable to obtain the resourcesand aid necessary for reconstruction. In 1993, Cambodias original monarchy was officiallyrestored, the sanctions were lifted, and Cambodias representation in the United Nations was

reinstated, but Cambodia has yet to fully recover from the lasting effects of the genocide.The next several sections of this paper will delve deeper into Cambodian history in

order to explain exactly how the Cambodian genocide came about and to elucidate the roles theUS and France played in creating conditions in Cambodia suitable for the rise of such randomlybrutal governments as the Khmer Rouge.2. France and IndochinaFrance colonized the Indochinese Peninsula in 1887. At that time, Cambodias glorious

Angkorian Empire had been dead for four hundred years, Cambodia now being no more than apawn in the power struggles of its aggressive neighbors, Thailand and Vietnam. France soonfound that the fabled riches of the Cambodian Khmer had disappeared centuries ago, and so,directed little attention toward Cambodia during the colonial period, preferring to focus on themore promising Vietnam. France did little to help develop the Cambodian economy, its onlycontribution being the reconstruction of the countrys tax collection system. After this revamp,France proceeded to heavily tax the poor nation. Cambodians paid the highest taxes per capita inall of Indochina, and in 1916, Cambodian villagers in Phnom Penh organized a mass protest topetition the King for a tax reduction. France often favored employing Vietnamese civil servantsto manage affairs in Cambodia. This severely frustrated many Cambodians, as they thought itwrong for them to be governed by their historical rivals. France lost control of Indochina toJapanese forces in 1940 as part of World War II. Japan maintained control of the region until itsgovernments surrender in August of 1945, following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Japans final act in occupation was to order the kings of Indochina to declare independence from


3/8

France, in one last attempt to spite its European colonial rival. Ho Chi Minh, a Communist leaderin Vietnam took the initiative; when France tried to reassert itself in Indochina after the war, theywere met by Hos rebellious Viet Minh, leading to the First Indochina War in September 1945.Before losing the war in 1954, France relinquished control over Cambodia after exhaustingnegotiations with Cambodian Head of State Norodom Sihanouk, who became Cambodias new

king after returning from France.Sihanouk had been appointed to his leadership role by French colonialists at the ripe age of 19 in1941, primarily for his acquiescence to French colonial policies. He was a controversial politicalfigure; while admirers viewed him as one of the country's great patriots, whose insistence on

strict neutrality kept Cambodia out of the maelstrom of war and out of the revolution inneighboring Vietnam (Russel, 13), others criticized his eccentricity, his rigidity, and his

intolerance of any political views different from his own. Milton E. Osborne, writing as anAustralian expatriate in Phnom Penh during the late 1960s, illustrated the years of Sihanouksrule in terms of unbridled greed and corruption, of a foreign policy inspired more byopportunism than by the desire to preserve national independence, of an economy and a politicalsystem that were rapidly coming apart, and of the prince's obsession with making outrageously

mediocre films-one of which starred himself and his wife, Princess Monique (Russel, 13).Sihanouk believed he single-handedly won Cambodias independence from France, convenientlyignoring the role played by other nationalist movements such as the Viet Minh. But despite someof his flawed characteristics, Sihanouk did gain genuine rapport with his subjects. Cambodia waseager to follow Sihanouk to independence in 1953, and proceeded through the political tumultthat engulfed its geographic region on shaky, newborn legs.If France had not colonized Indochina in the 1800s, the Vietnam War would not have unfoldedas it did, and Cambodia would not be in the sorry state its in today. France did not intervene inCambodia to elevate Cambodias people from their savage way of life, as the French would

call it; Frances interest in Indochina stemmed mainly from its colonial rivalry with Britain and

its burgeoning empire, and Frances own economic self-interest. To France, Cambodia wasmerely a buffer zone between its precious and highly profitable colony of Cochin China(Vietnam) and the encroaching pro-British Siam. France felt it appropriate to impose heavy taxeson Cambodia in exchange for small amounts ofprotection, which hindered the nations alreadyweak agriculture-based economy (Carvin, Cambodia Colonized). The most significant harmFrance did Cambodia during the colonial period, though, did not actually involve Cambodianaffairs. When the French inevitably lost control of Indochina during World War II, they led theregion into a state of political uncertainty. Then, when Indochinas short-lived Japanese rulersordered the Indochinese kings to declare independence from France, inciting the First IndochinaWar, Cambodia was flung off balance politically, with the eccentric French-appointed Sihanoukas their leader. In this state, Cambodia was unfit to respond to the ambitions of communistVietnam.

Vietnam had not been happy with being colonized. This dissatisfaction led to theuprising of dozens of belligerents in Vietnam during the colonial era. Throughout the late 1800s,Vietnamese revolutionaries led by Phan nh Phng fought against French colonization.Rebellions rose again during and after World War I. Vietnam finally found the independence itso fiercely sought after the First Indochina War when Ho Chi Minh led the Viet Minh to victory.The communists victory in this warranted the attention of the US and led to the Vietnam War.Cambodias instability meant that the war would devastate Cambodias economy, which wouldin turn give rise to the Khmer Rouge.


4/8

3. The US and the Vietnam WarBy the time Cambodia had appeared as an independent nation on the international scene, theCold War was in full swing. Chinas conversion to communism in 1945 had shocked the US, andby 1953 America had already begun funding local governments in places like Western Europe asa preemptive measure against the spread of communism. The adoption of the Truman doctrine

had given rise to other political philosophies and ideas about changing US foreign policy. One ofthe more prominent of these ideas, the emergent domino theory, was quickly taking hold in theUS State Department. The theory essentially held that once communists were given a foothold ina certain region, weaker nations in that region were much more susceptible to communism. Itwas not long before America directed its attention to the Communist uprising in northernVietnam. The logic of the domino theory made it easily conceivable that once Vietnam fell, Laosand Cambodia would quickly follow, and soon all of Southeastern Asia would fall into theclutches of the evil communists.

King Sihanouk was also very aware of the growing threat in Vietnam. Cambodiasarmy was weak and underdeveloped, and if it came to war, Cambodia would not stand a chanceagainst the combined power of the North Vietnam Army and the Viet Cong. Sihanouk resorted to

befriending Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese in a bid to save his country from theviolence spreading throughout Indochina. The US was not happy about this; from Americasperspective Cambodia was just a domino waiting to topple, and the State Department didnt want

Sihanouk to have anything to do with any Communists. Consequently, the number of Sihanoukcritics in the Washington seemed to grow every day (Carvin, The Cold War). As Eisenhowersvice president, Richard Nixon described Sihanouk as flighty and totally unrealistic about the

problems his country faced (Shawcross, 75). Sihanouk wanted Cambodia to remain neutralthroughout the conflicts between North and South Vietnam, and said as much to US diplomatsduring and after the Geneva Conference in 1954. Relationships between the US and Cambodiaremained tempestuous throughout the 1950s. Still, Sihanouk managed to persuade the US to

supply Cambodia with financial aid, balancing the acts of appeasing both the US and NorthVietnam.

By 1965, North Vietnam Army and Viet Cong guerilla encampments were appearinginside the jungles within the Cambodian border with Vietnam. Sihanouk quietly tolerated thisviolation of neutrality agreements; Cambodia could not afford to make enemies with NorthVietnam. In 1967, increased US operations in Vietnam forced more North Vietnamese troopsover the border. Vietnam now had a strong presence in Cambodia, and was beginning toinfiltrate Cambodias governmental institutions. The US was now also considering delving intoCambodia, using whatever means necessary to root out the military encampments therein (US

State Department). Sihanouk was opposed to this, as it would undoubtedly mean civiliancasualties on the Cambodian side. He was able to negotiate recognition of Cambodias neutrality

and integrity with President Johnson; however, this policy was abandoned when Nixon took thepresidency in January 1969 (Carvin, The Cold War).

The USs Operation Breakfast officially began on March 18 of the same year. The

exact amount of ordnance dropped on communist bases in Cambodia during the operation wasnot publicly released by the US State Department until July 5, 1973, nearly three years after theoperations end. According to the release, almost 104,000 tons of bombs had been dropped oncommunist sanctuary areas in Cambodia during the two-year period spanning from 1969 to 1970(Defense, 1). Cambodias limited infrastructure was devastated during the bombing raids,surprisingly much so for the tonnage of ordnance dropped.


5/8

In reality, the figures released by the State Department in 1973 were a grossunderstatement of the actual tonnage of bombs dropped on Cambodia throughout the VietnamWar. The real numbers did not become public until 2000, when President Clinton releasedextensive air force data on all American bombings of Indochina between 1964 and 1975. Thedata was intended to assist in the search for unexploded ordnance left behind in Cambodian

jungles after the carpet bombing of the region, but many latched onto the information for adifferent reason. The data revealed that from October 4, 1965, to August 15, 1973, the UnitedStates dropped 2,756,941 tons worth of ordnance in 230,516 sorties on 113,716 sites inCambodia (Owen, 3). These numbers not only showed how much more heavily Cambodia wasbombed than was commonly believed, but that bombing raids in Cambodia had begun in as earlyas 1965, not under Nixons jurisdiction, but under Lyndon Johnsons, with whom Sihanouk had

forged neutrality agreements, and almost immediately after the first Communist bases werefound in Cambodia.

The secrecy with which the US government treated Operation Menu, as the long-term missionin Cambodia was codenamed, was unsettling. The government may have kept the military

operation under wraps to avoid further outraging the American public, who had already mounteda significant opposition to the USs involvement in Vietnam. The secrecy may have also merelycoincided with the way Nixon and his advisors liked to run things. In his book Sideshow:Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia, William Shawcross says that nothing in theacademic writings of Henry Kissinger, Nixons National Security Advisor, had suggested that he

was concerned to involve the bureaucracies in policy making. To quote Kissinger: "There aretwenty thousand people in the State Department and fifty thousand in Defense. They all needeach other's clearances in order to move . . . and they all want to do what I'm doing. So theproblem becomes: how do you get them to push papers around, spin their wheels, so that you canget your work done?" (Shawcross, 78). During his time in office Kissinger instituted a newbureaucratic system for policy making in the State Department. The system changed the waygovernmental decisions were made by requiring National Security Study Memorandums(NSSMs) to be filled out by anyone wishing to institute some governmental policy, But it soon

became evidentthat one of the purposes of the many NSSMs was to keep the departmentsoccupied and under the illusion that they were participating in the policy-making process whiledecisions were actually made in the White House. There were no NSSMs to discuss whether

Cambodia should be bombed or invaded. Indeed many of those policies that are mostcharacteristic of the Nixon administration's record in foreign policy were subjected to no formaldebate at all (Shawcross, 79). The way in which the decision was made to begin seriously carpet

bombing Cambodia involved little more than the President assembling his small security counciland holding a private meeting. In his personal diaries, H. R. Haldeman, Nixons White House

Chief of Staff, wrote this about the decision, made on March 17, 1969:

Final decision was made at a meeting in the Oval Office Sunday afternoon, after the churchservice. Historic day. K[issinger]s Operation Breakfastfinally came off at 2:00 PM our time.K really excited, as is P[resident].

And the next day:


6/8

Ks Operation Breakfasta great success. He came beaming in with the report, veryproductive. A lot more secondaries than had been expected. Confirmed early intelligence.Probably no reaction for a few days, if ever (Vietnam 1969, 3. 3/4).

Haldemans prediction proved false; the reaction to Operation Breakfast ended up claiming the

lives of an estimated 2 million innocent Cambodians. Cambodias networks of rice plantationshad been seriously damaged during the bombing raids. Soon, the production of rice in Cambodiacame to an abrupt halt. Since rice was Cambodias primary international export, the lack of itsproduction greatly weakened Cambodias economy. In 1973, the nations economy collapsed,and continued violence in the region as part of Vietnams invasion filled Cambodias dilapidated

hospitals, already housing numerous victims from the bombing raids, to the brim (Russel, 21).Cambodia was almost completely unable to sustain itself in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge rose topower.

Countless historical examples show how socioeconomic ruin leads to the rise oftotalitarian regimes. Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1943, only cameto his position of power because Italy was in such a state of disarray when he happened to make

his bid. Hundreds of thousands of Italians near the Austrian border had been left homelessbecause of heavy fighting along the Italian Front, and Italy getting shortchanged in the Treaty ofVersailles meant for dire straits among the Italians. Italy was willing to turn to anyone as theirleader, and Mussolinis promises to end Italian suffering and lead Italy to glory made him anattractive candidate (Mines, 3). Mussolinis fascist philosophy never would have taken hold in

Italy under more stable circumstances. Similarly, the brutal Khmer Rouge would have neverbeen able to take control of Cambodia if Cambodia had not been in a state of suchsocioeconomic disarray. And Cambodia would not have been in a state of such socioeconomicdisarray if Operation Menu had not compromised its economic infrastructure.The whole reason the US intervened in Indochina was to contain the spread of communism,though dropping nearly 3 million tons of explosives and incendiary bombs on an already weaknation to mitigate the growth of a budding political philosophy may seem a bit extreme. It isdifficult to say exactly why the US was so opposed to communism. Trumans argument that

totalitarian regimes undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of

the United States is not enough to rationalize the invasive actions the US took in places likeVietnam and Korea. There had to be some other motive. It may have been that the US was afraidof communism because it differed so greatly from their capitalist way of life. The US largelybelieved that capitalism, where ones talent and ability determined ones socioeconomic status,was already the ideal economic system, so therefore, communism, being so different fromcapitalism in that wealth is spread equally amongst the population, must be less than ideal. Thiswas at least the reasoning espoused by the US media during the Cold War. It is more likelythough that powerful US corporations and wealthy American leaders wished to exert a certainhegemony over the rest of their society to perpetuate the economic system that has so benefitedthem at the expense of the poor and working class. Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci defineshegemony as a process of moral and intellectual leadership through which dominated orsubordinate classes consent to their own domination by ruling classes (Adamson, 1). In the caseof anti-communist America, the upper echelons of society (i.e. the rich) were able to convincetheir subordinates (i.e. the working and middle class), whom they exploited to increase their ownwealth, that the USs current economic system was really the best for them, and thatcommunism, which, if instated in the US, would remove the wealthy from their position of


7/8

socioeconomic dominance, was bad. This may have been closer to what Truman meant when hesaid communism threatens the security of the United States. Much like colonial France, the USintervened in Indochina only because it would help the powerful and wealthy remain powerfuland wealthy.

The USs anti-communist and Frances imperialist philosophies, both of which wererooted in ultimately corrupt principles, led to their destructive interference in the affairs of othernations, which caused the Cambodia genocide. This genocide exemplifies the potentialconsequences of larger, more powerful nations intervening in the affairs of less powerful nations.These consequences are particularly nasty when the intervention is militaristic. Militaristicintervention, in addition to being economically destructive, leads only to more violence andmilitaristic action. War begets war, as Barbara Ehrenreich puts it in here paper The Roots ofWar; violence creates violent environments and violent people, who in turn create moreviolence. Hence, intervening militaristically in a region leads to continued violence in that regionuntil something is done end the vicious cycle. This is the primary cause of the brutality of theCambodian genocide; the violence that engulfed Indochina during the First Indochina and

Vietnam wars spawned a belligerent organization which killed people counterproductively forarbitrary reasons. In order to avoid such atrocities in the future, the worlds superpowers mustlearn to avoid such militaristic intervention.

Works Cited:

Adamson, Walter L. Hegemony and Revolution : A Study of Antonio Gramsci's Political andCultural Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1980.

Carvin, Andy. "Cambodia Colonized."From Sideshow to Genocide: Stories of the CambodianHolocaust. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. .

Carvin, Andy."The Cold War and Cambodia."From Sideshow to Genocide: Stories of theCambodian Holocaust. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2010..

Carvin, Andy."The Truman Doctrine."From Sideshow to Genocide: Stories of the CambodianHolocaust. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2010..

"Defense Reveals details of Secret Cambodia Bombing Raids."Wilmington Morning Star7 July1973: 36. Web. 2 Dec. 2010..


8/8

Dell, Diana J. "French Indochina." VietnamWar.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2010..

Ehrenreich, Barbara. "The Roots of War." The ProgressiveApr. 2003. Print.

Mines, Linda. "Italy and the Rise of Mussolini."Mrs. Mine's History Homepage.N.p., - 2000.Web. 15 Jan. 2011. .

Owen, Taylor, and Ben Kiernan. "Bombs Over Cambodia." The WalrusOct. 2006. Web. 4 Dec.2010. .

Russell R. Ross, ed. Cambodia: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress,1987.

Shawcross, William. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia. N.p.: Simon

and Schuster, 1997. 75-150. Web. 30 Nov. 2010..

"US/Cambodia Relations."Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. Nixon Library, 15 Mar.1969. Web. 2 Dec. 2010..

U.S. State Department, Official Website. U.S. Department of State, 20 Jan. 2001. Web. 21 Nov.2010. .

Documents

Foreign Intervention and the Cambodian Genocide