From: drk@m.cs.uiuc.edu (David Kohr)
Subject: Re: How could the United States have won?
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana,  IL
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 18:00:12 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.003941.12887@m.cs.uiuc.edu> drk@m.cs.uiuc.edu (David
Kohr) writes:
>In article <5951@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at>, mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at
>(Markus Stumptner) writes:
>>I also think that their move into Cambodia was mainly motivated by power
>>politics
>>-- 
>>Markus Stumptner                               mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at
>
>Hadn't the Khmer Rouge also been attacking Vietnamese villages across the
>border for an extended period of time?
>-- 
>Dave Kohr     CS Graduate Student     Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign


Actually this was a rhetorical question.  Here is an old posting to the
SEASIA-L mailing list by Prof. Carlyle Thayer, an Australian specialist on
Vietnam, on this subject:


From @MIZZOU1.missouri.edu:SEASIA-L@MSU.BITNET Tue Jun 16 17:52:19 1992
Date:         Wed, 17 Jun 1992 08:03:04 +1000
From: cat%COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu
Subject:      Re:  VN:Khmer Rouge
To: Multiple recipients of list SEASIA-L <SEASIA-L@MSU.BITNET>

David,

Accounts of Khmer Rouge attacks on Vietnam prior to Vietnam's invasion in
December 1978 may be found in Nayan Chanda's _Brother Enemy_; he first
'broke' this story in articles which appeared in the Far Eastern Economic
Review.

The first KR attacks occurred at the time of 'liberation' in May 1975. They
involved KR atacks on islands in the Gulf of Thailand. This led to a
Vietnamese retaliatory response. Top Vietnamese leaders visited Phnom Penh
in 1976 to discuss the matter. Border liaison committees were set up and
relative peace prevailed on the sea/land border throughout 1976. At this
time Pol Pot (Saloth Sar) was in eclipse. In about April 1977, when Pol Pot
emerged triumphant from a domestic power struggle,'Demopcratic Kampuchea'
initiated a series of cross border attacks of increasing ferocity. They
also attacked Thai villages at this time. After sending Vo Nguyen Giap on
an inspection tour of border provinces Vietnam responded in Sept-Oct 1977
with a major offensive into Cambodia and thenwithdrew. Fighting spiralied.
Thre was a revolt against Pol Pot in eastern Cambodia in May 1978 (Hun
Sen's area) which was brutally surpressed by DK/KR forces. Vietnam
re-invaded in September 1978 and then withdrew. I have personally sat in on
a discussion by the then second-ranking intelligence official in Australia
and a high-level Vietnamese official in which the former told the latter he
had followed the escalation in border fighting with fascination and
wondered why the Vietnamese had waited so long before responding in a
decisive manner. In short, Vietnam had plenty of provocation by the Khmer
Rouge before invading in December 1978.

Actually, the story is more complicated. It also involves a
Chinese-Kampuchean arms agreement, the stationing of Chinese 'railway
workers' and other advisers in Cambodia and in 1978 the shipment of heavy
weapons to Cambodia. All observed by US satellites. See: Ramesh Thakur and
Carlyle Thayer, _Soviet Relations with India and Vietnam_ (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1992).

Carl

Carlyle A. Thayer
Associate Professor & Visiting Fellow
Dept. of Political and Social Change
Research School of Pacific Studies
The Australian National University
GPO Box 4
Canberra, ACT 2601 Australia

Phone: 0011 61 6 249 4453 office; 0011 61 6 251 1849 home
Fax 0011 61 6 257 1893 office; 0011 61 6 251 3749 home

----------
-- 
Dave Kohr     CS Graduate Student     Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Work: 3244 DCL, (217)333-6561  Home: (217)359-9350  E-mail: drk@cs.uiuc.edu
                   "One either has none or not enough."
Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam