From: Nhan Tran <tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com>
Subject: NEWS/VN: Antipathy toward massacre of Vietnamese
Originator: daemon@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Reply-To: tran@peora.sdc.ccur.com
Organization: N/A
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 16:17:41 GMT


07/26

Cambodia-Vietnamese

Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

By PETER ENG
 Associated Press Writer
   KAMPOT, Cambodia (AP) -- After centuries of Vietnamese domination and
aggression, the slaughter of two poor ethnic Vietnamese families is eliciting
little sympathy from Cambodians.
   On Tuesday night, a ragged band, wielding assault rifles and grenades, burst
into Tuk Meas village in Kampot province on the Vietnamese border, according to
U.N. peacekeepers. Shouting "Death to the Vietnamese enemy," they bashed in the
head of a 7-day-old baby, split open the head of 7-year-old girl, disembowelled
a man, and executed five other people.
   The hourlong massacre apparently provoked no response from a military unit of
the Vietnamese-installed government, stationed half a mile away, U.N. officers
said.
   Nor did the carnage succeed in erasing, even briefly, the deep-seated
antipathy toward Vietnamese in the provincial capital, Kampot. Residents
interviewed there had but one sentiment toward the Vietnamese: They want them
out.
   "If I were the king, I would do everything possible to expel them," said Mao
Savann, 26, a medical student.
   "They work well, but their thoughts are no good," he said. "They steal
everything, motorcycles, clothes. By day they work, by night they steal."
   Nguyen Ngoc Ha, 32, a Vietnamese construction worker, complained of a lack of
security. "One day, they're going to kill me, too," he predicted.
   A United Nations official who demanded anonymity said the attackers in Tuk
Meas apparently were rogue government soldiers. The villagers blame Khmer Rouge
guerrillas, because of their brutal record and strident anti-Vietnamese
propaganda.
   The Phnom Penh government has denied responsibility and blamed the attack on
the Khmer Rouge.
   The seeds of animosity between the two peoples were sown in the 16th century,
when Vietnam tried to seize land from Cambodia and force Vietnamese customs on
the people. In this century, Communist North Vietnamese troops used Cambodian
territory in their war against U.S.-backed South Vietnam.
   Vietnam invaded in late 1978 to overthrow the brutal Khmer Rouge government,
which had tried to purge the country of ethnic Vietnamese.
   Last year, warring Vietnamese and Cambodian factions signed a peace accord to
end their 13-year civil war. But fighting continues, and the Khmer Rouge says it
will not comply with the accord until Vietnam's influence over the country is
lifted.
   In Tuk Meas on Saturday, villagers showed pictures of the mangled corpses.
   U.N. officers said the attack had been planned. An Associated Press
photographer who visited the village Saturday was told the victims were singing
or listening to Vietnamese songs when the assailants swooped down on them.
   A 3-year-old who narrowly survived, Do Van Thuan, was shot in each leg and
wounded in the cheek. In a Kampot hospital Saturday, the child lay listless, his
toes, fingers and neck still stained with caked blood.
   Witnesses said his 12-year-old sister was holding him when the firing began.
When she was shot and fell to the ground, the boy hid in a drainage ditch.
   The parents, who work in Kampot town, returned to Tuk Meas to bury their four
children. "There is a lot of blood in the house," said a brother who was taking
care of Do Van Thuan in the hospital. "I don't know if my father can stay
there."