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Cambodia: Irresistible Force vs. Immovable Object
| Article
# : |
10569 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1986 |
1,667 Words |
| Author
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Douglas Pike
Douglas Pike is director of the Indochina Studies Program at
the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently co-
editing the Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, to be published
by Macmillan/Brassey's. |
The year 1985 began inauspiciously for the Cambodians in early January when full-scale warfare suddenly erupted with one of the most vicious military assaults by Hanoi during its six year effort to subdue Cambodia. Vietnamese troops, planes, and tanks struck at guerrilla bases and refuge enclaves along the entire Cambodian-Thai border.
So determined was the on-slaught that some observers in Bangkok were led to the initial assessment that 1985 would go down in the history books as the year Vietnam achieved final victory over Cambodia.
But the guerrillas managed to hold. The attack expended itself, the rain came, and Cambodia settled in for another year of Vietnamese military occupation and resistance against it.
After the initial bad start for the anti-Vietnamese forces, the remainder of 1985 was marked by steady improvement. By the end of the year the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK) was sending guerrillas into virtually every province of the country and was effective enough in the capital region of Phnom Penh to force imposition of a dawn to dusk curfew.
The year was marked by extensive but largely fruitless efforts to end the war and secure the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops. Most of these were generated by the CGDK itself or by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (AEAN), led by Indonesia.
Sihanouk 'Retirement'
In the
... (1996 of 9945 Characters)
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