Cambodian/Vietnamese Border

Category: Genocide`

KO, LM, CBJ

After KR incursions into the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, the Vietnamese decided to fight back. On December 25, 1978, 100,000 Vietnamese troops and 200,000 Camodian insurgents attacked Cambodia. They seized the capital at Phnom Penh on January 7, 1979. The Khmer Rouge leaders fled Cambodia. Afterward, because of lack of diplomatic relations between the US and Vietnam (and efforts to appease China, a US-ally), the Carter administration sided with the Cambodians. Of the two Cambodia regimes (the KR and the Heng Samrin/Hun Sen regime put in place after the Vietnamese invasion), the US and the UN sided with the KR since the Vietnamese invasion was considered a breech of international law. The UN seat for Cambodia was given to the KR regime. Even though the KR's brutality fit the UN's definition of "genocide," the international community failed to intervene or condemn the KR's actions until it was far too late. This is an embarassing abomination.