‘New Democrat’ Watch #3: Will Clinton Reward Hanoi for Its Latest Cambodian Power-Play?

(Washington, D.C.): Communist Vietnam is poised to be reestablished as a member of the world community in good standing. This will be the practical result if the International Monetary Fund in the next few weeks grants Hanoi roughly $140 million in bridge loans to clean up Vietnamese arrearages to the Fund.

Such an action would, in turn, clear the way ultimately for billions of dollars in assistance from both the IMF and the World Bank for infrastructure development and other purposes. It would also encourage massive new infusions of aid from Western government and private sector sources.

Such IMF loans could only be approved with the Clinton Administration’s acquiescence — if not its active, open or covert, support. The question is: Can President Clinton actually go along with the political and economic rehabilitation of Vietnam — in effect, normalizing relations with Hanoi — under present circumstances?

Hanoi Retakes the Ho Chi Minh Trail

After all, Hanoi’s Cambodian proxies have just repudiated the results of a U.N.-monitored election which — despite a systematic and violent effort to influence the outcome⁽²⁾ — denied them majority rule. The Politburo of the communist Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) — a rogues’ gallery of former Khmer Rouge military commanders and commissars with longstanding ties to Vietnam⁽³⁾ — has declared the secession of the seven easternmost Cambodian provinces. These include Kampong Cham (the most populous region of Cambodia) and other areas long coveted or controlled by Vietnam. Notably, the Vietcong operated the notorious Ho Chi Minh Trail through these provinces during their war with the United States.

Hanoi’s objective goes well beyond the obvious one of securing strategic real estate, including prime agricultural areas and rich rubber farms that have been colonized by Vietnamese settlers in recent years: The communists are determined to wipe out the viral infection of free elections before they can take hold in Vietnam proper.

It is no coincidence that on May 24th — as reports of a massive voter turnout in Cambodia suggested that the communists were going to be defeated — a huge demonstration was held in front of the Hue police-station in which a Buddhist monk self-immolated. This event, which reportedly was witnessed by some 10,000 pro-democracy Vietnamese and widely reported in the state-controlled media, sent shock waves through a regime which remembers vividly that such events presaged the demise of South Vietnam’s corrupt Diem government in 1963.

At the very least, Vietnam’s puppets in Phnom Penh are positioning themselves for a Sandinista-style arrangement for preserving effective control of Cambodia’s government, notably by retaining the defense and internal security portfolios in any transition or coalition government. If Hanoi cannot get away with its desperate bid to carve up Cambodia, it clearly intends to emulate the Ortega brothers’ success in ruling Nicaragua "from the bottom."

Prognosis for Cambodia

Much is riding on the faithful and orderly translation of the results of the U.N.-monitored elections into political reality. The winner was Funcipec, the royalist party led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, which offers the Cambodian people a democratic alternative to the Chinese (Pol Pot) and Vietnamese (Hun Sen) wings of the Khmer Rouge (KR).

Unfortunately, all other things being equal, it seems likely that Pol Pot’s forces may be the principal beneficiary of Vietnam’s post-election machinations. Evidently under instructions from Beijing, the armed forces of the pro-Chinese Khmer Rouge have been standing down since just prior to the polling. They may, however, respond favorably to a call like that issued yesterday by Prince Ranariddh for an armed effort to prevent the secession of the so-called "autonomous region" in eastern Cambodia. Just as Stalin was able to muster the support of the Soviet people to fight an invader, despite his genocidal predations, so the KR may garner new legitimacy if they are perceived to be the only hope for defeating the Vietnamese and their proxies.

Certainly, the United Nations is not currently capable of performing this function. It failed in important respects even to fulfill its mandate to create conditions conducive to free and fair elections. For example, the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) did not relieve the CPP of control over the nation’s airports, key ministries or state-owned media. What is more, the U.N. maintains that it has no mandate to enforce the election results in the face of the regime’s opposition and in any event, its funding is due to be exhausted in August, at which time most UNTAC personnel will leave Cambodia.

What is Needed Now

The Center for Security Policy believes that the following steps are now urgently needed to promote democracy and freedom in Cambodia — and to thwart the Vietnamese and others who would prevent such an outcome:

• The United States and U.N. must not accept any partitioning of Cambodia — to say nothing of any efforts by Vietnam to annex Cambodian territory.

 

• The international community must reject any effort by the CPP to retain control of Cambodia’s defense and internal security agencies.

 

• The U.N. Security Council should deny Vietnam any aid, credit or normalized commercial transactions for a minimum 6 month trial period to ensure the establishment of a democratic parliamentary process in Cambodia free of assassination and sabotage aimed at non-communist party members.

 

• The U.N. mandate and funding due to expire in August must be extended to provide for a strengthened and well-armed force to oversee and facilitate a smooth transition to parliamentary democracy in Cambodia.

 

• Should the secessionist movement persist, Prince Ranariddh’s non-communist forces should be armed and trained by the U.N. with a view to liberating the provinces under Vietnam’s effective control.

 

• An effective rural development program should be initiated on an emergency basis to lessen the prospects of radicalized Khmer Rouge forces gaining renewed sway over the countryside.

 

• UNTAC radio broadcasts must be maintained at all costs as a means of communicating the truth to the Cambodian people, despite the CPP’s threats to destroy the U.N.’s broadcasting facilities (as it has done with other UNTAC assets). This is, after all, the least expensive and perhaps most effective way to parry communist propaganda (e.g., the lie that Prince Sihanouk supports the secession movement). Toward this end, UNTAC should fulfill its mandate to take control of state-owned media so as to provide honest political reporting to all the people of Cambodia.

 

The threat to UNTAC’s radio broadcasts adds special urgency to the creation of an American Radio Free Asia capable of broadcasting to Cambodia in the Cambodian language. If the U.N. is unable to broadcast from within Cambodia, emergency measures should be taken to provide such a service quickly from outside the nation’s borders.

 

The Bottom Line

The dramatic and highly risky nature of Vietnam’s latest move against Cambodia is evidence that yet another communist empire has entered its death throes. Economic dislocation at home — caused by a failed socialist system and continuing, undue militarization — and the political unrest it breeds are compelling Hanoi to take draconian measures at the very moment that it is looking to the West to save its bacon.

In fact, Vietnam is now following the well-worn path trod by other despotic regimes — from Gorbachev’s Soviet Union to Castro’s Cuba to Kim Il Sung’s North Korea to Dos Santos’ Angola. In each case, Western intervention in the form of economic assistance, financial aid or political support simply serves to perpetuate these odious regimes and postpone the day when genuine freedom and respect for human rights take root in their nations.

A true test of President Clinton’s commitment to democracy, a leitmotif of his "new Democrat" candidacy, will be found in whether he stands by those seeking freedom in Cambodia or rewards those in Vietnam who would strangle it in the crib.

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1. "New Democrat" Watch is a series of Decision Briefs designed to illuminate important security policy decisions pending before the Clinton Administration. These decisions will do much to determine the compatibility of Clinton policies with the U.S. national interest. They will also provide objective measures of the President’s follow-through on his commitment to abandon the left wing, "Old Democrat" behavior that has afflicted and undermined his presidency thus far.

2. In an article on 9 June entitled "Cambodian Rulers Cited in Anti-Voting Violence," the Washington Post reported on U.N. findings concerning the regime’s organized effort to steal the Cambodian election. Other sources have reported that this campaign was controlled and "advised" by staff from Vietnam’s embassy in Phnom Penh.

3. These include: Hun Neng (the brother of the former Khmer Rouge thug who heads the Phnom Penh regime and one of those implicated by the U.N. in the regime’s efforts to disrupt the elections); Sin Song (a Khmer Rouge veteran who heads the CPP’s security forces and was a member of communist Vietnam’s organization in Cambodia, the Khmer Viet Minh); Bou Thang (a Vice Prime Minister under Hun Sen and chief of the Armed Forces political department); Chea Sim (a former Khmer Viet Minh who is chief of the CPP, leader of the communist national assembly and a former member of Pol Pot’s national assembly); and Pol Saroeun, a former commander of the CPP’s armed forces and hard core Khmer Rouge military leader.

It is these individuals — rather than the hapless figurehead, Prince Chakrapong (a product of the incestuous union of Prince Sihanouk and Sihanouk’s aunt) — who call the shots in this Vietnamese-backed campaign. They are all well connected to Le Duc Anh, the president of Vietnam who previously was responsible for running Hanoi’s Cambodian military theater of operations.