From the decline of the Angkorian Empire, Cambodia was caught between the competing interests of the Thai, the Vietnamese, and the French. While much of this had very little to do with ordinary people living in places like Angkor Chum, it is interesting point to point out that this part of Cambodia changed hands between over a period of more than one hundred years. In 1794, the Cambodian King Eng received permission from the Thai monarchy to establish a capitol at Udong. In return, the king granted the Thais control over the northwest sruk, an area comprising of the modern regions of Siem Reap and Battambang. This effectively made the area, which included the present day area of Angkor Chum, a buffer zone for Thailand for the next hundred years. Despite being under foreign control, there is little evidence today from that time that suggests lasting change took place from the province’s overseers. The Thai made little effort to bring this region into the fold, choosing instead to govern it with ethnic Khmers instead of Thai administrators. It is doubtful that anyone living in a remote part of the province, such as Angkor Chum, would have ever known that they were under Thai jurisdiction.
Revenue from the two provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap amounted to low amounts cardamom and other forest products, which made for a mediocre profit. For these reasons, among others, the Thai ceded this sruk to France in April 1907. By this time, France had succeeded in bringing Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos under its sphere of influence in a region named French Indochina. While Cambodians were no longer masters in their own land, and suffered from heavy taxation, the French occupation did have some fringe benefits. French scholars and Cambodian workers began to restore the temples at Angkor, something that they had not been able to do during the era of Thai control. Siem Reap province was temporarily given to the Thais once again during 1945 at the end of World War II, but was given back in 1947.
Independence and Civil War
When Cambodia gained its independence from France in 1953, King Norodom Sihanouk became its de-facto leader after successfully negotiating with the French. While his government was corrupt and his attitudes towards the population mirrored the French (he addressed them as his children), his time in power was the last one before the country was plunged into civil war. Opposition to his regime was brutally oppressed, forcing members of the Cambodian Communist Party to go into hiding. People such as Solath Sar, who was later known by the infamous pseudonym Pol Pot, retreated into the countryside and began forming a communist movement aimed at overthrowing his government.
While all these developments were greatly significant for the government in Phnom Penh, it probably meant very little to ordinary Cambodians during this time. The removal of the French did little to change the fact that taxes were collected by an “unresponsive government” in Phnom Penh, who so called “royal work” made it isolated from its own people. Because the people in the countryside had never been asked to play a part in the government they saw few rewards in resisting those in power. This was probably true for people living Angkor Chum, as well as other parts of Cambodia. Even though this probably meant very little to Cambodians at the time, a conflict was escalating across the border in Vietnam that would eventually bring a dramatic change to Cambodia’s countryside.
While Cambodia had negotiated peacefully for their independence from France, the Vietnamese were fighting a war to win theirs. When that war ended in 1954, following the defeat of the French army at the battle of Dien Bien Phu, the country divided into two parts: North Vietnam, ruled by the communists, and South Vietnam, which was a democracy in theory but not in practice. This division marked the beginning of a conflict that would eventually spill over into Cambodia. The North Vietnamese launched an effort to unify their country under communist rule, and the Americans, who supported the South Vietnamese government, were determined not to let that happen. Thousands of American soldiers were soon in South Vietnam fighting the communists, and the war dragged on for ten years.
The war in Vietnam destabilized Cambodia and drove Sihanouk from his position in power, despite the former king’s best efforts. While the former king sought to protect Cambodia’s national interests by keeping the country out of the war, he was never the less forced to choose sides to prevent Cambodia from being dragged into conflict completely. During the early 1960’s, he broke off relations with the United States and forged a secret alliance with the North Vietnamese. The terms of the alliance stated that the North Vietnamese were allowed to station troops in Cambodian territory, and that arms and supplies would be funneled to them from North Vietnam and China via the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville. The idea behind this was that in supporting the North Vietnamese in the war against the Americans, their soldiers would leave Cambodian civilians alone and the country would emerge from the conflict unscathed. By the late 1960’s, Vietnamese forces were operating in the eastern provinces of Cambodia, and would also continue to play a role in Cambodia’s history for the next twenty years.
The year 1970 saw the end of Sihanouk’s reign of power as well as several important events that would eventually bring foreign troops to the villages in Angkor Chum. The first thing to happen was the coup. In March of that year, a general named Lon Nol removed Sihanouk from office while the prince was on a trip out of the country. Lon Nol supported the American war in Vietnam against the communists, and resented the fact that Sihanouk had given his support to help them. He also wanted the US military support and aid that Sihanouk had cut off seven years earlier. Supplies to the Vietnamese forces in Cambodia were cut off, and Lon Nol ordered all Vietnamese forces to leave Cambodia within forty-eight hours. In response, the North Vietnamese agreed to a full-fledged military alliance with the Khmer Rouge in April of 1970. Soon after the coup, several hundred well-trained Khmer set off from Hanoi to help in their country’s struggle. This was a huge benefit to the movement that Pol Pot had created because it allowed him to have an effective military force that he did not have before now.
Until this point, the war in Vietnam had spilled over only to the sections of Cambodia where Vietnamese had establish their famous supply line to South Vietnam known as Ho Chi Minh Trail. Now that the Vietnamese were determined to bring the fight against the Americans in Cambodia, their troops would be seen in many different parts of Cambodia.
Vietnamese Soldiers Come To Angkor Chum
Several people who lived in present day Angkor Chum remember seeing Vietnamese soldiers acting in collusion with Khmer Rouge soldiers around the early 1970’s. Both Oem Hom and Oem Seh recall seeing both of these soldiers around this time, with the latter noting the Khmer Rouge’s former political training in Hanoi as well as Sihanouk’s support for the civil war against Lon Nol. Mr. Seh also describes that the soldiers wore helmets, and not the cone shaped hats that survivors of the Khmer Rouge saw them wearing less than ten years later. Both of these eye witness accounts confirm much of what was happening in other parts of the country. By the end of1971, the Lon Nol government had abandoned all lightly populated areas of the country the communist forces. Vietnamese forces carried out most of the fighting that occurred in this time, with Cambodian soldiers only taking a supporting role. While it is difficult to determine the exact date that the northern part of Pourk district fell to the communists, the French scholar François Bizot recorded the presence of the Vietnamese in the area on June 6th, 1970. Le Portail (The Gate), an account of his struggle for survival in Cambodia, contains an episode where he describes a run in with some Vietnamese soldiers around the site of Angkor Wat. If what he describes is true, it can be inferred that Angkor Chum was under communist control around this time as well. When the Vietnamese troops left the area is not known, but it must have happened sometime before 1973 when North and South Vietnam signed a cease fire agreement. The former were concentrating their forces in preparation for an all out assault on Saigon, and needed all the Vietnamese soldiers currently disposed helping the Khmer Rouge. The North Vietnamese asked Pol Pot to sign a similar cease fire with Lon Nol, but he refused. The leader of the Khmer Rouge saw this is as a betrayal by the Vietnamese after he had helped them in their war against the Americans. This was one of many reasons for the rift growing between the leadership of these two countries, which would eventually lead to war.
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