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p Tragic though it might be, the leaders of Kampuchea, whose people had for five years been fighting against the imperialist aggressors and their local henchmen in a war that carried away about 600 thousand lives, launched military operations immediately after the war was over. Against whom? Against the fraternal Vietnamese people, who had shortly before won out in the most arduous of national liberation wars forced on them by the US imperialists. On April 17, 1975, the Cambodian forces of liberation captured Pnom Penh and took control of the entire country. Soon afterwards, in May, Kampuchean troops staged their first incursion into the Vietnamese territory: the islands of Phu Quoc and An Thoi, and part of the mainland between Ha Tien and Tay Ninh. Later Kampuchean troops made regular inroads into 14 Vietnamese territory along the entire 800-mile irontier that separates the two countries. At times they penetrated to a depth of seven miles. Moreover, as the massive evidence produced by the Vietnamese government shows, the Kampuchean aggressors perpetrated acts of brutality against the local population, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake.

p “We were ordered to kill children, too,” said Oa Trang, a squad commander who was taken prisoner by the Vietnamese. ”We were told that they would also become enemies of Kampuchea when they grew up.”

p Over a year ago Pnom Penh cut off all contacts between the liaison commissions for the settlement of the border conflicts between the two countries. It has turned down all of Hanoi’s proposals for undelayed negotiations to resolve the border dispute. At the same time Kampuchea escalated hostile actions against Vietnam.

p For a long time the Vietnamese army and the people in the border areas showed restraint and tolerance. “But Kampuchea, erroneously taking our patience and restraint for signs of weakness, continued and even intensified her hostile actions," said Prime Minister Pham Van Dong in an interview to the Vietnamese News Agency.. “Faced with such a grave situation, our armed forces in the border areas were compelled to take measures of self-defence. We were firmly resolved to defend the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the country and the lives, property and peaceable labour of the people.”

p Alongside armed provocations against Vietnam, the Kampuchean regime mounted a sweeping campaign against Vietnam and its people. For several generations, about half a million Vietnamese have lived in Cambodia. They fought side by side with the Khmers in the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movement. But right after the victory in April, 1975, they became the object of persecution and brutality by the newly instaled Kampuchean authorities. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were driven from their homes and their land, deprived of their property and their tools of labour. Tens of thousands of them were expelled from Kampuchea and many thousands were murdered in cold blood.

p In a document circulated by its press and information 15 department on January 5, 1978, the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry cited facts testifying to Pnom Penh’s territorial claims and annexationist designs. One of them was a leaflet found in the area of the Vin Fe Canal, 1, 200 meters inside the Vietnamese province of Anziang (with the provincial capital of Tiaudok). The text of this leaflet read: “Remember, you are on Kampuchean territory. Kampuchean territory does not end at this canal but extends as far as Saigon. . . .”

p At the same time, Kampuchean propaganda media accused Vietnam of aggression and annexationist designs and of the intent to subjugate Kampuchea by, among other things, setting up an Indochinese federation under the aegis of Hanoi.

p The Vietnamese government patiently explained its stand, exposing Pnom Penh’s slanderous allegations about an IndoChinese federation, a federation of the three states of Indochina. In a document entitled “The Truth about an Tndochinese federation’ ”, published in April this year, the Foreign Ministry of Vietnam made it clear that the old idea of an “Indochinese federation" had long since ceased to accord with the realities and had been discarded back in the mid-1950’s.

p Nevertheless, Pnom Penh repeated its slanderous charges against Vietnam, rejecting (or ignoring) Hanoi’s repeated proposals for settling the border disputes by negotiation.

p The foreign policy of a country is always interlinked with its domestic policy, by which it is largely shaped, and also helps the government in implementing the latter.

What is the domestic policy of the Kampuchean leaders who rose to power on April 17, 1975?