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p Roh Samay,

p General Secretary of the Central Committee
of the Kampuchea United Front for National
Salvation

p Pravda, March 12, 1979

p The historic victory won by our nation on January 7, 1979 under the leadership of the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS), has led to the toppling of the anti-popular Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime. All power in the country has gone to the People’s Revolutionary Council—the lawful government of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, born in the flames of the war for emancipation. In its programme, the Front has set the task of building a peaceful, independent, democratic, neutral and non-aligned Kampuchea advancing along socialist lines.

p The country has already started implementing the Front’s programme. People’s self-administration committees—local elected bodies of power—are being set up in all provinces. Regiments of the people’s militia and the first subdivisions of a regular army are being formed. Mass trade union, peasant, women’s, youth and other public organisations have begun functioning. The Communist Party of Kampuchea is being reborn on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism.

p All this work is being done in a complex atmosphere greatly influenced by the grim consequences of the Pol PotIeng Sary clique’s criminal experiments in establishing “ barrack-room socialism" and carrying out a policy of genocide. Only two physicians have remained alive in Kampuchea. We are also hard pressed for engineers, scientists, teachers and skilled workers. All industrial enterprises and almost all farm machinery were put out of commission. The pro-Peking “builders of a new world" destroyed libraries, cinemas, schools 180 and higher educational establishments. Things vital for any state were eliminated: public transport, communications, television, and also banks, markets and trade in general.

p One of our major successes was getting the capital’s Pochentong Airport back into working order, as well as the main seaport of Kampong Saom and the western section of the railway from Sisop Song to Battam-bang in our rice growing belt. Much work is being done to get industrial enterprises functioning again and to revitalise agriculture. In many rural areas mutual assistance groups are being organised to work on a voluntary basis.

p A special commission has begun investigating the crimes of the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique, traitors to the country, the people and the revolution, apostates of the principles of Marxism-Leninism. On the basis of now commonly-known facts and of that grim period in our national history lessons can be drawn that are important not only for us—a people whom the Peking expansionists had doomed to extinction, but also for other peoples and countries threatened by the sword of the great-Han hegemonists who control a country with a population of almost a thousand million.

p In April 1975, after the defeat of the American aggressors in Indochina, the way was opened for Kampuchea to develop in peace, democracy and prosperity. The country had made tremendous sacrifices to attain this, but it turned out that the favourable opportunities were not realised. Because of the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique and their Chinese sponsors, Kampuchea was turned into a bloody sea of human suffering. In only a few years, the band of traitors and their Chinese bosses murdered over three million innocent citizens.

p Today we know, that the purpose of establishing a Maoisttype political structure in Kampuchea, for the first time outside of China, was to mercilessly exterminate our people and obtain Lebensraum for eventual settlement by Huaqiao, and to make Kampuchea a spring-board for military expansionism in South-East Asia—a rich region with a total population of almost 400 million. The Peking strategists’ expansionist plans embrace Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and 181 other South-East Asian countries, as well as New Zealand and Australia.

p Like other people, we were amazed when, in 1954, Chinese school textbooks included many independent states bordering on the PRG as part of its “historical territory" and described them as “temporarily lost" as a result of “seizure by imperialists and colonialists”. The events of subsequent years, particularly on the Sino-Indian, Sino-Soviet, Sino-Vietnamese and Sino-Laotian borders have shown that this “cartographic expansion" was only a prelude to unprovoked armed attacks and aggression by Maoist China against neighbouring countries for the purpose of exanding its Lebenstraum at their expense. Mao Zedong’s August 1965 speech at a closed session of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China is common knowledge. It contained a very frank statement: “We must definitely take possession of South-East Asia.” The first testing ground for implementing this misanthropic plan was our country, which had attracted China with its strategic location in the south-east of the continent and its southern seaports. No one denies, of course, that an enormous country like China has its demographic problems, but the present Peking rulers seek to solve them not by peaceful creative labour, but through foreign expansion, and seizure of the territories of other states.

p What methods were used to implement this policy in Kampuchea? Its direct executor was a “fifth column" of Maoist agents among our people, which Peking had nurtured and later planted in the ranks of the Kampuchean liberation and revolutionary movements over the course of many years. The activities of these traitors were supervised by tens of thousands of Chinese advisers. The first thing that was done by the Maoist clique to cover up the monstrous genocide was to cut off Kampuchea completely from the outside world. All lines of communication with the international community were broken. The main blow was levelled at the cities, intellectuals, and at the culture and fine traditions of our people.

p Over three million residents of Pnom Penh and other cities were forcibly resettled in villages and put in so-called 182 work crews—types of concentration camp. Many people perished en route or later from starvation and disease, or they were simply put to death. These monstrous crimes were demagogically covered up by the slogans “socialist revolution" and the “complete abolition of classes and social vestiges”. The- Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique made experiment primarily with city workers, including the proletariat, in whose behalf it was ostensibly acting.

p The clique’s actual plans for genocide can be judged by the trumpeting of Pol Pot himself. Only a year ago he contended that the “new order" would need only one million Kampucheans. It was openly planned to sacrifice the lives of two million Kampucheans in the fratricidal war unleashed by the Pol Pot people on Peking’s instructions against Vietnam. It is frightening to imagine, but if the regime of Peking’s stooges had lasted another five or six years, it would have meant the extermination of almost all our people.

p The Chinese expansionists have already set about laying the groundwork for realising their extensive hegemonistic plans in South-East Asia on the whole. At the instigation of the PRG’s secret services, “small wars" have been kept alive for many years in Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and other countries in order to destabilise them. Thousands upon thousands of people are perishing there at the hands of their own countrymen—agents who receive their instructions and equipment from Peking. In their own environment, the Chinese hegemonists are training new “Pol Pots" and “Ieng Sarys”, in order, in the future, to carry out their designs for conquest through these stooges. The strategists of Maoist China view the 20 million Huaqiao (ethnic Chinese) living in South-East Asia as another “fifth column" in these countries.

p In three and a half years Kampuchea was turned into a spring-board for armed provocations. Millions of Kampucheans were made to build strategic roads and frontier bridge-heads for aggression. To launch provocations against its neighbours, Peking supplied Kampuchea with large quantities of armaments, something it never did during the entire war for emancipation.

p From the very outset, the bloody dictatorship evoked 183 resistance on the part of the popular masses, the centres of which were continually expanding. On December 2, 1978, the wave of these actions, which developed into actual popular uprisings, gave birth to the KUFNS under whose leadership the decisive blow was dealt to the bloody dictatorial regime.

p Kampuchea was not only the first experiment in implanting the Maoist model of a political system and of genocide; it is also the first country in which an anti-Maoist popular revolution has triumphed.

p Although only a short time has passed since the declaration of the PRK, the republic has been making a weighty contribution to strengthening peace and security in the region. The Kampuchean borders have already become peaceful. Co-operation is successfully being established with the neighbouring fraternal socialist states of Vietnam and Laos. We have expressed our readiness to maintain good-neighbourly relations and cooperation with the South-East Asian states and every country in the world. Of immense importance for the consolidation of traditional fraternal ties of solidarity and mutual assistance, as well as for ensuring peace in the region, is the KampucheanVietnamese Agreement on Peace, Friendship and Co-operation recently signed in Pnom Penh.

p The Peking expansionists recently perpetrated an overt act of aggression against the independent, sovereign Socialist Republic of Vietnam. One of the goals of this criminal act was to support the remains of the bands of the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary puppet regime, which Peking is even trying to supply with weapons. Peking’s criminal aggression and these provocations have failed. Meeting heroic resistance on the part of the Vietnamese people and the strong solidarity of the peoples of Indochina, who are being decisively supported by the countries of the socialist community and all peace-loving, democratic and progressive forces, the Peking invaders were forced to beat a retreat. They have announced the withdrawal of their troops from Vietnamese territory, though by all indications they are in no hurry to do so.

p We shall never forget the tragedy that befell Kampuchea. Shortsighted are those who are today sitting on the sidelines, fearing to condemn the aggressor who, trampling on all 184 international norms, is committing crimes on Vietnamese soil, mounting provocations against Laos, and attempting to resurrect the regime of pro-Peking murderers in our country. This could have most unfortunate consequences for them, too, especially the countries of South-East and South Asia, which are already becoming objects of China’s great-power expansionism.

p In building a peaceful life and a socialist society, the Kampuchean people are relying on the firm solidarity of the peoples of Indochina, the support of the fraternal socialist countries, and on progressive and democratic forces the world over.

Recently a KUFNS delegation made its first visit to the USSR, where it expressed its sincere gratitude to the CPSU, the Soviet Government and the entire fraternal Soviet people for their all-round support of the Kampuchean people at all stages of our hard fight for freedom and independence, and for a bright future for our country. During our stay in the USSR, the true friend of revolutionary forces throughout the world, we again saw for ourselves the internationalist stand of the CPSU, the Soviet Government and the entire Soviet people. The ideas of the October Revolution had a powerful influence on the revolutionary process in our country and MarxistLeninist teaching is inspiring us today as well. We will base ourselves on the experience of the USSR and the other socialist countries in implementing our broad programme for building a new life. The Kampuchean people express their tremendous joy that solidarity and friendship have been re-established between the USSR and Kampuchea for all time and that now no one can destroy our fraternity and unity.

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