29. Report Prepared in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research1
DEMOCRATIC KAMPUCHEA: CAN THE POL POT REGIME SURVIVE?
Summary
The survival of the Pol Pot regime in Democratic Kampuchea is seriously threatened. Since mid-June 1978, Vietnamese ground and air forces have been involved in major offensive operations in Kampuchea’s eastern provinces. Kampuchea’s armed forces have put up stiff resistance but show signs of wearing down under continued Vietnamese military pressure.
Hanoi appears determined to end its border conflict with Phnom Penh and achieve its goal of a “special relationship” with Kampuchea similar to the one that Vietnam has with Laos. It plans to topple the Pol Pot regime through a combination of armed attacks, occupation of Kampuchean towns and territory adjacent to the border, and support to Khmer guerrillas who are operating widely in eastern Kampuchea. Increased Chinese military assistance may give the hard-pressed Kam[Page 97]puchean Army some relief, but it is unlikely that such aid will enable Phnom Penh to turn the situation around.
Current Military Situation
Hanoi launched its current offensive into Kampuchea in mid-June, pushing Kampuchean forces back from adjacent border areas, securing vital road junctions, and occupying several towns, including Snuol, which is 16 kilometers from the border. Most of the fighting has been in Svay Rieng and Kompong Cham provinces, where Vietnamese units have managed to occupy territory on a wide front 15–20 kilometers deep into Kampuchea. Vietnam’s army has also made similar thrusts into Ratanakiri and Takeo provinces and has moved across the border into Kampot province from Ha Tien, a Vietnamese coastal city previously attacked by Kampuchean forces. (See Map A, over.)2
Kampuchean forces have put up stiff resistance but may be having difficulty mounting counterattacks. Casualties on both sides have been heavy. Kampuchea’s losses in men and supplies may be reaching the critical stage, requiring Phnom Penh to shift some of its units deployed along the Thai border to the eastern front.
The current Vietnamese offensive has lasted more than three months and shows no signs of abatement. While it is difficult to obtain precise and regular battlefield reports, it is becoming clear that Kampuchea’s forces are steadily losing ground. They have so far been unable to retake a single captured town or recover lost territory.
Hanoi’s Strategy
The Vietnamese military offensive serves as an umbrella for expanded insurgent activity in Kampuchea and is probably seen by Hanoi as the most effective way to bring down the Pol Pot regime. Hanoi’s frustration over Phnom Penh’s past intransigence and savage raids inside Vietnam, its resentment of China’s assistance to Kampuchea, and its deep concern over its inability to reconstruct Vietnam’s wartorn economy because of the conflict apparently led the leadership in early June 1978 to make resolution of the Kampuchean war its No. 1 priority. In so doing, Vietnam is taking pains to limit the distance that its forces drive into Kampuchea in order to minimize international criticism and the challenge to China.
Vietnamese strategy appears aimed at destroying Kampuchean main-force units while providing support to Khmer insurgent forces already operating in eastern Kampuchea or freshly introduced from Vietnamese training camps. By seizing several Kampuchean towns, [Page 98] largely devoid of population, Hanoi probably intended to goad the Kampucheans into counterattacking, thereby exposing concentrations of Kampuchean troops to heavy Vietnamese air strikes and artillery fire. Moreover, the monsoon season, inundating the low-lying countryside, has made it difficult for the Kampuchean forces to disperse or to engage in effective counterattacks through raids, ambushes, and encirclement of Vietnamese positions. The main battles so far apparently have been fought on surfaced roads or around towns where the Vietnamese have a decisive advantage.
The above tactics differ sharply from those of previous Vietnamese incursions into Kampuchea. Hanoi’s use of Khmer insurgents is another departure. At least four areas in Prey Veng province appear to be under the control of anti-Phnom Penh rebel forces, and additional anti-regime Khmers are operating in areas now occupied by Vietnamese forces.
Kampuchea’s Ability To Continue the Fighting
Strength of Kampuchea’s Armed Forces. At the outset of the fighting, the Kampuchean Army, recently equipped with Chinese long-range artillery, probably numbered in excess of 100,000 troops. At least 70,000, organized into 11 infantry divisions, were deployed along the Vietnamese border. The vastly superior Vietnamese Army, numbering more than 600,000, has committed more than 11 divisions (close to 100,000 troops) to the border conflict. They are supported by large quantities of armor, artillery, and modern fighter-bomber aircraft.
Kampuchean units are outnumbered in manpower, firepower, and materiel, and also lack medicines and medevac capability, which has further contributed to their high casualty rate. In addition to redeploying units from other parts of the country, Phnom Penh probably has resorted to large-scale conscription of teenagers, rushed into battle with little training. Recent visitors to the Vietnam-Kampuchean border have been struck by the youth of captured Kampuchean soldiers.
In past battles, Phnom Penh’s much smaller and less sophisticated army was the equal of Vietnamese troops in motivation, combativeness, and training. Well-indoctrinated, bitterly anti-Vietnamese, provided with ample arms and food rations, Kampuchean forces more than once mauled their Vietnamese rivals while penetrating deep inside Vietnamese territory. While the Kampucheans have lost none of their tenacity, Vietnam’s sheer numbers, superiority in weaponry, and now its use of its best main-force units have put Kampuchea on the defensive and may in the end be decisive.
Political Stability. So far, the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime has been able to hold on to power, successfully countering coup attempts and purging so-called dissidents and traitors in its ranks. There are no discernible factions at the Party Central Committee level. The country is run by a [Page 99] small clique of xenophobic nationalists, most of whom have shared revolutionary experiences for more than two decades. An internal security system monitors the activities of all party and military cadre and the population at large at each level of administration. The grim conditions imposed on the population are in stark contrast, according to defectors, to the lifestyle enjoyed by the Kampuchean communist elite, including the military, who live apart from the people in a sort of frugal opulence denied to others.
The Economic Situation. The conflict with Vietnam has not resulted in any significant drain of manpower from agricultural production or damage to the main rice-growing areas of Kampuchea (see Map B, opposite).3 While rice-rationing is severe, in some cases leading to malnutrition and starvation, this is deliberate government policy and not a result of insufficient harvests. Given favorable weather, Kampuchea’s fertile riceland, coupled with the government’s labor-intensive policies and a massive campaign to expand irrigated land by building dikes and digging canals, should enable the country to achieve self-sufficiency in foods within the next few years. Despite a severe drought in 1977, Kampuchea was able to export more than 100,000 tons of rice and probably intends to match that figure this year.
To build and expand the country’s industries, irrigation works, and transportation routes, in addition to crop production, Phnom Penh makes widespread use of its youth. Light industry output, while small at present, is growing slowly with the help of equipment and advisers from China. China pays for Kampuchea’s imports and provides basic commodities—fuel for transport, medicines, and tools for agriculture. Chinese civil and military technicians provide assistance and advice in aviation, health, agriculture, shipping, industry, and transportation.
In addition, China has furnished considerable military equipment, including air defense, radar and communications gear, and long-range artillery. Estimates of the number of Chinese military advisers in Kampuchea range from a few thousand to the undoubtedly exaggerated Soviet figure of 30,000. A more reasonable figure of 16,000 Chinese advisers and technicians was quoted recently by the Romanian Military Attaché in Peking.
The Threat of Subversion. Popular disenchantment with the regime is no doubt high. The party’s brutal methods of population control, however, include dispersal of former urban-dwellers to countryside communes, summary executions, tight control of movement, a backbreaking daily regime of labor, and abolition of privacy, property, and [Page 100] money. The regime probably has neutralized for the moment any threat of a popular uprising, although there have been isolated acts of sabotage and armed violence during the last three years.
In addition, a few thousand members of a Khmer Liberation Movement, supported clandestinely by the Thai military, operate on both sides of the 800-kilometer border with Thailand. The Liberation Movement sends small teams into Kampuchea on propaganda and intelligence collection operations. Because it is loosely organized, ineffectively led, and short of food, medicine, and arms, the Movement is little more than a nuisance to the Kampuchean armed forces and internal security apparatus at this time. Should security in northern and western Kampuchea deteriorate, however, the Movement’s potential for expansion would be great.
The developing resistance in eastern Kampuchea is the most serious danger to the regime. There is considerable evidence that Vietnam for some time has been training Khmers inside Vietnam for subversion of the Pol Pot regime. There is a large indigenous Khmer population in South Vietnam to draw from, in addition to more than 150,000 refugees, defectors, and captured soldiers from Kampuchea. Moreover, a few hundred-thousand ethnic Vietnamese were evicted or fled from Kampuchea during the last three years, and many of these are likely to be used by Hanoi because they have language skills and area knowledge.
- Source: Department of State, Intelligence Research Reports, 1953–1998, Lot 06D279, Reports No. 1057–1065, 1978. Secret; Noforn.↩
- Map A, entitled “Vietnamese Military Incursions Into Kampuchea Since Mid-June 1978, is attached but not printed.↩
- Map B, entitled “Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) Economic Activity, Land Use, and Transportation,” is attached but not printed.↩