The Difference in Cambodia
ABRAMS, ARNOLD
TAING KAUK: CASE STUDY OF The Difference in Cambodia BY ARNOLD ABRAMS Taing Kauk The terrible thing about visiting this town for the first time is the feeling of deja vu one has. Everything that...
...I was standing up while the planes were attacking, watching the Vietnamese run...
...but while most Vietnamese have reacted with at least equal bitterness toward Saigon and the Communists, the Cambodians, unhappy as they are, do not begrudge the high cost of Taing Kauk's liberation...
...Everything that meets the eye--wreckage-strewn streets, bombed-out houses, sad-faced inhabitants—has the haunting familiarity of a recurrent nightmare...
...The enemy's behavior, in fact, contrasted sharply with the conduct of South Vietnamese allies elsewhere in Cambodia, ARVN troops have established a lasting--and deserved--reputation in this country for looting, raping and generally mistreating the people they are supposedly protecting...
...In Cambodia, if a town is a provincial capital, it is embattled...
...Community development workers have been sent here from Pnompenh to talk with the townspeople, distribute supplies and furnish whatever aid they can...
...Besides, the Americans were very good...
...This is what happens in war," he explains, "and this is what had to be done to get the North Vietnamese out...
...Nobody wanted to make trouble for himself...
...A correspondent covering the Indochina war has indeed been to Taing Kauk many times, but known it by other names...
...Air Force officially flew only "interdiction" missions in this country and did not furnish direct combat support for Cambodian troops, we will have to say that American pilots interdicted the town...
...In terms reminiscent of an American officer's remark about the Vietnamese village of Ben Tre during Tet 1968, a cooperative Cambodian air liaison officer who radio-directed the U.S...
...Then 1 and my neighbors begged them to go, because we knew there would be bombing if they stayed...
...The object was to foster fear without arousing rebellious hostility...
...The North Vietnamese also allowed Taing Kauk inhabitants considerable freedom...
...It also accounts for the crucial difference between Taing Kauk and Ben Tre: Both towns were destroyed, but the people of Taing Kauk believe it was saved...
...I liked Sihanouk," confesses Chang Am Song, another farmer...
...There might be more resentment of the government's action if the Communists had capitalized fully on the town's pro-Sihanouk feeling...
...Initially posing as champions of deposed Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the Communists sought to gain the loyalty of the townspeople with a curious blend of ruthless intimidation and painstaking courtesy...
...But because until two weeks ago the U.S...
...Triumphant government troops marched in to find the bodies of four North Vietnamese, one ma-chinegun and two dozen Communist chickens, who immediately defected...
...The rural dwellers who constitute 80 per cent of Cambodia's population identify with the central government and remain implacably hostile to outside forces...
...Few pro-Sihanouk or pro-Communist activists have surfaced among the Cambodian population...
...They offered pro-Hanoi propaganda instead, losing any chance of support...
...Taing Kauk has the hard luck of sitting smack in its middle, near where Route 6 meets Route 7, the road to another embattled provincial capital, Kompong Cham...
...This fertile stretch remains bitterly contested because it houses two important enemy supply routes...
...That is one reason why they may succeed...
...They asked permission to sleep in residents' homes, did not abuse or steal from anyone, and paid (in Cambodian currency) for their food...
...The week-long blasting by 500-pound bombs and high-explosive rockets obliterated half of Taing Kauk, once a bustling community with a busy marketplace and many fine homes...
...They caused no trouble...
...Communist officers used the committee to spread a meaningful warning through the town: Someday, they said, government forces would come to Taing Kauk and, disregarding the inhabitants' welfare, destroy it with American help...
...We could get them on five or 10 minutes' notice at any time of day, and they would hit just where we wanted them to--no indiscriminate bombing...
...They blame the enemy...
...Military spokesmen called the contest a major battle, but it was actually a delaying action by several hundred well-entrenched North Vietnamese troops who had held out here since spring...
...In Vietnam it was Hue and Ben Tre and Binh Hoa and Xom Lang...
...When the North Vietnamese withdrew, they took prisoners from Taing Kauk with them, presumably to repeat the same grisly spectacle in the next occupied village...
...Song not only had his house destroyed by U.S...
...I should have been hiding, but I was enjoying it too much...
...He laughs, though, when asked if he is angry at the Americans...
...Aside from being forbidden to travel outside town, or to listen to government broadcasts, residents suffered no serious restrictions...
...Some townspeople say the five were chosen because they were simple farmers without political interests...
...We try to convince the people that we are here to help and protect them, not to arrest them or put them in the Army," says Lieutenant Colonel Sok Thim, commander of the development team.Thim says the townspeople believe him, and understand that the bombing was necessary and unavoidable...
...Taing Kauk's eventual liberation was achieved in the usual way...
...Fortunately, almost all the 20,000 inhabitants already had fled, so civilian casualties were few—as were the enemy's...
...While some townspeople continue to hide Sihanouk's picture among their salvaged belongings, they hardly seem anxious to start a movement for his return...
...But Song hastens to affirm his loyalty to the government in Pnompenh, whoever is in charge...
...They were gentle and polite, and never forced us to do anything...
...In any event, its members are nowhere to be found in Taing Kauk...
...At an early meeting, shortly after they took over, the Communists chose five citizens to serve on a newly created Town Committee...
...But the enemy troops refused to leave, Yim says...
...they even went so far as to hold an election for the committee...
...It was my fault," he says...
...This is not the work of an overactive imagination...
...Then he points to the destruction around him...
...Compared to South Vietnam's multimillion-dollar pacification program--with its lavish plans and progress charts and computerized evaluations—the Cambodian efforts are simple, even crude...
...These sentiments indicate that surface similarities between war-torn towns in Cambodia and Vietnam are misleading...
...Although heavily outnumbered, enemy forces have responded to Premier Lon Nol's northern initiative with devastating effectiveness...
...But there is little evidence to the contrary...
...The initial field group, a 12-man team, received a two-week crash course in propaganda and pacification principles, then was sent here for on-the-job training...
...Even without the presence of government or military officials to intimidate them, these Cambodians show no resentment toward Pnompenh for the havoc wrought...
...Government officials are supersensitive about the subject of Cambodian turncoats and try to minimize their number and significance, labeling them local "riffraff" who never fit into their communities...
...we had to bomb Taing Kauk to liberate it...
...The enemy appears more concerned with protecting base camps and supply routes than with conquering Cambodia...
...In addition to providing a model for North Vietnamese military strategy in this country, Taing Kauk offers a textbook study of enemy efforts to build an infrastructure and recruit active supporters among the populace...
...Taing Kauk was the first major project of Cambodia's Community Development Ministry, hastily established last summer with a shoestring budget and approximately 200 workers--most of them teachers, civil servants and physicians...
...After standing stalled at its outskirts for more than a week, government commanders decided to call on American air power...
...The Communists were careful not to intrude needlessly, too, usually staying out of sight and not gathering in large groups...
...Now Taing Kauk has joined the lengthy list of places bearing the war's obscene epitaph: It had to be destroyed to be saved...
...They are not only costly to government forces but also keep them off-balance and bogged down, as the delaying action in Taing Kauk demonstrated...
...Moreover, talking with numerous residents of Taing Kauk bears out Thim's contentions...
...Before retreating to occupy a hapless village, the enemy killed more than 50 Cambodian soldiers and wounded 300...
...attacks, he also suffered a wrist wound from rocket shrapnel...
...True, the inhabitants of both countries have had their homes destroyed and their lives shattered by government-ordered attacks...
...There is no way to confirm these figures...
...Proportionately, it may even be greater than in Vietnam, where most of the action has been concentrated in sparsely settled rural regions or around small villages...
...Cash contributions were solicited politely, the amounts given were never criticized, and donors were always thanked...
...Forming such a body was a useful way of implementing--under the guise of self-government--any demands they might make on the populace...
...But while they were here, enemy troops treated the townspeople decently...
...Such loyalty--nonexistent in South Vietnam—is the source of an internal national strength that will not readily succumb to guerrilla warfare...
...The North Vietnamese behaved well enough," says Ma Yim, a 45-year-old farmer and father of 10...
...The enemy was well dug in here...
...But following the first few weeks of occupation the North Vietnamese stopped displaying his portrait and, worse still, refused to fly the Cambodian flag at town meetings...
...They devote mornings to distributing food and medicine, and spend afternoons visiting villagers who have straggled back to their bombed-out homes and wrecked property...
...in Cambodia it has been Snuol and Skoun and Saang and Tonle Bet...
...Everybody voted for the five candidates," says Luon...
...Rather than mount a major counteroffensive, which may be beyond their capabilities, North Vietnamese commanders seem content to continue such tactics...
...They openly murdered 10 persons branded as government "spies," but all the victims had been brought in from a nearby town, and none were known personally to Taing Kauk residents...
...Yet neither the selfless officers nor the coolly competent men they command live in the towns they "liberate...
...The peasants idolized the Prince, and many do not understand why he was ousted...
...He asserts that only 20-30 inhabitants joined the Communists, and that the approximately 1,000 Cambodians still with the North Vietnamese were forced to accompany them...
...We were afraid not to...
...Yet after a moment's reflection, he adds: "That is, they caused no trouble until the government soldiers came...
...the rest was only permanently scarred...
...There is a terrible logic in this...
...Salvation came in late fall, after a 10,000-man government task force fought for weeks to retake this town situated 50 miles north of Pnompenh...
...The workers sit around sipping beer with these people, listening to their problems, offering sympathy, and talking a great deal about the Lon Nol government...
...attacks explained the government's strategy: "We had no choice...
...Arnold Abrams regularly reports in these pages from Southeast Asia...
...Opinions in Taing Kauk differ about the committeemen's loyalties...
...I find it hard to believe what I hear about him...
...Naturally, when they called a meeting, everyone attended...
...Five of them slept in my house, and we got along fine...
...They were right, of course, and after taking the town government officers had to come in amid the rubble to explain the bombing to its victims...
...They camped on Taing Kauk's outskirts, with no more than 50 in town overnight at one time...
...Since Cambodia's 11-month struggle has swirled about large towns along major highways in heavily populated regions, the civilian toll has been high...
...They are Cambodian, he stresses, and the Vietnamese invaders were ancient ethnic enemies...
...The people who do used to be called villagers or townspeople, but now most of them have a new name: refugees...
...Small North Vietnamese units have immobilized government battalions by blowing up bridges and cutting highways behind them, then springing deadly ambushes on the reinforcements who would come rushing to the scene...
...That distinction sets Cambodia a world apart from Vietnam...
...A ground assault would have been very costly for us...
...Others, however, claim the committee seemed uncommonly willing to work with the enemy...
...Government forces first moved into enemy-held northern territory last September, hoping to clear strategic Route 6 as far as Kompong Thom, a beleaguered provincial capital 85 miles from Pnompenh...
...The North Vietnamese were very nice," says Pot Luon, 60, one of the few Taing Kauk inhabitants who remained throughout the occupation and lengthy battle for the town...
...just as, deep down, there was something to what that American was trying to say back in 1968...
Vol. 54 • February 1971 • No. 3
