Four years in the Vietnamese Army
By Mr. Aki Ra |
The following article is from a packet from the Siem Reap Landmine Museum. It shares some of the authors' experiences from wartime in Cambodia.
During 1985-1989 I was in the Vietnamese Army. At this time I saw many villages destroyed. The Vietnamese Army men would camp under the houses in the villages and the Khmer Rouge would bomb these houses killing the inocent villagers and some of the Vietnamese army men. Once under attack the villagers would flee their homes, returning later to homes surrounded by Khmer Rouge mines. It was also common for villages to have to make huge payments to the Vietnamese Army, if a family member or their animals stepped on and detonated a mine (that was intended for the Khmer Army).
At one time the Vietnamese Army was ordered to shoot all Cambodian children and men in order to reduce the size of the Khmer Rouge by destroying potential members. They would send a man dressed as a tiger to poison the villagers at night with injections, if the villagers ran away from the tiger they would be shot.
The Vietnamese would camp in villages and make the local Khmer villagers stand guard at night. The Khmer Rouge used to force men to fight in their army, and often men would kill their own family members when attacking these villages.
Still today you can find many weapons left behind by the army men, as during fighting they were too heavy to carry. Many children are injured or killed by such weapons and mines-innocent curiosity often proving to be fatal.
The Khmer Rouge Army was a small but very strong army. They usually had only 10 men to 50 Vietnamese army men. The Vietnamese Army men were told that if they caught 1 Khmer Rouge man alive they could return back home to Vietnam. The Vietnamese army would use this man to find out information about the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge found out about this incentive and used this to their advantage. The Khmer Rouge would set up a few men in a triangle and lure the Vietnamese men to the far point, tricking them into thinking they had a good chance of capturing a Khmer man. The Khmer Army would then close in from behind and blast the Vietnamese Army from all directions.
Mr Aki Ra |
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