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--></style><title>Re: [Vision2020] Mass Slaughter in
Vietnam?</title></head><body>
<div>Nick,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Cambodia has been changing rapidly, for the worse, in the past
few years. Sihanouk resigned as King in an attempt to force political
reform. He has been replaced as King by one of his sons who spent most
of his life in Paris and is a creature of the Prime Minister. The PM,
Hun Sen, is a former Khmer Rouge thug who "saw the light" as
the Vietnamese Armies were crossing the border and switched
allegiances. As partial payback for being given a country to own, Hun
Sen recently "negotiated" a new border with Vietnam which of
course gives a good chunk of the highlands where the Montagnard tribe
lives to Vietnam. Needless to say, given the Montagnard/American
history of the Vietnam War, the Montagnards are in deep #$@%. The
theoretical democracy is only that, a theory. Hun Sen rules with
absolute power, including its corollary, absolute corruption.
Opposition political leaders either are in exile or dead at Hun Sen's
hand. Until the foreign donor countries that prop up Hun Sen pull the
foreign aid plug, it will only get worse. China and Vietnam are now
the largest donor countries followed by the EU.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>It's very sad. I spent several months there two years ago
working/teaching metal sculpture techniques to Khmer artists using
decommissioned weapons, mostly AK47s, for our raw material. A life
changing experience for them, and me.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>The best in-country source of news I know of is Khmer
Intelligence:<font face="Lucida Grande" size="+1" color="#000000">
http://www.khmerintelligence.org/3Q2004.html</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>the website is only sporadically maintained but you can subscribe
to their yahoo news group for periodic messages of the low down in
Cambodia. Link to subscribe from their website.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Mark S.</div>
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<div><br></div>
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<div>At 10:17 AM -0800 12/15/06, <nickgier@adelphia.net>
wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Greetings:<br>
<br>
Some more really wild claims from down the hill, this time about
Vietnam. Where is the evidence for mass slaughter in Vietnam
after we left? Yes, many were sent to reeducation camps, and
many of those fleeing lost their lives to pirates in the South China
Sea.<br>
<br>
More people are being killed, maimed, and born malformed by leftover
munitions and Agent Orange than ever lost their lives at the hands of
the Communist regime. I would also hazard to guess that we
killed more Vietnamese (at least one million) than the Viet Cong ever
would have killed if we had not intervened.<br>
<br>
Before we invaded Cambodia, the country was stable and ruled by Prince
Sihanouk, who, along with his wife, are now King and Queen of
Cambodia. (When I was there in 2002, their pictures were
everywhere.) Our invasion, plus support for right-wing thugs,
alienated the people and forced them right into the hands of the Khmer
Rouge.<br>
<br>
The Killing Fields are just as much our responsibility as theirs.
The great irony of course is that Communist Vietnamese troops defeated
the Khmer Rouge, and the UN had one of greatest successes in making
elections possible there.<br>
<br>
The Johns Hopkins report on Iraqi causalities, which looked at every
single death certificate (90 percent of households surveyed produced
one), showed that a majority of deaths occurred by coalition air
strikes. This survey was done before the upsurge in sectarian
killings, mainly in Baghdad. Taking the low end of their
estimates at 400,000 dead, it would take Shias and Sunnis a very long
time to top Bush's slaughter.<br>
<br>
Yours for accurate history,<br>
<br>
Nick Gier</blockquote>
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