But many citizens of the smaller country have a different view. While generally ecstatic about their newfound freedom from an oppressive regime, they are wary of their self-proclaimed saviors, whom they suspect of coveting their natural resources. Will liberation be an excuse for occupation? To ensure a quick and painless victory, the invading country offers them incentives to defect. Then, as the cost of rebuilding becomes clear, the liberator announces that the battered nation’s natural resources will be used to foot the bill.
Iraq? No; in Evan Gottesman’s timely new book, the countries in question are Vietnam and Cambodia. “Cambodia After the Khmer Rouge: Inside the Politics of Nation Building” (428 pages. Yale University Press) is a clear-eyed and nuanced account of multilayered backroom efforts to rebuild Cambodia after it overthrew the Khmer Rouge in 1979. The lessons for the United States in Iraq are many.
Gottesman’s work fills a vast gap in scholarship on Cambodia. He focuses on the period of Vietnamese occupation–from 1979 until U.N. peacekeepers arrived in 1991–illuminating the secretive Marxist-Leninist regime they implanted and oversaw in Phnom Penh. The account is based largely on 1,300 previously undiscovered documents–including the minutes of top-level Communist Party meetings–that Gottesman literally stumbled upon in a government building in the Cambodian capital.
He recounts how Vietnam’s efforts to rebuild Cambodia in its own image quickly went awry. When troops entered Phnom Penh in 1979, they discovered little more than abandoned buildings. The Khmer Rouge had forced out the population four years earlier, then fled in advance of the Vietnamese. But it wasn’t until the survivors of the killing fields began trickling back that it became clear how many doctors, lawyers, teachers, intellectuals and administrators–the people necessary to regenerate a society–had died.
As the Vietnamese set out to rebuild the country, Gottesman notes, things rarely went as planned. The historic animosity between the two peoples colored nearly every aspect of the occupation. There was stronger than expected resistance from nationalist opponents of the new regime. And the Vietnamese often misunderstood Cambodian culture, hampering efforts to create a functioning government and economy. Lacking alternatives, they decided to reappoint some leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime they had just ousted. Vietnam also oversaw the farcical trial of Pol Pot and his brother-in-law, Ieng Sary, who were tried and convicted in absentia. The tribunal was meant to represent a symbolic break from the previous regime and encourage other former Khmer leaders to work with the new government, says Gottesman. But many Cambodians were left to wonder exactly how much had changed.
The occupation dragged on, draining Vietnam of resources and lives and shattering its international reputation. “I don’t think Vietnam ever intended to permanently occupy Cambodia,” says Gottesman. “They thought it was in their national-security interests. They needed a government that would be an ally.” Though the Vietnamese pulled out of Cambodia after 10 years, to this day many Cambodians refer to their Vietnamese-installed Khmer leaders–many of whom still remain in power–as “Vietnamese puppets.” Cambodia remains something of a basket case, corrupt and dysfunctional, its long-suffering people receiving little benefit from the international aid it receives.
Gottesman’s work suggests that Iraq could face a similarly bleak future. With every passing day, the liberator will increasingly be perceived as an occupier. Every person who gets sick or dies due to lack of medical treatment, food or water–never mind remaining land mines or cluster bombs–becomes less the victim of the ousted tyrant and more the responsibility of the “liberating” force. “Everything works smoothly when everybody is grateful,” Gottesman says. “It is when resentment creeps in and the liberated people start to think more about nationalism than they do about how great it is to be liberated that everything becomes a struggle.” Washington should take note: this book is a sober and valuable warning of how difficult that struggle can be.
