[Vietnamization, education, ethnocide] A Culture at Risk, The Vietnamese Occupation and the Resistance

The VIETNAMESE OCCUPATION and the Resistance (chapter 8, complete), Cambodia: A Shattered Society

Excerpts on Education

For ten years, the Vietnamese tried to apply to Cambodia a policy of ethnocide--the destruction of a culture within those who carry it--insidiously carried out, particularly in the beginning, in the educational domain.... [T]he curriculum was based on that of Vietnam.... "Even schools' names come from Vietnamese".... The two military academies established in Phnom Penh did not have Khmer but Vietnamese names, accepted only Vietnamese and Russian professors...

Those who were recruited taught only several hours a day... study of the Vietnamese language.... The Vietnamese experts--who regulated the schedules of students and teachers.... The first edition of books were printed in Ho Chi Minh at Cambodia's expense, even though Phnom Penh had three printing houses in working condition...

Instructors used Vietnamese manuals translated into Khmer or books written by Khmers under the supervision of Vietnamese experts.... By the end of primary school, children of ten years of age had learned, in reading the manual, what was called "political ethics."  Here is what they would have learned: The Khmers should not forget the flesh and blood shed by their Vietnamese brothers, who sacrificed their lives to liberate us from the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary-Khieu Samphan regime. Each day, in accordance with the instructions given by Uncle Ho, we should remember this. We should be full of gratitude for them and bear in mind that no other country except Vietnam contributed to our national salvation and rescued us from this tragedy. And we use this gratitude as a basis for nourishing an unquenchable hatred for Pol Pot-Ieng Sary-Khieu Samphan regime and for other gangs of reactionaries who search, by all possible means, to destroy our revolution and Khmer-Vietnamese solidarity.

"The Khmer, Laotian, and Vietnamese peoples are fraternal peoples who have a common history," Prime Minister Hun Sen emphasized.

Thailand Excluded from the Indochinese Peninsula

...Hanoi clarified elsewhere, excluded Thailand: "After the Second World War, the toponym Indochina was employed in the strict sense to designate only Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. And in the new linguistic context, the term Indochinese peninsula no longer includes anything but the territory of these three countries." The assertion has no geographical basis. Indochina refers to all the countries located between India and China. It took on a restricted definition only in a particular political context--colonization. Under the protectorate Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam comprised French Indochina; under Vietnamese occupation, the expression lost its initial term and became Indochina, which itself became equivalent to the Indochinese peninsula....

Parents reluctantly permitted their children to take the required courses in the Vietnamese language.