The Vietnamization of Kampuchea:
A New Model of Colonialism
Indochina
Report (October 1984)
Part
II: Vietnamization of the Economic Framework (continued)
The
Unequal Exchange
It
is within this new institutional framework that the Vietnamese are asserting their hold over the economy
and future of
Kampuchea. Fisheries, rubber and rice are the three main sectors affected by what should be termed the Unequal
Exchange between Vietnam and Kampuchea.
As for fisheries,
a cooperation accord was signed on 20 January 1984
between Phnom Penh's Ministry of Agriculture and Hanoi's Ministry of
Marines Products.
During
his visit to Phnom Penh, the Vietnamese Minister Nguyen Tien Trinh has
pledged to provide "all kinds of assistance to
the PRK's Ministry of Agriculture, including fishing tools and moral, maternal
and technical aid for building fishing sites
and shrimp boats for sea fishing, in order to develop the
Kampuchea-Vietnam solidarity in fisheries." On this
occasion, Khmer Minister of Planning Chea Soth curiously expressed the
confidence that "with the assistance of the
Vietnamese delegation, Kampuchea's fisheries will soon make progress!"
In
reality, what is this accord about? Behind all the redundant jargon, the agreement serves only to sanction the near monopoly of the
Vietnamese over the fisheries resources in Kampuchea, and in
particular in the Sea-Lake area (Tonle Sap). Since
the beginning of 1983, all fishing activities in this area have to be registered
at the local "Production Office" (Phong Tang Gia), which provide
all the necessary tools such as boat motors, gas and nets, in exchange for 90 per cent of the catch. Thus, the Rear
Services and Supply Department of the Vietnamese
occupying forces collects some 50 tones of fish (of the
150 tonnes daily catch) which are then distributed to all the
units stationed in Kampuchea. Besides, 60 tonnes of fish
are sent daily by cargo ship to Chau Doc, My Tho, Can Tho, and
Saigon.
Recently, the Vietnamese Authority set up cold storage facilities in
Kampuchea
to reduce losses in storage and processing.
Rubber is another product which is systematically exploited by the Vietnamese in Kampuchea. With approximately 50,000
tonnes produced in the prewar
years, rubber was
Kampuchea's most important export commodity after rice.
During
the Khmer Rouge period, rubber production had totally collapsed.
Since 1980, with the direct intervention of Hanoi's General Rubber
Department, the production and processing of latex had steadily expanded
and in 1981, 18,577 tonnes of rubber were exported, exclusively to the
Soviet Union. In 1983, latex exports to the same country even
increased by 40 per cent.
This year the production is expected to reach that of the
prewar years.
Such
an increase in the rubber production is not only due to the expansion of rubber
plantations and latex treatment enterprises or the building of new crepe
processing workshops with the assistance of the Soviet Union but is also due to
an over-exploitation
by the Vietnamese of some 60,000 hectares of heveas plantations, mostly located in the district of Kompong
Cham
(Choup, Kret, Svay, Chroum, and Svay Thep).
As
for the plantations of Choup, according to a Vietnamese dissident source, the
Hanoi authorities have mobilized since 1981 some
20,000 young people,
not only from the Dong Nai province (South Vietnam), but also from Thai
Binh, Thanh Hoa, Nghe Tinh and Ha Nam Ninh (North Vietnam).
Considered as a 'New Economic Zone'
the Choup Rubber Plantation is today divided into 12
work farms (nong troung).
Its
administration has been taken over by the Vietnamese state-owned Dong Nai Rubber Company which employs only
some 4,000 Khmer workers. The annual production of latex is up to
15,000 tonnes which are directly transported to Kompong Som to be taken
away in Soviet ships.
And
what is the state of rice production in Kampuchea.
Recently, the Heng Samrin regime announced a food shortage of 228,000 tonnes of milled rice for 1984,
with the 1983-84 monsoon and dry season rice crops yielding only
864,000 tonnes of milled rice. UN sources forecast that an acute
food shortage will develop in July-October 1984 and a full famine
emergency may occur in 1985, if large relief operations are not mounted soon.
Such a dramatic situation could no longer be put wither on the
account of the Khmer Rouge's legacy, or on the war situation. In
fact, it stems mainly from the very fact that the Vietnamese occupying
forces, as well as the Vietnamese settlers, are misappropriating a good
part of the Khmer rice. Aid workers in Phnom Penh reported that there
are rice shipments by boat down the Mekong River to Vietnam.
Indeed,
it is widely admitted by foreign observers that the Bo Doi has the
right to requisition the rice and other farm products directly from the Khmer
peasants and for his personal needs. Since the
reorganization in 1979-80 of the labor force into about 95,000 Krom Samaki (of
12 to 15 families each), the collection of crops and taxes has become more
systematic. Through the local Production Offices, some 25,000
tonnes of rice are annually diverted by the Rear Service and Supply Department to
the Vietnamese occupying forces. The arrival
of thousands of Vietnamese families in the Eastern regions bordering
Vietnam
(Kratie, Kompong Cham,Prey Veng, Takeo, Svay
Rieng) has considerably aggravated the food situation in Kampuchea since
the Khmer peasants are forced to share their lands, labor tools and even the
paddy crops.
Furthermore, the Vietnamese advisors of Phnom Penh's Ministry of Finance have just established a new
farming tax. called "Viphiekatien Sneha Cheat Samrap Dey Srae" or
national contribution on paddy fields."'
An agreement on economic and technical cooperation for 1984 was signed
on 21 January between Hanoi's Food Ministry and Phnom Penh's Trade Ministry. By
virtue of this accord, the Vietnamese will aid
Kampuchea in installing the network of rice huskers, setting up a service to
control the quality of foodstuffs and training cadres in this sector
(67). Are the Vietnamese authorities eager to expand their control over the
rice production in Kampuchea? Anyway; according to another incontrovertible
source, the biggest rice processing factory in the District of Siem
Reap is in the hands of the Vietnamese, who have introduced the planting of
the IR-36 rice grain in the area (68)
The
twinning of "sister provinces between Kampuchea and Vietnam,
completed in the summer of 1983, has installed another institutional framework
for the Unequal Exchange. Indeed, this
technique allows the Vietnamese to reap the full benefit of the national
resources of Kampuchea under the umbrella of the so-called "shining solidarity between Vietnam and Kampuchea,"
since the twinning process imposes all kinds of accompanying obligations upon
the Khmer people.
List
of Sister Provinces
1. Ho Chi Minh City
Phnom
Penh
2.
Ha Tien
Kompong
Som
3.
Binh Tri Thien
Siem Reap
4.
Quang Narn Danang
Battambang
5.
Nghia Binh
Ratanakiri
6.
Gia Lai Kong Turn
Mondulkiri
7. Phu Khanh
Kratie
8. Dac Lac
Kandal
9.
Thuan Hai
Koh Kong
10.
Lam Dong
Stung Treng
11.
Song Be
Preah Vithear
12.
Tay Ninh
Kompong Cham
13.
Dong Nal
Oddar Manchey
14.
Long An Svay Rieng
15. Dong Thap
Pursat
16.
Ben Tre
Kompong Speu
17.
Cuu Long
Takeo
18.
An Giang
Kompong Thom
19.
Hau Giang
Kompong Chhnang
20.
Minh Hal
Kampot
Some
examples
suffice to show that the twinning of the Khmer
provinces only serves to facilitate the economic integration
of Kampuchea within Vietnam's economy. It is not a coincidence that the rich
province of Battambang is coupled with the overpopulated region of Quang
Nam. Indeed, a good part of rice from this province is annually sent to Danang, which is always in a state of
chronic food shortage, in order to help the Vietnamese to meet their
requirements. In exchange. the Khmers receive bicycles and cement
(69) Siem Reap, twinned with Binh Tri Thien, has to provide
the Vietnamese, besides paddy crops, with the missing farm products, such as corn, lotus
seeds and salt vegetables. To reciprocate, workers from Hue and its suburb, are
now investing in the expanding building industry in Siem Reap, where the Khmer
workers are forced to find the clay, while the Vietnamese new settlers produce
bricks and tiles,
earning a monthly salary of 90 riels. In Siem Reap, the
Vietnamese also control the biggest factory of fish sauce (nuoc mam) (70)
In some other important twinned provinces, such as Phnom Penh
(with Ho Chi Minh City), Kompong Cham (with Tay Ninh) of Kompong Som
(with Ha Tien), the Vietnamese settlers will eventually control the commerce in
basic products, such as fabric and clothing, crockery, oil, salt and soap,
while the Khmers continue to contribute the traditional dry fish and the usual
fruits.
But among all these trends, the Vietnamese penetration in key
commercial sectors in Kampuchea appears to produce far reaching
effects in the long run. Will the Vietnamese eventually replace
the Chinese in the Khmer economy? Anyway, such a trend is inseparable from a
deliberate policy of Vietnamese settlement in Kampuchea.
. . .
Dr. Luciolli's is the fourth in a series of exposes that Indochina Report has published on the Vietnamization process and confirms the previous analyses. The others in the series are: "The Vietnamization of Cambodia: A New Model of Colonialism" (pre-publication issue, October 1984), "The Military Occupation of Kampuchea" (Issue No. 3, July-September 1985), and "Vietnamized Cambodia: A Silent Ethnocide" by Marie Alexandrine Martin (Issue No. 7, July-September 1986).
