Thames TV April 1979
- Lucky Lucan
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Thames TV April 1979
This is well worth a watch, and the quality of the footage is quite amazing.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
Cheers, hadn't seen that before.
I'm guessing that's William Shawcross chatting with Sihanouk. Got me to dig out the 'River Journeys' episode where he travels up the Mekong from Vietnam into Cambodia around 1983/4.
I'm guessing that's William Shawcross chatting with Sihanouk. Got me to dig out the 'River Journeys' episode where he travels up the Mekong from Vietnam into Cambodia around 1983/4.
"Not my circus, not my monkeys" - KiR
Great find LL. Where was the border crossing pictured in the begining, Aranyapratet to Poipet I assume. I didn't know about the booby traps and trip wires, you would need a good point man there. Did the KR not have land mines until later?
We went to the border in 1979 and saw thousands of Khmers behind hastily erected barbed wire barricades. there were huge steel water towers with UNHCR on the side laying on the ground as the camps were established. Early on the Thai Army forced many Khmers back including herding them over the cliffs at Anglong Veng. It was all a plot to extract the maximum money from the UN very quickly.The camps were deliberately built well away from water sources so that the Thai Army could get the lucrative water trucking contract.
My mate went back to Aranyapratet a few weeks later with a group of journos to interview a Khmer Serai leader. They were assisted across the border by Chinese soldiers in dark green uniforms and taken into the bush to meet this man. He was dead the next day, allegedly poisoned with orange juice by the CIA. The Americans and the Thais did not want too many competing Khmer groups to deal with apparently.
Tom Fawthrop who still writes for the Irish Times was one of the journos, you should mail him Lucky and see what he remembers of those days.
I saw him at Hawaii Beach a few years ago and he was very cool. We always remember all those journos as being real cheap charlies If there was free food or beer at a bar opening they would always be there.
We had a Swiss housemate who ran a refugee camp on the border somewhere.
We went to the border in 1979 and saw thousands of Khmers behind hastily erected barbed wire barricades. there were huge steel water towers with UNHCR on the side laying on the ground as the camps were established. Early on the Thai Army forced many Khmers back including herding them over the cliffs at Anglong Veng. It was all a plot to extract the maximum money from the UN very quickly.The camps were deliberately built well away from water sources so that the Thai Army could get the lucrative water trucking contract.
My mate went back to Aranyapratet a few weeks later with a group of journos to interview a Khmer Serai leader. They were assisted across the border by Chinese soldiers in dark green uniforms and taken into the bush to meet this man. He was dead the next day, allegedly poisoned with orange juice by the CIA. The Americans and the Thais did not want too many competing Khmer groups to deal with apparently.
Tom Fawthrop who still writes for the Irish Times was one of the journos, you should mail him Lucky and see what he remembers of those days.
I saw him at Hawaii Beach a few years ago and he was very cool. We always remember all those journos as being real cheap charlies If there was free food or beer at a bar opening they would always be there.
We had a Swiss housemate who ran a refugee camp on the border somewhere.
- newnewnewbie
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Good stuff, thanks for posting. Tough as nails to survive those times, I see it in the fam here. Unbelievable.
Strictly speaking they were here helping the KR anyway, but they were the bad bad commies not the bad commies.McPhisto wrote:Fascinating peek inside Western Cambodia, post Vietnamese invasion.
pew, pew, pew, pew!
- Lucky Lucan
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Who do you mean by "they" were helping the KR?YaTingPom wrote:Strictly speaking they were here helping the KR anyway, but they were the bad bad commies not the bad commies.McPhisto wrote:Fascinating peek inside Western Cambodia, post Vietnamese invasion.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
- Petrol Head
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The balls on those reporters...Lucky Lucan wrote:This is well worth a watch, and the quality of the footage is quite amazing.
Nice work, Lucan.
Haha - my money’s on Playboy
The bad, bad commies.Lucky Lucan wrote:Who do you mean by "they" were helping the KR?YaTingPom wrote:Strictly speaking they were here helping the KR anyway, but they were the bad bad commies not the bad commies.McPhisto wrote:Fascinating peek inside Western Cambodia, post Vietnamese invasion.
North Viets and the Viet Kong.
pew, pew, pew, pew!
- Lucky Lucan
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This footage is from 1979, long after reunification, there was no North Vietnam by then and the Vietcong were disbanded in 1976. Cooperation between the Khmer and Vietnamese communists broke down long before then.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
Yes I know. Hence my reply to the post implying the Vietnamese were not here (in any form) before 1979.
pew, pew, pew, pew!
Nobody said anything of the sort.YaTingPom wrote:Yes I know. Hence my reply to the post implying the Vietnamese were not here (in any form) before 1979.
You’re right they did.McPhisto wrote:Nobody said anything of the sort.YaTingPom wrote:Yes I know. Hence my reply to the post implying the Vietnamese were not here (in any form) before 1979.
pew, pew, pew, pew!
You are a tedious little troll.YaTingPom wrote:You’re right they did.McPhisto wrote:Nobody said anything of the sort.YaTingPom wrote:Yes I know. Hence my reply to the post implying the Vietnamese were not here (in any form) before 1979.
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