June 11, 1979: Around thirty to forty thousand Cambodian refugees were forcibly repatriated by Thai military authorities over a period of several days.
The new government of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) would later claim 300 were killed by the Thai army out the 45,000 who were forced across the border in by June 23. Other claims state that as many as 10,000 died after being sent across minefields.
Henry Kamm, writing for the Associated Press and published in the New York Times on June 12, described the scene:
“For the fourth day today, a long column of buses was moving along the Thai side of the Cambodian border from the area of Aranyaprathet northeast to the spot where the temple of Preah Vihear dominates the landscape on the Cambodian side.
The buses were crammed with Cambodians who had been told they were being moved to another refugee camp. They assembled at a spot near the border until darkness had fallen over the deserted region, which is flat and rocky on the Thai side and rises sharply into the Dangrek Mountains in Cambodia.
Then the passengers, far more of them women and children than men, were ordered to alight. They were surrounded by Thai soldiers and trooped into a narrow mountain, pass. On the border they were ordered to keep walking. Those who stalled or wanted to turn back were threatened with being shot.
A United Nations official said many of the refugees were seriously ill. “If they have to walk for days, many will die,” he said. He reported that Thai soldiers were distributing small amounts of food before forcing the Cambodians across the border.
Bus drivers who are ferrying the refugees are reported to have said they have heard shots from the Cambodian side after groups of refugees walked into the dark.”
Thai authorities claimed that they had no choice than to send the Cambodians back after the country became swamped with hundreds of thousands of civilians who crossed the border or made encampments along it. They cited security concerns and blamed western nations , the ICRC and UNHCR for not acting quickly enough to assist after waves of refugees began arriving when Vietnamese forces toppled the government of Pol Pot in early 1979.
A Thai officer, according to Kamm, said that Preah Vihear was decided as the safest point of crossing “because it offered the best chance for their survival”.
However, “He conceded that mines and booby traps would cause casualties among the refugees.”
https://cne.wtf/2020/06/11/today-in-his ... june-1979/
11 June 1979- The Preah Vihear 'Push'
- Bong Burgundy
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