LETTER : Cambodia's debt to Vietnam

From Mr Julian Abrams

Sir: In his article on the Vietnam war ("Vietnam: two men, two wars", 28 April), Tim McGirk makes a passing reference to Vietnam's "abortive... dabble in expansionism" in Cambodia. Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979, stating that it intended to end aggression against Vietnam and to remove the brutal Khmer Rouge regime from power, and that its forces would remain in Cambodia no longer than was necessary to achieve these objectives. The West responded by joining with anti-communist Cambodian factions in a strategy in which military victory would have meant returning the Khmer Rouge to power.

In 1989, albeit in the context of the collapse of the Soviet bloc, Vietnam withdrew, leaving behind a Cambodian government and a Cambodian army capable - to the surprise of Western analysts - of fighting the Khmer Rouge to a standstill.

By the time I arrived in Cambodia in 1992, this government was neither a very good government nor a very popular government - but by the standards of poor, war-ravaged Third World countries it was not unusually bad, nor unusually unpopular, nor experiencing unusual difficulty in maintaining authority over most of its territory and population. Cambodia was a country in which physical and social infrastructure were shambolic - but not the scene of utter devastation described by visitors in 1979.

If Vietnam ever had a hidden expansionist agenda in Cambodia it was frustrated in this respect, but it achieved its public objectives and rendered a considerable service to humanity in the process.

Yours faithfully,

JULIAN ABRAMS

Marple, Greater Manchester

28 April