Phnom Penh (FN), Jan. 6 - In a communiqué published on the anniversary of 7 January, the date of the fall of the Pol Pot regime, Mr. Sam Rainsy, known for his calls for racial hatred (when he speaks in Khmer) and his virulent populism, tries to rewrite history by presenting a sequence of facts based on assumptions - " if " this, " if that" - to make Vietnam the source of all the misfortunes of Cambodia.

Obviously, as usual, those who manipulate historical facts for political purposes, omit events that frustrate their simplistic reasoning.

What are the facts? Since 1953, Cambodia under the rule of Norodom Sihanouk has been working to defend its neutrality and territorial integrity. Abroad, it faces the hostility of the United States, which supports Thailand and the Republic of South Vietnam, our two neighbours who were constantly making territorial claims to Cambodia. Inside the country, he faces the supporters of a submission to the United States led by Sam Sary (the father of Mr. Sam Rainsy), Son Ngoc Thanh, Dap Chhuon, Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak and Lon Nol. The archives of the CIA and the National Security Council have since revealed that the first three have been involved in futile attempts to overthrow the head of the Cambodian State, including by sending a bomb to the Royal Palace. In 1970, the last two were successful. It was the coup that plunges Cambodia into the Vietnam war. What Norodom Sihanouk had managed to avoid so far.

This is the capital event of 18 March 1970, born from a will in Washington, which is the cause of all the misfortunes endured by the Cambodian people for the next two decades. Cambodia becomes part of the Vietnamese battlefield that confronts both sides of the cold war. Norodom Sihanouk had no choice but to seek the opposite side of those who overthrew him.

If the Vietnamese Communists were powerful and victorious allies against the Republic of Lon Nol, yet supported by the scale, unprecedented in history, of American bombing, they were not the ones who created the political and military movement known as "Khmer rouge". Mr. Sam Rainsy, who is not embarrassed by historical reality, should read historians like David Chandler, Steve Heder or Philip short. He would know how much mistrust and animosity towards the Vietnamese led Pol Pot and his lieutenants. Well before March 1970. And never, during the war, the Khmer Rouge took their orders from Hanoi. Once they were masters of the country, they implemented a policy of systematic aggression against Vietnam, which led to 7 January 1979 and the fall of a regime responsible for the death of 2.200.000 Cambodians. Who, seriously, can contest that January 7 was a liberation?

Who can argue that the aftermath has seen Cambodia trapped in a proxy war that has made survivors of the polpotist barbarity, the victims of the great powers? One more time. It is not the Vietnamese who are responsible for Cambodia's misfortunes. It is certain great powers that have refused its neutrality yesterday and which now require once again to stand in one side against another.

We must be blinded by the passion of all extremists and fanatics to dare to write that Cambodia is now colonized militarily and economically by Vietnam. But exacerbating the passions of non informed people, is it not the prerogative of populists and demagogues?

Mr. Sam Rainsy invents a scenario full of " if ". But, as they say in France, "with if, we put Paris in a bottle ". Unfortunately, to deceive its readers, it is the historical truth that Mr. Sam Rainsy is confiscating.

Raoul M. JENNAR
Doctor in Khmer studies