A soviet reporter interviews Cambodian refugees which live in Ben-Shahn village in the Tay Ninh province of Vietnam. 80% of Cambodian refugees in the village were women and children, and their relatives had been killed, arrested or lost. https://t.co/C00tcILWC4

“We don’t believe that the Vietnam-Soviet Union defence treaty requires changes in US policies. ASEAN friends will still hope for a normalisation of🇺🇸-🇻🇳ties & we should accommodate them, if🇻🇳shows restraint in Cambodia this dry season”, US amb. to🇹🇭in a cable. Vietnam and the Soviet Union sign a defence treaty that pledges to “take appropriate and effective measures against any attacker who threatens the peace of either country.”

Khmer Rouge Deputy Prime Minister Vorn Vet, is arrested and taken before Pol Pot, who called him a traitor. Pol Pot personally beat Vorn Vet so hard that he broke his leg. Vet disappeared into Tuol Sleng and is later executed, along with his family.

Nov. 1, 1978:🇻🇳says the first bloody border incident between China & Vietnam, left six🇨🇳soldiers dead & warns of further attacks. Western analysts are sceptical: Vietnamese leaders are in important talks with the Soviet Union, the claims were made “to back up their aid requests”

In his paper “China and Indochina”, Malcom Caldwell, who will be murdered in Cambodia later this year, hopes for “de-escalation” between🇰🇭- 🇻🇳. Their conflict is caused by internal questions of off-shore oil & of use of the Mekong River, not by ethnic antagonism.

Visiting Jakarta, Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary dismisses Vietnamese claims of rebel activity inside Cambodia – the country was “totally secure” except in areas of🇻🇳attacks. Charges of mass killings & starvation “are propaganda by Vietnam and refugees”

Bringing a series of reports on hospitals, damns & plantations from her 1,000 km trip inside Cambodia in September 1978 to an end, Annie Brunel of a French Communist delegation, writes in L’HUMANITÉ ROUGE: “Genocide, we can testify that there is none in Kampuchea” https://t.co/IDi6rvWJE4