The Khmer Rouge still owe many traders & the Thai government for their shipment of 20,000 tones of salt. Yet the smuggling of gasoline continues: plastic sacks filled with gasoline- bought for 56 cents/gal- in Aranyaprathet sells for $3.86 across the stream in Poipet, Cambodia. https://t.co/T3o433zw78

Sihanouk returns from a 3-day tour of the North Zone (Kampong Cham) to visit flood dikes under construction, and a rubber plantation and factory. Sihanouk: “I did not see people reduced to a skeletal state, only people who looked more or less normal, just like peasants at work”

On foreign policy the Khmer Rouge declared: “We will not run after the world. The decisive factors are with us. We must strive on our own to build the country and solve the livelihood of the people. If we are strong on our own, then they will respect us.” Meanwhile, Thailand is seen as a “CIA sponsored traitor”, which plans to take Battambang, Kampot, etc. Thailand has contacted us diplomatically, so they can go on a military offensive. But because of Khmer Rouge attacks, they “got shaky and have withdrawn all their troops”. The Khmer Rouge Standing Committee meets and finds that the ideological sector is taken “too lightly”: “There…

Mcarthur writes in @latimes that Zhou Enlai’s death must be a “bitter experience” for Sihanouk, as the main reason for his return to Cambodia was to pay Zhou political debt. Sihanouk’s friendship with Zhou were one of his only good card in his dealings with Khmer Rouge leaders. China’s premier, Zhou Enlai, died. The news provokes suspicion in the Cambodian foreign ministry: “We must beware of China. It is true that we owe her a good deal, and it is a great country. But she wants to make us her satellite.”

33-year-old Chou Tri reaches a Thai refugee camp. He reports about conditions in Cambodia: “People were resettled again, closely guarded by Khmer Rouge. Many were ill from malaria or typhoid. Tri, who was working in a dispensary, said he saw 600 die, bc there were no drugs” RT @JimLaurie_Asia: Worth noting- Cambodia 1976 -amid extreme hardships on Khmer Rouge local communes, there was little info on national p…

Cambodia’s new constitution is promulgated, which Sihanouk says “confirms entirely with our goal of democratic, popular revolution.” Cambodia is now called “Democratic Kampuchea”, has a new flag and a new National Anthem (“April 17, the Great Victory” https://t.co/WZmCpbxy7S) https://t.co/cbW0UJ7OQd

https://t.co/JtlilAbsDF https://t.co/cldSy9hWLN

5. In all, China’s aid to Cambodia during 1975 included 61,000 tons of rice, 30,000 tons of fuel, 3,000 tons of kerosene, 200 tons of machine oil, 250 tons of pesticides, 3,300 tons of cloth, 60 tons of medicines, 1.8 million hoes, 200,000 shovels, and 20,000 bicycles 4. Physicist Tri Meng Huot, who returned with 200 other Cambodians from Paris and Beijing to PhnomPenh: “Most of us Khmers who wanted to go back had only one thought, wanting to go back to help the nation. So we went, whatever the system. We all knew it would be hard work.” A recap on what happened in Cambodia in December 1975 under…

The French Government closes and seals the Cambodian Embassy (photo 2019) in Paris and the Ambassador’s residence adjoining the Eiffel Tower. The Khmer Rouge never occupied the embassy but instead operated from a private apartment since their victory in April. © Celette https://t.co/OjvTP7HkDn

@2062Yun Hi Sarron. All tweets always happened exactly 45 years ago from the day they were posted, so Khieu Samphan & co received the Laotian delegation on 18 December 1975.