Quotations from U.S. Government Reports and Important Individuals

Quotes from Edmund S. Muskie
U.S. Secretary of State
Washington D.C.
October, 1990
 

"For 15 years, from 1975 to 1989, Cambodia was a nation largely outside of American consciousness"

"For the public, the press, members of Congress and U.S. government officials, the most difficult problem in knowing what to think or do about Cambodia remained: a lack of concrete, first hand information."

"Vietnamese communists once had been allied with the Cambodian communists, as part of an Indochina Communist Party. The Khmer Rouge faction was anti-Vietnamese, however, and the long standing enmity had resulted in bloody incursions by the Khmer Rouge into western Vietnam in 1977 and 1978. Late in 1978, Vietnam attacked in retaliation. The Khmer Rouge forces were quickly routed, abandoning the capital, Phnom Penh, in January 1979."

"The Vietnamese presence eventually helped stabilize life in Cambodia, as well as the military situation there, but the effort to do so added to the burdens of Hanoi's economic and political challenges in Vietnam itself. In Cambodia, with the exception of the Soviet Bloc countries and India, the nations of the world closed ranks to isolate the Phnom Penh government, effectively preventing it from receiving any significant international aid."