Khao-i-Dang

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Entrance to the refugee camp, in the background Mount Khao-I-Dang, which gave the camp its name

Khao-I-Dang , also Khao-I-Dang Holding Center ( Thai : เขา อี ด่าง, Cambodian : ខាវ អ៊ី ដា ង spoken Khau i Dang , KID for short ), was a refugee camp 20 kilometers north of Aranyaprathet in the district of the same name in the Thai province of Sa Kaeo .

history

The camp was on 21 November 1979 after the invasion of Vietnam in Cambodia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees established and the Thai Interior Ministry and was designed for 300,000 people. It was closed on March 3, 1993 after UNTAC took control of Cambodia. In 1980 the camp housed 160,000 people. It was the largest of several refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border.

The International Committee of the Red Cross ran a 400-bed hospital in the camp. The camp also became known through the film The Killing Fields . One of the main characters in the film, Haing S. Ngor , was employed in this hospital.

On January 1, 1982, the United Nations Border Relief Operation (UNBRO) took over the management of the camps along the Thai-Cambodian border. The UNBRO was a temporary organization of the United Nations that dealt with the refugee misery of the Cambodians after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge regime. The UNBRO was founded by a resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations , had its headquarters in Bangkok and worked closely with the World Food Program (WFP). But many private aid organizations were also active in the camp, e.g. B. the Swiss Red Cross or the Maltese Aid Service .

UNBRO has been accused of delaying the Khmer Rouge's military defeat due to the existence of the camps along the Thai border. Especially during the offensives of the Vietnamese army in the dry season, the Khmer Rouge troops were able to get across the border to safety, reorganize in the camps or recruit new recruits. The camps were considered a safe haven for the Khmer Rouge soldiers and were also used for training and equipping fighters by Western intelligence services and the Thai army.

The People's Republic of China also supported the Khmer Rouge. Chinese weapons were delivered to the border and camps by the Thai military. The Khmer Rouge formed a permanent presence in the camps. They were dependent on food deliveries from the camps, as the large rice-growing areas were under the control of the Vietnamese military.

The western world refused to recognize the government established by Vietnam in Phnom Penh in 1979 and supported a government in exile dominated by the Khmer Rouge, which also held a seat at the United Nations. The government in Phnom Penh, however, was not recognized by most nations. The government of the Federal Republic of Germany also accepted the representation of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge.

Khao-i-Dang played a large part in this annual human tragedy. Because of this, the number of residents fluctuated considerably. During the rainy season the Khmer Rouge, officially called "Democratic Cambodchia", went on the offensive and pushed the Vietnamese troops back from the border, while in the dry season the Vietnamese military controlled large parts of the border. In the dry season, the camp filled up as the Vietnamese could use their tanks and vehicles more effectively.

On May 31, 2016, the UNHCR opened a museum on the former camp site together with the ICRC and the Thai forest authority.

Coordinates: 13 ° 53 ′ 38 "  N , 102 ° 40 ′ 3"  E

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ~ Khao-I-Dang Today ~. Retrieved July 24, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: Famed Cambodian refugee camp reopens as educational center. Retrieved July 24, 2019 .
  3. ^ Thai / Cambodia Border Refugee Camps 1975-1999 Information and Documentation Website
  4. ^ Weekly student newspaper of Montclair State University The US Is Even More Guilty Than Pol Pot
  5. ↑ Gregory Elich Who Supported the Khmer Rouge?
  6. ↑ Third World Traveler: The US not only permitted the Khmer Rouge to use the refugee camps in Thailand as a base for its war helped against the new government in Phnom Penh but it also it also allows Prince Norodom Sihanouk and former Prime Minister Son Sann to organize their own guerrilla armies from the refugee population in the camps.
  7. ↑ John Pilger, The Nation May 1, 1998 Friends of Pol Pot The US. government insisted that the Khmer Rouge be fed ... the US preferred that the Khmer Rouge operation benefit from the credibility of an internationally known relief operation. "