South-East Asia: the crisis of neo-colonialism

Abstract

The complete collapse of the Saigon and Phnom-Penh regimes in March and April 1975 provided a victorious and spectacular conclusion to the national liberation struggles waged in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos since 1954. The totality of these successive victories has accelerated the present political process in Laos where, since 1972, a complex political struggle has been going on between reactionary and revolutionary forces. Foreign (in particular American) intervention, which for long had been an obstacle in the way of national unity and agreement on patriotic and democratic objectives, lost its social base and the three countries of the Indochinese peninsula have now reconquered their independence and national sovereignty. These events were made possible at that time by a combination of several favorable factors. The first of these was the far reaching crisis in America's political system of which Watergate was but a first, albeit ominous and spectacular, symptom since it culminated in the resignation of President Nixon in July 1974. Superimposed on this was and more serious phase in the United States-economic and social crisis, which caused that country-to reconsider the amount of financial aid it could afford to support the policy of the "Vietnamization" and "kmerization" of the war. The third factor was the monstrous and grotesque climax of the economic crisis and social contradictions which, since 1972, had haunted the Saigon and Phnom-Penh regimes.