01005710 Case File No. 002/19-09-2007/ECCC/TC E313 war203, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam obtained their full independence and foreign troops in Indochina, including Viêt Minh soldiers stationed in Cambodia, were obliged to withdraw from their positions.204 Cambodian communist representatives, however, were not permitted to participate in the negotiations, nor did they obtain any concessions arising from their support of Viêt Minh forces during the common fight against the French army.205 After the withdrawal of Viêt Minh forces from Cambodia, all Cambodian communist organisations were dissolved206 leaving former members of the KPRP vulnerable to repression by NORODOM Sihanouk’s State authorities.207 This situation was later described by SALOTH Sar alias POL Pot, NUON Chea and KHIEU Samphan as the first sign that Viêt Minh leaders could not be trusted to safeguard Cambodian interests and that their sole purpose was to establish and control an Indochinese Federation.208 203 Book by E. BECKER: When the War was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution, E3/20, 1986, pp. 77-79, ERN (En) 00237782-84. 204 Comité des Patriotes du Kampuchéa Démocratique en France publication: For the Survival of Kampuchea as a Nation, E3/617, September 1979, p. 8, ERN (En) S 00721503 (alleging that: “Pursuant to the Geneva Agreements (20 July 1954), the Vietnamese were obliged to withdraw from Kampuchea. However, they returned with close to 2,000 Khmers, the majority of whom were youth. After 15 years of indoctrination, they succeeded in training some of them to become servile agents”). See also, NUON Chea Interview by KHEM Ngun, E3/3, Undated, p. 6, ERN (En) 00184657 (pursuant to “the agreement regarding Kampuchea, all foreign armies had to withdraw from Kampuchea”). 205 By contrast, the Lao communists were given two Lao provinces near the Vietnamese border as their own territory and they were given all rights denied to the Cambodian communists: Book by E. BECKER: When the War was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution, E3/20, 1986, p. 77, ERN (En) 00237782. 206 KHIEU S.: Considerations on the History of Cambodia From the Early Stage to the Period of Democratic Kampuchea, E3/16, pp. 4-5, ERN (En) 00498223-24. 207 T. 31 January 2012 (NUON Chea), p. 11 (after the Geneva Agreements there were only a handful of combatants remaining who were allied with the Communist cause); NUON Chea Interview by KHEM Ngun, E3/3, Undated, p. 7, ERN (En) 00184658 (“According to the Geneva Agreement of 1954, all of our comrades who were called the Khmer Viet Minh who had rejoined and who were then living in Kampuchean society were suppressed, arrested, imprisoned, put in chains, and secretly killed by Sihanouk’s state authorities […] In general, the Khmer Peoples [sic] Revolutionary Party had almost dissolved”); See also, T. 15 December 2011 (NUON Chea), pp. 48-49 (The situation worsened with the defection of SIEU Heng, the husband of NUON Chea’s aunt who was then at the head of the KPRP and who rallied to Sihanouk and LON Nol in 1959). 208 Comité des Patriotes du Kampuchéa Démocratique en France publication: For the Survival of Kampuchea as a Nation, E3/617, September 1979, p. 8, ERN (En) S 00721503 (alleging that between 1945-1954 “[t]he Vietminh, under the pretext of fighting French colonialism, came and settled in Kampuchea and in Laos and took advantage of that circumstance to recruit agents devoted to them on the basis of a false ‘proletarian internationalism’ and the ‘Indochinese Federation’ cult”); See also, KHIEU Samphan Interview Transcript, E3/4027, ERN (En) 00790536 (the establishment of the Khmer Revolutionary Armed Forces was “based upon the stance of independence and mastery that originated from study of the experience gained from the 1954 Geneva Agreement [and which] concluded that it was impossible to rely upon Vietnam, to rely upon other foreign countries.”) Case 002/01, Judgement, 7 August 2014 - Public 43