Lion dancers, firecrackers and cheering crowds greeted the last column of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia Tuesday as it crossed back into Vietnam, ending a costly military incursion that began 10 years and nine months ago.
"This is quite different from the American withdrawal from Vietnam (in 1973)," said Maj. Nguyen Tin Tien, a regiment commander who had served in Cambodia since January 1979."We are coming back victorious," he said.
The withdrawal also marked the first time since the beginning of the independence struggle against the French in the 1920s that Vietnam could reasonably look forward to a sustained period of peace.
The pullout also left great political uncertainty in Cambodia, where the Vietnamese-installed government must face the three armed resistance factions, including the brutal Khmer Rouge.
Vietnamese Defense Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Nguyen Van Thai said the last 26,000 Vietnamese troops were leaving Cambodia through five different exit routes. Some troops and equipment were returning by sea, others down the Mekong River.
"There have been some vehicle breakdowns, so it may be awhile before the last troops are out," Thai said. "But they will all be gone soon."
He rejected charges by the Cambodian resistance that thousands of Vietnamese soldiers had stayed behind disguised as Cambodian government troops or as armed civilians.