in a permanent state of insecurity. In 1984 and 1985, the Vietnamese military commander in Cambodia undertook a sustained offensive to dislodge the guerrillas from their sanctuaries in the refugee camps and pounded the installations by artillery before overrunning them with troops. The operation did not cripple the Khmer guerrillas as intended but instead drove them away from the border, forcing them to undertake prolonged forays deeper into the Cambodian interior. The Vietnamese then sought to restrict guerrilla activity by erecting a physical barrier on the Thai-Cambodian border. This was code-named Project K-5 and consisted of clearing jungle growth; erecting obstacles such as ditches, barbed wire, and minefields; and building a road parallel to the border. This was effected with forced labor, and the barrier was completed in 1987. It had little effect on guerrilla movements to and from the Cambodian interior.
The Vietnamese had long been at odds with both Laos and Cambodia. Vietnamese attitudes reflected the conviction of cultural and political superiority that had started in the nineteenth century, and in the 1980s Laos and Cambodia were again Vietnam's client states. Laos had been under a communist party long nurtured by the Vietnamese and accepted the new situation with equanimity, but Cambodia had had a ruth
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